Advice on how to keep your pet healthy and happy.

Things to Do

pets-health

As the temperature&nbsp;rises, everyone seems to get a little uncomfortable. Dogs especially have trouble with the heat, because they are unable to release heat by sweating as humans do. Fourtunately, there are many things you can do as a owner to avoid letting the heat take a toll on your pup's health. Here&nbsp;is a list of tips on how to&nbsp;keep your dog safe this spring/summer, courtesy of The American Kennel Club. &nbsp; 
<h2>HEAT HAZARDS</h2> 
-If your dog is outside on a hot day, make sure he has a shady spot to rest in. Doghouses are not good shelter during the summer as they can trap heat. You may want to fill a child's wading pool with fresh water for your dog to cool off in. 
-Never leave your dog in a closed vehicle on a hot day. The temperature inside a car can rise to over 100 degrees in a matter of minutes. 
-Always provide plenty of cool, fresh water. 
-Avoid strenuous exercise on extremely hot days. Take walks in the early mornings or evenings, when the sun's heat is less intense. 
-Try to avoid prolonged exposure to hot asphalt or sand, which can burn your dog's paws. 
-Dogs that are brachycephalic (short-faced), such as Bulldogs, Boxers, Japanese Chins, and Pekingese, have an especially hard time in the heat because they do not pant as efficiently as longer-faced dogs. Keep your brachycephalic dog inside with air-conditioning. 
<h2>BEACH TIPS &amp; WATER SAFETY</h2> 
-Dogs, especially those with short hair, white fur, and pink skin, can sunburn. Limit your dog's exposure during the day and apply sunblock to his ears and nose 30 minutes before going outside. 
-Check with a lifeguard for daily water conditions. Dogs are easy targets for sea lice and jellyfish. 
-Do not let your dog drink seawater; the salt will make him sick. 
-Most dogs enjoy swimming, but some cannot swim, and others may hate the water. Be conscious of your dog's preferences and skills before trying to make him swim. 
-Never throw your dog into the water. 
-If swimming at the ocean, be careful of strong tides. 
-If you have your own pool, make sure your dog knows where the stairs or ladder are located. Be sure that pool covers are firmly in place; dogs have been known to slip in under openings in the covers and drown. 
-Never leave your dog unattended in water. 
For more summer dog tips, visit the AKC at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.akc.org" target="_blank">www.akc.org</a>.

Tips for keeping your dog safe in the summer heat

Tips to keep dogs safe in the heat

Doggie Sunglasses

doggie glasses cropped

Vacation means warm beaches, breezy campgrounds, posh spas — a break from daily stress and a great way to unwind and leave our cares behind. 
Unless you have a pet. 
Fido or Fluffy, beloved as they are, can throw a wrench into the best-laid vacation plans. Few of us want to leave our pets in a traditional kennel’s cages for days or weeks at a time, and traveling with them can be difficult, if not impossible. 
But that’s changing as more people are taking pets with them or finding what’s been deemed “luxury boarding,” which turns the traditional kennel on its ear with accommodations that mimic home or even a fancy hotel for humans. 
Jodi Miller, owner of Stay Pet Resort in Hanover, Md., says she opened her boarding business when she couldn’t find a kennel she liked for her dog. 
“Boarding has changed with the way the world has changed how it accepts dogs,” she says. “Dogs and pets are part of the family, and they do everything with us. The days when dogs were out in the backyard in a doghouse are long gone.” 
She modeled her boarding facility after a hotel, offering amenities that rival those of first-class resorts: Dogs get king-sized beds, flat-screen televisions, a garden area and webcams in their rooms; owners are given codes to tune in and watch their pets anytime online. 
Each dog has a suite where it sleeps and eats, but most choose to play outside. “The owners don’t see much,” Miller acknowledges, “because the dogs are out playing the whole day. That’s what we want.” 
Rates start at $55 per night for a luxury suite and $95 per night for a private villa. The pet resort can accommodate 100 animals at a time, and it offers sanitation and cleaning that Miller modeled after hospital procedures. Stay is also a 24/7 facility, which Miller says has been key: People don’t want to leave their pets for a minute longer than necessary, and they want to pick them up the second they return from their own travels. 
“We’ve tapped into an underserved market,” she says. “People were really looking for this, but they didn’t really know what they were looking for.” 
She says the proof that luxury boarding works is evident when a dog owner’s vacation is over and it’s time to pick up the pet. 
“A dog will never lie,” she says. “We have many clients whose dogs will greet them in the lobby, and then turn around and run back down the hall to play some more. We’ve had dogs who had to be practically dragged to their cars. That to me is a benchmark that this works.” 
While boarders have stepped up their game, many vacationers prefer to take their pets with them, a trends that experts say is growing quickly. 
A recent survey by Petplan pet insurance found that 80 percent of respondents planned to travel with their pets this year — up from 10 percent from 2012. (Another finding: 53 percent of people surveyed would rather vacation with their pets than their human partners.) Thirty percent said they planned to take their pets with them while visiting relatives. 
The hotel industry, keen to the trend, is making efforts to go beyond simple “pet friendly,” knowing that for pet owners, the friendlier, the better. 
In Baltimore, the Hotel Monaco welcomes dogs and cats with open arms. 
“When you call, our reservationist gathers information about your pet,” says Joe Pagone, the hotel’s general manager. “Pets checking in are welcomed by name, just like their people.” 
While the Hotel Monaco, a Kimpton hotel, reserves several floors for guests traveling without pets and those with allergies, dogs and cats are welcome throughout the rest of the property. They sleep in hotel-provided plush pet beds, eat from complimentary bowls, and enjoy free treats at check-in and during the property’s daily complimentary wine reception, to which pets are invited. 
Guests traveling with pets are also given door hangers for their rooms to let staff know there’s an animal inside, complimentary bags for walking, lists of pet-friendly restaurants and attractions nearby, and the Pet Times newspaper, which includes tips for area parks for walking or playing. 
“We try to make it fun for everyone,” says Pagone, who says hotel employees are encouraged to bring pets to work if they want to keep an eye on them instead of leaving them at home all day. The hotel has also partnered with several local dog-sitting services to offer daycare for travelers whose daily adventures might not be pet-friendly — on a hot day, for example. 
“Quite a few of our visitors bring pets,” he says. “They bring them for weekends and when they’re traveling during the week. It’s hard to go away for pet owners. Boarding dogs is expensive, and nobody wants to board a member of their family.” 
Dogs are welcomed at no extra charge at the Hotel Monaco, says Pagone. “It’s fun and exciting,” he says. “Pets are an extension of our guests’ families.” 
Kimpton isn’t the only hotel chain offering pet-friendly vacations. In Atlantic City, N.J., Harrah’s Resort Regional President Rick Mazer says the chain’s PetStay program has become one of its most popular amenities. 
PetStay, available at many of the company’s Las Vegas resorts and now in Atlantic City, offers a check-in area for dogs and an in-room package that includes bowls, treats, a room door hanger, a mat for napping and a crate. 
“It’s been amazingly well-received,” he says. “It’s amazing that in Las Vegas, where many people come by plane, it’s been very popular.” The Flamingo, which was the program’s debut property, doubled its pet-friendly rooms twice because of high demand. 
“There’s no doubt that our society loves its pets,” Mazer says. “We love our dogs and we love our cats. Accommodating them is something we’re doing more and more.”

