One great product that fit’s in with the story just discussed about traveling with your older dog is Ramp4Paws.
Ramp4Paws is a patented roll-out, roll-up dog ramp, which assists dogs getting into and out of vehicles, and up and down small sets of stairs. It is offered in two sizes, and is designed for dogs weighing up to 160 lbs.
Check out the product at PetGadgets.com
Ramp4Paws
You might be ready to hit the open road on vacation, but is your senior dog? Not all dogs can adjust to life on the road, even for a short time. A sick, frail, and super skittish dog is probably best left at home with a pet sitter checking-in on her daily. But if your older dog is healthy and you do some advance planning road trips can end up being lots of fun.
If your dog has never traveled by car before take a few trips around the block to see how she reacts. It’s better to find out now that she easily becomes carsick or if she just isn’t cut out for this type of traveling before the big day. If this is the case, your dog may need medication for travel stress. Talk to your veterinarian about this option.
Your dog should know basic obedience commands and be leashed trained. This is important for safety because you’ll encounter a variety of new people, places and sounds (think: fireworks and cars backfiring) that could possibly scare her and cause her to bolt. Some dogs tend to become more scared of things as they get older. You’ll also need to make more frequent stops for potty breaks during your trip and a leash is needed to keep her safe while allowing her to relieve herself.
Remember to pack a few things for your dog too. Here’s a list of must-haves:
Check out the full story:
Travel With Your Older Dog
Credit: The Seattle Times
Dr. Joe Musielak, an emergency-care veterinarian at Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital in Snohomish, says there is an emerging class of toxins: consumption of human medications by pets, especially pain meds. (Dr. Joe, as he prefers to be called, is pictured right with Basil, owned by Pilchuck vet tech Risa Hill.) He answers this week’s questions.
Question: Why can’t dogs and cats be given over-the-counter human pain medications?
Answer: The problem with giving dogs and cats human pain meds, such as aspirin, Tylenol, and ibuprofen, is two fold.
First, most human medications are dosed for an adult human. Very few dogs and even fewer house cats weigh as much as an adult human. From the start, there is an overdose problem.
Second, cats and dogs are not humans. Their metabolism differs from ours in significant ways.
Cats, for example, cannot metabolize acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) as we do. Tylenol exposure can be fatal to cats because acetaminophen eliminates the ability of red blood cells to carry oxygen to the rest of the body. This causes a death similar to suffocation.
A dog that chews up a bottle of ibuprofen, for example, may seem fine for a day or two. But then severe stomach ulceration and kidney failure may start. A pet’s prognosis is much worse and a hospital stay and subsequent cost are greater if we wait until they show clinical symptoms with medications like ibuprofen.
Question: What about aspirin?
Answer: Dogs can take aspirin in low doses; however, there are much more effective pain relievers for dogs that are also safer.
Question: What kind of organ damage can these human medications cause when ingested by pets?
Answer: Pets can have significant — even life-threatening — kidney damage from ingesting human medications without showing any outward signs of trouble.
Pets with kidney failure can have a decreased amount of urine, an increased amount of urine or it can appear to be normal. Sometimes the kidneys are just getting rid of excess water in kidney failure and not removing waste products, which can build up to toxic levels.
For example, when a pet’s blood values are elevated, at least 50 percent of the kidneys are likely damaged, something an owner wouldn’t know without blood tests. When pets start to show symptoms of kidney failure (vomiting, loss of appetite, abnormal urination), at least 75 percent of the kidneys are likely damaged.
In some cases, with supportive care, the remaining healthy kidney tissue can improve in function and return to a level capable of sustaining life. Obviously, the greater the damage, the less chance the healthy tissue has of “regenerating.”
Pets can also experience liver failure, intestinal ulcers or bleeding disorders from some of these medications.
Check out the full story:
Human Medications Can Be Dangerous For Your Pet
Pusuke, listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest-living dog, died in Japan on Monday. He was 26 years old – the equivalent of more than 117 human years.
The dog’s owner, Yumiko Shinohara, said the male cross-breed died at Sakura in the Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo, according to the Kyodo news agency.
Pusuke was reportedly eating well and staying active until Monday, when he lost his appetite and had difficulty breathing. Pusuke died peacefully, minutes after his owner returned home from a walk.
“I think (Pusuke) waited for me to come home,” she said, according to Kyodo.
Check out the full story:
World’s Oldest Dog Dies at Age 26
By JAMES DAO
The call came into the behavior specialists here from a doctor in Afghanistan. His patient had just been through a firefight and now was cowering under a cot, refusing to come out.
Dereck Stevens bonds with his military working dog before a practice drill at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio
Apparently even the chew toys hadn’t worked.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, thought Dr. Walter F. Burghardt Jr., chief of behavioral medicine at the Daniel E. Holland Military Working Dog Hospital at Lackland Air Force Base. Specifically, canine PTSD.
