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The Fourth can be a full-on, full-day party. For pets? It’s a different story. Did you know that more pets are lost on the 4th of July than any other day of the year?Between booming fireworks, busy BBQs, and a severe lack of hotdog sharing—pets can get pretty anxious. Next thing you know a great escape has happened. That’s why pet safety is so important on the 4th. So, we partnered with Nationwide to help you make the celebrations more pet-friendly.

Here are our tips:

1. Update your pet’s ID tag and microchip info

2. Share rules with guests (e.g. no burger bites)

3. Store human foods out of sight and reach 

4. Keep your pet cool and hydrated all day

5. Skip the sparklers—they can be highly toxic

6. Be aware of other toxins (e.g. SPF or lighter fluid)

7. Bring a “calming kit” with toys, treats, and tools

8. Find them a quiet retreat from the craziness 

9. Play music or turn on the TV to mask outside noise.

10. Don’t set off your own fireworks around pets

11. Stay with anxious pets during fireworks shows

Protect your pet all year long. With Nationwide, you can get a pet insurance plan to protect your pet every day.

We have even more tips to help your pets happily enjoy the independence day holiday! Check out our help articles from year’s past:

Fourth of July – keep your pets safe!

Fourth of July Fireworks Pet Safety

Fireworks are not Fido’s or Fluffy’s friend

Fireworks & July 4th Pet Safety Tips

4th of July Fireworks Pet Safety

Have a Happy Pet-Safe 4th of July

Tips For Your Dog during 4th of July Fireworks

When removing stains and other pet debris from your furniture, you don’t want to spend half an hour or more on the project. Sometimes — in the worst cases — the stains are deep and require a lot of work or a professional cleaning service — but most times you can get it done in a few minutes. To get your furniture cleaning down to a science, here are some quick tips on removing pet debris:

General Tips:
1. Use dampened rubber gloves and run your hand over the furniture’s surface to attract hair. Rinse the glove and repeat. You can use a wet sponge in its place.
2. Spray a mix of water and fabric softener on the furniture and wipe off.
3. For wood furniture, use a soft cloth and anti-static dust spray. Wipe and repeat.

New Stains Tips:
1. Soak up most of the moisture with newspaper and paper towels. Put down a layer of paper towels and newspapers, then stand on it. Repeat until about dry.
2. Rinse with water and blot with paper or a wet vac.
3. Use a pet odor neutralizer once the area is really clean. Follow instructions on the label carefully.
4. Use a carpet stain remover if it looks stained.
5. Vacuum the furniture if there are loose pieces of pet hair, dirt or debris.

What NOT to do:
● Avoid using steam cleaners as the heat will permanently set the stain and odor.
● Avoid using cleaning chemicals because the odor will remain and encourage a repeat accident.

Machine Washable Furniture Tips
Sometimes you invest in furniture with covers that you can throw in the washing machine. In such cases, just throw in about a pound of baking soda with your detergent for good measure. Air dry the covers instead of putting them through the dryer. You might have to repeat the process a couple of times if you still see the stain or smell the odor. You might also add an enzymatic cleaner, which you can find at pet stores.

 

Upholstery Tags and What They Mean
When cleaning fabric upholstery, each type will have code, and its cleaning method will be different:
● Code W: Man-made fabrics that you clean with water-based cleaners.
● Code S: Organic fabrics that you clean with solvent-based cleaners.
● Code W/S: A mix of organic and man-made fabrics, so you can use water or solvent cleaners.
● Code X: Fabric that must have a cleaning professional handle them.

Conclusion
These are only some quick tips for removing pet stains from your furniture. When you have to deal with pet stains in other places, you might have to use alternative, deep cleaning methods. For more information on pet accident removal, check out this article on cleaning pet messes.

 

Written contribution by Andrea Davis, Home Advisor.

 

Dogs can really enjoy a ride a car, but just like it’s now illegal in many states to leave a child in a car even for a moment, leaving pets in cars is NOT a good idea! Check out the infographic above created by the caring and knowledgable folks at the ASPCA. Even if it is a balmy 70 degrees outside, and you’ve left your car windows cracked and parked in the shade, especially if the sun moves and you loose part or all of that shade, the temperature in your car can be as much as 20 degrees hotter! What should you do if you see an animal left in a car on a hot day? As the infographic says, first try to quickly locate the owner, or call 911 and stay by the car until help arrives. If you’d like a printable PDF version of the infographic above, go to the ASPCA’s blog article and click on the Don’t Leave your Pet in The Car infographic here. Thank you for caring about the well-being of pets and sharing this infographic (you can easily do so by clicking the social icons below) to spread the word and keep pets safe: Don’t leave your pet in the car!