pets-kennels

Pets in paradise: Upscale kennels for Fido take off

Stay Pet Resort-CROPPED

Harley was the bulldog’s name. He was pronounced dead at baggage claim at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last year despite a passenger’s attempt at cardiopulmonary resuscitation. 
Two months later, a mixed-breed Rottweiler arrived lifeless at Sea-Tac in his chewed-out kennel, dead of what later was diagnosed as aspiration pneumonia. And at Logan International Airport in Boston, a male cat named Daunte twice escaped from his kennel before he could be loaded into the cargo hold; he was found the next day after a ramp vehicle had struck him dead. 
The three were among at least 62 animals that died, were injured or lost since 2010 while being flown aboard Alaska Airlines, a tally that makes the Seattle-based company one of the nation’s leading carriers in recent years for reported pet casualties. 
Only Delta, the nation’s busiest airline, with six times Alaska’s passenger traffic, reported more incidents, 74, to the U.S. Department of Transportation during the same period. But for 2013 and for the first seven months of this year, Alaska topped the casualty rankings. 
The reasons for Alaska’s number of victims are unclear. The company suspects it may handle more than its share of animals. Alaska is practically the house airline in its namesake state, where residents have few alternatives for shipping their pets long distances. 
Alaska, the nation’s ninth-largest carrier by passenger traffic, has one of the industry’s most pet-friendly policies. It offers “Fur-st Class Care” for most small domesticated pets, including potbellied pigs, birds, hamsters, turtles and nonvenomous snakes, either in the passenger cabin or in the plane’s climate-controlled cargo hold. Several domestic carriers, including JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines and US Airways, do not accept even dogs or cats as cargo. 
Alaska also is one of few airlines to accept snub-nosed dogs, breeds that are more susceptible to heatstroke and respiratory issues. 
Bobbie Egan, spokeswoman for Alaska, said the company ferries about 80,000 pets annually, virtually all of them without a hitch. She said Alaska employees are specially trained and follow strict federal guidelines to ensure safety. 
“Transporting pets, whether in the cabin or as checked baggage in our cargo hold, to us is just like transporting a family member,” she said. 
In all, Alaska and other U.S. carriers count several dozen animal injuries, losses or deaths annually — a minuscule fraction of the estimated several hundred thousand animals transported by air. 
In the vast majority of incidents, pets suffer unexplained deaths or hurt themselves while attempting to escape their kennels. Airlines are rarely found to be at fault. 
The Transportation Department figures, however, capture only a partial safety picture. That’s because the federal agency currently requires tracking only for household pets. That exempts scores of other animals, including those bound for pet stores or research labs. 
Starting Jan. 1, the department will require airlines to fill in some — but not all — of the missing data. That’s when airlines for the first time will have to report the total number of animals they handle, finally making it possible to calculate complaint rates. 
More significant, the agency expanded incident-reporting requirements to include not only all warm-and coldblooded household pets, but dogs and cats shipped by breeders and suppliers to retailers and researchers. 
The rule changes come four years after the Animal Legal Defense Fund petitioned the agency to close loopholes it said camouflaged the true extent of risks to animals. Three U.S. senators, including Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., also urged the department to expand incident reports to animals that aren’t pets. 
The National Association of Biomedical Research opposed the proposed rules as an “unnecessary” burden and cost to carriers, breeders and research facilities. Airlines for America, whose members include Alaska and most other major airlines as well as UPS and FedEx, lodged similar objections. 
The Transportation Department finally decided to exempt commercial shipments of animals other than dogs and cats from reporting requirements. That was a setback for animal-welfare organizations that had argued to include, for example, monkeys and other primates bound for laboratories. 
Animal-welfare experts generally consider flying inherently stressful, and they recommend against cargo flights. 
Carter Dillard, director of litigation for the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), said numerous variables make it difficult to draw conclusions about any one airline’s safety record. The animals’ health, total length of trip, extreme temperatures and other factors can play a role. 
ALDF’s original petition for expanded mandatory reporting was triggered by the August 2010 death of seven puppies shipped by a breeder in Tulsa, Okla., during a heat wave. But because the dogs were classified as a commercial shipment, American Airlines did not have to record the fatalities. 
Dillard contends that the Transportation Department adopted a selective definition for animals to appease carriers, research institutes and universities. 
“The whole point is to get a complete picture of the risks to animals,” he said. 
Flying has been shown to be particularly hazardous to short-nosed or snub-nosed dogs. The breeds, which include French and English bulldogs, pugs, Boston terriers and shih tzus, by Alaska’s calculations accounted for nearly 40 percent of its 16 pet deaths during the past two years. 
United Airlines accepts short-nosed breeds as checked baggage, but Delta and American Airlines do not. Egan said Alaska is reviewing its policy on such breeds. 
Mary Beth Melchior, founder of Where is Jack?, a pet travel safety-advocacy group in Miami Beach, Fla., said Alaska and its competitors can do more to avert potential harm. One way would be to refuse pets as cargo if they seem unfit to fly. 
Another way, she said, would be to better train baggage and cargo workers, who in some cases are employed by outside contractors. 
–––– 
YOUR PETS IN FLIGHT 
Your dog, cat, rabbit or other household pet can fly with you — but not on all airlines, not to all destinations and not at all times. So check your carrier’s policy on whether it accepts pets in the passenger cabin only or in the baggage compartment, whether pets can fly international routes, or in hot or cold months. 
Animal-welfare experts generally advise against transporting pets by plane. If you must, here’s how you can ease the stress of flying: 
––Check whether you need a health certificate and a rabies-vaccination certificate from a vet. Document requirements vary by states and other destinations. 
––Animals flying in the passenger cabin must be small enough to stow their kennels under the seat. 
––Avoid connecting flights and don’t travel during times of extreme temperatures. 
––Sedation is not recommended, as it can cause problems for animals in high altitudes. 
––Make sure the kennel is large enough for the animal to stand up straight and turn around. 
––Kennels should be well-built and escape-proof.

pets-airlines

Airlines offer only partial picture of animal safety on flights

pet-CROPPED

It’s exercise time at Whole Animal Gym (WAG) in the Queen Village neighborhood of Philadelphia, and jumping up onto the equipment is a yellow Labrador retriever, ready for her weekly workout. 
But Lucy’s workout includes an unconventional routine — hydrotherapy, which utilizes an underwater treadmill and occasionally, a squirt of Easy Cheese as a motivational treat. 
Lucy is an agility dog that had to put her competition career on hold after developing lumbosacral disease, a condition that creates soreness and weakness in the lower back. 
Within two years using the services at the gym, the friendly lab was able to enter and qualify for an agility event, says her owner, Barbara Silverstein. 
In addition to hydrotherapy, Lucy use cavaletti rails, a series of obstacles that help with mobility and balance, as a way to help condition the rear part of her body. 
“There’s no question in my mind this place has helped,” said Silverstein, as she filled up the water tank while Lucy patiently awaited her day’s workout. 
Whole Animal Gym’s owners say Lucy is just one of the success stories at the facility, where holistic treatments are used as a complementary treatment alongside traditional Western medicine. 
WAG was opened in 2010 by husband-and-wife team Dr. Christina Fuoco, a veterinarian, and Chad Carnahan, the director of operations. The center serves as a referral service to the veterinary community, with a goal to get the word out about all that they offer and to educate the general public on how to keep their pets healthy and happy. 
Its owners say WAG is the only veterinary rehabilitation facility in Philadelphia that welcomes all animals, and offers hydrotherapy, acupuncture, a full dog gym, ultrasound, and laser treatments. 
Whether a pet is brought in for weight loss or acupuncture for arthritis, WAG’s promise is for all pets to have an environment where they can work on pain management and enforce a healthy and active lifestyle. 
Leigh Siegfried, certified pet dog trainer, said that she sends clients’ dogs to WAG. 
It could be an owner looking to increase the quality of life for an older pet or a dog in need of postoperative therapy after a hip surgery, but any pet can benefit from the services at the center, Siegfried said. 
“It’s nice to have a person like (Fuoco) that is experienced and can take a look at any dog, any age,” said Siegfried. 
WAG was named best dog gym in Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly 2013. 
Clients like Dubi, a 7-year-old golden retriever with no cartilage in his back legs and arthritis in his joints, also appear pleased with the gym and the holistic services it offers. Dubi undergoes acupuncture, herbal treatments and physical therapy. 
Fuoco said that receiving help from both medication and the services at WAG has helped keep pain and inflammation down in his joints, and overall he is able to stay active and playful. 
Fuoco said recently the American Veterinary Medical Association has recognized sports medicine as an up-and-coming form of medicine in the canine industry, and that rehab and physical therapy is a newer field in veterinary medicine. 
Hydrotherapy is a form of this medicine, and Dubi uses the underwater treadmill so he can continue to use his muscles freely, without risk of injury. 
His owner, Rachel Smith, said that when they used to live in California, Dubi was always out hiking on trails and mountains. Over time, due to his arthritis, Dubi sometimes can’t even walk down the stairs. 
“After his hydrotherapy (at WAG), he’ll run around in crazy circles,” said Smith. “It’s amazing to have friends tell me they can see a difference.” 
The underwater treadmill doesn’t just benefit the dogs that are in for rehabilitation; it is also useful for those pooches looking to lose extra pounds. 
Fuoco said the challenging part is getting the pet’s exercise to fit in with their owner’s schedule, which is why the gym allows for flexible scheduling and recently added a pet “gym membership” to make visits more frequent and affordable. 
For clients looking to help their pets lose weight, WAG staff will assess the animal to create a plan of action, as weight has emerged as an increasing health issue. Nationwide, 52.6 percent of dogs and 57.2 percent of cats are overweight or obese, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. 
WAG will teach pet owners how they can make feeding adjustments and choose healthy alternatives at home. The overweight dog also will come in to use the underwater treadmill, which lightens the weight on the animal’s limbs while exercising. 
The gym’s staff not only strives to meet the needs of every furry friend (and the iguana client that comes in for acupuncture), but they also educate pet owners and the public about the best ways they can take care of their four-legged friends. 
“Whether they were in for acupuncture or an evaluation, we send a report back to their practitioner so they know what we are doing is a complement to what they are doing,” said Fuoco. “We are complementing what the Western world knows about medicine.”

