Month: May 2011

The number one way dog bites can be prevented? Spay and neuter! You might not be aware of what a huge connection there is between dog bites and unaltered pets, but statistics kept by Animal Control agencies across North America show that unaltered dogs are responsible for almost ALL of the dog bites which are recorded. Recently a sad story hit the newswires about two dogs that escaped from their yard, attacking three people.  Los Angeles Animal Control sent out a press release with some very simple, helpful tips for the right way to prevent dog bites, with a focus on what we can teach our children to be safe. We’ve included this information below. Please share these tips to help keep our communities – both pets and people – safe from unnecessary dog attacks.

“The Department of Animal Services Harbor District Animal Control Officers responded to a call about two large dogs that attacked and injured three adult victims who were transported via ambulance to St. Mary’s Medical Center. The injured were a 71 year old woman with multiple severe lacerations to her buttocks, back and both legs, a 63 year old man with multiple severe lacerations to his arms, legs, thighs and chest, and a 35 year old man with multiple severe lacerations to his legs and feet.

The two large dogs were unaltered and unlicensed and had escaped from their yard. Unaltered dogs are responsible for almost all of the dog bites which are recorded. Altered dogs are healthier, live longer and are much less likely to bite people or fight with other dogs.

If you feel you are in a dangerous situation, do not run screaming from the dog. The dog may instinctively give chase. Do not make direct or prolonged eye contact with the dog or hit the dog—a dog who feels threatened could perceive this as a challenge. If an unknown dog approaches you, stand very still. If a dog knocks you down, roll up into a ball and remain as still as possible.

Take time to teach your children some safety tips for behavior around dogs:

1. Teach your child not to run and scream around your dog or other dogs. This could be a signal for the dog to play a chase game. Most dogs enjoy a fast-paced game involving chasing, growling and tumbling with each other. Play for a dog may be too rough for a child.

2. Practice having your child act like a tree standing very still with arms by her side, not moving, or acting like a rock by curling up on the ground face down with hands over the ears. Ask your child to act like a tree or a rock if your dog or any dog seems to be trying to play too rough. This is the safest way to avert a potentially dangerous situation.

3. When you are out with a child and you see a dog on a leash on the street, model appropriate behavior for the youngster by asking if you can pet the dog before you go right up to the person. If the handler says that it is okay, ask if the dog likes children. If the dog does not like or know children, don’t try to get to know this dog.

By taking a careful and caring approach to training your child and your dog, you will teach your child to safely play with friendly dogs. Best of all, you will give the child the opportunity to experience unconditional love and acceptance at its finest.

And, if you have an unaltered and unlicensed dog, you may qualify for a voucher to get your pet altered for free or you can get a discount voucher from all six City Shelters if you are a Los Angeles City Resident. Having your dog altered and licensed is not only good for your pet, it’s also the law.”

If you don’t live in the City of Los Angeles, for low-cost or free pet spay neuter near you, contact SpayUSA http://www.spayusa.org

Adopting a senior pet is one of the most wonderful things you can do – not only for them, but for you! Western society often doesn’t have a lot of respect for older things or beings. With our culture’s focus on how “important” it is to have the latest car, computer, or gadget, sometimes we forget the wonderful wisdom that age can bring. As the caretaker of several senior dogs (my own and fosters) and two senior cats, and having fostered five senior pets within the last year, I am completely convinced that if more people knew how amazing it is to rescue, foster and share their life with a senior pet, senior pets wouldn’t be so passed over in our shelters. It is true they likely won’t be with you as long as a younger pet. But if you can embrace the unselfish philosophy of quality over quantity of years, you’ll be rescuing many, many more lives in your lifetime — and that is truly a beautiful thing! Plus…

So often seniors in shelters are there through no fault of their own. Sometimes their owners, also elderly, must move to a care facility that doesn’t accept pets. Or they had owners who did not had the foresight or finances to get pet health insurance, and find they could no longer afford to care for a pet that needs age-related medical procedures or medication.  Sadly, in some cases the owners superficially wanted a newer, younger pet – and discarded the older one like a well-used couch on the side of the road.  Tragic, but true.

