Petfinder Blog

In anticipation of Adopt-a-Senior-Pet Month, the ASPCA asked members to send in their senior pet adoption stories, and here they are, in their gray-and-white glory, blurry-eyed and creaky, bowed but proud.

The joys of owning a senior pet are often overlooked as tiny kittens or jumping puppies usually grab everyone's attention at the shelter. As the human companion of two senior dogs, I can tell you that the companionship of a quiet, older pet can be very satisfying.

We often lie on the bed, spooned together, breathing together and being "in the now" in a way that would be impossible with a squirming youngster. These dogs know me -- and I, them -- in all my moods and states of low-energy or high. They delight simply by BEING with me. I don't need to amuse them. I just need to be me. (I have yet to meet a man who would be as happy as that, with "just me." LOL!)

On Friday Mars Petcare US announced a voluntary recall of all dry pet food products produced at its plant in Everson, Pa., between Feb. 18 and July 29, citing potential salmonella contamination.

Brands affected include Pedigree, Country Acres, Retriever, Doggy Bag, Members Mark, Natural, Ol' Roy, Special Kitty, Paws & Claws, Wegman's, Pet Pride, PMI Nutrition and Red Flannel.

To see if a product you purchased has been recalled, look for "17" as the first two digits of the second line on the UPC. For Pedigree products, look for "PAE" on the bottom line.

To see whether a product you purchased is subject to recall, you can also check the UPC code against the chart on the Mars Web site.

Pet owners who have questions about the recall should call 1-877-568-4463.

Read more about the recall.

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?"

A new pet supply store called Living Ruff just opened across the street from my office in Silver Spring, MD.

Owners Jessica and Ron Simon's story reminded me  that adopting a homeless pet can very literally change your life, often in unexpected ways.

The dog, Bourbon, was a sick, emaciated Spitz mix found trapped under a couch in a house that had been marked "clear" by searchers weeks before.

Gravely ill, he was transported to Washington, D.C., where he was cared for by the Washington Animal Rescue League. Jessica and Ron learned about him and adopted him. Then they adopted another dog, Yogi. And then a cat. The "zoo" in their home helped them make some life-altering decisions.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote about his experiences growing up on a farm and how they shaped how he feels about factory farming.

In my opinion, Kristof doesn't do a very persuasive job of revealing his caring, compassionate side. Quite the contrary: He seems to me to be a less compassionate person for his experiences.

If, as he says, he grew to admire some of the animals in his family's care, how could he go on to enjoy eating the animals he admired?

That a puppy on a leash or a kitten in one's arms is a magnet for the opposite sex is something we all seem to know, but not think much about. (Or maybe you do think about it more than I do?)

Well, officials in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, have thought about it -- a lot. And they've now banned the sale of dogs and cats, and made it illegal to walk dogs outside. According to the Associated Press:

[An official] said the ban was ordered because of what he called "the rising phenomenon of men using cats and dogs to make passes at women and pester families."

Now, the ban on walking dogs outside makes no sense to me, but the ban on selling pets may be in some ways a good thing.

Nikki Moustaki, author of Dogfessions, is a great friend of Petfinder. Now she and her Miniature Schnauzer, Pepper (with her at right), have set sail aboard the Queen Mary 2 for a trip to Europe to celebrate their 10 years together.

What a riot! In honor of Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month (June), the ASPCA had a contest to find the year's best cat photos.

Singer Michael Feinstein judged the hundreds of entries and came up with these adorable winners.

I recently moved from a house to a two-bedroom apartment, which I now share with two adopted kittens. I'm learning how to live in a close-packed community with lots of other people and their pets.

Here are some rules -- both unwritten and written -- that I've learned so far:

I'm so happy! At long last, I got to the tipping point in my debate about whether or not to adopt a cat and whether to adopt a kitten (or two?) or an adult cat.

This weekend, after much searching on Petfinder, I finally took the plunge and adopted two unrelated kittens. I had been meeting various kittens and cats at adoption fairs and through their foster moms, but there was something totally magical about these two kittens' online photos -- and then, too, my meet and greets with them.