pets-gym

Gym offers ‘sports medicine’ for pets; iguanas welcome

wag-CROPPED

Lindsay Owen has never had a better understanding of her French bulldog Utley. &nbsp; 
Thanks to an activity tracker for dogs created by California-based Whistle, the Brooklyn resident can monitor his every walk, nap or trip to the doggie bowl. &nbsp; 
“We can tell when he is just walking around, playing around the house, or when he’s outside,” said the Brooklynite, who hires a walker to care for Utley. “It can track a lot that you don’t even know yourself.” 
The $129 device, which attaches to any dog collar and pairs with a smartphone app, has been described as a "FitBit" for dogs. 
But Ben Jacobs, the founder of the company, says its use goes beyond merely tracking activity. 
“The goal of Whistle is really to provide better preventative care for pet owners and veterinarians,” Jacobs said. He claims the data produced by the device can lead to insights about dog behavior that could be signs of illness that a pet wouldn’t be able to communicate on its own. 
“Whistle is really giving a voice to these animals for the first time,” he said. 
To that end, Whistle encourages dog owners to share the data with their veterinarians. The software also compares the data of dog breeds to determine whether behavior is normal or abnormal. 
All of this monitoring can make dog owners act a lot like helicopter parents. &nbsp; 
Owen admits she checks up on Utley using the Whistle smartphone app several times a day. 
“Maybe I’m just an obsessive dog owner,” she said. “I like to see what my little guy is up to.”

AMDOG26

Whistle tracking device: 'FitBit for dogs' lets you track your pet's every move

amny utley the dog

With 25 years in the business, Tom Bolbach has a pretty good feel for what dogs and cats are eating these days. 
And in the past five years, he’s witnessed a marked shift toward foods with more beef and chicken and less corn and soybeans. 
“Everybody’s coming out with grain-free now,” said Bolbach, who owns Pet Connection in St. Louis. “Dogs are carnivores. Same with cats. You want to have some meat in there for them.” 
It’s a shift driven by customers such as Cindy Hausman, who sees her pets more as family members than animals. 
On a recent afternoon, she talked about how she picks food for her two dogs — Diesel and Dixie — as she selected a bag made by Diamond, a small Missouri-based firm touting recipes heavy on meat and vegetables. 
“What makes me like it? Corn is not the No. 1 ingredient,” said Hausman, who’s willing to pay a little more for what she believes is a tastier option. “They don’t have to be bribed into eating it. They don’t expect table scraps in their food.” 
That concern over what we feed our pets has transformed the industry in recent years. It also has a lot to do, observers say, with St. Louis-based Nestle Purina Petcare Co. and its decision last month to challenge a smaller, but rapidly growing, competitor in federal court. 
The lawsuit, which accuses Connecticut-based Blue Buffalo of false advertising, is essentially a fight over the upper tier of the pet food market — the fastest-growing segment of the $23 billion industry. 
Almost half of that value falls within the premium dog and cat food categories, which are projected to grow 18 percent and 15 percent, respectively, by 2019, according to Euromonitor International. The economy markets are expected to remain essentially flat during the same time frame, while the mid-priced categories are projected to show modest single-digit growth. 
These market trends demonstrate what most of us already know. Long gone are the days when people parked their pets outdoors like domesticated livestock. 
“Today, people don’t only bring them inside; they dress them up for Halloween. They sleep with them,” said Mike Sagman, owner and editor of the website Dog Food Advisor. 
The site, which isn’t weighing in on the Purina-Blue Buffalo dispute, tries to help pet owners with their food decisions, by reviewing hundreds of product lines, based on the ingredients listed on labels. 
“This is the age of choice,” he said. “And it’s become a nightmare for people to choose.” 
Helping customers make those decisions also has been a part of Blue Buffalo’s marketing, as it challenges the quality of products made by what it refers to as “big name” competitors. Among the things offered by Blue Buffalo is a website application that compares its foods to specific competitors, including Purina. 
Blue Buffalo, which declined to comment for this report, was started in 2002 by William Bishop. The company has grown quickly and now commands 5 percent of the nation’s pet food market, according court filings. That growth appears set to continue, with the firm — now majority-owned by the investment firm Invus Group — looking into an initial public offering that could value the company at $2 billion, according to a report in March by Financial Times. 
The company argues that its success is why it’s being targeted by its larger rival, a division of Swiss-based Nestle, which had more than $92 billion in sales last year — with more than $12 billion of that coming from its pet care division. In comparison, Blue Buffalo’s revenue was reportedly in the $600 million range. 
“Unable to compete on the merits of its ingredients or products, or for the hearts and minds of today’s pet food consumers, Nestle Purina has decided to wage a nationwide advertising smear campaign,” Blue Buffalo said in its countersuit. 
Purina, whose brands include Beneful and Dog Chow, disagrees. 
“Yes, Blue Buffalo has gained market share. But Blue Buffalo simply isn’t playing by the rules,” said Keith Schopp, a company spokesman. “We have been competing fairly for 85 years. But Blue Buffalo went too far.” 
Purina’s lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, accuses its rival of including ingredients such as corn and chicken byproducts — things such as necks, feet and intestines — despite claims to the contrary. The ingredients were discovered by an independent lab after Purina decided to put Blue Buffalo’s aggressive advertising to the test, Schopp said. 
“We wanted to see what we might learn,” he said. 
Blue Buffalo has blasted the testing as “voodoo science” while reiterating its ad claims. 
This isn’t the company’s first run-in with angry competitors. 
Others, including Kansas-based Hill’s Pet Nutrition Inc. have complained about the company’s tactics. In March, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, the investigative arm of the self-regulating advertising industry, ruled that Blue Buffalo was engaging in misleading ad practices regarding some of its claims about rival products and recommended changes. 
And now the company finds itself having to fend off consumer lawsuits as well. 
Two of them were filed in federal court — one in Missouri, the other in Illinois — just one day after Purina filed its lawsuit. 
The suits, which seek class-action status, follow the same line of attack as Purina’s, with allegations of misleading labels. 
“They’re making a lot of bold misrepresentations. In some cases it might be straight-out fraud,” said Ryan Keane, an attorney with the Simon Law Firm, which is representing clients in both cases. 
Keane would not go into detail about the cases, but he said his firm has not yet done its own testing of Blue Buffalo’s food. 
He noted his firm previously sued Purina over the Beneful dog food line, accusing it of causing illness and death for some pets. That suit was dismissed earlier this year in a decision that’s being appealed. 
“Our firm has been looking at dog food cases for a while,” Keane said. 
These sorts of fights aren’t all that unusual in the business world, where intense competition can drive companies to act if they believe a rival is acting inappropriately. 
“There’s a lot of money at stake,” said Yvette Liebesman, an assistant professor at the St. Louis University law school. “Why wouldn’t they want to make sure that it’s stopped?” 
Liebesman pointed to another case in which Pom Wonderful is suing Coca-Cola Co. over claims made by the soft-drink giant about its Blueberry Pomegranate drink. 
In that case, which was considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, Pom accuses Coca-Cola of false advertising because the drink is 99.4 percent apple and grape juice. Coca-Cola’s defense is that its label meets the requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, leaving no grounds for a lawsuit by Pom. 
The Supreme Court ruled last week that Pom may sue Coca-Cola, essentially deciding that when it comes to food labels, federal laws governing false advertising take precedence over the FDA. 
Both cases, though, demonstrate the value of these sorts of legal actions, even if the parties have selfish motivations, said Rebecca Tushnet, a law professor at Georgetown University and author of 43(b)log, a blog dedicated to happenings in the realm of false advertising. (The 43 is a reference to a section of the Lanham Act.) 
We have a system that almost requires businesses to police each other, because consumers, and often government regulators, lack the resources needed to do the job, Tushnet said. 
“In some cases, other competitors are the only avengers left,” she said.