Senior pets in shelters, more often than their young counterparts, are already trained, housebroken, and calmer. They often arrive in your home and are so well-behaved it feels a bit like they did spend their whole life with you. Seniors have just as much love to give as any pet!

There are many advantages to adopting mature animals. You already know what they are going to look like and what size they will be, and you will know their personalities sooner, rather than waiting through those sometimes very trying learning stages — senior pets are much less likely to chew your favorite pair of shoes or shred your couch or curtains!

You can find a senior pet to adopt at Adopt-a-Pet.com by clicking “Search Dogs“, “Search Cats” or “Search Other“. Then enter in your zip code, and select “senior” from the age menu.  If you can’t adopt that sweetheart yourself, click the orange “share” button to share a link to that pet’s information to your Facebook friends or Twitter followers, or simply email a link to all your contacts who might want to adopt or foster.  Let’s get those beautiful seniors out of the shelter and into the loving homes they so richly deserve!

Rattlesnakes live in so many areas, and can be a life-threatening danger to dogs of all sizes. But with just a few preventive steps, you can reduce the chances your dog will get bitten and die from a rattlesnake bite! Rattlesnakes are very common the parks and trails that many dog-lovers use for hikes and walks with their dogs. More and more homes are being built in areas that were previously rural, making encounters with wildlife even more common. If you and your dog live in an apartment in a totally urban (cement city) area and never goes on walks in a park, then you don’t need these tips. But the majority of pet owners would be prudent in following them! Being prepared takes education about avoidance and – most importantly – a trip to the vet. Read on for our tips to prevent a fatal rattlesnake bite, and what to do if your dog is bitten!

1. Get your dog the rattlesnake vaccine.
There is a dog vaccine by Red Rock Biologics for rattlesnake bites. The vaccine is made from snake venom and works in a way so that if your dog is bitten, the reaction to the bite is REDUCED and may be delayed – it is not completely eliminated, so a vaccinated dog bitten by a rattlesnake will still need vet care as soon as possible.  “The rattlesnake vaccination costs about $25, and can greatly reduce the amount of anti-venom serum the dog needs and the severity of the reaction to the bite,” says Dr. Liz Koskenmaki, DVM. Since each vial of anti-venom costs between $500 to $1000 depending on where you live, you are not only potentially saving your dog’s life, but a lot of money!

2. Walk your dog on 6-foot leash.
If you hear a rattle or see a snake on the ground ahead of you, if your dog is on a 6 foot leash, you can avoid it. Vets say the vast majority of rattlesnake bites occur when a dog is off-leash or on a flexi-lead.

3. Avoid avoid rocky or dense brush or grassy areas.
On your walks with your dog, stay on the trail, and choose wide trails or roads over narrow brush-bordered trails if possible. That way you are more likely to see a snake sunning itself across your path, and be able to stop and avoid it in time. Also, keep your yard grass cut short and eliminate brush, piles of rocks where snakes like to sun themselves as well as hide.

4. Snake-proof your yard.
Your yard may be fenced to keep Fido safely in, but it won’t keep most snakes out unless you fortify it. Snakes can get under fencing that does not have a solid cement base (like a block wall). On wood fences or solid iron fences, use hardware cloth all along the base of your fence, including across any gated areas. You’ll need to dig a trench to bury 22″ of it into the ground, with 18″ above ground attached to the base of your fence. Hardware cloth runs about $100 per 100 feet — expensive, but if you live in a rattlesnake-dense area and want your dog to be safe in your yard, the cost may be worth it.

5. Know a dog’s rattlesnake-bite symptoms.
If you don’t recognize the symptoms of a rattlesnake bite in your dog, you might delay rushing them to the vet immediately – and that delay could be fatal.

