Petfinder Blog

Catherine Gwyer is a volunteer with Greyhaven Exotic Bird Sanctuary in Surrey, BC. Through Sunday, Jan. 29, she is answering your questions in our Ask the Experts forum. Below is her answer to her first reader question.

What questions should I ask about a bird I'm thinking of adopting?
Before considering adopting any bird, I recommend that you do some research about the specialized care and diet requirements of parrots and other birds. The smallest of species can live 10-15 years while larger species such as Macaws can live 80+ years.

All birds require fresh fruit, vegetables and grains daily. They also need to live in a clean cage and an environment that is free from smoke and harsh chemical odors. Some species, such as Lorikeets or African Greys, have specific dietary needs that have to be considered as well. Understanding the basics of bird care will help you determine if a parrot is the right pet for you.

If there is a bird club or rescue in your city that you can visit and talk to bird owners, it's a great way to learn firsthand information about the commitment it takes to have a companion bird in your life. [You can search on Petfinder for bird rescue groups near you.]

When you finally start your search for the perfect feathered companion, take your time and interact with the birds. See which one is responsive to you. Many people who have parrots will tell you that their bird chose them, not the other way around.

After the jump: 10 questions every aspiring bird-adopter should ask.

Jackson Galaxy, star of Animal Planet's My Cat from Hell (Saturdays at 8 p.m. E/P), makes his living helping cat parents who have almost given up hope of solving their pet problems. He revealed to us the top three cat crises he's called in to solve.

PETFINDER: What cat-behavior issues do you see most?
Litter box issues, territory/aggression and integration -- introducing cat-cat, cat-dog, cat-baby, etc.

Why do you think those three are so prevalent?
By and large, it comes from lack of understanding of how your cat sees the world -- in terms of ownership or territory.

After the jump, Jackson's tips for solving these problems.

Did you know that all the animals featured on Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl are Petfinder alumni? That means all the puppy players, all the kittens in the kitten halftime show -- and even this year's new piggy pep squad and the bird who will be "tweeting" the action -- came from Petfinder shelters and rescue groups.

Puppy Bowl VIII airs Sunday, Feb. 5 from 3-5 p.m. ET/PT -- but you can visit AnimalPlanet.com for a sneak peek at this year's starting lineup, including Brandy (right).

As we were last year, associate producer Jane Harrell and I were lucky enough to meet all of this year's puppies (check back here on game day for exclusive behind-the-scenes photos).

The puppies are just as cute in person as they are on TV. But the real MVPs are the adoption group staff and volunteers who travel to New York City from as far away as Texas and California to show millions of viewers the adorable pets waiting to meet them at shelters and rescue groups!

After the jump: See all the adoption groups who brought pets to Puppy Bowl.

Jan Robson has been a volunteer with Greyhaven Exotic Bird Sanctuary in Surrey, BC, since 2003. She has been director of volunteers and director of education, and now focuses on education and pet therapy. She is also the doting mom to seven rescued parrots: a mitred conure, four lovebirds and two budgies. To pay for her addiction to her feathered friends, she works as coordinator of the dementia helpline at the Alzheimer Society of B.C.

If you are looking for an unobtrusive, low-maintenance, low-cost pet, a parrot is just the ticket.

Now, if you already have a bird in your life, you're either laughing your head off or thinking, "She can't be serious!" Well, parrot-lovers and parrot-lover wannabees, I am most certainly not serious! In a nutshell (pun intended!) parrots are noisy, messy, demanding little individuals. Here are a few facts about having a parrot in your home:

Parrots are loud. Even the small parrots, such as lovebirds, parrotlets and budgies, can be quite shrill when they vocalize. While training can help to contain the noise somewhat, vocalizing is an important part of a parrot's social communication. And, make no mistake about it, they are very social creatures. If they do not have an avian flock, they will look to you to be a flockmate, and there are many responsibilities inherent in that role.

What happens when two dog lovers live in a no-dogs-allowed apartment? Emily Scheu of Washington, DC, tells us what she and her husband did. "Whenever we'd see a dog on the streets," she says, "we'd have to bend down and pet him or her. We watched dog show after dog show on Animal Planet. We knew things had gotten bad when we found ourselves standing outside the local dog park fence, ogling all the adorable dogs inside."

All these "symptoms" meant one thing: The couple had to move. So they did, to a dog-friendly apartment.

Once that was accomplished, the search began. "We immediately turned to Petfinder and fell in love with 1,000 dogs," Scheu says. Fortunately, one stood out. His name was Billy.

Billy was being fostered through K-9 Lifesavers, also in D.C. The couple applied for him, had a home visit and were approved, then drove to Billy's foster home to meet him.

January is National Train Your Dog Month. To celebrate, we're holding a live dog-training Q&A on our Facebook page this Friday, Jan. 27, from 12-2 p.m. ET! Dog-training expert and CEO of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers Mychelle Blake is joining us to answer your questions.

