Pet Health

I am so upset. My beautiful dog, Maddie, has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn’t know dogs could even get breast cancer. Thank goodness, my vet says we caught it early and there are treatments, but she also said Maddie would have been less vulnerable to it if I had her spayed earlier than I did.

Mikey may seem a bit camera shy. But, he is in no way shy around people. He’s a big sweetheart of a lug and gets along fine with every person, including the little ones, and every animal in his foster mom’s home.

My cat, Sally, throws up huge gross hairballs, maybe a couple of times per week. Is this something serious? Should I take her to the vet? They are so expensive.

We have featured Pumpkin before. But, he is still a great cat in need of a home. He’s about one year old, friendly, sweet, with a beautiful soft coat and gorgeous golden eyes! As you can see, he is used to poking and prodding grandchildren.

We have been watching the news reports about Hurricane Harvey with both sad and happy hearts. Sad because, well obviously, this is a huge disaster for all of Southeast Texas and beyond and it is hard to even imagine the suffering and misery. But also with happy hearts because it is at least clear that emergency response finally includes pets as a matter of course. Almost every newscast includes photos of at least one pet, sometimes many, being rescued along with its people.

What can we say about Lucas? He’s a cat, a kitten really at about 5 months, happy go lucky, playful, a bit of a climber. He loves cuddling with people and playing with the other cats and kittens in the kitten room. He is not at all phased by dogs. Isn’t he a handsome dude, too?

We have been watching Hurricane Harvey slam Texas and Louisiana, and worrying about both the people and the animals caught in this storm. Which got us thinking that it’s time to nag you all again about how to be prepared for what Mother Nature will undoubtedly throw at us, in our case not so much hurricanes, but certainly gigantic blizzards, flooding, wind. The best thing you can do for yourself and your pets is to be prepared for the two basic emergency scenarios – you are either stuck inside your house or you are stuck with having to leave your house. So here are our suggestions for the basics.

Tink, which is short for Tinkerbell, is more of a scamp than a good little fairy. She loves to play with other cats, and we mean she is a serious no holds barred player. If your other cats are all reserved and well-behaved, Tink is probably not the cat for you! She loves people and kids, the more the merrier, and purrs the minute you pick her up.

I just adopted a new cat, Mandy, to keep my other cat, Jocko, company. They are getting along fine together, but there is a problem. The Humane Society told me Mandy was litter trained, but that is apparently not true. She keeps going outside the box. I yell at her when I see her do it but nothing is working and I am at my wit’s end. Can you help?