Frankie is a picky dog. He is picky about food, both what he eats and where he eats it; he won’t touch anything outside the house. Since he is diabetic and he needs a full stomach in order to get his insulin, this can require some special planning. He is also picky about his companions.…
Pet Insurance: What’s Right For You?
As nutty as I can get when it comes to berating myself for the things I should have done with Frankie, there’s only one thing I regret with any rationality: Not getting pet insurance for him. So every now and then, as a public service announcement — usually after I come back from my vet…
Hooray for HollyWOOF! A Contest
BlogPaws, the big deal annual pet blogger’s conference, starts this afternoon. I’m not going this year, though I wish I could for many reasons: The camaraderie The professional development The networking The cute pets The swag That’s right. I’ll admit it. I love the swag. Toys, T-shirts, pet food samples, cleaning products… if it’s fun…
It’s a Throw! It’s for Dogs! It’s Crypton Super Fabric!
I’ve been a little down lately, what with my book going into a coma and my renewed need to keep an eye on Frankie’s diabetes medication. And — occupational hazard — I don’t have any extra money to spend on cheering self-indulgences. It’s true that, as a food writer, I often get free food, but…
Wordless Wednesday: Thundershirt Edition
We should all buy stock in the Thundershirt company, if it ever goes public. My friends Rod and Amy Burkert at GoPetFriendly.com just finished a Thundershirt giveaway contest — sorry, they have a winner — that elicited raves about the product. Caleb, pictured here, and his person, Jillian, swear by it too as a cure…
Dog Food a Restaurant Critic Can Love
You’ve heard the mantra: Don’t feed your dog table scraps. It’s been drummed into our heads so incessantly — gee, I wonder if the commercial dog food industry could have anything to do with that? — that I often come across people who apologize for feeding their dogs perfectly healthy food just because it doesn’t…
Dog Poop Disposal: The Contest
Eating dog poop is not good for you. Sure, dogs dine on their own doo without ill effect — if you don’t count the screwed up faces and loud EEEEWs of their owners — but we humans don’t have the same feces-digesting ability. Or inclination. I would never eat poop, you protest. Not deliberately. But…
The Best Dog To Give As a Holiday Gift
It might end up in the trash; I can see where it would get annoying after a while. It will never end up in a shelter.
And the winner of the World’s Cutest Pet Carrier is…
First off, it’s been lovely to have so much interspecies interaction. I don’t usually get many cat owners coming by and they were surprisingly nice. Just kidding. Some of my best friends are cat people. But a cat didn’t win. Random.org decided that the winner of the Mommy Bus contest was #24, Phyllis, who wanted…
Ooh, soothing – free! – dog music
‘Tis the season to be…frazzled. And if your dog is anything like Frankie, he will follow you around the house as you bustle about, getting underfoot, raising the frazzle factor fourfold. What you both need is something to help you chill. And alcohol isn’t a good idea for either of you (well, you can drink…