Pet Knows

As a former journalism major in college, I was often asked to report on collegiate trends for class assignments. One of my favorites was a piece about pets and college students.

So, I decided to pull up the following story, “You Can’t Buy Pet Love” for a cameo on PetKnows because it serves as a good reminder that only responsible people should take care of animals. More often than not, college students, are not responsible. So feel free to share this story with any young person thinking about getting a pet - make sure they are ready for the added responsibility!

Note: The names are changed, but the stories are true.

“You Can’t Buy Pet Love“

University senior, Leslie, was sitting in Starbucks one evening doing her homework when her phone rang with urgent news.

“Leslie, I have some bad news,” said her roommate.

“Well, what is it?” she said.

“Nigel died.”

“What?! That’s perfect!” Leslie said.

Winter break was only two weeks away and she said that she had no idea how she was going to get her fish, Nigel, home for the holidays. She already expected him dead

“Wait, are you sure he’s dead? If he’s dead he should float,” Leslie said while sitting in the crowded coffee shop.

“Leslie, we just poked him with a pencil and then dragged him up the side of the bowl and he took a nose dive to the bottom of the tank,” her roommate said.

“No, wait, are you sure? He’s just a hard sleeper,” she said with almost believable concern.

“He’s definitely dead.”

“Ok, well take him out of the water and put him in the sink and see if he reacts,” Leslie added.

“He’s in the sink, he’s not moving.”

Nigel, her newly deceased pet, was the third fish to die in the past year under Leslie’s watch. First, it was Amelie, then Sylvan and now Nigel. All three fish cost about $10 to buy and take care of and each had a lifespan of about three months. She decided to keep buying the fish because they were cheap, easy to take care of and added a fun, lively accessory to her college dorm bathroom.

While many college students are still trying to just take care of themselves, a growing population of students wants to see if they have the ability to take care of something else too. Whether it is a nurturing instinct or a way out of boredom, more and more college students these days are finding ways to sneak the furry, fuzzy or fishy roommates into their dorm rooms. More often than not, however, when the initial excitement of having the pet wears off, the creatures are left with a doomed fate.

Candice, another GW student, bought a pet hamster she named Queen Peanut Butter. Queen Peanut Butter was cute, round and fluffy - a perfect mate for a small dorm room. Candice, however, quickly realized that their lifestyles did not work well together. While she thought that the white and brown hamster was cute, she said it was a bad decision to add another living thing to her matchbox size room. She also didn’t realized that hamsters are nocturnal. This posed a problem for Candice, and ultimately Queen Peanut Butter.

“I was a really bad ‘mom’ to my hamster,” she said. “But, it just got so annoying to hear her wheel squeaking all night long.”

Candice said that she contemplated getting rid of Queen Peanut Butter by leaving her in the park. It was in the middle of winter, however, and she said that she didn’t feel very good about leaving the helpless rodent in the cold. So she tried to move the cage into her bathroom, so that she wouldn’t hear the squeaky wheel.

Then, one day, her boyfriend, John, walked into her bathroom and saw the poor hamster curled up in the corner of the cage under some dirty sawdust. He grabbed her out of the cage and took her from the room. Candice raised no objection to the kidnapping and gave Queen Peanut Butter to a new home: the Fraternity House.

“I knew Candice didn’t like it and wanted to it to die,” he said. “So, I took it to try and save it.”

While John said he thought he was doing good by saving the hamster from its neglected existence, life in the fraternity house was not conducive to animals. The frat’s rambunctious activity only further agitated the hamster. Like Candice, he also didn’t realize that hamsters tend to sleep all day and stay up all night.

“It got to the point where I just wasn’t taking care of it because it was so annoying,” he said. “I decided that I was going to bring it to a park and leave it there, but then a friend told me to just bring it back to Petco.”

John said that when he brought it back to the Petco, the store didn’t want the uncared for creature, but a nice lady who owned a snake practically begged him for it.

“It was a little strange giving away the hamster to this lady with a snake,” he said. “We all knew what was going to happen to it, but didn’t really think there was any other option.”

Despite the bad experience with the hamster, John said he still wanted to have a pet to keep him company. After moving out of the fraternity house, he adopted a Calico kitten that he named Mya. The kitten had been found under a dumpster and had been saved by an animal rights group.

