Pet Health

Once again, we need your help about an important issue. The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been actively investigating consumer complaints about jerky pet treats made in China which are causing illness in dogs and in some cats.

My six-year-old female cat, Sophie, has been with me since she was a kitten. Her best buddy, Squiggles, passed away last year at the age of nineteen and I don’t think that Sophie has really gotten over it. Do cats “grieve?” As much as I adore her, I am just not home that much because I work during the day and I worry that she is now bored and lonely

It’s almost that time of year again when “grown” adults dress up in ridiculous costumes and go roaming around, with or without children as an excuse, begging for candy. We are here to remind you that this holiday is probably not all that amusing for your pets. In fact, having hordes of weird looking strangers coming to the door, or even worse, having to roam around with you meeting hordes of weird looking strangers might be downright terrifying.

We have written to you before about the problem of the New York animal cruelty laws being buried in the Agriculture & Markets Law instead of the Penal Code where they belong. Now, Fred “Fritz” Scherz Jr., a councilman on the Verona Town Board in Oneida County has called on the New York State Legislature to fix this idiosyncrasy.

All of my pets are spayed or neutered because I am a firm believer in the importance of having that done. But I know people who have not had it done and when I nag them about it, which I do all the time without apology, they sometimes tell me that the only thing keeping them from getting it done is the cost.

My groomer just told me that if my dog Tucker licks a toad he could get really sick or even die, as toads are poisonous.  Is that true?  Know that he licks EVERYTHING!  What should I do to protect him?

I have a house-trained 1 1/2 year old puppy, Gracie, who, after having been spayed at 6 months, started to have incontinence issues. At times she had a urinary tract infection and we felt that was the cause. But lately she has had a couple of “accidents” even though the vet said she doesn’t have a bladder infection. What might be the cause of this?

We have two favors to ask of you. The first one is  . . . Send us questions. Now here’s the second thing. Our 72 foster cats eat a lot of cat food. They are eating machines. We need your help with this if you can. We need donations of dry cat and kitten food.

I was talking to my neighbor (who to be honest is sort of an animal nut, if you know what I mean) and she mentioned that she fosters dogs for the Humane Society and then she tried to talk me into fostering too.  I love dogs too, but I can hardly imagine taking one in for several weeks or even longer and then letting it go to another home.