pets-purina

What’s behind Purina’s big-money fight with Blue Buffalo

purina-CROPPED

You might call it doggy tech. 
Social networks, software applications, photo sharing, information tools, messaging, and even collars to monitor your dog’s health have begun to sprout amid a surge in spending on pets. 
“There is some exciting stuff coming out of the app world for dog lovers that goes beyond just being social with other dog owners,” said Leslie May, principal analyst and founder of Pawsible Marketing, a Georgia-based firm that provides consulting services for pet-related businesses. 
The new digital tools for dog owners are more than fun and frivolity. 
The Dog Land app, which is free, is a social network that enables people to find and rate services and facilities for their dogs, such as dog parks, animal shelters and dog-friendly hotels and restaurants. People can chat with other dog owners as well as share photographs. 
“We want to improve the lives of dog owners,” said Gareth Wilson, president and creative director of Los Angeles-based BetterPet, which created the Dog Land app. “We want our product to be more than a novelty.” 
Lesley Ramos, a Santa Cruz resident with a dog named Bob, uses an app called Dog Park Finder, which provides an array of information for traveling short or long distances with a canine. 
“The Dog Park Finder app is specifically for dogs and covers everything from dog parks, dog-friendly places like parks and restaurants, all the way down to hotels that allow dogs,” Ramos said. “It has lists with icons that show the user if it’s a fenced dog park, or on-leash area. Its database is pretty good and is constantly being updated.” 
Dog Park Finder is free and is offered by Los Angeles-based Dog Goes. 
For those eager to monitor their dog’s health, there are devices like Voyce, a dog collar with a high-tech twist. The collar tracks a dog’s active and resting periods and measures both heart and respiratory rates. The information is then transmitted to the cloud, which the dog’s veterinarian can access to provide expert advice about the animal’s health. The whole idea is to provide dog owners with more insight into their dog’s health, as well as offer additional treatment and training options. 
“It’s like a wellness coach for your dog,” said Jeff Noce, president of Virginia-based i4C Innovations, which will put Voyce on the market this summer for about $300. 
Buyers will also need to pay a $15 monthly membership fee for the data to be transmitted, processed and sent to a doctor for their feedback. 
That sort of high-tech information can be valuable because dogs are predisposed by evolution not to tip off their owners that they feel distress over an illness. For thousands of years, dogs and wolves that displayed weakness often are drummed out of the pack and left behind to fend off other predators. 
Other health-related tools are offered by Boston-based Petmobi, which has an app named after the company. The free Petmobi app enables owners to create a profile for their dog or cat, upload a photo and set weight and calorie goals for the animal, said company founder Alex Papanicholas. 
“The app lets you figure out how much your pet should be eating to maintain weight or lose weight,” Papanicholas said. “Petmobi is similar to a human health and fitness app.” 
New high-tech pet products have a healthy market because spending on dogs is on the upswing, according to surveys released by the American Pet Products Association. Spending averaged $1,649 per pooch in the United States last year, up 4.7 percent from an average of about $1,575 during 2012. 
The rising spending comes at a time when dog ownership has flattened out. In 2012, an estimated 36.5 percent of U.S. households had at least one dog, down slightly from the 37.2 percent of households in 2007, according to a study released by the American Veterinary Medical Association, a nonprofit group. 
Last year, Americans spent $55.72 billion on pets of all kinds, ranging from dogs and cats to horses, reptiles and birds. This year, the American Pet Products Association expects spending on pets is expected to increase by 5 percent. 
“There is really a lot of stuff out there these days for dog owners,” said May, the Pawsible analyst. “These apps are fun and functional. The whole app world for pets has taken a really different and interesting turn.” 
——— 
TECH FOR DOGS 
Dog Land. Social networking, information gathering, photo sharing, rating of dog facilities 
Voyce. A dog collar that measures a dog’s health and transmits the data to experts 
Petmobi. Social networking with weight and calorie goals 
Tagg. Mounts on a collar to monitor pet and track if lost

