The Amazing Adventures of Archibald Esq.
A Matter of Taste?
Dog food…. Yikes! Who’s taking care of product and production quality control?!? That’s what hounds with curious minds want to know….
Ggrrwwoof! Archie
Posted 10 Oct 08
Health Hound: Massage as Medicine
Poor Charlie - an 8 year old dachshund living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His two-legged companion, Douglas Jordan, was sceptical when a vet suggested that massage might help Charlie’s back pain and arthritis and might even help him walk again.
But Douglas was willing to try anything that might help, so Charlie began a regimen of therapy once reserved for people. His massage therapist, Bonny, said the dachshund’s hind legs were atrophied and he was depressed and in pain when she first saw him, which was five months after surgery for a protruding disk.
Animal wellness is a burgeoning market. Over 60% of American households keep domestic company with four-leggeds and industry sales are estimated to reach $34 billion US dollars this year, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.
Donnelly treated Charlie for almost a year with massage, stretching exercises and Reiki, a non-manipulative form of touch and energy therapy. After months of massage, exercise and swimming, Charlie started to improve. He was starting to walk a little instead of dragging himself across the floor. Charlie’s still not 100%, but he is much more mobile than he used to be - not to mention much happier.
Read on…
Posted 07 Aug 08
Cesar’s Top Travel Tips
Did you know that more than two million pets and other live animals are transported by air every year in the United States, according to the Department of Transportation?
Though rare, incidents involving the loss, injury or death of animals do happen. During June, July and August of last year, 12 animals, mostly dogs, died, three were injured and four were lost during air travel. Which is more than enough reason to make fear of flying for dogs a very real thing.
Derived from Michelle Higgins’ interview of Cesar Millan, published in the New York Times, 7 October 2007.
So what would a top dog trainer like Cesar Millan — better known as the National Geographic’s ‘Dog Whisperer’ — have to say about travelling?
Read on…
Posted 25 Jul 08
SuperWoof to the Salvation Army!
The Salvation Army in Sheffield is piloting a new dog policy. The initiative is backed by the national dog welfare charity the Dogs Trust.
The Salvation Army is well known throughout the United Kingdom for providing safe accommodation to the homeless. Now that service is being extended to dogs at the International Christian Church and the charity’s Charter Row centre for the homeless in Sheffield.
Read on…
Posted 16 Jul 08
Hot Dog! Houndish Ways to Beat the Heat
Whewwph! Geesh it’s hot these days! They wrote in the papers that it’s illegal to transport cattle at temperatures that have been the norm on London’s Underground; air conditioning on the underground can’t happen soon enough!
Most responsible vets recommend that four leggeds and two leggeds avoid direct sunlight between 10 am and 4 pm. Luckily for Specs, she’s a cat, and can hang out outside, finding shade under the ivy or in dark corners of the garden.
It’s particularly important for us hounds to stay cool in these dog days of summer, as we canines have sweat glands only on the tops of our noses and on our foot pads. For these peculiar anatomical reasons, us dogs mainly cool ourselves by panting and by a little evaporation of sweat through the pads of our paws. When it’s humid we need to be watched for heat stroke, as in humid conditions it is more difficult to cool by paw-sweating.
Read on…
Posted 04 Jul 08
Health Hound: Beware of Xylitol
Xylitol is a sugar substitute used in candy and chewing gum. It can also be found in other products such as chewable vitamins, throat lozenges and oral health products. Obviously Xylitol — a sugar alcohol — is safe for two-leggeds, but it can be DEADLY for dogs. Woooo!
When Xylitol is ingested by dogs it can cause a dangerous surge of insulin. In as little as a quarter of an hour after a dog has eaten gum containing Xylitol the dog may ahve a marked drop in blood sugar. In higher doses, it is believed that Xylitol is toxic to the canine liver. To put in perspective: just 3 grams of Xylitoal can kill a 65 pound dog. Woof!
Read on…
Posted 19 May 08
Cars & Canines: Not always a Safe Mix
Whether it’s a once a year trip to the veterinarian or your dog travels with you everywhere and always, people all over the world are challenged with the task of keeping themselves and their animal companions safe and comfortable in the car.
With that in mind, Joe Wiesenfelder of Cars.com has launched a guide for pet owners to help them make educated decisions about the types of products and car features that are available for consumers.
