Walk Fido

Fidosphere Love

Our favorite tips & stories from the fidosphere to kick off the week:

• Homeless Dogs Help Disabled Vet Make a Difference - We are loving this story about three very special dogs who have helped a disabled veteran place dogs with other veterans who need companionship after a life of service.
• The Amazing Transformation of Rescued Hog-Fighting Dogs - It is a testament to their spirit that dogs are able to endure such human cruelty and bounce back to be so affectionate and loving with the right care and attention.
• 4 Ways You Can Help Animal Shelters (Other Than Donations) - The majority of dogs we walk daily are rescue dogs and most have been rescued from our local shelters. Your money is helpful, but your time is even more needed in many shelters in downtown LA. Great tips to make your time count for fidos in your hood.
• Why Dogs Eat Poop - We've seen it on our walks. You've been worried about it. What's up with your pup that is a little toooo into poop? All your questions answered.
• 9 Tips for Sleeping Soundly with Your Pup - Does your dog nearly push you out of bed by morning? If you give your pup permission to sleep on your bed, these tips will help you both get a great night's sleep.

Here's to a great week with your sweet and snuggly fidos!

Photo via Star Telegram.

Fido Findings: Awesome Dogs, Bionic Dogs & Dogs on a Plane

Some dogish news that caught our eye to kick off the week:

• Incredible/Heartbreaking Stories Behind Five Bionic Dogs - The stories of abuse are so sad, but the dogs featured in this story have such incredible determiniation to make it, we're inspired and wanted to share.
• Social Media for Your Pup - Denver may still have a ban on pit bulls (we still can't get over that), but a new Denver-based site has launched that will allow you to chronicle your dog's life Instagram-style.
• Dogs on a Plane - LA Weekly has a fascinating story on an Orange County woman who is rescuing dogs from Taiwan through grass-roots support.
• Four Dogs Inducted to Animal Hall of Fame for Life-Saving Actions: This is just. Awesome. (And who knew there was an Animal Hall of Fame?)
• Police Dogs are a Big Help in Small Towns: "Things that would take many man-hours, the dogs can do much more quickly and more safely than a human." 

That photo above? Yeah. It made us laugh this weekend as we had a lovely pug named Mr. Noodles on away-sitting and it was also the Kentucky Derby. Here's to a great week for fido-lovers everywhere!

Fido Findings

Some worth-your-time news from the dogosphere:

• The fantastic Bad Rap team just hosted a Celebrate Your Pit Bull weekend. Love it. Thinking it's high time we did something similar in LA...
• We always love a good service dog story and this one delivers in spades. NYT has a piece on service dogs that help Iraq war veterans with PTSD. The audio slideshow is excellent.
• We have a lot of clients that have just had or are about to have babies. The number one question we are asked when a new client family is preparing for their new baby is: how do we get our dog ready? Dr. Marty Becker over at Pet Connection has an excellent article on how to Create a kid-friendly dog before the new baby arrives. 
• Pet Connection also has a great piece on diagnosing cancer in dogs and looks at how simple blood tests might go a long way towards early detection.
• Ed Boks, former GM of LA Animal Services, has a good piece on Achieving & Sustaining No-Kill. Guess what's at the top of the list for viable solutions? Targeted, affordable spay neuter programs. We are passionate about effective spay neuter programs and are glad to see this mentioned.

Fido Findings

A lot of great news has cropped up this week in the dogosphere. Many important issues about he challenges of finding & keeping foster homes for dogs in need, no-kill policies at shelters and much more.  Each of these links below deserves its own post and we suspect that over the next few days, we'll have our thoughts and ideas firmly sorted out enough to further the discussion here at the Walk Fido blog.

In the meantime, these debates and discussions are so important, we wanted to share them poste haste:

• The Bark asks the important question - Is a "No Kill Nation" Impossible or Inevitable?
• BAD RAP breaks our hearts with the realities of how difficult it is to find forever homes
• Bay Woof has a good list of questions you should ask your dog walker (and of course we've got some thoughts about these that we will be sharing next week!)

This is a leash (please use it)

Walking dogs in Downtown Los Angeles brings many challenges our way each day as we walk groups of dogs through the city.  One particularly challenging obstacle we face are dog owners who don't feel it is necessary to walk their dogs on a leash.  Pointing out the obvious to these owners - that is it the law - rarely works.  If it does work, we are often greeted with snotty looks, swearing, and nasty comments in the vein of "my dog wouldn't need to be on a leash if you weren't walking your dogs by us." Right.

We've tried & tried to articulate the importance (safety for your dogs and ours!) of following our county/city leash laws, but this discussion is never one a non-leash-using-owner wants to have.  For this reason, we were oh so pleased this morning to come across a fantastic treatise - on the also excellent Bad Rap blog - on why it's important to use a leash, written by Barbara Bouyet of the Alaskan Malamute Rescue of Southern California.

It is important for every Los Angeles dog owner to read the article in full (didn't want to reproduce it here, it's not our content), but here are the critical highlights:

This is a leash...

• It is the best way to keep your dog safe...
• It is the best good neighbor policy...
• It is the best identification service...
• It is the best wildlife & environmental protection...
• It is the best way to develop an affectionate pet...
• It is also the best crime prevention device...
• It is an important demonstration to the public...

We urge you all to check out the article. It's short, it's spot-on, and it would make our downtown community a much safer & kinder place for our dogs.