Immediate symptoms almost always include:

• puncture wounds (can be bleeding)
• severe pain
• swelling
• restlessness, panting, or drooling

Depending on how much venom the bite injected into your dog, and the size of your dog, any of these more severe symptoms may appear quickly or within a few hours:

• lethargy, weakness, sometimes collapse
• muscle tremors
• diarrhea
• seizures
• neurological signs including depressed respiration

6. If you & your dog encounter a rattlesnake…
Calmly & slowly back away from the snake until you are no longer within striking distance (about the snake’s length) and until the snake stops rattling at you. Then carefully leave the area – if there is one snake, there are likely to be more in that same area.

7. If your dog is bitten by a rattlesnake…
If you can, carry your dog to your car. If you can’t carry your dog without them (or you!) struggling, walk them to your car. Limiting the dog’s activity will limit the venom moving around in their body, which is better. THEN GET THEM TO A VET IMMEDIATELY! The faster your dog can get the anti-venom and other emergency treatment from the vet, the greater their chance of survival.

We haven’t included rattlesnake aversion training classes in our tips. In some areas, “Rattlesnake Proofing” or aversion training is available, but be aware that they almost always involve the dog getting a fairly strong shock from an electric shock collar when they “find” a snake (yes, a real snake – a defanged/devenomed one). You lavish them with praise after they get shocked and yelp in pain and encourage them to come running back to you. In extreme cases where your dog must go out into an area with rattlesnakes daily, the one-second of pain of this type of “rattlesnake proofing” might be worth potentially saving your dog’s life, but we hope that with the totally humane tips above, most dog owners will not have to resort to a painful training to keep their dogs safe from a fatal rattlesnake bite.
Learn more about Jennifer, our blog author at Google+

Rattlesnake photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1056935

Daisy was born blind and deaf and was passed around through many homes before finding her happy forever home. Because of the instability and her special needs, Daisy didn’t know how to be a dog when she came to Maryam and Bruce her knew owners.  Daisy was afraid and anxious, and it would take another dog who could be her eyes and ears for her to be rehabilitated. It turned out Olivia was just the dog for the job.

Daisy instantly bonded with Olivia but not with her new parents, and it took eight months for Daisy to connect with them. Every day they worked on gaining her trust and letting her accept touch.  Now Daisy kisses and cuddles, walks and wiggles, and is a happy, healthy, playful pooch. Daisy’s parents hope to be a support system for other families willing to open their homes and hearts to special needs animals.  As they say, she may have needed to learn how to be a regular dog but ultimately they believe they were the students and Daisy the teacher.

To date Daisy has visited more than 1,500 students throughout California to teach them about tolerance and acceptance of special needs children and animals. Daisy’s strength and courage inspired Maryam to write a children’s book called “What about Daisy?”  This inspiring children’s story about a deaf and blind rescue dog in search of her forever home, and the adventures she has with her 4 and 2 legged friends, will entertain and warm your heart.

To learn more about Daisy or get a sneak peek into her book, check out www.whataboutdaisy.com

For all of us who adore our pets, the prospect of our homes catching fire while we’re away is truly horrifying. Many of us rely on the window/door stickers that say something along the lines of “Firefighter—Save my pets!” to alert firefighters to the presence of pets in the house. But do those really work? Recently, I spoke with a Los Angeles firefighter about these stickers, and what I learned is very important: although it never hurts to have those stickers, many times the location of the fire will force firefighters to enter through a side window, where stickers might not be present or visible. Smoke from fires can quickly render stickers black and unreadable, too. Actually, there are a million reasons why those stickers might go unnoticed in the urgency of the moment. So, what is the best indicator that there are pets inside a burning building?

The answer is: NEIGHBORS. Firefighters say that in many cases of successful pet rescue, a neighbor has quickly alerted them that there are pets inside the home. The same goes for children, too! So, please, make sure you and your neighbors know each other’s pets, just in case. Why not put together a directory of neighbors’ names, addresses, number/type of pets, and number of family members living in each home and distribute it to everyone on your street? Your pets will thank you, and so will the firefighters whose jobs it is to save lives.  Plus, what a great way to meet and spark a friendship (pardon the pun) with your neighbors!