pets-dogtech

Tech for dogs takes off

voyce-CROPPED

When Robert Misseri founded Guardians of Rescue in 2010 to help stray and shelter animals on Long Island, it wasn't long before he and his network of volunteers realized they could change the lives of military veterans at the same time. 
Guardians of Rescue's two signature programs, No Buddy Left Behind and Paws of War, save animals in shelters and the former war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan so they can be adopted by the veterans who were their battle buddies or who need them the most -- those with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries. 
"It's probably the most fulfilling program that I've ever done in animal rescue because I'm helping both ends of the leash," said Dori Scofield, vice president of Guardians of Rescue and founder of Save-A-Pet Animal Rescue and Adoption Center in Port Jefferson Station, where Guardians animals are housed. "Not only am I helping a rescue animal, I'm helping the veterans. It's like a two-for-one rescue." 
Misseri's passion for rescue began in 2007, after he began accompanying an elderly woman who dedicated many nights to trapping cats, getting them spayed and neutered and then returning them to their habitat as a means of helping control the stray cat population. 
"She told me that every time she would go there, these guys would come and make fun of her and yell at her, or remove the cat shelters and the cat food," said Misseri, 44, who lives in Smithtown and owns a corporate catering company in Manhattan. "She took her Social Security check and bought food every single week to make sure these cats were fed." 
Misseri realized it would take more to help the animals and their caretakers than acting as a bodyguard. 
"I decided I was going to create an organization that shows that men can love animals and also be cool at the same time," he said. 
Misseri founded Rescue Ink, an animal welfare organization whose tattooed members -- former bodybuilders, firefighters, bouncers -- literally rode to the rescue of animals on their motorcycles, recovering those that had been stolen and rescuing needy ones, some of which were abused. They often came down hard on abusers, throwing in a dash of humiliation and confrontation for good measure. In 2009, Rescue Ink was the subject of a National Geographic television show of the same name. 
Misseri said that while the group had the potential to make a substantial difference in the cause, members fought about its direction, leading to the cancellation of the show's second season. Misseri resigned but said he couldn't abandon his mission, which led to the creation of Guardians of Rescue in 2010. 
Like Misseri, the group's 10 core volunteers and dozens of others across Long Island participate for the reward of helping the veterans and the dogs. 
"It's so gratifying to give a service dog to a veteran with PTSD who is struggling with their own demons, and getting the response back from them about how that animal has instantaneously changed their life," said Joanne Contegiacomo, the group's director of community relations. 
Strays, then beloved friends 
Stray dogs are rampant in Afghanistan, and U.S. military camps often are built where they roam. American soldiers bond with the animals, which are not considered pets in Afghanistan and have in most cases never experienced kindness from people. 
"The dogs give them a sense of security and home," said Misseri. When it's time for the soldiers to leave, the heartbreak of knowing what the dogs face without them is unbearable. "It weighs very heavy on these soldiers when they don't know how to get the dogs back to the United States," said Misseri, who describes the dogs' living conditions in Afghanistan as very abusive. "When you talk to veterans that had to leave these dogs behind, they live with regret for the rest of their lives." 
To change that, Guardians of Rescue raises money to bring the dogs to America through its No Buddy Left Behind program, which began in 2010. The nonprofit grants every request, despite the time and money involved. The cost -- $3,000 to $4,000 per dog -- is raised through social media campaigns on crowdfunding sites such as GoFundMe, Fund-Razr and YouCaring. Guardians of Rescue features the dog's stories on social media, with a link to the page where people can donate. 
No Buddy Left Behind has reunited 25 dogs with their war buddies. The story of Sheba made national news last September, when Guardians of Rescue reunited the mother and her seven puppies with the New York National Guard unit that befriended them. 
"The whole unit fell in love with the whole litter, and they became like little daddies to them, and they all adopted them," said Misseri. 
Getting the dogs from a war camp in Afghanistan to Long Island is not quick or easy. Guardians of Rescue begins by contacting the international rescue organization Nowzad, which has a facility on the outskirts of Kabul and is a registered nonprofit in London and Peoria, Ill. Nowzad rescues the dog (and cats, too) from the camp it's in and brings it to Kabul, where the animal is quarantined, vaccinated and spayed or neutered. The dog is then transported to Dubai and finally flown to the United States to be reunited with its war buddy. The process can take two months or longer. 
Seeing the bond between rescue dogs and veterans led to Guardians of Rescue's other signature program, Paws of War. The dogs, which the group gets from local shelters and others across the United States, are specifically trained to meet the needs of each veteran, based on his or her condition. The group will even match the breed or age of a dog to a veteran's request. 
"If the veteran suffers from hyper-vigilance or claustrophobia, we will train the dog to face outward towards the door," Scofield said. "Some are trained to wake you up when the alarm goes off." 
Paws of War, whose slogan is "Help a vet, save a pet," became an official program in 2012 and has matched about 15 dogs with veterans recovering from PTSD or traumatic brain injuries, many on Long Island. 
One of them is former Marine and Iraq War veteran Paul Zimmerman of North Babylon. Zimmerman, 31, adopted his boxer, Kona, as a puppy, and Guardians of Rescue funded Kona's training so he could help Zimmerman manage his PTSD. "It certainly is the best medicine I've ever had," said Zimmerman, who served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007. "Just having him just being there for you is tremendous." 
Zimmerman said his hyper-vigilance causes him to perceive everything as a potential threat or danger -- from an ice cream truck coming down the street to a book falling off a shelf. Every week he trains with Kona at Wrkndog in Bohemia to ensure that Kona won't react when out in public and around other people and animals. 
"He's going to have to be able to sit for long periods of time and just really be there for me," Zimmerman said. "If a book crashes, he has to be trained to not even flinch, because I'm jumping out of my seat." 
It's not only dogs and their owners that Guardians helps. The group intervened when Vietnam veteran Don Markoff had to choose between eviction from his Patchogue home and keeping his beloved cat, a Siamese named Remus. Markoff, 64, said Remus has been good for what ailed him, noting that within a month after living with Remus, the symptoms from his metabolic syndrome -- including high blood pressure and elevated blood sugar and triglycerides levels -- had nearly disappeared. He said he didn't know he had to register Remus with the veterans group that provided a subsidy for his apartment, and he faced eviction for refusing to give him up. 
"It got to the point where I didn't know what I was going to do, and out of the blue I got a call from Bob [Misseri]," Markoff said. "He told me 'Don't worry about a thing, we'll take care of it and get the cat registered.' " 
And he did. When that was taken care of, Misseri sent over three volunteers with a year's supply of cat food and hundreds of pounds of kitty litter. 
"It's not even just the money," said Markoff. "He saved me so much grief and stress that I certainly didn't need. I'll be forever grateful to Bob and his organization." 
Two rescue groups work together 
Misseri turned to Scofield, who lives in Stony Brook, to head up Paws of War. Since founding Save-A-Pet in 1994, Scofield has worked with Misseri on many rescue efforts. Because Guardians of Rescue doesn't have a physical location, every animal the group rescues lives at Save-A-Pet until it finds an owner. They are trained there and at outside facilities such as Bohemia-based Wrkndog, Pet Peeves Dog Training in Centereach and Canine Counsel in Medford. 
Scofield, 53, said it's usually a wife, mother or girlfriend of a struggling veteran who takes the first step toward a Guardians of Rescue match. She has cared for animals since 1977, when she began her career as a groomer for show dogs. 
"You're born with it, it's like a calling, it's something inside of you," said the lifelong animal lover. "I was the one that animals always followed home from school when I was a kid." 
It costs $2,000 to $3,000 for Guardians of Rescue to fully train each dog before it is placed with a veteran. After six months of training, the dog is usually ready to go home with its new owner, and the training often continues afterward, depending on the veteran's need. At a minimum, the dogs are completely obedience-trained, and, as in the case of Zimmerman, they are trained to help solve a specific difficulty. The money comes from a combination of grants, social media fundraisers, advertising and off-site events such as comedy shows and car shows. 
Contegiacomo, 41, of Hicksville, manages Guardians of Rescue's dozens of volunteers across Long Island and also works with a network of other rescue organizations throughout the country. 
One of her out-of-state contacts was Jacqueline Thornton, a dog rescuer and former military wife who saw firsthand the devastating effects of PTSD on veterans. While living at Fort Bragg, an Army base in North Carolina, Thornton volunteered for Operation: Dog Tag, a rescue group founded by military wives. She became friendly with Contegiacomo while the two worked together to transport dogs between the two states. 
While Thornton, 32, who is originally from Manorville, was visiting her family last summer, she volunteered at the Fast and the Furriest event, a Guardians of Rescue fundraiser, and was floored by their passion. 
"If we don't do it, who's going to?" Thornton said of rescuing dogs and helping veterans with PTSD. "I was blown away by this community of people who felt the same way," she said of the Paws of War volunteers. 
Thornton moved back to Manorville this year and said she plans to donate her time to Guardians of Rescue regularly. She began with the group's St. Pitty's Day pit bull adoption event at Save-A-Pet on March 16 with her daughter, Mia, 5. 
Misseri said he believes Guardians of Rescue's mission is contagious, and often gets calls from Iraq and Afghanistan veterans offering to help build dog houses and support events. 
Zimmerman agrees, and said he has experienced a sense of community with fellow veterans and their dogs. 
"One of the best things that I've found so far about working with Guardians of Rescue is that it brought me together with other veterans," said Zimmerman, who attended the Huntington St. Patrick's Day parade and socialized with other veterans and their dogs. "Any vet with PTSD will tell you we isolate ourselves from the world, but just getting me out of my basement and socializing with other veterans with their own dogs was a really nice thing. I got joy out of seeing my dog with other dogs." 
 CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Centereach-based Pet Peeves Dog Training as the nonprofit Pet Peeves, a separate organization based in Woodbury. 
SIGN ME UP 
For more information on Guardians of Rescue, email info@guardiansof rescue.org, visit <a href="http://guardiansofrescue.org">guardiansofrescue.org</a> to fill out a volunteer application or call 888-287-3864. The organization is seeking animal-loving volunteers with all skills -- graphic designers, dog walkers, groomers, fundraisers, website creators and people who can help at off-site events. The next fundraiser is the Fur Ball on April 3 at Flowerfield in St. James to benefit Save-A-Pet, housing all the Guardians of Rescue animals. 
Pets for Vets rescues shelter dogs and trains them to become companions for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Its Long Island/NYC chapter is based in West Hempstead. 
Contact: 347-762-0280; <a href="http://pets-for-vets.com">pets-for-vets.com</a>; petsforvetsnycli@gmail.com 
Pal-O-Mine Equestrian, founded in 1995 and based in Islandia, helps treat the effects of trauma on vets through equine-assisted psychotherapy. "Herd dynamics can help clients understand their own lives," said Lisa A. Gatti, founder and executive director. "This helps military clients quickly translate emotional insights into life-changing action." Riding is not part of the therapy. 
Contact: 631-348-1389; <a href="http://pal-o-mine.org">pal-o-mine.org</a>; tours are available on-site. 
For more volunteer information and opportunities, contact the Long Island Volunteer Center at 516-564-5482; <a href="http://longislandvolunteercenter.org">longislandvolunteercenter.org</a>.

