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by John Stellman
GOLDEN RETRIEVERS: Golden Retrievers have beomce increasingly popular because of their easy-going nature and loving personalities. Their gentleness, easy-going attitude and intelligence when responding to commands makes them an ideal family pet. They have the reputation of being one of the most sought after breeds and the popularity of the Golden Retriever will continue to escalate in peoples' hearts.
POODLES: These dogs are lively, intelligent and affectionate and they are a versatile breed that makes great family pets. The poodle is a favorite of all ages of children and adults as well. There are three sizes of poodles, but Toy Poodles are not recommended for families with younger children. These pooches are also so very cute.
OLD ENGLISH SHEEPDOG: With his shaggy fur and distinctive grey and white coloring, the Old English Sheepdog looks much more like a stuffed toy than the alert and intelligent dog that he is. This breed of dog is so adaptable and easily transitions from being your early morning jogging companion to a sofa buddy later at night. This breed does take quite a lot of grooming time, in order to keep his beautiful coat healthy and shiny, but the bonding time this dog gives you in return is well worth the time spent brushing him.
ENGLISH SPRINGER SPANIEL: This breed of dog is easygoing, alert and attentive and makes an ideal family pet. An intelligent dog and easy to please, a Springer very soon fits into a family setting. Its long-legged build put it in front of the Spaniels for speed.
COLLIE: Collies are very loyal and dependable herding dogs and they adapt easily to working life and family life. With two coats to choose from, rough and smooth, the Collie is usually appealing to most dog lovers. He is a sweet-tempered dog with a strong grasp of territory and protective instincts.
BOXER: Boxers are very playful, young at heart, fun loving and exuberant. This is a breed that is so versatile for a family pet and they make great companions to adults as well as children. They love to be a running companion as well as loving to cuddle. They get along well with other pets, providing they are properly introduced, and, best of all, they love children more than anything. Both male and female boxers are very alike in temperament.
MIXED BREED DOGS: These dogs are available in all shapes, sizes and personalities, and if you are careful in selecting the exact right one for you and your family, you will all have a buddy for life. Talk to your vet as well as the animal shelter employees about personalities, needs and habits before choosing the one you will take home.
GENERAL: Before going out there to choose a family pet, which will require a lot of time, love, devotion and training, it would be wise to do a little research. Talk to your local vet and also talk to other owners of the breed you are considering. Dogs from the animal shelter can be wonderful lifetime companions. I know, because I and my family had one once and he was the perfect dog and family companion from the very first day we took him home. We loved him and pampered him until the day he passed away. His name was Snuggles.
About the Author
John Stellman is owner and operator of the online pet boutique outfitter upscale pet accessories selling pet clothes and pet supplies.
Denver Post/Seattle Times
Rancher Kip Konig saw the German shepherd in the distance as he checked his cows Sunday in the Pawnee National Grasslands. The dog kept running...
Sara Baysinger, of La Salle, Colo., sits with her 2-year-old son, Lane, and Cash, the family's 3-year-old German shepherd, at home Monday.
DENVER — Rancher Kip Konig saw the German shepherd in the distance as he checked his cows Sunday in the Pawnee National Grasslands.
The dog kept running back to a partially obscured pickup and jumping into the front seat.
"I got the sense she was trying to tell me where her master was," Konig said.
Near the pickup, Konig found the skeletal remains of Jake Baysinger, 25, the German shepherd's owner. Baysinger is believed to have shot himself about six weeks earlier on the plains about 75 miles northeast of Denver.
Baysinger and the dog, Cash, left their home in La Salle, in northern Colorado, on June 28.
Konig thinks the dog had been guarding Baysinger.
"At least we know it's over now," Baysinger's wife, Sara, said Tuesday. "We'd been looking for my husband for six weeks, and this isn't how we wanted it to end. At least we can close this."
The dog had apparently survived by eating mice and rabbits, authorities said.
Cash kept watch over the man who adopted her when she was a puppy, Baysinger said.
"She was Jake's baby," Baysinger said. "She was our baby before we had our son."
Sara, 23, and Jake were childhood sweethearts and married five years ago.
Baysinger said investigators told her they think Cash protected Jake's body from coyotes and other animals and would jump into the pickup, which had both of its windows rolled down, to get out of the weather.
Except for being dehydrated, Cash was in good health, Baysinger said.
Dr. Mindi Dosch, the vet who examined Cash, said the dog was thin but in good health. At the clinic Cash was "kissing" everyone and was "bright and alert."
"She was a very intelligent dog to live for that long," Dosch said.
On Monday, Baysinger was reunited with Cash at the Weld County Humane Society.
"She was extremely excited," Baysinger said. "She was jumping on me and excited to get out of there."
One of the happiest reunions was between Cash and Lane Baysinger, 2.