Read on…
Posted 28 Dec 07
Cancer Study on Dogs May Help Humans
Jim Ritter of the HeraldNewsOnline.com reported (28 May 07) on new cancer studies in the treatment of dogs that may one day be of help to two-leggeds too.
Mo’s two-legged companion Kristi Best decided when she found out that Mo had cancer that she would try to have Mo treated rather than the other option — being ‘put to sleep’.
Arboretum View Animal Hospital in Downers Grove removed seven skin tumors from Mo, a white boxer, and prescribed chemotherapy. Over the next two years Kristi gave Mo two chemo pills a day. “His quality of life has been great,” Kristi said. “He goes to dog parks, he goes for walks.”
Read on…
Posted 16 Nov 07
The Low Down on Dog Ears
Ears are important to dogs. Like that graffiti I found at the end of Camden’s Parkway — ‘I never leave home without my ears.’ (Much better ears than fears, awoof!)
Ears are important not least because us dogs are vain. I for one am particularly proud of my long floppy ears, though sometimes I find myself wishing they could be just a touch longer….
To your average dog, hearing is important. Very important. Maybe even more so than sight. And on a par with scent.
Dogs detect sounds as low as 16 to 20 Hz (compared to a range of 20 to 70 Hz for humans) and as high as 70,000 to 100,000 Hz (compared to 20,000 Hz for humans).
Not only this — dogs also have the ability to focus in on a sound by moving their ears! Dogs greater degree of ear mobility helps them quickly pinpoint the exact location of a sound.
Read on…
Posted 14 Nov 07
Mother Hubbard’s Dog Food Co.
I happened to stumble upon this charming poster for ‘Old Mother Hubbard Dog Food’ in a little afternoon dig in the web. And then I did a little more digging.
Turns out that the charmingly named ‘Old Mother Hubbard Dog Food Co.’ has been producing quality dog biscuits since 1926.
The family-run, Massachusetts-based company is a leading manufacturer of high-quality natural food and treats.
Posted 19 Oct 07
Blood Bank for UK Hounds
A new national scheme is taking off in the United Kingdom – all in an effort to save many more doggie lives. The scheme, known as Pet Blood Bank UK (PBBuk), is the first of its kind in the UK, which will set up a store of dog-blood products from blood donated by dogs (with their two-legged companions’ consent).
The Pet Blood Bank PBBuk is a registered charity that was set up by Vets Now, and has been rolled out nationwide. The blood bank laboratory is located in Loughborough, and the blood products will be made available to vets across the country.
It was all made possible by a change in the laws concerning pet blood in October 2005. Before then the storage of pet blood supplies had been illegal. Richard Dixon, the managing director of Vets Now (the largest provider of emergency veterinary care in the UK) says that the implications of the changed legislation were clear.
Read on…
Posted 31 Aug 07
Silicone Walnuts, California Style
The Winnipeg Sun reported on the creator of doggy testicular implants for dogs (and cats and other animals). Greg Miller, creator of Neuticles, admits he pampers his dog. And yes. Anyone who buys his services for their dogs must be said to pamper their dogs. Miller’s boxer Winston has his food warmed up, is given nothing but chilled bottled water (!!!), and has over $5,000.00 worth of toys. It goes without saying that Winston was gifted with a pair of fake testicles — Neuticles — after he was neutered a few years ago.
“The things I do to spoil Winston, you’d think I was nuts, no pun intended,” says Miller. “But it’s become our culture to accept emasculation of our pets as normal. Turning our pets into little eunuchs has become acceptable.”
Miller was awarded the spoof Ig Nobel Prize in the medicine category at Harvard University two years ago for his invention. And whatever you and your Freudian friends might mutter about ‘projection’ and a distorted ‘reality principle,’ Miller insists that a dog’s self-esteem suffers when his testicles are removed. He says the same goes for cats, bulls and horses; cynics would say he’s just trying to expand his client base. I mean, can you even see a cat’s fava beans?
Read on…
Posted 27 Jul 07
Health Hound: All you ever wanted to know about the Brown Dog Tick
According to the Oklahoma State University’s Entomology and Plant Pathology website, the Brown Dog Tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus) infests homes and other buildings that dogs have access to.
These ticks have a strong tendency to crawl upward and may be found behind moldings at the top of walls or hidden in cracks and crevices in the ceiling. They may also be found behind curtains, in furniture, and under rugs.
Read on…
Posted 28 May 07
Health Hound: Slim Dogs live Longer — it’s scientific!