LFCOV30

Guardians of Rescue helps vets and pets

liLIFE main pic jcm cropped

Pets, wrapped in their fur coats, may look sturdy when it comes to cold temperatures, but they can be impacted as severely as humans. Add blizzard conditions into the mix and there's even more to consider. 
The folks at BluePearl Veterinary Partners, with specialty and emergency hospitals in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, offer the following precautions for Fido, Fluffy and your other pets during a blizzard and throughout the cold-weather months: 
1. Clean those paws when you come inside. 
Those tiny toes can get ice and snow embedded in them, which can cause irritation. Further, <a href="/topics//Common_(musician)">common</a> deicers contain chemicals that, if licked, can result in illness. 
Two easy fixes: Rinse and wipe off paws after your pets come back inside and, if you can, have your animal wear protective booties. 
2. Prevent frostbite. 
Pets should only be outside in cold temperatures for short bursts; otherwise, they can get frostbite. Take your cat or dog to a vet immediately if it shows signs of frostbite, which include shivering and change of color (redness in early stages, white or patchiness as it progresses). 
3. Keep those ID tags on. 
If your animal accidentally escapes, it may have a tough time finding its way home. Scents are masked by snow and ice, making it easier for your guy or gal to get lost. 
4. Don't leave your pet in the car. 
Think of how cold your car is when the heat is off. Because a car holds in the cold, an animal could freeze to death. 
5. Don't start your car in the garage with a pet nearby. 
Carbon monoxide gets trapped quickly, which can be fatal to a small animal in a matter of minutes. 
6. Keep away from bodies of water. 
If you live near a pond, for instance, a pet could step on thin ice and quickly be in danger.

pets-blizzard

Keep your pets safe in a snow storm

snow puppy CROPPED

Q. My 5-year-old spayed female cat is just like Morris, the finicky spoiled star of the cat food commercials on TV years ago. She never eats as she should unless I add deli chicken to her food. I have tried every cat food that is out there, and she just takes a few licks and then walks away. If I mix in the deli chicken, then she will eat, but I have to mix it really well. Is there anything wrong with my doing this? My sister says to just leave her alone with the cat food and she will eat eventually, but I do not want to hurt her. I am a senior in a small apartment and this cat is my companion. I want to do what is best for her. --Michelle Clark, Holtsville 
 A. It seems that you are overthinking this situation. An adult cat living in a small apartment does not need to eat as much food as you may think. Most adult cats sleep 18 hours a day and spend the rest of the time just looking out the window. So the few mouthfuls of cat food she does eat are just what she needs to fuel her metabolism. However, it is clear she has learned that if she licks the food a few times and then walks away from it, you will make a fuss and add in the deli chicken. This is a routine she has come to enjoy. 
 In a perfect world, you would just harden your heart as your sister says and leave her unaltered food out, and she would eat it the next day. As they say, hunger is the best sauce. In my world, though, one of the pleasures in life is feeding animals and watching them eat. You obviously feel the same way. So I see nothing wrong with adding in a little meat, as long as the cat is not too heavy. 
 However, processed deli chicken is really not that good for a cat -- too much salt and preservatives. Use plain chicken or turkey breast instead. Cut it up and mix in the cat food as you are doing now -- just do not let it surpass more than a third of the total volume of the meal. The canned food has needed vitamins and minerals not found in the chicken or turkey breast. 
 Q. My children found a large praying mantis in one of the shrubs in front of our house the other day. They wanted to keep it, so we put it in a glass tank with a few potted house plants and tree branches. We give it water every day from an eyedropper, and it is eating crickets we buy from a pet store. How long can we expect it to live, and is there anything else we need to do for it? --Melvin Copeland, Roosevelt 
 A. Any mantis that you may find outside in mid October doesn't have too much time left to live, so bringing it indoors to observe is not harming the environment at all. They are quite amazing creatures. In nature, they die off at the first frost. 
 I have kept some of them alive up until the end of December, so it is possible you will have it for a few more weeks yet. The care you are providing is just fine. Be sure to feed it crickets that have been fed a vitamin and mineral powder, as these vitamins will also <a href="/topics//Benefit_(designer)">benefit</a> the mantis. 
 Most likely it is a female. The females are larger than the males and are the ones we usually notice. She may yet lay an egg case on one of the branches in the vivarium. 
 If she does, just leave the case inside for a few days until it hardens, then take the branch outside and tie it onto a shrub in a protected area of your yard so the babies will hatch from it next spring. 
 If you leave it indoors, the babies will hatch in the middle of the winter, and they are so small and delicate that you will not be able to feed them properly and they will all starve to death.