"He went running toward her ... trying to feed her treats," Sara Baysinger said.
According to Chris Robillard, deputy coroner in Weld County, it appears Jake Baysinger committed suicide with a 9-mm semi-automatic pistol.
Robillard suspects Baysinger killed himself June 28, when he disappeared with Cash.
Although it was a tragic end to her husband's life, Baysinger said she has fond memories of Jake and Cash: "They would go to a park ... and they would play fetch forever and ever and ever."
Yahoo Pets
As a member of the family, your dog is certainly loved - but perhaps there is room for improvement in the ways that commitment is expressed. Take some time to reexamine, with your child, the most important gifts that families and dogs can give one another. Here is a list of suggestions for activities:
1. Review with your child his or her dog-related responsibilities. It is understandable that busy schedules interfere with the best intentions, but it does help to make a list and accommodate the dog’s needs to everyone’s busy days. Depending upon age and ability, children can take responsibility for: letting the dog outside or in for bathroom needs; exercising; feeding or grooming. If any of these has presented a problem, now is the time to discuss solutions. Probably the most time-consuming chore is regularly exercising the dog, which can be limited to weekends if the child is interested.
2. Consider a new “extracurricular” dog activity for your child to participate in. This might include an evening or weekend class in obedience training, agility (great fun for children as well as dogs) or breed shows. Take your child to sit in on a local class during this week, or attend a local or regional dog show. Register together and make the commitment to try a new venture that both child and dog can enjoy.
3. Volunteer a few hours at a local animal shelter. Animal shelters provide a wonderful introduction to volunteerism for children, who can assist the staff, help with cleaning kennels or taking homeless dogs for walks.
4. Read a dog-related book or browse the internet together with your child. Learn together about dogs by surfing Purina.com . Tackle a topic that you and your child would like to know more about, such as the history, care or behavior of dogs.
5. Schedule your dog’s annual veterinary exam during this week. Your child can participate in important decisions (Will laboratory tests be needed? Should a heartworm test be performed? Is this a good time to schedule a dental cleaning?). If there is interest, a “behind the scenes” tour may be possible if arranged in advance.
6. Suggest a dog-related project for your child (or ask him or her to come up with some ideas). Some examples: repair or refurbish the dog’s accessories, such as the dog house or fencing; deal with a nagging behavior problem such as jumping up or running away. Challenge your child to come up with some creative solutions - and then help to apply them.
Of course, even a fraction of these activities would easily fill up one week of time, but the payoff - a re-energized bond between child and pet - will last much longer.
Filip Panusz works with Footloose Montana to ease his grief over the death of one of his dogs, which was caught in a trap.
By JIM ROBBINS - New York Times
MISSOULA, Mont. — The first order of business when freeing a dog caught in a trap, Anja Heister said, is to put a stick in its mouth.
Anja Heister is the leader of Footloose.
“No matter how much it loves you, it may try to bite,” Ms. Heister explained to a group gathered at a coffee shop here last week.
The demonstration was one of several across Montana being conducted by Footloose Montana, a nonprofit organization led by Ms. Heister. The group is teaching people how to free pets inadvertently caught in traps set legally for wild fur-bearing animals.
Trapping is common in many parts of the country. But in Western states like Montana much of it takes place on public lands, where conflicts are playing out with increasing frequency between trappers and recreational users as the number of retirees and second-home owners grows.
The recent killing of nontargeted animals, including a dog and a golden eagle, and the wounding of others have heightened tensions and helped fuel a movement to restrict fur trapping in Montana. Four Western states — Arizona, California, Colorado and Washington — already ban or restrict certain kinds of traps, known as body-gripping traps.
Footloose has been running advertisements on television as well as on YouTube warning dog owners about the hazards of traps. The group, formed last year in response to the dog trappings, is in the early stages of planning a voter initiative that would ban trapping on public lands.
Trappers say the proposed restrictions, as well as those imposed in the other states, are supported by people who do not appreciate the role that trapping plays in regulating populations of fur-bearing animals, including beaver, coyotes and wolverines.
They also complain the restrictions are an attack on a Western way of life. Montana issued more than 4,000 trapping licenses last year, and estimated that 47,600 animals were trapped for their pelts in 2006.
“Trapping is an important part of wildlife management,” said Dave Miller, director of national and international affairs for the National Trappers Association, which claims 10,000 members. “It is very efficient and humane method of managing wildlife when properly done.”
There is no way to know how many animals are caught unintentionally in traps because the episodes are often not reported and some of the animals disappear. So far this year, Footloose Montana has collected the stories of 12 dogs in western Montana caught in traps; three of them died.
“The very nature of trapping is that of a land mine,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, which has led campaigns in several states against trapping. “It’s indiscriminate. They catch whatever animal is unfortunate enough to trigger a device.”
