Dog Bearing Heartbreaking Note From Child Finds a Home

Mr B, who found a new home thanks to the unselfish love of a child (Credit for all photos in this post: king5.com):

When a King Charles Cavalier spaniel wandered into Paul Wu’s driveway and wouldn’t leave, the Kirkland, Wash., resident got out of his car to inspect the little dog more closely.

He found a red, bone-shaped container attached to the dog’s collar. On the container was the hand-scrawled word, “OPEN.” So he did.

Inside he found a note and some money. The note, hand-written on lined yellow paper, read:

Please take care of Mr. B. He is a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. Six years old. My parents got divorced and Mr. B was supposed to go to the pound. I think he has a better chance with you.  This is my birthday money for any of his care. He is used to kids, not other dogs.  He’s a good boy.  I know God will take care of Mr. B – Everyone loves him…especially me. Thank you.”

Wu was very touched by the note, and didn’t want to leave the dog on his own, so he brought him to work with him. There, coworker Robert Kuchcinski, who has three children, decided to lend a hand. He brought Mr. B home after work, and took him to the vet’s. The tagless dog had no microchip, but got a relatively clean bill of health. (He looks well fed.)

Kuchcinski’s family fell fast for Mr. B. They’ll be keeping him.

“I’d hate to be a kid making that choice,” Kuchcinski said. “It didn’t seem right that it would go to the pound.” (Yes, he’s calling him ‘it,’ but he’s a new dog owner, so that should improve with time.)

It’s been a few days now, and Mr. B is settling in beautifully. With three kids and two adults, there are sometimes 10 hands wanting to pet him at once. And he looks oh so comfy on the chaise lounge.

Wu appeared on a local news station in order to get word to the child/teen who dropped off Mr. B. ”
“All I want to do is let this person know that we found him a good home. That’s the whole message,” said Wu.

What a bunch of good people were involved here. It could have gone the other direction if the wrong people found the dog. I hope the child faring OK, and will soon find out that Mr B is doing well, too.

Sources: King 5 News, Digital Journal

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New Service Lets You Track Your Dog Walker

Walkies have never been so high tech

Ever wonder if your dog walker really gets to your house when she’s supposed to, or if your dog gets the kind of walks you’re paying for? With a new high-tech service, you can track your dog-walker’s every move – or lack thereof.

In other words, Big Brother is now in the business of watching walkies.

While most dog walkers are responsible, hard-working people, there are some lazy ones who take advantage of the fact that dogs can walk, not talk. If they’re super late for a walk (or miss one), who’s going to tell? If they take Fido to that bedraggled flea-filled dog park instead of the tree-filled haven you’d agreed on, how will you find out (besides fleas setting up camp on your dog)? And even the most well-meaning walker can make a mistake or be stuck dealing with an emergency.

The people behind Pet Check Technology aim to put dog lovers at ease by providing them with real-time evidence that their dogs are going where they’re supposed to, when they’re supposed to. Here’s how it works: Your dog walker gets to your house, swipes your QR code (a type of barcode) once there, and goes on her way with your dog. If she’s late, you’ll be notified immediately by email.

Then GPS technology takes over, and your dog walker’s movements are tracked until she swipes the QR code again at the end of the walk. You’ll be able to get a report of start and end times, and the route the walker took during the outing. About the only thing you won’t see are where your dog did his leg lifts.

The technology is available only to dog-walking businesses, and not to dog owners. The idea is that dog-walking companies will want to make sure their employees are doing what they’re supposed be doing, and if they’re not, they want to know right away.

What do you think, Dogsters? A step in the right direction, or a bit over the top? Have you had bad experiences with dog walkers that would make you value a service like this? I know we have some fine professional dog walkers in our midst, so I’d love to hear from you, too.

View the original article here

Guest Blog: When Our Dogs Slow Down

Lola, Geppetto, and Frieda can still fly across the fields, but guest blogger Daniela Caride now knows that life won't be so rough when they can't (Are they gorgeous, or what?)

Good Monday morning, Dogsters! Today we have an insightful guest post by Daniela Caride, my talented blog pal over yon at The Daily Tail. It’s about something many of us don’t look forward to, but she puts it in a beautiful perspective.