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LSPET11.WEB

Spoil kitty, but not with deli meat

cat-CROPPED

A beloved pet dressed in a <a href="/topics//Halloween">Halloween</a> costume, posed next to a lit jack-o-lantern, sounds like a great photo opportunity -- but it's also a fire hazard. 
 Pets and other animals inadvertently set about 510 house fires every year in this country. From 2006 to 2010, such fires caused an average of $8.7 million in property damage and injured eight humans a year, said John R. Hall Jr., division director for fire analysis and research for the National Fire Protection Association. 
 Animals -- including wild ones or pests like rats or insects -- are capable of starting a fire any time, but the majority involve a heat source, like a stove, light fixture, candle, embers, or a space heater, Hall said. And over colder holidays like <a href="/topics//Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a> and <a href="/topics//Christmas">Christmas</a>, there's often more activity around those sources than usual. 
 On Feb. 4, a Vancouver, Wash., family left a new puppy home alone for the first time -- and also food on the stove. The dog turned on the igniter trying to get to it, said fire department Capt. David <a href="/topics//David_James">James</a>. The dog died, and the family's rental house was destroyed. 
 "It was insured and can be rebuilt, but people and pets can't be replaced," James said. 
 A dog and a stove nearly set afire Kay Wardlow's home in Norman, Okla., three years ago. Lucy, a Labrador retriever-basset hound mix with a penchant for chocolate, tried to get a cake off the stove while the family was out, Wardlow said. 
 They were alerted to smoke in the house when their home security company called to say their alarm had gone off. Lucy had hit the knobs on the <a href="/topics//GAS_(designer)">gas</a> stove, moving the automatic igniter just enough so it kept tripping and trying to light, she said. 
 "The heat melted the plastic on top of the cake pan and that's what filled the house with smoke," she said. Firefighters told her if the alarm company hadn't notified them, it would have flamed over and set the house on fire. 
 "You could smell the smoke from <a href="/topics//Coronation_Street_(1960)">the street</a>," with the smoke so thick that she couldn't see across a room, Wardlow said. When they opened the door, Lucy bounded out, wagging her tail and glad to see everyone. "It's hard to look at her and be mad at her." 
 Pets especially need monitoring around holidays, when owners may be cooking or baking treats more often or when potentially flammable decorations are out. A dog or cat wearing a homemade Halloween costume, especially one with a cape, might get too close to a jack-o-lantern with an open flame. 
 "If you dress your own dog, the fabric probably isn't fire-retardant," said Lisa Peterson, a spokeswoman for the <a href="/topics//American_Kennel_Club">American Kennel Club</a>. "So you need to be vigilant." 
 Christmas trees, in particular, can topple when cats and dogs try to explore or climb them. Some decorations and overloaded electrical outlets can be dangerous. 
 Wardlow made preventative changes after Lucy's near-catastrophe. The dog now stays outside when the family isn't home and if she has to remain indoors, Wardlow removes the stove knobs. 
 She said she never imagined that her home security system, which she had set up for protection from burglars, would instead save her house "from a fire my dog nearly started." 
 Pets can cause fires in other surprising and unforeseen ways. James, who has been a firefighter for 30 years, recalled how a cat once caused a fire when it urinated while perched on a window ledge in a home. The urine ran down the wall into an electrical outlet, he said. 
 "The cat ran away but the receptacle ignited and scorched the outlet," James said. 
 In the event of a fire, animals only have a few minutes of advantage over people, James said. 
 "When a fire first starts -- it's true -- hot air rises, but then it gets trapped and starts banking down. Heat will follow the smoke and all the objects in the room will reach ignition temperature and then no place is safe," he said. 
 That's when pet owners should stay put, rather than attempting to enter a burning house to rescue a pet. 
 "It may have already gotten out and you risk dying in the fire," he said.

pets-fires

Pets could turn stoves, decor into fire hazards

Pets Fires-CROPPED

Fleas and ticks are always thought of as summertime parasites that bother pets, but there are a few others in that category, and those that really bother me are flies. It drives me crazy when I see flies biting the ears of my dogs, horses and rabbits, even the featherless wattles of my chickens. 
 In the past, when I used commercial sprays for these pests on my pets, the application would only work as long as it was wet. As soon as it dried, the flies came right back. So what I ended up doing was to get some fly spray or flea spray that has pyrethrum as the active ingredient. This is harmless to pets. Then I would spray some of it onto a wad of petroleum jelly and mix it all up and spread the jelly on my pets' ears. The petroleum jelly kept the insecticide from drying off; it lasts for hours on my pets' ears. 
 Whenever I watch nature shows on TV and see those poor lions in <a href="/topics/Africa">Africa</a> bothered by those wretched flies, I just feel like reaching into the TV and spreading some of my mixture all over their pathetic, fly-bitten ears.

LSGEAR14.WEB

Keeping flies off pets

walkerhound-CROPPED

Dog bites man does not get a lot of attention in the news, but it costs insurance companies hundreds of millions in claims every year. 
 <a href="/topics/State_Farm_Insurance">State Farm Insurance</a>, one of the nation's largest home insurers, paid more than $109 million on about 3,800 dog bite claims nationwide last year, spokesman Eddie Martinez said Wednesday. In 2010, there were about 3,500 claims and $90 million in payouts. 
 The Insurance Information Institute estimated that nearly $479 million in dog bite claims were paid by all insurance companies in 2011, spokeswoman Loretta Worters said. In 2010, it was $413 million. 
 It's no surprise that California -- home to more dogs and people than any other state -- led the way in 2011. 
 Martinez says 527 claims were filed in California and victims received $20.3 million, a jump of 31 percent over 2010. 
 State Farm is still working to determine reasons for the spike, Martinez said. 
 About 4.7 million people are bitten by dogs each year and more than half of the victims are children, the <a href="/topics/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> said. About 800,000 people seek medical attention for the bites. Less than half of those people require treatment and about 16 die, the agency said. 
 After children ages 5 to 9 years old, the agency said that seniors represent the largest group at risk, followed by letter carriers. 
 Nationally, about 5,600 U.S. Postal Service letter carriers were attacked by dogs each of the last two years, said <a href="/topics/Los_Angeles%2C_CA">Los Angeles</a> spokesman Richard Maher. 
 In California, a carrier was attacked in March and died of complications four days later after she suffered a stroke likely caused by trauma, Maher said. 
 <a href="/topics/Los_Angeles%2C_CA">Los Angeles</a> carriers recorded the most bites with 83; <a href="/topics/San_Diego%2C_CA">San Diego</a> was second with 68; followed by Houston at 47; and <a href="/topics/Cleveland%2C_OH">Cleveland</a> at 44. 
 Medical expenses from dog attacks cost the Postal Service just over $1 million last year, officials said. 
 The third full week each May is National Dog Bite Prevention Week and State Farm, <a href="/topics/University_of_Miami">the U</a>.S. Postal Service, the American Veterinary Medical Association and CDCP release dog bite statistics and launch campaigns to promote dog safety. 
 Despite the large number of attacks on letter carriers, the Postal Service decided to focus on children for their campaign because a child is 900 times more likely to be attacked than a letter carrier, Maher said. 
 Heredity, training, socialization, health, and the behavior of humans around it can all contribute to a dog's tendency to bite, Martinez said. 
 The <a href="/topics/American_Society_for_the_Prevention_of_Cruelty_to_Animals">ASPCA</a> predicts half of all children in <a href="/topics/University_of_Miami">the U</a>nited States will be bitten by a dog before 12. The majority of bites will be from the family dog or the dog of a neighbor or friend. 
 People across the country own about 78.2 million dogs, according to the American Pet Products Association. 
 State Farm's figures listed the top 10 states by number of claims, claims paid and claim average. 
 California was tops in the first two categories, then came <a href="/topics/Illinois">Illinois</a>, 309 claims, $10 million; <a href="/topics/Texas">Texas</a>, 219 claims, $5.1 million; and <a href="/topics/Ohio">Ohio</a>, 215, $5.4 million. 
 At the bottom of the claims per state list were <a href="/topics/Maine">Maine</a>, New Mexico, Montana, Hawaii and <a href="/topics/South_Dakota">South Dakota</a>, Martinez said. 
 The average cost per claim nationally in 2011 was $28,799, Martinez said. 
 California had a per-claim average of $38,500 but <a href="/topics/New_York_%28state%29">New York</a> came in first because the company paid an average of $45,900 per claim there. <a href="/topics/Michigan">Michigan</a> was second with an average $38,700 per claim. 
 In 2010, California led the way with 369 claims and total payouts of $11.3 million. But the average cost per claim in the state was $30,000, placing it second behind Florida, where the average cost per dog bite claim was $38,400. Florida had 146 claims for a total of $5.6 million. 
 There are ways to help a child avoid dog bites, the <a href="/topics/American_Society_for_the_Prevention_of_Cruelty_to_Animals">ASPCA</a> says. 
 A youngster should never stare into a dog's eyes, tease a dog, approach a chained dog, touch an off-leash dog, run or scream if approached by a loose dog, play with a dog while it is eating or touch a dog while it is sleeping. If a loose dog comes close, children should stand very still and be very quiet. Always ask a dog's owner for permission to pet it and let the dog sniff your closed hand before you start touching it.