If anyone needed evidence of the frontline role played by dogs in war these days, here is the latest: the four-legged, wet-nosed troops used to sniff out mines, track down enemy fighters and clear buildings are struggling with the mental strains of combat nearly as much as their human counterparts.
By some estimates, more than 5 percent of the approximately 650 military dogs deployed by American combat forces are developing canine PTSD. Of those, about half are likely to be retired from service, Dr. Burghardt said.
Though veterinarians have long diagnosed behavioral problems in animals, the concept of canine PTSD is only about 18 months old, and still being debated. But it has gained vogue among military veterinarians, who have been seeing patterns of troubling behavior among dogs exposed to explosions, gunfire and other combat-related violence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Like humans with the analogous disorder, different dogs show different symptoms. Some become hyper-vigilant. Others avoid buildings or work areas that they had previously been comfortable in. Some undergo sharp changes in temperament, becoming unusually aggressive with their handlers, or clingy and timid. Most crucially, many stop doing the tasks they were trained to perform.
“If the dog is trained to find improvised explosives and it looks like it’s working, but isn’t, it’s not just the dog that’s at risk,” Dr. Burghardt said. “This is a human health issue as well.”
That the military is taking a serious interest in canine PTSD underscores the importance of working dogs in the current wars. Once used primarily as furry sentries, military dogs — most are German shepherds, followed by Belgian Malinois and Labrador retrievers — have branched out into an array of specialized tasks.
They are widely considered the most effective tools for detecting the improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, frequently used in Afghanistan. Typically made from fertilizer and chemicals, and containing little or no metal, those buried bombs can be nearly impossible to find with standard mine-sweeping instruments. In the past three years, I.E.D.’s have become the major cause of casualties in Afghanistan.
Check out the full story:
Dogs and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
We all want our pets to live long, healthy lives – and we’d all do just about anything to ensure that our cats and dogs can stay with us as long as possible. What five things can you do to keep your pet safe, happy, and by your side longer? We’ve listed them below, and chances are, you’re probably on top of them already.
But one hint may surprise you…
Keep your furry friend indoors
Staying inside, or at least on a leash, protects your pet from all kinds of dangers. Indoor living shields cats from infectious diseases; digestive upset caused by snacking on poisonous plants or other foreign objects; fights with other cats, dogs, wild animals, or mean humans; and speeding cars.
And as pets age, they can’t regulate their body temperatures as effectively, making them more prone to serious weather-related ailments like heat stroke if they’re outdoors too long.
Of course it’s fine to walk your dog, and the occasional (closely supervised) feline foray into the yard isn’t the end of the world. But it’s particularly important for cats to do their toileting inside; that way, the humans can monitor them for signs of tummy upset, urinary-tract issues, and so on.
Putting a “catio” in your window for bird-watching purposes, and planting cat grass in pots, can bring the outside in — without compromising Fluffy’s health.
Watch his weight
Obesity in dogs and cats causes the same serious health problems that it does in humans – high blood pressure, breathing problems, diabetes, and joint pain. It’s not easy to put a portly pet on a diet, but NOT doing so could shorten his lifespan (and from a practical – and more selfish – standpoint, you really don’t want to have to give a cat daily insulin injections).
If your dog or cat is on the spherical side, enlist your vet’s help to change his diet. Invest in new toys for your cat that will get him more active, and try switching from “free feeding” to controlled portions at specific meal times. Take dogs for longer or more frequent walks, and get strict about table scraps and extra biscuits.
Aging pets who have maintained normal weights for years may start to plump up as their metabolisms slow down. Changing your senior dog or cat’s regular food to a formula that’s higher in protein and lower in fat may help, and dogs may benefit from “nutriceutical” supplements. Again, consult with your vet.
Check out the full story:
5 ways to help your pet live longer
My senior dog has trouble getting up from our tile floor. We have tried various approaches to helping her with this problem including keeping her in a portion of our home where there is more carpet or putting heavy boots on her that she never liked. So when the folks at Woodrow Wear offered for us to sample their Power Paws, which are non-slip socks for dogs that provide traction, I jumped at the opportunity to try them on my dog. They arrived and immediately I noticed a few things. They were colorful and had some real traction (tacky and sticky) on the bottom of the sock. The only thing that concerned me is they looked so small even though the one’s supplied were for a large dog which my dog was. In speaking with the owner and inventor of the company, Lorraine Walston, she advised me the Power Paws stretch and thus are able to slip on and stay on in a secure manner. Sure enough
they went on without a hitch (just be careful of the dew claws) and stayed on without slipping off. My dog immediately tried to get up, albeit a bit awkwardly at first, and you could see she realized she had some extra support now helping her. I watched her as a well content smile come over her as I sensed she felt she had gained some control over her life again. Instead of the slippery floors dictating her she could now get up with relative ease. I saw this within the first few minutes of putting the socks on. These Power Paws come in many different colors and sizes and are only $19.99 per set of 4 socks.