Dogsters, when you’re done reading her entry, please share your experiences about the whole slowing down process. Let us know what you’ve learned, how you and your dog have fared. We can all benefit from each other’s observations and wisdom.

When Our Dogs Slow Down

By Daniela Caride

Some people become addicted to jogging or working out at the gym. I’m addicted to walking my three dogs, Berners Frieda and Geppetto, and Lola the Saint Bernard. We mean business every day, rushing side by side around the park’s 2-mile trail. The dogs are still young (5, 4 and 3 years old), and they love to exercise with me, as I do with them.

Frieda, Daniela, and Lola

Then I had to slow down because of a painful bunion that was getting worse and worse. On top of walking my dogs less than half as far, I had to use a cane, which frustrated the hell out of me. Frieda, Geppetto and Lola, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind. They romped and played, waiting for me to drag myself along. I thought, well, at least they’re getting exercise, lapping around me like puppies.

A month ago, I had the bunion surgery that I had postponed for years, dreading the hassle it would be for my dogs. For the time being, I can only get around on crutches or with a knee walker – a four-wheeled bike with a support for the knee instead of the butt. It’s a great gadget, but it’s too unstable on uneven terrain. With a leg cast that I cannot put pressure on, I get tired and sore after going even a few feet.

To my surprise, my three big dogs have kept on romping happily wherever I take them, even a quick stop at a nearby fenced-in doggie park. I thought they would become irritable, bark like crazy and maybe even chew on stuff at home. But even without me to play with, they keep in shape playing with each other.

The routine we came up with is far from ideal, but it doesn’t seem to be as bad as I thought it would be. As I walk now, I keep one eye on the dogs and another on the trail. (I can’t afford to take a fall!) And I’ve discovered so many wonderful little things during the past few weeks. I’ve finally seen the owl in the hole high up in a tree. I saw a woodpecker feeding her babies in the nest. And I’ve been taking the time to admire the goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace and other wild flowers along the path.

It’s funny. Ever since I got Frieda, I dreaded the day I’d see my dogs slow down. They so enjoy romping in the tall grass and chasing each other. I always feared the coming of old age as the time to gradually stop doing everything we love until all is gone.

Now I see my worries are all inside my head. Time goes fast when life is good, and dogs do age so quickly. But when Frieda, Geppetto and Lola get too old to fly across the fields, a different but beautiful world will be awaiting them, full of critters and flowers and smells I cannot even imagine. I’ve seen a bit of it lately, and it will be so much fun to explore it alongside three big old happy dogs.

Daniela Caride is a journalist with almost 20 years of experience who shares her life with 3 dogs, 4 cats and her husband. She runs The Daily Tail (www.TheDailyTail.com) and freelances for other media outlets, such as Boston.com (www.Boston.com), The Bay State Banner (www.baystatebanner.com) and various blogs. She also volunteers for an organization that helps low-income people keep their pets in times of hardship, called Phinney’s Friends (www.phinneysfriends.org).

Geppetto, Lola, and Frieda

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Cesar Millan: The Idiot Whisperer

This is hilarious. Enjoy!

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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Interview With Director of HBO’s “Madonna of the Mills”

Andy Nibley is the director of the new documentary, Madonna of the Mills, which premieres tonight (August 24th) on HBO. It’s an important film that could add to the mounting public outcry against puppy mills. Joy Ward, author of some terrific doggy books, and former editor of the Dogster dog blog (yes, one of our own!), caught up with Andy for this interview.

Andrew Nibley

Andy: The idea behind the film was really to show a couple of things. One, that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. Laura is an office manager for a dentist on .Staten Island and yet she, on weekends on her own nickel, rents vans and drives down to Amish country and picks up somewhere between 35 and 50 of these puppy mill dogs who have spent their entire lives in cages the size of dishwashers. They’ve never been petted. They’ve never been walked. They’ve never been bathed and she’s saved over 2000 dogs and she’s done that all on her own. So that was one thing.

The other was what happens when you spare a life? So I follow four of the dogs that get saved and you see them rehabilitated from the point where they couldn’t walk because they’ve spent their lives in cages. There’s a nice story about an autistic boy and a golden retriever and one about a childless couple who end up with a cocker spaniel. It really shows these dogs can make wonderful pets if they’re adopted.