pets-insurance

Leading insurer pays $109M for dog bite claims 

Pets Dogs Bites

A voluntary recall is in effect for certain batches of dry pet foods manufactured by Diamond Pet Foods, after several people who handled tainted dog food were sickened by salmonella.
Diamond said it is recalling specific lots of nine brands of pet food formulas manufactured at its Gaston, S.C., plant as a precautionary measure, and Natural Balance Pet Foods Inc., a separate company, also is recalling several formulas that were produced at the same factory. <a href="/topics/New_York_%28state%29">New York</a> State is one of many states where both Diamond and Natural Balance have issued recalls.
A number of these brands are sold on Long Island, but state and local officials say that so far there are no reports of <a href="/topics/Salmonellosis">salmonella infection</a> related to the tainted products.
Fourteen people in at least nine states became ill from salmonella, and at least five people were hospitalized, according to the <a href="/topics/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>. No pets were sickened, according to Meta, Mo.-based Diamond.
"People who became ill, the thing that was common among them was that they had fed their pets Diamond Pet Foods," said CDC spokeswoman Lola Russell.
Three people each were infected in <a href="/topics/Missouri">Missouri</a> and <a href="/topics/North_Carolina">North Carolina</a>; two people in <a href="/topics/Ohio">Ohio</a>; and one person each in Alabama, <a href="/topics/Connecticut">Connecticut</a>, <a href="/topics/Michigan">Michigan</a>, <a href="/topics/New_Jersey">New Jersey</a>, <a href="/topics/Pennsylvania">Pennsylvania</a> and <a href="/topics/Virginia">Virginia</a>, the CDC said.
People can get salmonella by handling infected dog food, then not washing their hands before eating or handling their own food, health officials said.
The South Carolina plant temporarily was shut down April 8. Diamond Pet Foods has issued four rounds of recalls for food made at the plant, located outside of <a href="/topics/Columbia%2C_MO">Columbia</a>, S.C., between Dec. 9 and April 7. The latest recalls were announced Friday.
"We took corrective actions at the plant, and today the plant is up and running. Our mission is to produce safe pet foods for our customers and their pets in all Diamond facilities," the company said in a written statement Friday.
Recalled brands include Diamond Naturals and Taste of the Wild. For more information about the recalled brands, go to diamondpetrecall.com and also naturalbalanceinc.com.
In 2005, a toxic mold called aflatoxin ended up in food made at the same Diamond Pet Foods plant in South Carolina and dozens of dogs died. The company offered a $3.1 million settlement. The <a href="/topics/Food_and_Drug_Administration">Food and Drug Administration</a> determined the deadly fungus likely got into the plant when it failed to test 12 shipments of corn.

BZDOG08

Voluntary pet food recall over salmonella

bzdog08  cropped 5.8.12

Now that winter is here, it is important to be sure that dog breeds native to warm climates are protected from the cold with a proper coat or sweater and boots to protect their paws from salt and ice. 
 Be that the coat fits the dog properly and allows it to move naturally while wearing it. 
 The same goes for the boots. It is always better to practice with the dog in the house first. If your dog does not feel comfortable wearing the apparel indoors and won't walk around naturally with them on, then it surely will not do so outdoors. 
 It is better to make it a game at first, praising the dog and giving it treats while it is wearing the coat and boots in the house. Then, take them all off while the dog is still happy and playing the game. 
 This is important with the boots -- if you allow the dog to shake or pull them off just one time, it will know it can do so and will not keep them on at all. 
 Better to put them on, then take them off before the dog gets the idea. Your dog may look silly wearing boots, but its paws will be grateful for them in the end.

LSGEAR05

Get your dog used to wearing winter gear

p2PET Welsh corgi

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These places are baked into Long Island's DNA.

These LI pizzeria-restaurants stand the test of time

'The garden is a reminder to stand up to the face of evil ...'

A growing tribute to Holocaust survivor

Attend services, prayer meetings, a genealogy lecture and more.

Faith Calendar: Worship, events June 26-July 3

The program essentially gives a person credit for four years on the waiting list.

Vouchers let kidney donors prioritize loved ones

You can take your RMD in stock or mutual fund shares.

Ask the Expert: How to take an RMD using stock

Little did I realize my own Jewish journey would begin again decades later.

My Turn: My second-chance bar mitzvah

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The landmark barbecue spot had been plagued with tax issues for years.

Popular fried-chicken restaurant closes in Riverhead

Here are new things to try, fresh twists on classic spots and returning favorites on the East End. 

10 things not to miss in the Hamptons, MTK this summer

Try everything from fatty tuna with caviar to lobster guacamole and bacon-cream cheese jalapeño poppers.

3 LI restaurants to try this weekend

Seniors Calendar: Event listings from June 26 to July 3

Here's the inside scoop on hot new restaurants to try this summer.

17 new restaurants on the East End this season

Go to an internet near you to be inundated with wacky, exhaustive "holidays."

The Column: Is there a day that's just a day?

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Daniel Acevedo of Selden waited two years to celebrate his first Father's Day. He and his wife Gina-Marie tried to get pregnant for two years before their daughter Amelia was born. Although Daniel Acevedo will be working this Father's Day, he was able to take off for three months between March and June thanks to New York State's paid family leave, so he spent all day every day with Amelia during that time.

A first Father's Day, 2 years in the making 

Prom season is back with bolder and brighter colors. Owner of Omnibus Fashions in Babylon explains this year's neon trend. 

Prom season takes a bold step 

It's the 67th annual Mattituck Strawberry Festival and hundreds of volunteers come out on Wednesday for hulling night. Newsday's Shari  Einhorn reports.

Volunteers at Mattituck Strawberry Festival berry busy on hulling night 

Find out how Micheline Cummings and partner Terry Haughy created a new treat you can only find hidden in a Babylon alleyway.

An accident almost derailed her baking career. Now her cake shop is a runaway success

Naos Caribbean Flavors is a new food truck serving fried pork and black rice as a gateway into Haitian culture. Newsday food critic Scott Vogel goes behind-the-scenes to get a taste.

Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the new Haitian food truck, Nao's Caribbean Flavors

"Ice Dreams," a live show on ice at Northwell Health Ice Center in East Meadow, featured 100 young skaters from Long Island.

100 LI kids skate in ice show with Olympic skaters

He owns two ice cream shops and four restaurants in Ocean Beach.

Meet Fire Island's busiest restaurateur

Pinelawn Memorial Park and Arboretum in Farmingdale is a place for educational programs for families, yoga events and more. On Sunday, May 1, families learned about and interacted with praying mantises.

There's more to Pinelawn: Memorial park doubles as a place for educational programs

Memorial Day is a day to honor, remember and celebrate the lives of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Celebrations were held across Long Island Monday in their honor. Shari Einhorn reports.

Memorial Day celebrations across Long Island 

Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and community members volunteered to honor U.S. heroes, by placing American flags on gravestones at Calverton National Cemetery. Newsday's Jamie Stuart reports.

Flags placed at Calverton National Cemetery to honor America's fallen this Memorial Day

Newsday's Meghan Giannotta lets us know what exciting fairs and festivals are coming to Long Island.

Newsday takes a look at the upcoming summer fairs and festivals on Long Island

An expert says when it comes to talking to your children about Tuesday's mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas, it is best to tell them the basic facts and have them understand everything is being done to protect them. Newsday's Steve Langford reports.

How to talk to your kids about Texas elementary school shooting

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"These are real jobs," said the owner, "they should be treated like real jobs."

New 'sustainable' LI bakery pays higher wages, offers benefits

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Find fun things to do on Long Island, from beaches to wineries to the North Fork and the Hamptons. Plus, your weekend guide to Long Island events, festivals, fireworks and more.