Pet Health

I came home with a poinsettia plant yesterday and my house mate went ballistic, accusing me of trying to poison our pets. I tried to explain to her that beliefs about poinsettias being poisonous to pet are sort of an urban myth., but she read somewhere on the internet that they are indeed poisonous and I can’t persuade her otherwise.

I am trying to finish my Holiday shopping early but I am fresh out of ideas for my pets, Rufus, the dog and Elmer the cat.  I mean how many squeaky toys and little pretend mice can these guys need?

Hundreds of thousands of animal lovers  have already told the USDA to issue new rules to close this loophole that exempts puppies sold over the Internet from any oversight by federal inspectors. Now the ASPCA needs our help to tell the USDA to implement the proposed rule so it can start protecting dogs now.

I have been reading about Superstorm Sandy and how both people and their pets are doing. We don’t get hurricanes much up here in central New York, but we sure get a lot of other horrible weather. Do you have any advice about how we should be prepared for disasters.

I adopted a new puppy, Buster, several months ago, and, to tell you the truth, it turns out that I’m not much of a dog trainer. He is housetrained (most of the time) but doesn’t come when he is called, jumps up on people who come to the house (including me), chews things all around the house relentlessly.

Three times this year I have witnessed animals that seemed to have just been abandoned on country roads. The first time was a sweet little dog with a limp. I took him home and called the dog control officer and she came right out to collect him. I heard later that he had to have his leg amputated because it was injured and badly infected.

It’s almost time for Halloween and I have been planning the costumes for my little Puggle and his best (feline) friend Miranda. But my husband thinks this is just stupid and will only stress them out.

I am going through a divorce and my (soon to be ex-) husband is insisting that he wants our dogs. That is just crazy! They don’t even like him as much as they like me and he never spent much time with them when we were living together so how could it be in their best interest to be with him now. But he says he paid for them, so they’re his.

My dog Sally frequently nibbles at tufts of grass when we go for walks, not a lot usually, but sometime later that evening she will sometimes puke it all up. Leaving aside the grossness factor, which is considerable, should I be worried about this?