Director Nibley tried to stay away from puppy mill scenes as horrendous as this one

Joy: How did you get on to this story? How did you get into this?

Andy: Actually my wife came home one day with a cocker spaniel that had been debarked. One of the farmers puts a pipe down their throat and hits it with a hammer to break the vocal cords. That’s because they have hundreds of these dogs stacked up in cages in barns and they don’t want the dogs to bark and alert the authorities that they have hundreds of these dogs in cages inside these barns. So she said to me, “You need to quit your job as a CEO and make a movie and tell people the story that all of the pet stores, all of the puppies that are in pet stores have mothers that live in these cages their whole lives and do nothing but produce puppies for pet stores. Then when they can’t produce puppies any more they are taken out and shot or stoned or drowned or starved. That’s their whole lives.” So I left my job and we bought a camera and hired some camera people and some editors and we found Laura. For a year and a half I followed her around every weekend when she would go to these different farms to pick up the dogs. Then, as I said, I followed four of the dogs and recorded their story. I think a lot of people were surprised that most of the puppy mills in the northeast of the United States are run by the Amish and that it’s their puppy mills that feed the pet stores in New York and Boston and Philadelphia. But they feed pet stores all over the country. That’s primarily where they are.

Joy: How did you get them to open up? You have some very telling film where you’re actually in the puppy mills and you’ve got a miller talking to you. How did you get them to open up?

Andy: Well, to be honest, it’s not illegal. It’s perfectly legal under US law and I think that’s why people are so eager to change the laws. They don’t necessarily see that they are doing anything wrong. The puppy mill that we show in the movie is not by any stretch a very bad puppy mill. And yet it is very alarming when you see how many dogs are in there and you only have an Amish farmer or a Mennonite farmer and his wife looking after hundreds and hundreds of dogs. Some of the puppy mills we went in were just so gross to look at that we didn’t even want to show people because we wanted it to be an uplifting movie. We wanted people to feel like they could do something to stop these puppy mills. We really kind of stayed away from the concentration camp theme that a lot of these puppy mills are like when you actually go into them.

Joy: Interesting that you wanted to go with the uplifting theme rather than the concentration camp theme. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Andy: I think that as a nation we Americans do not like to sit and watch things that make us uncomfortable. When you see these puppy mills they make you feel very, very uncomfortable. We really wanted to focus on what you can do about it so by focusing on Laura and focusing on other people who are out there on the weekend saving these dogs and picking up these dogs and turning them over to rescues and foster families they’re really making a huge difference and raising public awareness. And people feel good when they do that. So we thought let’s concentrate on what people can do and not just show them the negative. We think when you see the dogs who have been rehabilitated and what they mean to the families who have adopted them and the changes that have come over those families its really heart-warming stuff. It really inspires you to want to do something, to end this cruelty to animals.

Joy: How has this film affected you?

Andy: I think for me, in the process of making this, I really learned that there are people out there doing things that make a difference where they’re not making any money. I mean, Laura doesn’t make any money doing this. She’s doing this because she loves the animals. That inspired me to be a better person, my wife and everybody who worked on the film to look at these people who are giving up their time to go out and do this. Bill Smith, what he’s done with Mainline Rescue (Note: Mainline Rescue is one of the groups that takes rescued dogs to be rehabilitated) and saving all those dogs and building that facility and he’s relentless — twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year – he’s doing anything he can for these dogs and cats, too. It’s just very, very inspiring.

Joy: Take me to a time that is most inspiring; it still hangs with you as you look back.

Andy: There were a bunch of times like that. I think the story about the golden retriever and the autistic boy really struck me because we could not actually get the golden retriever out of the cage. The dog was so terrified and was so like, “Leave me alone. Leave me in this cage. This is all I’ve ever known in my entire life, being in the cage and making babies.” It couldn’t walk. I had to actually drag it out of the cage. Usually I didn’t participate in the film; I would just shoot it and direct it but this time I needed to help them drag the dog out of the cage. It didn’t know how to walk. Its legs had atrophied and it was very uncertain. It was afraid of grass because it had never walked on grass. It was afraid of clear water because it had never had clean water before. To watch that dog turn into this loving creature that transformed this family in Manhattan with the autistic boy, the autistic boy just opened up, the dog opened up, the community did, the family united. To see that this was a dog that was go it could have that this was a dog that was going to be put to death and that it could have that transformative effect on a family and the community was just made you get goose pimples watching them.