Spectroscopy Now reported this spring that researchers at Imperial College London (working together with the Nestlé Research Center (NRC) and Nestlé-Purina) have carried out a longitudinal study into the optimum nutritional mix for dog food, and in the process have discovered that slim dogs live longer, healthier lives.
Dogs fed 25% less food than their counterparts tended to live two years longer on average than those fed 100% diets, and were also less prone to disease, arthritis and diabetes.
The study aimed to find the best nutritional food mix for dogs, and with the aid of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (NMR) analysis, has shed new light on how calorie count affects lifespan. The research suggests that gut microbes could underpin the benefits of a low-calorie diet on longevity.
Read on…
Posted 21 May 07
Horticultural Hound: Mulch Alert!
Now you all know that I’m a keen horticultural hound. Yup. Nothing I like better than to have a nose around the garden… Ah! The smell of the greening leaves! To nose a delicate wild violet nestled in under the lavender… To feel the delicate fronds of a feathery fern as they brush my ears… Awoof! Nothing could be better!
Which is why I was very shocked to learn (via the RSPCA) that some garden mulches sold in many garden centres around the country could be potentially lethal to dogs.
Well, happily little feet’s composter has been producing lots and lots of green manure (and hey! It really looks like green/black manure!), so we won’t be needing to purchase any mulch this season, but I thought it best to alert those who aren’t so lucky to the dangers of a common gardener’s mulch: cocoa mulch.
Now most doggy people know that chocolate is poisonous to dogs. But mulch? Garden mulch? So needed to keep in moisture and deter weeds? Well - yes. If dogs eat cocoa mulch it can poison them in just the same way as chocolate poisons dogs — and the culprit is the chemical theobromine.
Read on…
Posted 14 May 07
What Kind of Hound Are You?
If you always thought of yourself as an extroverted dog, you may be right. Seems new scientific research from the Monash University (Australia) has supported the view that dog personalities can be grouped into distinct personality types, just as the same can be done for two-leggeds.
Dr Jacqui Ley, from the Animal Welfare Science Centre at Monash, found that dogs fit into five personality dimensions:
* extroversion
* trainability or cleverness
* self assuredness and motivation
* amicability with other dogs and people, and
* cautiousness.
In a study of more than 1,000 two-leggeds and their four-legged companions across Australia, Dr Ley found that there were 40 common words that people use to describe their houndish companions, and that these 40 words could be grouped into five primary ‘dimensions.’
Read on…
Posted 09 Apr 07
Health Hound: Why getting your shots is a good idea
Last summer over 40 dogs died in Norwich after contracting the deadly virus Canine Parvovirus (CPV). The first infected dog was detected in Norwich in July, and at least 67 dogs have been infected, with 43 either dying or having to be put down (Norwich Evening News, 3 August 2006). Awooo!
The virus is so infectious that Norwich vets were warning owners to get their deceased pets cremated instead of burying them as the disease can come up through the soil and potentially infect more animals. Geesh! That’s one nasty virus!
One pet owner who lost her dog was Kelly Sayer of Thorpe Hamlet, whose two-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier cross called ‘Shy’ was put down on June 29 2006. Kelly said that Shy “went off her food on Monday, had diarrhoea on the Tuesday and sickness on the Wednesday. My mother-in-law works at a vets and she said there would be little they could do, so I had her put down. Tragically, shortly after this, one of Shy’s puppies — Snoop — who had been given to a friend, also died of the disease.
As they say, the prevention is much better than the cure. Every dog should be vaccinated against this viscious virus on an annual basis. Treating the virus can be very expensive, and dogs have an 80% chance of survival.
In treatment dogs have to be isolated and their beds changed every half an hour. Whewhf!
The cost of hospitalisation is somewhere in the region of £30 per day, plus the cost of antiobiotics which can cost as much as £80 per day — for up to a week. I’ll leave you to do the maths…
Read on…
Posted 28 Mar 07
Dog Treats
This amusing painting of little dachshunds strategising to get their paws on some treats portrays an important hidden message: it’s good for dogs to have to ‘work’ for their treats.
For example, the ‘feet’ let me earn my treats by playing hide and treat.
They hide the treats while I wait patiently in the hallway, and then I get to go and sniff out the hiding spot to my reward!
Read on…
Posted 15 Jan 07
©2008 Roleta Archibald, Awoof!™