“She’s like having a little baby,” he said. “When she was a kitten, she would sleep with me.”

At this particular University, if you lived on campus in a dorm room, pets were illegal. However, busy students who have internships, jobs, and schoolwork and not enough time to socialize turn to cats, dogs, and fish to make their lives a little less lonely.

Carly, a senior at GW, felt that need for companionship two years ago when she bought Pansy, a two and a half pound, tri-colored Yorkshire Terrier. Pansy is referred to as a handbag dog because she fits inside some of the en vogue handbags.

Carly said that even though handbag dogs are a “big fad” right now, she grew up with a lot of dogs and missed having one at school. She got a small dog because she said it is a lot easier to deal with than a big dog.

“I don’t miss home as much,” she said. “So, I guess she’s working.”

Carly calls Pansy her “therapy” dog and said that while it is hard to believe she will have her for another 10 years, she couldn’t imagine life without her.

“I always talk to her like a person, she totally has her own personality,” she said.

Still, Pansy is no ordinary lassie. Carly said that she isn’t like a “real” dog because of her size and because she wears couture sweaters that cost up to $70 each. She also has a neck collar decorated with crystals and she is potty trained, so she can stay inside all day without needing to go for a walk.

“She is kind of a bratty dog. If she’s not in the mood, she’s not going to sit, no matter how many times you ask her.”

Carly said that she has never had any problems with University housing inspections because they are not very thorough in their search for “illegal items.” She said that she can usually just put Pansy in the kitchen sink cabinet and no one ever finds her. She also said that she thinks that perhaps the reason people want to get pets in college is because of the city environment.

“I feel like the city is a weird place because you don’t ever see animals,” she said. “Even people who live in the city don’t really have pets, because there is no grass. Every time I’m out with her, people are always like, ‘Oh my, a dog!”

With Earth Day being this week, I was trying to think of ways that we have gone “green” in the care of our kitty, Matilda. As a couple that is slowly making lifestyle changes in order to become more environmentally friendly I thought there must be something we have done. But after giving this a lot of consideration I realized that we haven’t done anything to change the care for her like we have in the rest of our lives.

Matilda is an indoor kitty that loves to eat, cuddle, nap and play games. We do not have many supplies for her other than the essentials, so I started to wonder what more we can do and thought about the obvious – cat litter. Have you ever wondered where all that used kitty litter goes? I didn’t until now, but after doing some research I’ve decided that Matilda needs a change. Eco-friendly cat litters are those made out of plant-based material such as corn, wheat, recycled newspapers or wood chips. And best of all, they are much friendlier on the environment than clay litter.

One of the most popular seems to be SwheatScoop wheat litter. Not only is it scoopable (which is a must for me) but it’s also 100% biodegradable, 100% compostable and sewer and septic safe. It sounds like a great option to me and one that I’m going to try out on my kitty. I found a few other green options if Matilda does not enjoy SweatScoop. And of course there is always the Cat Genie!

Poop soup (yes, you heard me correctly) started innocently enough in the spring of 2003. My wife and I had just brought home our puppy and he was prolific in his waste production. The reason for his productivity was due to the recommended serving size on the pet food bag. It was considerably more than he needed at the time…..

But we’ll get back to that at a later date.

Living in a townhouse with no yard to speak of, we walked our lab in the common area behind our house. For the first two weeks we scooped his poop and disposed of the waste in a plastic trashcan lined with a plastic garbage bag. The idea was to dispose of the bag when it became full. Seemed like a good idea at the time, with no drawbacks we could think of….

Then came the rain - lots of it. Rain and then the pollen - two things that anyone who has lived in Washington, D.C. in the springtime will remember without hesitation. This spring was no different. But, after a week of heavy rain, the skies finally cleared and DC was rewarded with 80 degree weather for the next month. We were rewarded with something completely different: poop soup.

So, poop soup had been born. Weighing approximately 25 pounds now due to 3 gallons of water and dozens of poops, the smell was deafening. Sir Didymus and Ambrosius of Labyrinth fame would have been proud as this was my personal version of the Bog of Eternal Stench.