That was a special moment and I think watching the dog that my wife and I ended up with that was only supposed to live a couple of months and now is almost five years with us and the impact that dog has had on our lives. It is tough. It’s like having a special needs infant. She has to be held for twenty minutes after every feeding. There’s a risk that she’s going to choke to death so she has to have a lot of, all of her food has to be pureed before she can eat it. There are a lot of things you have to do for her and yet she’s the sweetest, most loving creature. To think she was going to be put to death and instead she’s given us such joy over the last five years.

Joy: That’s Maisy (one of the dogs profiled in the documentary)?

Maisy

Andy: That’s Maisy. She’s a sweet little girl. She was going to be put to death. Instead she’s given us such joy over the last five years.

So if we save one dog from making this movie it will be worth it. Hopefully we’ll save thousands of dogs and really what we’re hoping is that Congress and the state legislatures will see that this is ridiculous and they’ll change the laws. I don’t have anything against the Amish and I don’t have anything against pet stores. I just want pet stores to go back to selling bowls and leashes and pet food and stop a practice that is leading to the torture of dogs. There are good Amish people who would abhor this if they knew what was going on in some of the barns in their communities. I just want the Amish and other people in other parts of the country that are running these dog factories, these dog concentration camps, to stop and for people to adopt. There’s millions and millions of animals who are euthanized every year. Adopt one of those. They need homes. They need love. So I think everybody can make a difference if they want to.

Joy: What tells you that the mass of Amish don’t know what’s going on?

Andy: I saw some Amish families who were very, very good to their dogs, treated them very well. And I saw some breeders, Amish and otherwise, who really care about the animals and it’s almost harder to adopt their dogs than it would be to adopt a child. They don’t want their dogs falling into the wrong hands. So I know that there are good Amish people out there. As I said, I don’t have anything against them or their religion or the people. I just know that in the Northeast they are the predominant owners of the puppy mills. Now in other parts of the country it’s a lot of people who aren’t Amish or Mennonite running the puppy mills. I don’t really care about anyone’s religious affiliation; I just don’t want them to torture animals.

Joy: Have you had any response legislatively or any feedback?

Andy: No because it’s still early. We did win the Best Documentary Short at the Garden State Film Festival. And selling it to HBO is a great tribute to my wife’s ability as a producer.

There was an editorial this week in one of the Pennsylvania newspapers asking their legislators to watch the HBO premiere. We’re hoping that is just the beginning of a groundswell of support for the movie from people who will urge their legislators to do something to stop this. We don’t want to put dog breeders out of business. That’s not the point. The point is to stop the torture of animals and to get people to legitimately breed pets.

Joy: You mention that you had already spoken with some good breeders. How did you connect up with them?

Andy: A really good way is to ask your vet and they’ll know good breeders. Ask friends who have gotten dogs from breeders. Pretty much, if you’re finding the breeder on the Internet or through a pet store, it’s almost a 100% guarantee that’s a puppy mill dog. If the breeder is going to fly you a dog from someplace but they’re not coming with the dog, there’s a pretty good chance that’s a puppy mill dog.

One of the things that I ask right off the bat is can I meet the mother and father? If they can produce a mother and father, that’s usually a legitimate breeder. If they can’t produce the mother and father, they are generally puppy mill dogs.

I think the thing that people don’t realize about puppy mill dogs is that even if they don’t care about their mother and father you’re getting an inferior product for an expensive price. You’re paying someone somewhere between a thousand and two thousand dollars for this dog and a hundred percent of these dogs have parasites. So they are sick to begin with and then there’s something like a 48 % chance that they’re going to die or have major surgery just in the first year. So you’re really paying a lot of money for a really inferior product. There’s a lot of heartbreak when you get these dogs. In the film we feature someone who spent two thousand for the dog and then he spent twenty-three thousand in medical bills over the next year and a half. That’s very common.

Joy: I’m really glad you brought that out because that’s part of the discussion that doesn’t get played up as much as it should. I love it when you have the vet saying, “You can take back a car or you can take back something else but you can’t take back a puppy.”