Fido Findings

  
Here's a roundup of the news that is making its way through the dogosphere today:

• Responding to what it calls an increase in dog-biting incidents, China continues their "dog cull" practices by telling owners they must voluntarily kill their unregistered or un-vaccinated dogs by Sept. 10th or the police will do it for them. The most horrifying part of this just-out news today: "If these animals are not killed, police will then form dog-beating squads, combing the district and killing all such dogs. Owners will then be fined for the killing."  We are speechless.  We'll continue to follow this as it unfolds...
• Sad, sad news about a lovely pit named Rosie who is no longer with us.
• Concern about canine influenza continues to grow. The Sacramento Bee offers up a Flu Q & A to help dog owners understand what risk they face.  For most, the risk is minimal.
• Homewatch CareGivers and Bark Busters USA have teamed up to place more dogs with seniors. The key publication? The Seniors Guide to Selecting & Owning a Dog
• Blisstree takes a look at the eyelid condition known as Entropion and mentions, whaddya ya know, the shar pei
• In far less serious news: Aubrey O'Day defends dyeing her dog by claiming that the dog likes it.  Thoughts?
• And in great dog news: Finn, a yellow lab, is making wounded Marines smile in Hawaii

Fido Findings

After adding Michael Vick to their roster, the Eagles aren't getting much love from dog-lovers and with good reason:

• Pet Connection has an excellent post about how animal welfare organizations should talk about Michael Vick.  
• The LA Examiner also weighed in and their headline offers a good indication of their anger: "Philadelphia Eagles sign dog killer Vick" 
• Nathan Winograd offers a scathing perspective on how Vick's words are shifting...from "it's all my fault" to "it was someone else's fault." This particular distortion is what makes us the most angry as well - it is increasingly clear that all the apologies were merely lip service with the aim of getting signed.  Now that Vick has accomplished that, his PR team is changing the talking points and playing fast and loose with the facts.  If Vick were truly sorry, if he had truly learned from this and realized how cruel and inhumane his actions were, he could have a powerful impact on dog fighting and cruelty as an HSUS ambassador. He could save the lives of many pit bulls in need if we wanted to - yet he clearly has no intention of that now that he has his coveted prize, the prize he was gunning for all along. His shifting of blame to an outside "someone" is just as despicable as the killings.
• As usual, BAD RAP adds another dimension in Woe is Philly by making the connection between Philly's history of animal abuse and the Eagle's signing of Vick.  It tugs at our heart strings, makes us angry, and says it better than we could have all at once.  There is a lively debate taking place in the comments as well. The wham-o line in the post:

"I can only imagine some animal workers may be so utterly discouraged that they throw their hands in the air and leave the city that has decided to embrace a man who laughed - laughed - while dogs were crying out in pain."

Other news from the dogosphere:

• Reports of dog flu cases have been confirmed at a kennel in Fairfax County. Health officials are urging anyone who works with pets and pet owners to treat canine influenza just like human strains (even though we can't catch dog flu from our fidos) by washing hands repeatedly and remaining calm.  Symptoms include sneezing, lethargy, loss of appetite, coughing and wheezing. If your dog exhibits these symptoms, you are encouraged to take fido to the vet asap.
• Gibson, the World's Tallest Dog (and featured in one of our posts years ago), has died.  He was diagnosed with bone cancer (common in Great Danes) in April.  Gibson's owner started Three Paws for the Cause to raise awareness of canine cancer.  You can join the cause and donate to support canine cancer research. 
• In lighter dogish news, The Bark's Jim Gunshinan considers his dog's energy pawprint.   

Fido Findings

News from the dogosphere:

• It is now illegal to walk dogs in public in Riyadh.
• Verizon Wireless finally yanked those horrible pit bull ads.  Too bad so much damage is already done.
• The very good folks at Bad Rap revisit the Tusla puppy incident and find it surprising that so many people would never expect a lab to bite. Theyve provided a short list of "old and not-so-old headlines" to remind us that "dogs are still animals, even when they can fit into a fancy leather shoulder bag."
• Nathan Winograd, author of Redemption, is furious about the effectiveness of L.A.'s recent mandatory dog licensing laws and he hopes a similar proposition for mandatory cat licensing gets buried before it gets traction.
• Dogster shines a light on some of the more horrifying things that can happen when you take Fido to get groomed.
• In lighter news: Dogster is running a series of photo contests and we are pleased as punch that an English bulldog won the most recent go-round for a crazy drool-covered picture.

Fido Findings

News from the dogosphere:

• The protests for Congo, a 2 1/2 year old German shepherd who was sentenced to death for mauling a gardener, are getting heated. Many supporters of the German shepherd hold that it is the gardener's fault, not the dog's. The gardener confronted the dog with a rake, then ran to the dog's owner and pulled her to the ground in fear...something that would provoke many dogs to believe their owner is in danger and protect them accordingly. While Congo has escaped euthanasia for the moment, the judge in the case is receiving death threats.
• Bad Rap describes a pit bull comment we hear every day when we walk our own and it frustrates us to no end.  After getting angry about it, they've decided to make a kids and pit bulls calendar.
• Michael Vick surrenders in dog fighting case...it's about time.
• Fresh from the L.A. Auto show, dogcars.com highlights the latest cars that have dogs very much in mind and in design.
• Pet Connection offers a look back at the nightmare year of pet food recalls, and offers the final results of a study on what actually went so wrong.
• The Bark highlights a very disconcerting "lemon law" for dogs that are deemed not up to snuff by their new owners. Why oh why oh why isn't there a lemon law for dogs so they can complain to the appropriate authorities and return their owners for better ones?

Fido Findings

Doggie news from around the dogosphere:

• Pet Connection offers some sound advice on what dog beds not to buy
• PetSugar continues their series on pet-proofing your home
• Dogster uncovers English Bulldog "auctions" in Missouri - horrifying and terribly close to our hearts, as our English Bulldog Oscar would be furious
• Itchmo offers up two scary stories - the dog that disappeared from day care & the Nutro pet food plant giving off a foul stench to the surrounding neighborhood
• Animal House tells us about a man who married a dog - that's right - a man who married a dog