I determined the only safe place for disposal would be the Montgomery County Solid Waste Transfer Station. I felt like Eddie Murphy in the Golden Child as I slowly carried it around the house and safely secured it in the back our old SUV. My wife and I rode together with our heads out the window and 30 minutes later I heaved the toxic bouillabaisse into the waste container.

You’re probably asking yourself by now why I have ruined your day with my story about poop soup - but I swear I have a reason! Earth Day was yesterday and since we’ve already shown you an example of biodegradable bags I wanted to post an alternative solution: Doggie Dooley Pet Waste Disposal System for those readers who may encounter a similar situation to poop soup and don’t know what to do.

Designed to be a septic tank for your dog’s waste, you basically dig a hole in your yard and install the Dooley into the ground. By adding water and the “digester powder” the Dooley comes to life and naturally breaks down the feces. According to the PetSmart website, the Dooley is an environmentally-approved system that is “non-toxic, non-caustic and safe for all domestic animals. Harmless to lawns, pets, and shrubs”.

Good luck to all of you dog owners out there - remember to always pick up after your pets and be mindful of the environment (and your neighbors) when disposing of the waste.

April 22 is Earth Day and its all Pets’ Birthdays! At least it is according to PetSmart.  Stop by any store from 6p - 8p for all the fun, festivities, photos and goodie bags and a great big sale.  There is even a party hat contest.  What fun!

While you are there check out their green pet products like the doggie bags Claudia mentioned in the previous post.  

Thanks to Crystal at MoneySavingMom for posting this great event.

In honor of Earth Day, we have decided to go green this week and focus a bit on caring for the environment.

I would always use my old plastic grocery bags as doggie bags on walks with Mosby since they were free and I always seemed to have a ton of them.  But I started running out of them after jumping on the No-Plastic-Bag trend a couple of years ago. So what was I to do with my dog’s “business”? A little bit of internet research took me to Bio Bags, 100% biodegradable doggie bags. The bags are made from corn, and come in a 100% recyclable box. Bio Bags also makes kitchen trash bags, shopping bags, and lawn & leaf bags if you want to use less plastic elsewhere in your house!  If you don’t want to order them online, most major pet stores carry other lines of these biodegradable bags as well.  So next time you take your dog out for a walk, think about being a bit more eco-friendly by leaving behind a little less!

As raw food for pets becomes all the rage, PetKnows wants to start a conversation on the issue. In upcoming PetKnows posts, we’ll digest (pun intended) the raw food debate and try to get down to the brass tacks of the issue: is raw just a fad or here to stay???

RawFed has done some great work on the myths surrounding raw food. My favorite: “I’m not knowledgeable enough to make my dog’s food.” (Me neither! I can barely make my own human food!)

Also here are a few books on the subject, in case you want to add more bark to your bite:

• Work Wonders: Feed your Dog Raw Meaty Bones By Tom Lonsdale
• Raw Dog Food: Make it Easy for You and Your Dog By Carina Beth McDonald
• The BARF Diet Give Your Dog a Bone By Dr. Ian Billinghurst
• Ultimate Diet: Natural Nutrition for Dogs and Cats By Kymythy Schultz

There are many more resources out there, so if you have any to share, please do! Also, stay tuned for upcoming posts from PetKnows about the raw food debate and find out what each pet lover thinks of the subject.

Every animal has a favorite toy and Matilda’s happens to be something that she never lays her paws on, a laser light. What is it about the laser light that casts a red glow on the floor that captures her attention so intently? I have seen the phenomenon with many cats, the laser comes out and they are suddenly fixed on it waiting for the red light to appear and the game to begin. Matilda is no exception to this. No matter what room she is in, she hears the jingle of the light’s chain and comes running in anticipation of what is about to begin. She never tires from the game and it’s not until I grow bored that the light is put away and the fun has ended.

Some say this could be a way of exercise for your kitty but that is not why I originally bought the laser light for Matilda, it was recommended as a fun game. However, now that the vet has said she needs to lose 3 pounds I have been using it to get her moving and running. She will play for as long as I will and it’s a great form of exercise for her! Another game we play involves a toy with feathers on the end that I use to get her leaping, jumping and moving across the room. She has fun and doesn’t even realize she’s getting exercise! For more exercises for your kitty take a look at this list on the Cat Channel. There are lots of great ideas!