Andy: You get emotionally attached from Day One. The reason you bought the puppy is because you were in the pet store. It’s a very emotional purchase, very heartfelt. You feel like you’re bonding with that dog and so that’s why you make the purchase. So it’s very hard to go back and dump the dog off. And they’ll do it, too. Pet stores will say, “Okay, well you don’t want that one then take another one.” Or we’ve had instances of where somebody went in and they’ll say, “Oh the dog is sick. We’ll what the dog needs is a companion.” And they’ll sell them another dog for a thousand dollars. That one will have huge medical bills as well. It’s pretty much of a sham and these pet stores have fake health certificates. They have fake ancestry charts. It really is a ruse. The simple, simple answer is don’t buy from pet stores, period. You’re going to get a puppy mill dog if you buy it at a pet store. We need pet stores to go back to selling the products that you need to have a pet but not the pets themselves.

Joy: There’s hope that this will be part of the battle against the concentration camps. How can groups get a hold of copies of Madonna of the Mills?

Andy: Our plan is eventually to make it available to any schools or organizations. HBO has the rights for the next two years. We are going to negotiate a DVD distribution deal so people can get the DVDs. HBO is going to show it a bunch more times. Of course it premieres on August 24th at 8 PM. Then it runs 10 or 12 times during August and September. It’s also available on HBO On Demand and HBO Go. We’re hoping that eventually you’ll be able to see streaming copies of it and get DVDs. We’ll keep getting copies of the movie out there.

Joy: Have you had any interest from any of the large groups?

Andy: The Humane Society has been phenomenal and they’re going to promote the movie to get people to watch it when it premieres on HBO. The ASPCA, we did a lot of work with them too and they’ve been terrific. A bunch of the rescue groups in Pennsylvania, New York and Connecticut have been very helpful as well.

Joy: Are you planning on any follow-ups to this?

Andy: We are having some discussions about future projects and they may be for other animal groups. My wife, the producer, has gone over to Cameroon in the past and worked with gorillas and chimpanzees over there so there are some other projects we may take on. One of my personal ones is we live in bear country with the highest concentration of black bears in the world and its only forty, fifty miles from New York City. I’d love to be able to make a movie about those incredible creatures.

Joy: Your wife sounds like an incredible woman.

Andy: I’m very, very lucky. I’m glad she got me to take a break from work to make this movie.

The rest of us are glad Andy and his wife dedicated their time to this documentary, too. But perhaps the ones who will appreciate the results of this work the most will never be able to express their gratitude — the rescued puppy mill dogs and all the dogs who will escape the concentration camps because of the movie. If you care about dogs please make every effort to see this uplifting and energizing film. – Joy

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Madonna of the Mills premieres Wednesday August 24th at 8 PM Eastern on HBO. Watch the trailer here. You can read Joy’s review of the film at the Sunbear Blog.

Read more from Joy at the Sunbear Blog. Joy also is the author of Haint: A Tale of Extraterrestrial Intervention and Love Across Time and Space, and co-author of the recently released Interviews from the Ark.

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Puppy kindergarten: What playgroup would your pup be in?

Housebreaking tips, anyone? Or do ya’ll have completely housebroken puppies already?

No matter how many dogs you’ve owned and no matter how good you are with dogs, there’s no replacement for socialization and going out to partake of the big world. That’s why puppy kindergarten is so important for puppy development, not to mention great photo opportunities.

After lengthy waits for puppies from responsible breeders, two of my friends each ended up with puppies who were born one week apart: Olivia, a lovely and earlicious German Shepherd dog with a wise face, and Niles, an adorable, fluffy miniature schnauzer with natural ears. Their owners decided they should go to puppy kindergarden together. The puppies met before the first class when they got into the same car (different crates).

For these two puppies, there were no less than five women with them at their first day of school. I wanted to stand at the bus stop and wave at them as they left home to go to school. I don’t think anyone cried. Oh wait, I did. It was the perfect antidote to living with a beloved geriatric.

I have never been to puppy class before because I generally adopt adult rescues, and I have to say it was just about the cutest thing I have ever seen. Seriously. Dogs of every size, color and activity level seemed to be there, all in darling, sweet, miniature baby form with puppy breath, puppy faces, and sharp little puppy teeth.