Trappers place some of the blame for the dog deaths on the dog owners.
“Very often these are dogs that are supposed to be on a leash and are not,” said Mr. Miller of the trappers association. “Dog owners bear some responsibility.”
Most of the debate has focused on three types of traps, collectively called body-gripping traps. One of them, the foothold or leghold trap, catches the paw and holds the animal until the trapper arrives and kills it. Another trap, the snare, is made from aircraft cable. It catches the animal, often by the neck, and either holds it or strangles it. The third trap, the conibear, is designed to snap onto the animal’s neck and kill it instantly.
It was the killing of Cupcake, a border collie mix, in a conibear trap last winter that first spurred the anti-trapping campaign here. The dog’s owner, Filip Panusz, was hiking near Missoula on a popular trail in a national forest when the dog wandered over an embankment. Mr. Panusz said he heard a loud snap; he found the dog dying in a conibear trap that had been set in a creek.
Brian Giddings, a trapper who is the furbearer coordinator for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said such accidents are unfortunate, but not the norm. The conibear traps (named for the inventor, a Canadian trapper named Frank Conibear) are required to be set in enclosures that are supposed to block entry by dogs. The traps without such protections, he said, have been set illegally.
“There are a few people who are renegades,” Mr. Giddings said. “And the illegal sets are the ones that catch the dogs. There’s always going to be a few who break the law.”
There have been other episodes recently. One woman in Missoula, whose dog was caught in a conibear during a walk, struggled to free the animal but could not. She said she laid down next to her dog as it died. An emergency room doctor from Missoula had both of his bird dogs caught in traps while he was hunting. They survived. In January, a golden eagle was caught in a trap and its leg broken. It had to be destroyed.
Dogs are generally easy to free from leghold traps, Mr. Giddings said, and those traps do not usually cause severe injuries. But because trappers in Montana are not required to check their traps at certain intervals, critics say a dog or other animal can spend hours or days in a trap and can break their teeth, dislocate a shoulder or tear ligaments trying to free themselves.
“Many of the injured have huge vet bills,” said Jerry Black, a member of the board of Footloose Montana. “People don’t get reimbursed for this.”
The stepped-up debate over trapping has also touched upon the long-standing disagreement about whether trapping is the best way to kill animals.
“It’s at odds with the hunter ethic of a clean and quick kill,” said Mr. Pacelle of the Humane Society. “It’s the most inhumane form of hunting.”
Trappers says traps are humane if used responsibly.
“They are designed to hold the animal until the trapper can come and dispatch it,” Mr. Giddings said. “If you use the right size they will hold the animal until the trapper can come.”
In particular, the conibear trap, Mr. Giddings said, “is very humane because the animal is dead in less than a minute.”
The American Veterinary Medical Association recently issued an opinion on leghold traps, determining that versions with padded jaws or offset jaws — meaning the two jaws do not close tightly — are considered humane.
“They can certainly cause damage, but the possibility of damage is reduced,” said Dr. Gail Golob, the group’s director of animal welfare. Unmodified leghold traps were not deemed humane; the group’s review did not address snares and conibear traps.
3 Tips For Better Dog Training Success
by Annette Masse
A lot of dog trainers will tell you that you do not have to correct your dog at all. They believe in positive reinforcement, with the absence of a reward being viewed as punishment enough to stop many unwanted behaviors. However, A dog can sometimes behave so badly that it becomes very hard to change the behavior, if it is left unchecked for an extended period of time.
Here are three vital rules to follow to make sure you have a well-behaved dog. Keep in mind that things like barking are behaviors that is very self-reinforcing. The dog's continued barking allows him to positively-reinforce himself, with out any input from you, the owner. Therefore, your dog's barking will probably require negative reinforcement, to correct the issue.
It's always a good idea to implement both positive and negative reinforcement into your dog training regimen.
Here Are Three Easy Tips to Follow
1. Vary how you communicate with the dog when it misbehaves; don't just say "No." It really does make sense when you think about it. If the dog misbehaves, you must correct the bad behavior in a consistent manner. Using the word "NO" to stop him from peeing in the floor, jumping on strangers, or barking uncontrollably doesn't really teach the dog very much. Your dog will hear the word "NO", but will be unable to apply it's meaning to the ceasing of any one behavior, because you use it too broadly. Your poor little dog will be thinking, "NO. Okay mom. But NO what? WHAT am I doing bad or wrong? Does this mean I shouldn't jump? Could it mean Don't bark?" You can see how this would be problematic for your canine friend. It's much better to use specific commands when you want your dog to act in a specific way. For instance, use the word "quiet" when your dog is barking, and "off" when he or she jumps on someone. You will have much better results, and you dog won't be so befuddled all of the time.