Welcome to our first guest post here at PetKnows!  This comes from a colleague, pet owner and dear friend of ours, Lisa and her two pups - Cowboy and Scooby.  Enjoy.  Let us know if you are interested in guest blogging for PetKnows.

If you’re anything like me, you have a demanding schedule that often affects your pets. Did you know that, if not stimulated, a dog’s otherwise excellent disposition can be destroyed by everyday boredom? Yes, we all take our dogs for the morning and evening jaunts (hopefully), but like us humans, these guys need some quality entertainment to keep ‘em sharp.

Enter the dog toy.

It can be anything from your old smelly sweatshirt, a high-pitched squeaky chew or, in Cowboy’s case, the elusive tennis ball.

“Don’t even THINK about it, buddy.” Scooby (right) is not amused

When choosing dog toys, I typically recommend the D.E.A.D. rule of thumb (as in I don’t want them to end up):

- Durable. Don’t give them anything you’ve cherished because it’ll be shredded in a matter of hours.

- Engaging. Interactive is key. Dogs aren’t as dumb as they look, only as dumb as they are. Huh? Exactly.

- Appropriate. Ever pass by the huge basted bone in the pet store and were tempted to get it for your Chihuahua? Don’t. Think size appropriate as you would with a child.

- Digestible. If they’re using their mouths to play with it, they’ll most likely try to eat it.

If you follow the “childproofing” mantra in your toy selection, you’ll ensure the safety of your dogs, not to mention your own sanity by avoiding the inevitable trip to the emergency vet. Most pet stores offer great and safe pet toy solutions but remain cautious about your dog’s “alone time” with the toys, especially with toy stuffing or embedded squeakers.

And remember, if it’s too quiet in the next room, it’s usually a bad thing.

I love my dog like a son, but his breath smells like something died in his mouth. He may not be able to talk about it, but I can tell he doesn’t like it either. His teeth are professionally cleaned at least once a year and sometimes every six months – depending on the vet’s recommendations and the level of stench. I get nervous about anesthetizing him for any reason, but this is the only way to get under the gum where the trouble hides. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, this article gives a thorough explanation of the cleaning process and why dogs need it.

Above is a photo of what his teeth currently look like – definitely not in good shape. His gums are inflamed and there is noticeable buildup. I’ll be sure to post an “after” photo to show how much plaque is removed during the cleaning. My goal to keep his teeth clean after his next procedure (sort of like quitting smoking on New Years except this is doggie dental health starting on Tax Day). I’ve seen a bunch of recommendations for keeping your dog’s teeth clean including sticks, toys and brushing their teeth. Having tried most of them without any measurable success, I need to find another solution. First step is the professional cleaning, and we’ll go from there - stay tuned for more updates.

Having been well-trained by Darby and Lilly, I have now mastered what toys, products, and other key cat owner items are crucial to maintaining your sanity while caring for kitties. I’ve listed them below. Don’t bother with any other fancy products or even variations and add-ons to the items on this list – trust me it’s a waste of your hard earned dollars!

Litter Necessities

The Litter Locker

Good clumping litter (not flushable)

Stink-Free

Frugal Favorite: Scoop immediately and use paper lunch bags for kitty waste

Toys

The Cat Dancer

Kitty Hoots

The Laser

Frugal Favorite: A crumpled piece of paper provides hours of enjoyment

Shedding Control

Lint Roller

The Furminator

Pet Hair Sponge

Swiffer Sweeper

Frugal Favorite: Wipe your cat with a slightly dampened paper towel daily and use rubber gloves on the furniture to remove pet hair

Stain Removal

Nature’s Miracle

Spot Shot

Frugal Favorite: The good old fashioned way – a little club soda, blotting, and a touch of liquid soap if needed

Furball Maintenance

Hairball Remedy Paste – be sure to introduce it as a treat!

Frugal Favorite: A little pumpkin puree (not the pre-made pie filler, actual pumpkin puree) or the water from a can of tuna

What are your ‘can’t-live-without’ kitty products?