The best part of class was play time. The instructor, a lovely woman from Patricia McConnell’s Dogs’ Best Friend, said that they would break the puppies into three play groups based on their personality and activity level.

“Some dogs like to play football, and some prefer to have tea,” she said.

She also said that over the course of the class some puppies would switch back and forth between those three levels and people shouldn’t worry about it. Don’t worry, be happy…it’s puppy school!

The football players, including Olivia, went outside where there was a wading pool with water. The average-activity puppies, which constituted the largest group and included Niles, goofed around in the large sectioned-off area of the main room. The two or three puppies who preferred to have tea went to the small sectioned-off area. It took a while for the tea puppies and the average puppies to get going.

Outside, the football players were rocking. There was a Labrador, and there was a wading pool with water – need we say more? Olivia didn’t go in the pool, at least not when I was looking, but she chased the lab around and was clearly having a great time.

Niles took a moment to get into the spirit of playtime. “Really, I’m supposed to go out there without you? And do what, exactly?” He eventually did get himself into the crowd, although it also may have come to him. One of the puppies skittered across the linoleum like a wind-up toy.

The tea party had a hard time getting started, as you can imagine. It’s hard to party hearty from between mom’s legs, but the people stood close together.

The first change was a puppy who came in from the footballers to the average group, but ended up playing too hard for the average guys and thus had to play on a leash. One of the average guys went for a cuppa tea. Eventually another dog was removed from the footballers, but so late in the game that she just stayed outside standing behind her people.

Next week everyone will know what to expect, but none of the dogs will be any less enthusiastic. After all, they’re puppies!

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Aggressive dog: What to do?

August 29, 2011

I guess I wasn’t quite done blogging here yet. My sister just called me with a dog problem, and I thought some of you might have some good advice for her. Susie lives in El Dorado, a rural area just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. None of the homes in the area have fenced yards, except maybe for courtyards. Each home is on two or more acres. Susie likes to go for walks and just recently a dog belonging to one of the neighbors has started to menace her. She describes him as big–”more than 50 pounds”–and thinks he is a Chow mix.

So far, she has done all the right things, especially for not really being a dog person. The first time, she stood still, was careful not to stare at the dog and backed away slowly. She yelled for help but no one came out. She ended up just going back the way she had come to get back to her house. The next time, the dog waited until she was on the road in front of his house and ambushed her, running out at her and barking. She had brought bear spray with her this time. The spray seemed to startle him and he backed off to his house but was still barking at her, so she didn’t think it disabled him any. She sprayed it from quite a distance, though (15 feet, maybe), and unfortunately sucked in some of it herself.

Other people, including children, have been threatened by the dog. Animal control has been called but they’re on the other side of Santa Fe County and by the time they get there the dog is inside and the people won’t answer the door. The dog apparently belongs to the homeowner’s live-in boyfriend. The homeowners association has been notified and has gotten a lawyer, but so far the people have ignored demands to confine the dog.

I suggested that she get an air horn to blast at the dog but am otherwise at a loss if animal control and the HOA have already been notified and even a lawyer and the threat of a lawsuit haven’t made the owners budge. I don’t want to get a call that she’s been bitten or worse, and I don’t especially like the idea of her getting a gun and blasting away at the dog (at the neighbors, maybe).  Advice?

View the original article here

Cute Video By Clever Dogster Flip Video Cam Winner

Last month Dogster/SAY held a contest on Facebook for a one-of a kind Dogster Flip video camera, and a Catster one, too. Even though the Flip cam company has been shuttered by Cisco Systems, the company that acquired the Flip startup, these cameras are still hot on the internet. And these two were especially sizzling, SAY’s very own Yuko Takahashi designed these custom cams. There are no others like them.

The contest winner, Jessica Trinh, made this well-edited and endearing piece about her adorable Golden, Chuppy. It stops abruptly at 57 seconds, in the middle of Colbie Caillat’s sweet song, and we want more! Jessica, when is Part 2?

We think it’s great she was so excited about the prize and got pretty savvy with it quickly, and wanted to share her video. If any of you have Flip cams hanging around collecting dust (I am speaking to myself here…), her piece might provide some inspiration to give it another whirl.