Here is a video showing a dog getting up from a tile floor.
I can honestly say the Power Paws product deserves a 4 paw rating 
(Reuters) – Best-selling author and animal advocate Jon Katz has been writing about dogs for over a decade. Many of his own, past a present, have taken center stage fiction and nonfiction books such as “The Dogs of Bedlam Farms,” “A Dog Year,” “Izzy and Lenore” and “Rose in a Storm.”
Photo Credit: REUTERS – Maria Will/Handout
Katz wrote his latest, “Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die,” which comes out on Tuesday, to provide guidance, support and advice for people on how to handle the loss of a pet.
Reuters spoke with Katz to discuss his new book and how people can cope with life when the family pet passes away.
Q: What was the biggest surprise for you in researching books about pets and grieving?
A: “I found that almost every book had to do with the afterlife. Not a single book said, ‘This is what is known about things that will help you grieve.’ So I started talking to vets and psychologists and gathering information and interviewing maybe 200 different people about what was helpful to them.”
Q: And what did you find?
A: “People need to bring rituals into grieving. Memorial services, remembrances, pictures — those are concrete things that make grieving tangible. The Internet offers all kinds of opportunities for this like making digital albums and Facebook pages. People used to have to hide grief. You couldn’t go to your boss and say, ‘I need a week off, my cat died.’ You probably still can’t, but you do need to say, ‘I’m having a tough time.’”
Q: No doubt your own personal experience went in to this.
A: “I’m one of those people who has always struggled with emotions and revealing them. When my dog Orson died, I did this very male thing of ‘It’s just a dog and I’ll just move on.’ I was very slow to grasp the emotion. But Orson is the reason I started writing about dogs. He’s the first (dog) book I wrote and HBO did a movie about him (“A Dog Year”). Writing this book inspired me to go back and look at the impact of his loss and on my life, as well as other dogs that I’ve lost.”
Q: You ended up putting Orson down. How does one deal with the guilt of making such a decision?
A: “It’s important to remember that the animals are not grieving with us. They’re very accepting. They’re not lying there thinking ‘How could you do this to me? Why aren’t you keeping me going?’ Pets don’t do the human things of guilt and anger and recrimination that we do. They come and go with great acceptance.
“One idea that I advocate is the dealing with guilt directly. Acknowledge the good life, remember the good things you did with your pet — the places you took them, the affection you showed them. Remind those who have lost a pet that they generally gave their pets a good life and that’s a good thing, so don’t forget that.”
Q: Is there any way to prepare for a pet’s death?
A: “If you’re going to love animals and have a life with them, the odds are you’re going to lose them. It’s helpful when you get a dog to accept the fact that this dog is not going to be with you your whole life.”
Q: Is getting another dog acceptable in getting over the previous one? It’s not a betrayal to the one you lost?
A: “I’m always happy when people choose to get another dog because it’s a healthy and healing thing to do, and there are millions of them needing homes. But there is no single time frame to do it in because grieving is an intensely personal experience. In my case, I get another dog as soon as I feel ready. As a dog lover, it is right for me to have them.
“With children, I don’t think it’s good if you go out and immediately get another dog or cat. Animals are not disposable any more than people. Children need to see that the loss is important, and the family should take time to honor that.”
Check out the full story:
Jon Katz – life after pets die
Credit: KABC-TV/DT
NEW IBERIA, La. (KABC) — A pooch in Louisiana could be the oldest dog in the world. Max lives in New Iberia, which is near Lafayette.
The cute Terrier mix recently celebrated his 28th birthday – that’s 196 in dog years.
Max’s owner thinks he’s the oldest dog in the world.
She sent the Guinness World Records his birth certificate and vet records, but so far, she hasn’t received a response.
“He loves to just lounge around the house. He’s like an elderly person. He’s set in his ways. Everything has been documented and notarized, so I am just waiting to hear something, because I don’t want him to pass and not be recognized,” said owner Janelle DeRouen.
The title of “World’s Oldest Dog” used to belong to a 21-year-old dachshund from New York, but she has since died.
South Korean scientists said on Wednesday they have created a glowing dog using a cloning technique that could help find cures for human diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, Yonhap news agency reported.
A research team from Seoul National University (SNU) said the genetically modified female beagle, named Tegon and born in 2009, has been found to glow fluorescent green under ultraviolet light if given a doxycycline antibiotic, the report said.
The researchers, who completed a two-year test, said the ability to glow can be turned on or off by adding a drug to the dog’s food.
A combination photo shows a cloned fluorescent puppy, a three-month-old beagle, glowing in the dark under ultra-violet light (L) and under daylight (R). Photo Credit: REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak
“The creation of Tegon opens new horizons since the gene injected to make the dog glow can be substituted with genes that trigger fatal human diseases,” the news agency quoted lead researcher Byeong-Chun Lee as saying.
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Glow in the dark dog