2. Never use the name of your dog in a negative manner. If you use your dogs name to scold him, or while he is being punished, he will come to associate his name with bad things that are about to happen. This will train your dog to fear his name, and you as well. Let's make the previous statement applicable to our life. As a child, my parents commonly called me Annette, as that is my real true name. However, my mother would call me "Mary Jane" when I did something wrong. When I heard those words, I KNEW I was in trouble, and I would want to run and hide. This is how your dog will feel if you use his name in a negative manner.
3) If you decided to use hand signals in your dog training, you want to make sure to use each gesture with only one command. If you do not use a different signal for each command, your dog will be confused. Trust me!
Different behaviors require different words.
Look to this example for some great ideas:
* Ready - Means look at me, pay attention
* Sit - Means to sit on your bottom
* Stay - Means do not move
* Down -Means lay down with your belly to the floor
* Come - Means to come to me now
* Drop - Means take that out of your mouth
* Ouch - Means take your mouth from my hand
* Kennel Up - Means go to your crate
It's always better to have a plan of action ready, and know what you want to accomplish with your dog, before you begin. It's your duty as the master to focus on your animal and work to make him the best citizen he can be. Both of your lives will be richer and fuller because of it.
About the Author
Annette Masse, better known as Betty Bulldog, has been loving and respecting dogs for 25 years. Sign up for her complimentary course for you and your dog at ForTheLoveOfDogZ.com
SF Gate
One shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth because it would be incredibly rude to do so.
Understanding the origin of this common but quirky proverb helps to shed light on its meaning: as horses grow older their teeth begin to project slightly more forward each year. Their age can be estimated by checking how prominent the teeth are, therefore offering a good indication of value. (This incidentally is also the source of another teeth-related phrase, "long in the tooth.")
The receiver of the gift horse should instead express gratitude rather than trying to instantly examine its worth. (At the very least, it is recommended that the receiver wait until the giver is out of sight.)
A gift horse may also refer to unexpected good fortune. A modern-day example might be getting on an earlier flight home while flying standby and being grateful for your middle seat rather than complaining about not being by the window.
The phrase is often attributed to St. Jerome who sometime around 400 CE proportedly said, "Never inspect the teeth of a gift horse." Others claim that it was developed and written for the first time in 1546 as, "don't look a given horse in the mouth," by English writer John Heywood.
Funny Pet Names For Fish That Are Sure to Make You Laugh
by Mikael Rieck
If you have pet fish and enjoy the fun, serenity and peacefulness that they bring to your home and your life, you probably want to pick a name that makes you happy whenever you say it. What better way to enjoy your pet fish than give them a funny name that makes you laugh whenever you think of it?
Children love the thought of having pet fish, and letting them pick out funny pet names for fish can be a great way to do some family bonding and have some fun together. Your kids will love the fact that they get to be a part of naming the fish and will have a blast doing so. So how do you go about finding the perfect funny pet name for fish? You can start by making a list of the funniest words you know and let the kids step in and think of silly words that make them laugh. Next, you might want to consider the kind of fish it is and what the colors are, etc.
Next, think of a theme that you want to use for naming your funny fish. Do you want to play on words and name it something silly that rhymes? Or do you want to think of funny pet names for fish that are related to a favorite family cartoon fish or movie fish? Once you sit down and let your imagination run wild, you will be surprised with what you can come up with for funny pet names for fish.
If you need some help getting started in the naming process, here are some funny pet names for fish that are popular and you may want to consider for your pet fish:
* Snuggles * Fetch * Doogie * Mr. Bubbles * Fluffy * Lollipop * Princess * Scooter * Squiggles * Jaws * Cricket * Flapjack * Tiny Tim * Perky * Pinky * Aquarius * Bubble * Cheeky * Dribbles * Fizz * ET * Gumball * Jelly Bean * Pipsqueak * Wiggles * Abracadabra * Biggles * Gremlin * Ladybug * Mischief * Larry * Curly * Moe * Einstein * Moochie * Tarzan * Sherbert * Dickens * Santa * Uma * Zerzer * Zorro * Babe * Buster * Bub * Cujo * Cal * Carlo * Arthur * Apollo * Fred * Fin * Fin Flicker * Finny * Finegan * Flick * Funny Fins
If you still need some assistance after going through that list of funny pet names for fish, you can always compile a name based off of what each person in your family wants. One fun idea is to take a hat and everybody write down one name that they want to name the fish. Everyone puts the name into the hat and you shake them up. Next, take the names out of the hat one by one and lay them out on the table.
After each name is laid out on the table, everyone can go around making up a funny name that incorporates each of the names in the hat. You can end up with the longest, silliest name you have ever heard of for your fish, and everyone in the family will be happy that they had a role in naming the newest addition to the family. Since fish do not need to know their name to be trained like other family pets, your options are truly endless with long, silly or wacky that you want to make your funny pet names for fish be.
About the Author
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