View the original article here

Pet Connection team moving to a new address: Vetstreet

If you’ve noticed it has been pretty quiet here, especially in terms of posts from “The Management,” you’re on to something. The folks who’ve long been behind the PetConnection — me, Christie and Dr. Marty Becker — have been involved in a start-up, and now that it has, in fact, started up, we’re packing up the PetConnection.

Destination: Vetstreet.com.

After Aug. 31, this site will go dark. People who type in “PetConnection.com” will end up on the new site. A lot of the content is already there, and a lot of our contributors will be, too. Dr. Becker and I have been working with the Vetstreet team for months, and Christie has started with them recently in the final stages of the transition.  While not all our bloggers will go along for one reason or another, most will, and that makes the people behind Vetstreet very happy. They’ve been fans of ours for a very long time.  In a short time, I’ve become fans of theirs.

As you can well imagine,though,  I have mixed feeling about the change.

I never liked the name, “Pet Connection.” In fact, I loathed it. “Pet Connection” was already the name of the  pet column I took over the mid-’80s, when I was a young reporter and editor at The Sacramento Bee. I tried to change it then, but couldn’t come up with anything the bosses liked better. It seemed — and still seems — too lightweight  for the work I’ve always done, and that we all did as our team grew. We love pets, but we also love medicine and reporting, and our work here always tried — and usually  succeeded — to offer the best-practice work of both worlds.

When Universal Press picked the column up for national distribution, they liked the name, too. I gave up, bought the domain name and put a simple site to serve as a marketing device for the syndicated column. And that, I thought, would be that.

And then, at Christie’s urging, we added a blog.

The world changed just about then, although in fact the seeds of change had been planted years earlier.

Christie and I had been friends for several years at that point, although we almost never saw each other and rarely even talked on the phone. We’d met while working for the Pet Care Forum on America Online. PCF was owned and run by the Veterinary Information Network (VIN) at the time, and I left the newspaper to work for Dr. Paul Pion there.

Yes, everyone at the newspaper thought that was crazy.

But Christie and I were part of a culture no one had ever seen before. Our best friends were — and still are — people who live all over the world, people we used “electronic mail” and “instant messages” to connect with, starting with 600-baud dial-up modems and strange little computers — my first was a Radio Shack TRS-80 (a “rat shack” in the newspaper parlance, with 8K of memory) and my second was the original Macintosh. The Mac I’m typing on now (my first Mac in 25 years of PCs) is my 23rd computer, and it’s part of a network of four computers (a desktop and three laptops/netbooks) that use a screaming fast home wi-fi network I could never have imagined having even a decade ago.

You all pretty much know where the story goes from there.

Until the latest chapter, that is.

Up until a couple days ago, Vetstreet was mostly known as a company that helped veterinary practices communicate with their clients. But behind the scenes, something massive was being developed –  a site for pet-lovers to find accurate medical and behavior information. Dr. Becker knew the people behind Vetstreet, and they started talking with us about coming aboard.

We danced a long time, but it felt right and we all knew it. Moreover, Vetstreet had the team and the money to do many of the things I’ve always wanted to do with our website. Dr. Becker was a natural fit; I flew back to work with the team in D.C. and realized I liked the fit, too. Christie is finalizing  her relationship now, and the dancing continues with the rest of our bloggers.

I’m very happy with the decision, and I see great things ahead for Vetstreet as a place where people can go to find the best practices of journalism and medicine well-represented.

Check it out. I think you’ll agree.

In the meantime, we’ll have this site up for a few more days as we migrate the content and people over.

I can’t thank my colleagues enough for their work on their site. I’m also so grateful for my friend Jay Gavron for the site design — including the heart-and-paw logo which is now tattooed on my back! — and Mike Linville of Black Dog Studios for every tech thing, getting us through the pet-food recall, denial of service attacks and so much more.

Of course, the biggest thank-you goes to you, the readers. I promise you we won’t stop writing, as long as you keep reading.

Come on down to Vetstreet. I think you’ll like the new place just fine.

Image, lower right:  Yes, I really did it. I had the Pet Connection logo tattooed onto my upper back when I had a couple of days in Portland last May — this pic was taken immediately after it was done. No, it didn’t hurt that much. And yes, I’m happy I did it. Very, very happy.

