From AllaboutPets.org

Here is the latest news from Allaboutpets.org, which was left as a comment.

Allaboutpets.org

Dear My Pet Blog

I am working with Harry on All About Pets, the new social network from Britain’s pet charity The Blue Cross. Here are the latest news…

The site officially launches in August and we’ll let you know all the details before anyone else.
In the meantime we have something very special to tell you about next Monday. It’s top secret for the time being, but you’ll love it (and it involves pets that talk!). We’ll be in touch next Monday with more news.

Just a quick update on All About Pets this week:
The site’s attracted over 5,000 members already which is incredible given that we haven’t launched officially!

Latest articles include a review of the best tips on how to protect your 4 legs friend from the heat (a “hot” topic with summer finally starting) as well as a piece on the Animal Welfare Act, which was celebrating its first anniversary this year.
The latest news includes a story about a parrot who saved the lives of three people (!) and a dog owner who paid thousands of pounds after his pet was believed to be a dangerous breed. More to discover on http://www.allaboutpets.org.uk
We’ll be in touch next week with that special news!

Have a great week.

Moving Cats

We just moved into a new house. We were a little worried about the cats during the move, but with a little preparation, we were able to ensure that the cats made the transition with little stress.
We first boarded the cats while were moving, then after picking them up we kept them inside for about a week. I read online that if you just let them out of the house, the cats will often times take off for their old home, no mater the distance. In this case, it is under 10 miles.
We also went a purchased a harness pet collar and several nylon leashes to take them out on escorted walks for a couple of days. After the third day of escorted time outside, Herman managed to get out by himself. He came back a short time later, which is a good sign.
Since that time, thankfully, they have both been outside over night. As Herman, can be a real pain at night. It’s not that he is loud, but he usually sleeps with us, and whenever he hears me tossing and turning in my sleep, he comes over and nuzzles me to pet him. 330 in the morning is not the time to be petting a cat.

So in the end, our move with the cats was very smooth and stress free.

Pups of Palm Beach

Lizzie and I were recently in Palm Beach, but we didn’t get to see any of these cool dogs.  that are in this cool video about the dogs of palm beach from Beach WalkTv.

I love the story about the dog who had not seen his trainer in about 7 years. Goes to show you how smart dogs really are.

Dogs Love to Play Fetch

I just came across this video on Gadgetspy after being messaged on Stumbleupon by Scousemonkey(thanks Scousemonkey).

This Dog fetching robot looks pretty cool, and I imagine with a bit of customization, it will be out on the market in no time. Jerry, the Dachshund seems to really dig it. I wonder how hard it was to teach Jerry to load the ball back on.

Looks like a great toy to keep pets company that are left alone during the day.

Pet Tracking

I just published a hub on hubpages about Pet Tracking, which is about two types of tracking…the type of tracking that involves injecting or embedding a micro chip in your pet and the kind witch allows the pet owner to track their lost pet via a collar that has a chip on it, and has a hand held GPS unit to track the animal.

I think that using either one of these is a good idea, because having a lost pet really is an emotional ordeal that can be prevented, so why not do one or the other for your pet.

What about you, what do you think about pet tracking?

Keep The Cats in on Winter Nights

Winter is here in PA, and even though it is a warm winter, nights still get pretty cold. The old boy Herman, frequently does not want to go out at night, and will camp out on the radiator after he eats. Diddy, on the other hand usually goes out, and it is us who often makes the decision not to let him go out rather than him.

On nights when it gets below freezing, pets should not be let out all night.  For cats, such as mine, this might mean those little devils are waking you up in the night with their antics.  For us it usually means that Herman will be camping out on our bed at the foot on either Lizzie’s feet or mine…usually Lizzie’s because I tend to move around too much for Herman.

Do you let your cats out at night? Do you keep them in during the winter months?

A Dog’s Review of Pettags.com

Just a quick little post to let people know about a post on Queen of the Surf Pirates. Paula, or rather the amazing Sammy the Surf dog, who I wrote about in a Sammy The Surf Dog post, did a review of Pettags.com.  Sammy’s Pettags review, is really funny, although Sammy initially did not want to do the review, he got really excited about it when Paula told him it was for Pettags, because he apparently has been proudly sporting a blue bone shaped pet tag for some time.

In addition to the the dog collars and pet tags, Sammy was pretty impressed with the “Lost human Pet Recovery Program tag so in case my momma gets lost and forgets me on the beach or somthin”.

