Puppy Bowl VII will air on Feb. 6 on Animal Planet, and since all the "players" are Petfinder alumni, we picked two of them to get DNA tests from our partner, Canine Heritage Breed Test.
Last week we gave you a sneak peek at adorable Two Face. Today, meet Jackson, and guess what his DNA test will reveal. We'll share the results here during Puppy Bowl (Sunday, Feb. 6 at 3 p.m. ET).
Jackson
Jackson was taken in by the Pet Assistance League of Virginia in Stafford at six weeks old. Transferred from a West Virginia shelter where he was due to be euthanized, Jackson got a fresh start with PAL foster volunteers Dave and Beth Skewis.
My new adoptee Wes, who has Cerebellar Hypoplasia, and foster kitten Peekaboo (also with CH) from K9Kastle in NYC love their playhouse.
This article is the latest in our series on environmental enrichment for pets, offering easy ways to keep your pet's mind and body active.
Cats love to hide, climb, and pounce -- and you don't need to buy expensive cat furniture to help them satisfy those instincts. I built the cat playhouse in the video above with readily available items and in just a few minutes -- and as you can see, my cats love it.
What you need:
A sharp knife
Two extra-large cardboard boxes (appliance boxes are perfect, but smaller ones that are big enough to hold your cat may work just as well)
Packing tape
Champ Breaks Through the Screen Door - from Cara in Manchester, NH
It was such a beautiful day, we decided to leave the back door open with just the screen closed. Then Champ, due to his separation anxiety, decides he's going to break through the screen to find me.
A technical glitch helped cement Kara's decision to adopt Rhyder.
One evening last April, Kara Elliott was flipping through photos of
adoptable pets on the Petfinder iPhone app.
Though she did want to adopt, at that moment she was just browsing.
But fate stepped in via a technical glitch: The phone froze.
"The
screen was stopped on a patchy-furred puppy by the name of Tweety," says
Kara, who lives in Arlington, TX.
"I don't really know what called to me about that face; it could have
been the wrinkles, or the sweet yet stubborn expression, but something
was simply right about her," Kara says.
She e-mailed Shelter2Rescue Coalition in Arlington, and two weeks later, she was bringing home
her very own dog, a Pit Bull mix. Kara named the pup Rhyder, after country
artist Brandon Rhyder.
Two Face was escorted to Puppy Bowl by Luvfurmutts in Cincinnati.
Puppy Bowl VII will air on Feb. 6 on Animal Planet, and since all the "players" are Petfinder alumni, we picked two puppies to get DNA tests from our partner, Canine Heritage Breed Test.
This week and next we'll give you a sneak peek at these adorable pups, and you can guess what their DNA tests will reveal. We'll share the results here during Puppy Bowl (Sunday, Feb. 6 at 3 p.m. ET).
Today, meet Two Face - then come back Monday to meet Jackson.
The idea is that a pet's illness can offer clues that lead to a diagnosis of the pet parent's own illness.
Jennifer Adler, V.M.D., specialist in Veterinary Internal Medicine
Specialist at the Center for Animal Referral and Emergency Services
(CARES) Animal Hospital in Langhorne, PA, says since pets and humans
share the same spaces, a pet can also be a sentinel for other types of
environmentally-related human illnesses, such as Lyme disease or water
contamination.
This doesn't mean the pet gave the human a disease, or vice versa -- simply that they share the same environment and are exposed to the same pathogens.
In the video that accompanies the article, we meet pet parent Anne Kane, whose dog Lucy became very ill a few months
ago. "She was just curled up in a little ball under a table, which is
definitely not her," Anne tells WTAJ, the local CBS news station.
PF Foundation's Liz Neuschatz with Animal Alliance founder Denise Bash and a Chester shelter dog
Jan. 12, 2011--Today is our last day here in Chester, SC, for the Animal Lifeline outreach trip. We are definitely sad to be leaving, but are very happy that we were able to be part of such an amazing project. Although the student volunteers have gotten a lot accomplished so far, today will be a long day for them, seeing that it's their last day of work, and there is still a lot of work to be done and only one day left to do it.
Chester County Animal Control now looks like a completely different shelter compared to how it looked when first got here on Sunday. There are now rooftops over the outdoor kennels, which will drastically improve the lives of the dogs who stay in them, especially since there is a lot of rain and a decent amount of snow here.
Another huge accomplishment completed by the student volunteers is the new cat house. It is now completely constructed and all that's left to do is paint it. Previously, the cats were placed in small enclosures that didn't give them room to do much of anything, but with this new cat house, which is about the size of a large storage shed only taller, the cats will have room to play, jump and do the things that cats love to do. This will dramatically reduce the amount of stress on the cats, which will make them much more adoptable.
Olive is afraid of her family's big cat, but loves to snuggle with the kitten.
Right from the start it was clear that Olive was a lover,
not a fighter. "When we visited her in the shelter," says her new mom, Brandy Watson, "she didn't bark wildly for our attention. Instead,
she just walked up and kind of leaned into my husband's hand."
That was enough to convince the Watsons, who live in Jamestown,
ND, that 7-month-old Pit Bull-mix Olive would fit right into their
family of six children. Olive was listed on Petfinder by the James
River Humane Society, also in Jamestown.
"So many people are afraid of Pit Bulls," Brandy says, "but like
any dog, so much of it has to do with how you raise them."
Big
though she is, Olive is afraid of some things, including brooms, vacuum cleaners
and the family's big male cat ... but not the family kitten.
Are your pets going stir crazy this winter? Are they often home alone? Introducing our new series on environmental enrichment, featuring easy things you can do to make your pet's space more interesting and keep his mind and body active. Check back each week for a new post.
While I'm always looking for way to keep my cats busy (Toby the Terrible attacks my other cats and poops in inappropriate places when he's bored), several of the free iPhone apps I downloaded were ignored by my own furry brood. However, I did find three that they liked.
Below are three popular free iPhone apps for cats (and two that are designed for people but appeal to cats), rated on a scale of one to five paws. Plus, after the jump: some tips for getting your cat interested in iPad or iPhone games.
Pocket Pond (also available for the iPad)
Rating: five paws
Ironically, the app my cats like best was made for people. It offers chirping birds, moving fish that react to your touch, buzzing dragonflies and lifelike water ripples and sounds whenever you touch the screen. Toby and our new adoptee, Wes, even prefer it to my real-life fish tanks!
Cat Toy
Rating: four paws
Cat Toy offers your cat's choice of a moving spider, butterfly, mouse or laser pointer-type light, and includes sounds that react to his paw on the screen. The boy cats loved this one -- Toby and Wes even enjoyed a game of Cat Toy together and cuteness was shared by all.
Cat Game
Rating: three paws
Shown in the video above, this app features a bright light moving around your choice of backgrounds. When your cat taps the screen where the light appears, it vanishes. Although Toby loves laser pointers, this app didn't engage him as much as some of the others, though he did enjoy watching as the light moved around the screen.
Cat Squeaky Toy
Rating: two paws
Maybe because I spend too much time watching cute cat videos on Youtube, but my cats are totally uninterested in weird sounds, and this app features only those: You shake your phone and it emits squeaky-toy sounds, the jingle of a ball, bird chirps, etc. Still, some less-jaded cats could have fun with this app.
Cat Piano Jr. (also available for the iPad)
Rating: one paw
Basically a keyboard that delivers different cat meows when the keys are pressed, this is not specifically made for cats. However, it's featured in several YouTube videos with cats reacting positively, so I decided to try it out. Unfortunately, the app wouldn't play sound after I downloaded it and my cats just walked away.
After the jump: tips for getting your cat interested in iPad or iPhone games.
