Someone in a Dog park in Mesa, AZ is poisoning dogs. So far there were 10 suspected cases and at least two deaths. There is a small reward leading to the person leaving strychnine-laced hamburger at the popular dog park.

One dog, a German shepherd mix died within 15 minutes of returning from the park. the dog owner went back to the ark where she found some of the tainted meat.

According to the Arizona Republic:
“Mesa Animal Control has opened an investigation, but recent budget cuts may hurt the investigation, said Chad Willis, an officer with Mesa Animal Control. The city recently slashed its animal control officers from seven to two.”

Let’s pray that the person responsible is found soon, is prosecuted and thrown in jail.

In light of this, be sure to walk the perimeter of your dog park before allowing your dog to run free.

Recently I saw an article on People magazine and it featured Sandy Paws Grooming Shop and their award winning creative dog grooming. At first I thought, “what a crazy business” but then I decided to investigate…

I found Sandy Paw’s website and read about the products they use, and I also contacted Sandy the owner and asked a few questions about the process behind the creative grooming. As you can see Cindy, Sandy’s poodle, gets groomed and shaved in some extreme shapes like a chicken, a shark, a peacock a dragon and many other shapes.

Photo courtesy of Sandy Paws Pet Grooming Shop

Sandy assured me that she uses only dog safe products and that most time the products are on Cindy for the duration of the competition, or around 2 hours. Cindy is shaved as soon as the competition is over and she enjoys the attention and poses for the pictures.

I found Sandy to be a loving pet owner with an extraordinary talent. She told me she receives some hate mail and some people don’t understand the art. As an artist I appreciate the beauty and craft, as a pet owner I feel the need to educate people on the importance of using safe and harmless products. Before using any dye on your dog or cat, be sure to read all accompanying material and follow instructions carefully. If it is not safe foe your or your children, it won’t be safe on your dog or cat.

Pet Edge offers a dye made especially for dogs and cats:

“Top Performance Hair Dye Gels – The hottest new trend in pet grooming! Seven bright, fun colored gels to choose from. Completely non-toxic. Semi-permanent. Coloring results may vary with coat type and breed.”

For more information on Creative Pet Grooming visit Sandy’s site Sandy Paws Grooming Shop. They are located in Yucca Valley, California.

Very sad news for Martha Stewart, her beloved Ghenghis Khan was killed during a fire at the kennel where he was boarding. Apparently there was a a propane explosion and he was amongst the 16 dogs that perished. 14 dogs did survive, although some with serious burns.

Sadly many of the dog’s owners were traveling on vacation and will receive very bad news when they return and check on their animals. The kennel’s records were destroyed on the fire, so some of the dogs will only be reunited with their families when the family goes to pick them up.

The fire not only hurt animals, but it also badly hurt the truck driver who managed to first toss a cairn terrier named Chilli over the fence to safety before getting himself out of harm’s way.

Very sad indeed. We wish the injured dogs a speedy recovery and send our heartfelt love to the owner of the dogs that perished.

Today I was a guest at an amazing Radio Show “Animal Talk” hosted by Wendy nan Rees. We had a wonderful time talking about Blogs, Forums and Websites. Here are some of the things we discussed:

What to do before you setup a blog:

1- Find your passion.

2- Choose a cool name for your blog or site.
Tip: When choosing a name it is important that you use words people would be searching for.
This will help later with the search engines finding you.

For example: www.mydoglouie.com

Whether you decided to get a Domain name or not, the name will still be important.

If you decided to get a domain name, register your domain name with a company like www.godaddy.com – You can skip this step if you just want to use a name assigned to you. Here is a Hosting Company that is very inexpensive and very affordable. You can get your blog for as little as $8.99 a year. Click here for more details.

3- Get an email that you will use mostly for the blog/website.
This is important so you can keep things separated and you can always change this later. I recommend Gmail because all Google products integrate with each other, and they have a great spam handler.

4- Sign up for a blog service and write or post images as often as you can!
Blogging can be an amazing outlet and a place where you can share your life, thoughts and ideas with the world or just get them out of your head!

Blog suggestions- FREE Services:

1- Get an account with Blogger.com

Your blog name will follow this format: username.blogspot.com

This is a blog tutorial on the very easy steps to follow.

2- Or, get an account with WordPress.com

Your blog name will follow this format: username.wordpress.com

This is a tutorial on setting up your blog in WordPress.

These two are the biggest services and they offer some very important features like the ability to export your blogs, ability to ad advertising, and more.

There are several other blog services out there. Most provide the same ease of use. Here are a few others to consider:

Blog.com

Your blog name will follow this format: username.blog.com

Xanga.com

Your blog name will follow this format: username.xanga.com

Tip: You can play around with different services and see which one is best for you. Then you can delete the accounts you are not going to use.

Important Tip: Always spellcheck your blog posts and keep a copy of the entry in your computer!

Website Suggestions – FREE Hosting:

The following sites offer free professional looking web pages. These sites are perfectly fine for you to use for personal sites as well a small business. As a temporary solution they are perfect! Free and easy to use. If you purchased a domain name you can direct it to these sites. For example: If I purchase www.mydoglouie.com I would go to the domain registrar (the place I bought the domain name) and point the record to the new site. This sounds complicated but both services offer help.