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Endgame: The hottie in Room G

As you all know by now, the PetConnection that we all know and have dearly loved is moving on and metamorphosing into a new and exciting form in the coming days. It is still somewhat unclear exactly what form it will take, but word on the street is that it will be nothing short of totally flippin’ awesome. My participation in this carnival of whimsy is a still little up in the air due to some unresolved issues, but I will be somewhere online in the very near future, disseminating the same brand of misinformation and silliness that I have been doling out on a random schedule while here. The internet is a big place, and there’s plenty of room for everyone.

I do want to make it official, though –  I loved it here, and I loved the people — every one of them. I have been amazed at the level of dedication, concern and integrity on both sides of the keyboard with this place. The bonds I have made here will be hard and fast for a long time to come.

As we draw operations to a close here at PetConnection, pack up our boxes of words and say good bye to the neighbors, I wanted to share a wee observation with you. This observation has sort of crept up on me over the past two years, ever since I came on faculty at Purdue. It started, as these things often do, as a subconscious realization, similar to when you hear (or rather, sense) a far-off and nearly indistinguishable sound. The hum of a far-away lawn mower, the drone of an airplane over a distant hill, or the wing-flapping of a far-off vampire pig bat.

Over the months, it has imperceptibly grown to the point that, as I walked the hallowed halls of learning this morning, it hit me in the face like a roundhouse punch from Mike Tyson, followed by a nasty bite from his tiger.

Here’s the realization:

There is always an attractive woman sitting in exam room G. With a brown dog.

I know, I know:  Not exactly earth-shattering, but it’s all I got right now. Unrest throughout the world, the hunt for a mad and quite possibly cross-dressing tyrant rages on in the streets of Tripoli, cracks up and down the Washington Monument, holes at the North Pole spewing Mole Men into the arctic circle … and the best I can do to capture the redundant zeitgeist (which I am pretty sure is German for “jelly donut”) of our times and commemorate the curtain coming down on out little corner of the internet is this anomaly?

Yep , sorry. I was never one for depth.  To steal a line from “Wicked,” I am deeply shallow.

As the sound of that far away lawn mower gradually grew to the din of pig bats devouring a jet engine roaring overhead (or something), I started to notice that every time I walked past exam room G on the way to my office, there was an attractive young lady patiently sitting in there, waiting for the doctor (never me, alas) with an invariably brown dog at her side.

We have a quite a few exam rooms here. By my reckoning, since they go up to at least G, that would seven as a minimum. Perhaps quite a few more. I have not found exam room Z as of yet, but if they don’t kick me off the faculty any time soon for writing crazy shit on the internet, I may yet find it.

The other exam rooms usually harbor the same lineup of people that you encounter in everyday life; lumpish people, making their ungainly way through life. I am one of their number, these lumpish people, so I am not throwing stones here, even thought I do live in a heavily fortified and high-tech glass lair, high atop my secret volcano, the only way to reach it being my personal atomic zeppelin.

But exam room G is special. No lumpish people there. The first few times it happened I was willing to brush it off as either one of those things you brush off, or the early stages of tertiary syphilis, but as I strolled past time and again, the realization grew on me that something odd and magical was happening in that humble room. I sensed that magic was afoot and the goddess was alive.

I do not want to see this goddess's feet

Now, I don’t want you to get the impression that I spend my waking hours seeking out the company of attractive women. I am happily married to a tiny, sparkly princess and it would not surprise me one iota to see her sitting in exam room G with a brown dog someday –  she’s that hot. (And we have two perfectly good brown dogs at home to choose from, too). It’s just that as a student of the world, you get to noticing these things. I personally think that our brains are little pattern recognition machines, as well as little lumps of gray putty, and that things like this just stand out.

The phenomenon of the not-unattractive woman sitting patiently in exam room G with her brown dog brings up some questions:

Is there some vast conspiracy on the part of the front desk staff to only put attractive women with brown dogs in this room?Is it pure coincidence? Madness? Chemtrails? Mole men? Jelly donuts?Are there special exam rooms for other kinds of people? Say, overweight accountants with iguanas? Near-sighted garbagemen with capybaras?

Sadly, as we are folding up shop here, the answers to these and other burning questions shall never be known. We will just have to live with that unsettling, unscratched itch feeling as we live out the rest of our days. Just watch out for the vampire pig bats –  they’re a bitch.

My work here is done.

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