SO true! Love cannot be bought. But, boy oh boy, can it be rescued!!!  The beauty seen here is Fanny, an awesome dog who was available for adoption in Hollywood, California from The Mutt Scouts — she’s been adopted, yay! You can see her ADOPTED  profile and other cuties who are still available for adoption at The Mutt Scouts here. If you don’t live near Hollywood CA you can find your own local adoption love by running a search on our website www.adoptapet.com. If you like this image, like our Facebook page www.facebook.com/adoptapetcom for more!

What’s your daily routine like? If you’re like us, we’re guessing that you spend at least a little time each day using social media. Maybe you’re sharing your favorite recipe, posting photos from your fun weekend adventures with the family, or just keeping up-to-date and connected with friends. This month, we have a special challenge for you that will give you a new reason to use your favorite social platforms. It’s called Social PETworking and it saves the lives of shelter pets!

 

If you follow us on Facebook, you already know that we post one adoptable pet each day and encourage the animal lovers in our community to “share” that pet on their own Facebook pages. This daily post helps bring exposure to that individual pet and has helped so many find their loving forever home, and it got us asking ourselves what might happen if other animal lovers did that, too. If everyone reading this message chose a pet from Adopt-a-Pet.com to share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest how many pets might be saved? What if all of those people did that every day for a week? Or longer? The answer: We might just empty out animal shelters.

 

Ready for the challenge?

1. Search locally adoptable pets on Adopt-a-Pet.com. You can search for dogs, cats, or a variety of other types of pets.
2. Choose a pet that you want to help.
3. Share that pet using your favorite social media platform. When sharing you can include some info about the pet and this challenge, encouraging others to join in.

 

Want to step it up a notch? Here are some other ideas to help get you started!

• Instead of sharing one pet today, challenge yourself to do it every day for a week. Or a month. Or longer!
• If you’re on Pinterest, start an adoptable pets pin board and add locally adoptable pets frequently. Consider it your virtual rescue organization.
• Do you have a website or blog of your own? Add Adopt-a-Pet.com search tools and allow your site visitors to search for adoptable pets right from your website.

 

What other Social PETworking ideas can you come up with? Tell us on our Facebook wall or send us a Tweet.

 

Puppy pee pads or puppy training pads can be a huge help when you have a puppy or dog you’re trying to housebreak. Pre-puppy-pee-pads we’d use newspaper, but in the post-puppy-pee-pad era cleanup is so much easier! Puppy pads come in a variety of sizes, but most are layers of absorbent material lined with a thin plastic layer on the back, to try to stop pee from reaching the floor. (Puppy pads are also great for lining cat or dog travel carriers in case a pet gets car sick or has an accident.) You might be thinking, how hard can it be, I put the pad down on the floor, what more do I need to know? Well, read on…

• Puppies like to chew! Puppy pads can be unsafe if chewed and swallowed. Using the biggest size pads available and weighing down the edges with puppy-safe heavy objects (like bricks) or using a commercially made puppy pad holder that locks the pad into a hard plastic frame can reduce this risk.
• Puppies don’t have good aim. If you have a brand new puppy (or dog) who you’re keeping confined say to the kitchen, if you just put down one pad, chances are good your puppy will miss. (It is totally normal to have lots of misses in the beginning. Puppies are babies and need time to learn.) You can help a puppy improve his or her aim by starting out with many pads covering half of their confined area, then gradually make the puppy pad area smaller removing one pad every few days.
• Pads outside. You can take a used puppy pad outside if you’ll be training the puppy to go to the bathroom outside, and put the puppy on it outside to encourage the going to the bathroom outside behavior.

Don’t forget the other super important P word with puppies: Praise! Praise your puppy any time you see her going pee or poop on her pad. (Say that 10 times fast!) Praise will help speed along the process of training your puppy to go on pads.

A dog that loves everyone is certainly a wonderful thing, but sometimes that enthusiasm leads to a little too much excitement. Do you find your dog jumping on friends instead of greeting them politely? If you answered yes, this video training tip from our friends at Wagfield is for you!