How to participate:

• "Like" Petfinder on Facebook
• Visit our Facebook page this Friday, Jan. 27, from 12-2 p.m. ET
• Ask your dog-training and behavior questions!

About Mychelle Blake:
Mychelle Blake, MSW, CDBC, is the CEO and executive director of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers, an organization dedicated to promoting education for dog trainers.

Mychelle has a masters in social welfare from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant through the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. Her background is in working with shelter dogs and cats and she is a community training partner with Best Friends Animal Society. She lives in Las Vegas with her husband and her two dogs, Buzz and Kaylee.

Our friends at The Shelter Pet Project have released another ingenious ad campaign featuring newly adopted pets puzzling over their people's odd behaviors.

In the clip above, a cat wonders why a little boy is playing in a giant litter box (i.e. a sand box). In another, a dog muses, "I've never understood why my human won't leave the house without her leash. I think she's afraid of getting lost. But it's okay, I kind of like showing her around." The tagline: "A person is the best thing to happen to a shelter pet. Be that person."

We love the campaign, from Chicago ad agency Draftfcb, so I jumped at the chance to interview one of its creators, art director Heather Barnes, to get the behind-the-scenes story.

Petfinder: Where did the idea for the campaign come from?
Barnes: Many people have special relationships with their pets. And most people might say one of the best parts about having a pet is observing them, trying to figure out why they do some of the funny things they do. Well, isn't it possible that when they give us that little cocked head to the side or funny look, they're doing the same thing? After all, we humans do a lot of funny things too. Don't pretend you don't!

After the jump: The unexpected mishap that happened while filming one of the ads.

Steve Dale is the host of the nationally syndicated radio shows Steve Dale's Pet World and The Pet Minute with Steve Dale. His column, My Pet World (in which this post was originally published), is carried in more than 100 newspapers nationwide. He also serves on the board of directors for the American Humane Association.

Q: My son has three pet hermit crabs. We have a problem. My son is a New England Patriots fan -- don't ask me why. Of course, we are fans of our local team. Will the crabs get along with one another if they are wearing different team logos painted on their shells?
-- D. H., Denver, CO

A: I may not be paid as much as Tom Brady, but I might love my job more because of questions like yours.

Crab shells painted with sports-team logos are a craze, but it's not a healthy one. "Crab shells need to breathe, and the paint interferes," says Carol Frischmann, author of the book Animal Planet: Hermit Crabs.

Karen Owens, CPDT-KA®, is head trainer at Charlotte Mecklenburg Animal Care and Control in Charlotte, NC. Her position is made possible through a Petfinder.com Foundation Train to Adopt grant. Today, she tells us how the program is helping make dogs more adoptable.

Killarney (pictured) is a medium-sized Boxer mix puppy that came to our shelter in late October. Her feet tell me she's going to be a big girl someday. She has a sweet, eager face, big brown eyes and a big personality, but, oh, her jumping! She can launch her muscular little 38-lb. body off me, the walls, the kennel door or anything else within reach.

When I first met Killarney she was, as they say here in the South, a "hot mess." She was beginning to display multiple signs of stress, such as excessive jumping, increasingly high arousal, barking, lunging and spinning. These behaviors were her way of showing me that she wasn't coping well with the stress of shelter life.

When stress-induced behaviors are repeated for any length of time by dogs, they become part of the dog's typical day-to-day behavior, and can continue after a dog leaves the shelter. We knew that, if not treated as an emergency, the negative effect of shelter life would have repercussions in Killarney's behavior for many years to come.

Find out how we helped Killarney and watch a video of her after the jump.

Recently, Katherine, a colleague of mine at Discovery Communications was researching French Bulldogs on the Internet. She came across a group calling itself a Frenchie rescue. But something about its website didn't seem right.

Katherine did some research and discovered a 2011 report by the Humane Society of the United States charging that the group was run by a Missouri breeder it called one of the state's worst puppy millers. The report claimed the pets on the "rescue" site are in fact cast-offs from that breeding operation.

"I was so angry," Katherine told me. "I will do anything I can do to raise awareness."

Unfortunately, her story isn't unique. "For-profit breeders have increasingly tried to take advantage of the public's desire to adopt homeless pets by posing as rescue groups, even using the term 'adopt' when selling their, all too often, puppy-mill-raised pups" says Kim Saunders, Petfinder's vice president of shelter outreach. "This makes it even more important that Petfinder remains a space for reputable shelters and rescue groups."

All the adoption groups that list their pets on Petfinder have been carefully screened by our shelter outreach staff. But if you're looking beyond Petfinder for a pet to adopt, there are some red flags to keep an eye out for. No one of these points alone proves a rescue group isn't legit. But if you find several of these warning signs, you might want to look for your adoptable pet elsewhere:

After the jump: 5 questions to ask about an organization before you adopt