Connecting Pets, People, and Community While Saving Lives
Read about your pet’s health and how to manage it.
Creepy, crawly, blood-sucking, little jerks. Yep, we all hate ticks. Have you come back from a hike or a walk around the block to find a tick on your dog? Or your cat wanders around the yard and comes back with a tick? Ick.
You’re sweating, I’m panting, the cats are sleeping in the shade. We all have ways to cope with the hot summer temperatures.
People sweat, which helps cool your skin. A dog's main way to cool down is panting. Moisture evaporates from our tongues, noses, and the lining of their lungs as we pant. As this air circulates, it helps cool us off. Cats conserve energy, seek out cool surfaces (sleeping on a tile floor), and groom (saliva evaporates off their fur, cooling them down).
Humans have several socially acceptable ways of greeting each other… a smile, a handshake, a hug. You definitely would not be invited back if you did what many dogs do as part of social interactions. Yes, we’re talking about humping.
In the human world, there are entire fields of research dedicated to making mobility and communication easier for those who have challenges. From titanium prosthetic limbs to technology that helps hearing impaired people, it’s a dynamic and ever-changing world.
So, eye boogers…kind of a normal natural bodily function but somehow makes you humans queasy. Would it help if I called it leaky lookers instead? Or I could stick to the more technical term “ocular discharge”, although somehow that almost sounds worse. Anyway, pet parents are worrying about an increase in this “activity” due to all the smoke in the air these past weeks so I wanted to address this.
Hair balls. Yep, in last week’s Pet Column Zola wrote about saving the world and this week I write about slimy balls of fur. Somehow that seems unfair to me but I’ll tell you what, dealing with partially digested, then regurgitated, balls of hairy goop is real too. Fur balls need to be openly discussed and not swept under the carpet (where they would just get moldy and stinky).
So here is a mostly unknown feline fact: cats don’t get cavities like humans do. Instead we get something called cat tooth resorption. To add to the allure of the mysterious cat, no one really knows what causes it. But here is what you should know about it…
Connecting Pets, People, and Community While Saving Lives