 

As you’ll see, we need to first train in easier, low-key situations on leash with family so we can set your dog up for success and reward the behavior we want before taking it up a notch to more challenging, exciting moments with new friends.

 

When training, build in baby steps, having several successful repetitions before moving up in difficulty. It takes practice, but building a foundation of learning how to be cool, calm and collected will pay off greatly as your pup matures.

 

Follow these “Paw by Paw” instructions for exactly how to train this behavior first on leash and then with guests coming into your home. With a little practice every day, your dog will be greeting strangers like a gentleman in no time!

Contributed by Wagfield Academy, the online dog training school. For more info on Wagfield Academy, please visit https://www.wagfield.com.

Kittens love forts! They also love new things, so DYI kitten forts that you can reconfigure easily and for free are not only tons of fun for kittens, they’re fun for you and your family too! This is going to be one of the easiest DIY projects you’ve ever done, or a great one to take on as your first Do It Yourself project. All you need are a few simple items that you may have in your home already, and some creativity.

Basic Kitten Fort Supply list:

1. Cardboard boxes. Avoid boxes that held anything that might be toxic to kittens. Sizes that work best are small to medium, think of cat carrier sizes. Big enough to hide inside, not too big that they can jump up or down safely.

2. Towel.

3. Optional: Strong scissors or a utility knife.

4. Essential: Creativity.

That’s all you need! I personally like using three different size boxes.

To construct the fort, arrange boxes next to each other. I put my three boxes, turned on their sides, with the openings turned towards each other, like tents around a campfire. Then I drape a towel over the top of the boxes, to make a roof over the open space between them. If I’m feeling crafty, up on a table out of kitten reach I’ll cut some kitten doors and “mouse” holes into the cardboard so the kittens can stick their paw through. Make them big enough so they wont get stuck, but not so big they’ll try to put their head through the paw openings.

Last step: release the kittehs! But really, they’ve been helping you all along, right?

PS. photos are my foster kittens! You can offer to be a volunteer foster home at http://www.adoptapet.com/volunteer/signup

The mission (and passion) of Adopt-a-Pet.com is to help get homeless pets out of the shelters and into loving homes. One way we do that is by helping Adopt-a-Pet.com approved shelters & rescues through grant programs. In 2015, the Adopt-a-Pet.com Veterinary Care Fund will be giving away grants to shelters and rescues of up to $2,000 each! Grants are to help pets in shelters and rescues get the veterinary care they need to go from homeless to adopted.

If you are a representative of a shelter or rescue organization and do not yet have an approved Adopt-a-Pet.com account, you can apply for an account here. Once approved, your organization will be eligible to apply for any of our open grant opportunities.

The 2015 Adopt-a-Pet.com Veterinary Care Fund is now OPEN for new applications – click here to apply. Thank you for to all the shelters and rescues for their wonderful applications and all they do helping homeless pets!

You may have heard that kittens get a “kitten pass” when introduced to other cats. Is that true? Yes and no – it depends on their personalities and experiences. It’s true that some adult cats who do not get along with other adult cats will be less upset when they first meet a kitten. Here are some reasons why:

• Size. Kittens or cats that are smaller than the resident adult cat are perceived as less of a threat, even when they hiss or growl.
• Height. Adult cats can jump up on top of a table or chair and easily be higher than a kitten. That vertical hierarchy reassures the adult cat.
• Play. Kittens like other animal babies have a strong instinct to play. This means they will often make friendly playful overtures to an adult cat, once they’ve settled in to a new space.
• Short attention spans. Kittens can be hissing and poofing up at the adult cat (who’s sitting on a chair looking down his nose at them) but then… ohhh a feather toy! Must pounce! Happy distractions like games and food are great tools to make positive associations about each other.

That said, usually a kitten is NOT the kindest choice for a sedate adult or senior cat. Kittens are full of energy and still learning how hard to bite, scratch, and pounce on feline friends. If you have a sedate adult or senior cat, a kitten can be years of torture. Great-grandpa might struggle as a full-time playmate for a baby then teenager kitten. If you have a choice, consider the unhappiness of an older cat who just wants to nap most of the time, and the frustration and boredom for the youngster, before you bring a new kitten home.

While a new kitten may not get a kitten pass, taking the time to pick a good potential match and doing a slow cat to cat introduction is well-worth the resulting harmony.