Check out Sammy’s hilarious review of Pettags, and also please Click the hyper linked picture Sammy Gear Logo to stop by Sammy’s Cafepress store and pick some Sammy gear.

Stop Animal Abuse

Today the BlogCatalog blogging event Bloggers against abuse will be happening all over the blogosphere. Thousands of blogs will be posting about different types of abuse. Since this is a Pet Blog, Animal Abuse will be the topic of choice.

Now I must admit, I am not a member of PETA and could not be considered to be an animal rights activist by any means. So the first question I need to ask myself and any readers who happen upon the Animal Abuse post? What is animal abuse?

Here are some examples of what I consider to be animal abuse, and please feel free to comment if you have something else to add:

1. Animal fighting(dogs, chickens etc)…just this morning I heard on the news about an Atlanta football player who is confined to his million dollar estate due to drug charges. On his estate he also held dog fights. So I believe, I could be wrong about this, but I believe he faces racketeering charges due to the dog fighting. And so he should face charges, but having the luxury of being confined to his million dollar estate is way to nice of a punishment. I guess thats what happens when you are a “pillar of the community”.
2. Racing animals– I really believe that animals should not be raced and humans should not have financial gains from this. To me this is just like the above, except they are not fighting, just racing. But what happens to the animals when their racing careers are over? And in these races, quite frequently, the animals are maimed and then killed as the result of the injuries.
3. Killing unwanted animals– Domestic animals, when faced with problems often times end up in the pound or the SPCCA to wait to be adopted. Often times, the animals do not get adopted, but get put to sleep because there are not enough homes for the animals that are abandoned. In order to reduce the senseless killing of animals, I encourage pet owners to neuter their pets, and before giving a pet as a present, think about the realistic problems that will or could occur.

Off the top of my head, this is what I came up with for the event. I actually had not planned on participating in the event, but as it occurs, this post on Animal Abuse has come about. I will add links to the bottom of this post to other Animal Abuse posts to show support for the event and to connect readers to other Animal Abuse posts.

Animal Abuse Posts

• BlogCatalog Stop Animal Cruelty and Pet Abuse
  
• PetLVR.com Blogging for a Cause post.
• Curious Animals Abusing Animals-Direct Way of Destruction

Update:

Requested by Liudmila of http://animals-as-friends.blogspot.com/ to add the Use of Animals for Scientific testing to the list of Animal Abuse examples.

Sammy The Surf Dog

If you are a reader of our Travel Blog, you will know that we have gone to the Outer Banks for more than one vacation. In preparation for our OBX trip the year before, I was doing a bit of research on Avon, and came across the blog Paula Queen of The Surf Pirates. Paula is a mom of two, an educator, a surfer, and a pet owner.

Her pet Sammy does daily surf reports(with a little of Paula’s help) that are really funny and helpful. In these surf reports, Sammy tells about his daily beach adventures to include chasing birds and waves. Sammy is also a bit opinionated about cars being aloud on the beach. Recently, Sammy was hit by a car while trying to protect his momma from being hit by a drunk driver, but he managed to come out with only a broken leg, and had to stay off the surf for several weeks.

To help Paula with Sammy’s hospital bills, I bought a Sammy Gear hat from Sammy and Paula’s Cafepress store. I actually made a video of myself wearing the hat.

The video was intended to talk about BlogRush, which is a new(several weeks) blog syndication program that involves putting a widget like the Mybloglog or Blogcatalog widgets, which lets you get 1 impression on another blogs widget for every impression your blog has. I have the widget on another blog, but have yet to put it on this blog, because this is a WordPress.com blog, and it does not allow Javascript widgets in the sidebar. I would have to get access to the CSS, but I have yet to upgrade the blogs membership.

Anyway I think the highpoint of the little goofy video was me showing off my new Sammy Gear hat. Check it out, and if you are so inclinded, stop by Paula and Sammy’s store and buy some Sammy Gear.

Can You Train Your Cat to Use the Toilet?

I was just reading this article that tells you how to toilet train your cat. According to the article it can be done in a time frame between several days to several weeks.

It involves moving the proximity of the cat box gradually closer to the toilet so that the box is on top of the toilet, and reducing the amount of litter that is in the box at the same time, then switching to wax paper when the proximity is on top of the toilet and the amount of litter is nil.

I am not sure if this method would work, but I would be very interested to find out if any one has been successful at using the method.