Petfinder Blog

Brenda from Gadsden, Ala., sends us this touching Happy Tail about how the dog she rescued gives comfort and companionship to her dad, who has Alzheimer's disease:

I found a picture of Zeke while looking through Petfinder for an available dog in the Gadsden area. He looked so pitiful, I wanted him immediately.

While I was at work, my parents went to the Humane Society of Etowah County to adopt him as a birthday gift for me. Poor Zeke was a basket case -- so afraid that he wouldn't even look at them and just sat in Mom's lap shaking. She wanted him on the spot!

After the paperwork was completed, he was off to the vet for his "surgery." Finally on Saturday we were able to pick him up and bring him home.

Though he was a birthday gift for me, Zeke had other ideas. He decided from day one that he was my dad's dog. He followed him everywhere!

Last month we asked subscribers to our newsletter: What is important to you (besides credentials) in choosing a veterinarian for your pet? We reveal the results in our August newsletter.

78% "Pet"side manner
6%   Rates
6%   Recommendations from friends and relatives
3%   Location
7%   Other

Tell us what you think ... then sign up for our monthly newsletter! (You can also find a vet near you in our new Local Services & Supplies Directory).

A while back we asked you what healthy foods you and your pet like. We also asked readers to submit their favorite pet- and human-friendly recipes, and the great site SheKnows has posted some of them.

The site also quotes our founder, Betsy Saul, on portion control for pets and what foods you should NEVER feed your best friend.

Instructions for making Simple Scrambled Eggs are after the jump. For recipes for Harvest Veggie Chicken Soup and Lean Mean Meatloaf, check out the post on SheKnows. What are your favorite pet-friendly recipes?

 

For all the bad press that pit bulls get, it's nice to see the media give some attention to a hero pit -- and one who happens to be a shelter dog, no less!

The Associated Press picked up the story of the aptly named Angel, a 2-year-old boxer/pit mix living at the Nevada Humane Society in Reno.

Angel was being walked by volunteer Frank Gomez and his 9-year-old stepson, Joel Fontes, when she became fixated on something in the nearby bushes. Turns out it was a box of six abandoned three-week-old kittens.

See a pic of the kittens and read more on this story after the jump.

Like Skylar and Bodie, my mutt Bingo has had his DNA tested to determine what breeds are in his family tree. But before I tell you the results, what's your guess?

Some background: I adopted Bingo from a rescue named C.A.R.E. in Bayonne, NJ, a little over two years ago. They had pulled him out of Associated Humane Societies, Inc. in Newark, NJ, when he was three months old.

He'd been at C.A.R.E. for six months (nobody wanted him!) when I stumbled upon his picture on Petfinder while searching for a Schnauzer mix (my previous dog, whom I'd lost a year earlier, was half Schnauzer).

I've gotten a couple of requests to explain how to add a photo to a blog comment (particularly regarding this post). Here's the scoop:

If your photo is already posted online somewhere (say, a photo-sharing site such as Photobucket.com), you can get its filename by right-clicking the image (if you're on a Mac, hit control and then click) and selecting "copy image location." Then paste the filename into this bit of code and add it to your comment:

<img src="FILENAME">

For example, the image below (from the Petfinder homepage) is coded like so:
<img src= "http://petfinder.com/images/design/before_you_adopt_dog.jpg">

You can also send your photos to me at "blog (at) petfinder.com" and I'll post them myself (eventually ... I promise!). Make sense?

I love this pic of Jade, a 9-month-old Rottweiler currently residing at the Manhattan branch of Animal Care & Control of New York City. The volunteer who took this photo noted that Jade, who lost her home when her owner died, is playful, loving, housetrained -- and relishes a great shiatsu massage.

Doesn't her face just say, "Ohhhhhhh yeah"? Happy Friday!

(PS -- Want to adopt Jade? Call the AC&C at 212-788-4000 and ask about dog #A775572 -- or stop by and check out ALL the adorable dogs there waiting for homes.)

Michael Killen and Jim Kreitzburg, the animators behind Taco Bell's talking Chihuahua and the California Cheese cows, created this moving PSA about the cruelty of dogfighting.

Killen says on his Web site that he'd been deeply affected by the Michael Vick case. He writes that he asked himself, "What if we did a commercial speaking from the perspective of the dogs?"

The resulting PSA doesn't contain graphic scenes, but it makes its point with the simple question: "Who's the animal?"

Last week I asked you to guess the "mix" in our shelter rep Kathryn's pit mix, Bodie. You offered up some great guesses, from lab to hound to purebred pit. Well Kathryn got her results from the Canine Heritage Breed Test, and the answers may surprise you! She says:

When I received Bodie's DNA results, I was quite surprised. I was sent a certificate with all of the answers. The majority of Bodie's DNA is pit bull terrier. There was nothing in his secondary.

But down the line in his mix is Rhodesian Ridgeback. I would have never guessed that. I did a Web search on the breed, and actually the back end of Bodie's body is very similar. (See photos after the jump.)

Well, what do you think? Are you surprised? The Rhodesian Ridgeback is a type of hound, so commenter Ali had it right!