With all the news about the recent Tennessee puppy mill bust, I remembered the first time I'd ever heard about puppy mills; it was from my friend Andrew Weinstein, a colleague and a dedicated animal welfare activist who used to work as a corporate communications executive at AOL. I asked him to write a post about how he came to care so much about puppy mills. This is his story:

I had actually heard very little about puppy mills until about 10 years ago. My former wife and I had adopted a Rhodesian Ridgeback from a local rescue league here in DC, so we had a good relationship with the woman who ran the local chapter. One afternoon, I got a call from her asking if we might have any interest in adopting a second dog from them.

The dog we were presented with (pictured here) had a tragic story.

Last night, I left work early-ish and drove to meet one of the kittens I was considering for adoption: Chloe, a bobtailed Manx tabby at Homeward Trails Animal Rescue in Arlington, VA.

I got lost seven times trying to negotiate the spaghetti labyrinth of Beltway and feeder highways in Maryland, but finally got to the lovely home of Chloe's foster mom.

Talk about dedication: this woman has three adopted dogs (who were fosters before their new lives as family members), and she's fostering four kittens, including Chloe. 

I told the foster mother I was impressed with her menagerie, and asked her if she often fostered animals. "I've fostered over 100 animals so far," she smiled.

Barely six months ago, the Humane Society of the United States released an undercover video of "downer" cows, those who are unable to stand or walk, being abused by slaughterhouse workers.

And last week, the HSUS released yet another undercover video of horrific abuse. (A warning: the video is tremendously upsetting and sickening.)

I watched the whole video. I forced myself to watch it because being ignorant of something doesn't let me off the hook, doesn't put my mind at ease. What I saw made me cry, and made me sick to my stomach. It also made me take action immediately (again), joining with the HSUS to call my representatives in Congress, to demand not just punishment of the workers involved, and the slaughterhouse that permitted such cruelty to happen.

This past weekend, I got closer to adopting living, breathing creatures, bringing them into my fairly sedate and austere life.

I had searched Petfinder for weeks and had found two kittens I thought would be fun to share my life and apartment with: Hope (right) and Jesse (below). They were both being fostered by Homeward Trails Animal Rescue, Inc. in Arlington, VA, where I now live.

Why them? I don't exactly know except that I had had a cat named Sooty when I was growing up and she was a tabby like Hope and Jesse.

And there was something about the faces of the two kittens, angular and small, with big ears and almond-shaped eyes. It seems totally insane to "pick" an animal based on their color and the shape of their eyes, but that's what I did. (I knew I would meet them in person before anything was final, so doing a pre-sort was not only practical but also efficient.)

With summer here, I begin to hear the call of the wild. I used to love hiking with my dogs (that's my Lab-Shepherd mix, Annie, pictured) -- but when I first began traveling with them, I was surprised to learn how many national parks, wilderness areas, and campgrounds were dog unfriendly. It didn't seem democratic ... or American to keep dogs out of the wilderness!

I did some research about camping with dogs and here's what I found:

Not all national parks welcome dogs. The National Park Service has a great interactive map where you can search for parks by state and check out their pet policies. (When you find a park, click "Plan Your Visit," then "Things to Know Before You Come.")

A terrible, totally unexpected thing happened to me last year. My 17-year marriage broke up and I couldn't put it back together again despite trying everything short of brute force.

I had to leave the home that I'd hoped to have as my forever home, a five-acre sanctuary for various aging pets. When I finally I drove away, I had to leave behind my three shelter dogs, my closest, dearest companions (that's Buster, my 13-year-old Great Dane/Border Collie mix, in the photo). I went north to find an apartment, a job, a new life ...

Today, the Marines made public the punishment to be meted out to two Marines in Iraq who had become YouTube stars for casually and cruelly hurling a weeks-old puppy over a cliff while joking and filming their "prank."

The idiot who did the throwing was taken out of Iraq and will be dismissed from the Marines. The cineast who filmed the 17-second atrocity will face some sort of secret Marine wrist-slapping. Whoop-de-doo. The thrower is probably overjoyed at escaping the war zone early. Killing young animals might now become the ticket to coming home faster -- and never having to be redeployed.