Letter From Vincent: A Q3 Dispatch From the Director of HASS
I’ve spent this spring and summer visiting some of the HASS pilot shelters. Members of the Human Animal Support Services team and I visited Dallas Animal Services in Texas, Kansas City Pet Project in Missouri, and Riverside Animal Services and Los Angeles Animal Services in Southern California. We’ve got plans to visit more of our incredible pilot shelters in the fall, as part of our “road show” tour. The road show is a whole-team project, with the goal of providing direct onsite support—primarily by...
Summer Road Trips with Your Dog—What You Need to Know
Factoring your dog’s health, safety and comfort into your travel plans makes for a summer road trip that’s fun and stress-free. Over 100 million Americans will be taking road trips with their dogs this summer. If you’re among them, boning up on your canine travel IQ will help your best friend stay safe, healthy, and comfortable. With the right preparations and a few precautions, you and your four-legged friend will be able to relax and enjoy your time on the road, wherever you’re headed. PLAN AHEAD It’s important...
Michigan’s Ferris State University is Allowing Pets to Live with Students in Cramer Hall
A Michigan-based university has introduced a new program starting this year that will see student pets allowed to live on the upper floor of Cramer Hall, located on Ferris State’s Big Rapids campus. It’s all part of an effort by the university to appeal to students who don’t want to or can’t bear to leave their pets behind at home. While most colleges still ban pets from living on campus, several have opened up to the idea in recent years in order to compete. One of them is Eckerd College in Florida, which holds an...
Dog with Note Attached to Collar Jumps into Patrol Car Looking for Help in Platteville, WI
Is this a trend or what? Recently, we’ve seen a number of stories where a dog or a cat has leapt into a vehicle looking for help or flat-out rescue from their situation. Well, it’s happened again, and this time it’s a dog in Wisconsin. A lost, or more likely abandoned, dog found herself alone in a park where she was apparently spotted and reported to local police. When an officer from the Platteville Police Department arrived at Moundview Park and opened the door to exit the vehicle, the female dog came bounding up and...
A Picture of Transport Success: Tonto
Aug 29, 2023 For 10 months, Tonto sat overlooked in a crowded shelter in an isolated part of West Texas, where the human population counts at 9,000 and the nearest vet is 90 miles away. The longer he sat, and the more crowded the shelter got and the greater risk there was of Tonto facing euthanasia. But Tonto’s fate changed when APA!’s transport team, the Texas shelter, and Underground Dog, a local rescue, teamed up. Together we got Tonto on a flight up to Boise Bully Rescue in Boise, Idaho, where Tonto was quickly...
Join the first Deeper Dive session from The Journey You Own on September 6th
Are you ready to reignite your passion, reclaim your energy and revolutionize your approach to work? We shared the news of the self-paced course, The Journey You Own: Practices for Wellbeing and Productivity, back in June, and now we’re excited to share the date for the first The Journey You Own: A Deeper Dive session. In this 50-minute meeting series, Jyothi V. Robertson, DVM, DABVP (Shelter Medicine) will guide you in exploring the concepts and practices covered in the self-paced course on Maddie’s®...
Women are Better at Understanding Canine Communications Than Men
After doing some research on canine communications, we ran into a study conducted by Dr. Tamás Faragó and his team at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary back in 2017. This is, rather interestingly, the same facility that recently undertook research on whether or not dogs had a preference for intonation among humans. The results confirmed what many of us have suspected for years: dogs enjoy baby talk directed at them and they respond better to women than men. Photo: Pixabay/thuanvo Women & Dogs The earlier 2017 study,...
Move Over, Cats: Felines Aren’t the Only Ones Who Prefer Baby Talk
New research points to dogs’ brains being sensitive to what scientists refer to as “exaggerated prosody,” which simply means baby talk. You know, that higher-pitched voice accompanied by cooing we all seem to resort to when addressing an infant or even a pet. To discern whether or not canines prefer what’s sometimes called the cutesy voice, Hungarian researchers from the Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University, the Research Centre for Natural Sciences, and the Eötvös Loránd...
Vet Raises Health Concerns Over Dogs Playing with Tennis Balls
Whether it’s gently tossing the fuzzy yellow-green ball across the lawn or lobbing it from a hand-held launcher, you might want to think twice about the ball you’re throwing when playing fetch with Fido — at least that’s what Texas-based veterinarian Hunter Finn is warning dog owners. Photo: Pixabay/BerckenGroep Tennis Balls & Dogs Hunter, a vet who routinely shares animal care advice on his TikTok account, outlined the dangers of tennis balls in two videos that have since gone viral. In the first, viewers...
How Manuka Honey Helps Heal Wounds in Dogs
You’ve likely heard about Manuka honey, and that it offers health benefits that go beyond those of regular honey. What exactly is it, and why is it so helpful for healing wounds in your dog? While honey is primarily a food product, it has also been used historically for its healing properties. As a cough suppressant, a treatment for gingivitis, and a general dietary supplement, honey has a lot to offer. Manuka honey is especially beneficial, not just for us but for our dogs as well. Let’s take a closer look at Manuka honey, and...