1- Sign up with Viviti

Your site name will be nameyouchose.viviti.com

Time to have it up and running is 5 minutes.

2- Sign up with Weebly

Your site name will be username.weebly.com/

Weebly offers a different approach to building your template, but it is also very easy.

Tip: There are many free website services out there, but there are many factors to consider. One of the biggest factors is that in most of these free services, the site is created using their templates and those cannot be moved. So if later, you need to get your own hosting, the site will have to be totally recreated.

Tip: Try one (or both) of the free services and invest a little time to learn how things work, choose your favorite one. Always keep a copy of all your posts and pages, and organize everything you put in the site, so later if needed, you can create the site on another hosting company.

Paid Hosting Sites:

I recommend Godaddy.com, they offer inexpensive hosting and customer service is ok, I have tried several hosting companies and all of them have issues, Godaddy to me, was the best choice. At Godaddy an economy-hosting package cost $4.79 a month for 12 months, and they install WordPress or any other template based platform for you. Choose the Linux plan, because there are many more open source programs that run on Linux.

Tip: I would not use their Website Tonight. This service is quick to start but once it is created the site cannot be moved and customizing a Website Tonight site can be tricky.

There are many good tutorials on Youtube.com that explain in details how to start a blog or website using WordPress templates.

If you need a website for your business, I would hire someone to create a template based site and teach you how to update it. Here is a company I have worked with before, they are inexpensive and reliable.

There are several choices for template based sites: WordPress, Joomla and Drupal are some I recommend. The advantage of a template site, is that after it is created, you can easily learn how to update and maintain the site!

Cool Tools:

Ok, you have a blog. Now what?

The following are great sites to help you create and add effects to your images:

Photofunia.com lets you add cool effects to your photos.

ImageChef.com offers customizable gif images and lets you add cool effects to your photos.

Picnik.com is an image editing online program. You can crop, resize, rotate, remove red eye and more.

Animoto.com is a site that makes a video out of photos that you upload.

Fotoflexer.com is an amazing photo editor. You can apply effects, resize, rotate, colorize and more.

Check here for more tips and cool tools…we will be adding them as we find them!

The first FDA-approved prescription medication to manage obesity in dogs is here! It is called Slentrol and your veterinarian can prescribe it.  It is made specifically for dogs and it is the first prescription canine weight-loss product in the US.

It is important to stress that this prescription medicine is not a cure for obesity and it should not replace adequate diet and exercise.

Save 25% off at the Drs. Foster and Smith 25th Anniversary Sale
According to the manufacturer website:

Why is it important for my dog to lose weight?
Obesity in dogs is an important medical condition with serious health consequences. Dogs that are obese have more difficulty with their joints (arthritis), breathing and heart problems. They also are more likely than normal weight dogs to get infections on their skin and to have problems with anesthesia and surgery.

Dogs that are obese don’t run and play as much as dogs who carry less extra weight. They seem to have less fun than other dogs because of this. They often have trouble going up stairs, getting into cars and just simply walking down the street.

Managing obesity in your dog is not a matter of “looking good” it’s about managing serious health consequences. Controlling obesity can prevent some serious health consequences and improve your dog’s quality of life.

How does SLENTROL work?
SLENTROL is a medicine called an MTP inhibitor. It works by preventing some of the fat your dog eats from being absorbed into the body. When that happens a message is sent to your dog’s brain that tells him he’s full. In fact, one of the first things you’ll notice is that your dog won’t want to eat as much as before. The weight loss happens because your dog is eating less food.

If you suspect your dog is overweight, contact your veterinary as soon as possible. Only he or she can provide the best assessment and solutions.

For ordering and more information visit:
Dr. Fosters and Smith

Dewey was found inside of the overnight book drop in a library in Iowa, and his life is now the subject of a bestselling book that has quickly climbed to the Top 10  on the New York Times.

So, what about Dewey? Curiosly he is named after the Dewey Decimal System used by libraries to catalog books. His full name is Dewey Readmore Books. Once Dewey’s story spread it circulated the area, then the state of Iowa, with fame came thousands and thousands of visitors.

According to Vicky Myron, Dewey’s story teller:

“He was so cold and half starved and very dirty. He didn’t look like much until I picked him up and he started purring immediately and he looked in my eyes with his eyes,” she says. “He had the most gorgeous eyes I had ever seen and I felt a connection with him right away.”

Vicky had only been on the library job for six months and had wanted to make the library more homey so she thought Dewey would fit right in. She was right! Patrons took to him quickly, and over time visitors increased from 60,000 a year to more than 100,000. Many were suffering from the crippling economy that hit the farming community especially hard, and Myron thinks Dewey lifted their spirits and made them a bit more eager to stop off at the library.

Dewey also seemed to know when Myron needed a break and he knew how to ease her mind. Myron says her book is a story of unconditional love, companionship and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps during tough times.”

As you read her book you will many times think of you cat and Dewey’s presence will be felt, his story is heartwarming and this book will lift your spirits.

Dewey lived to be 19 years old and he is buried in the laws outside the library where he happily spent his life. If you are looking for a book to curl up with and a good story to read check out:

“Dewey, the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World,” by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter.