dogs

Rent a dog? Are you serious? A recent debate in Boston brought an issue to the surface which was absolutely shocking to dog lovers. There are companies out there that rent dogs. Is this what America has come to? A dog is not a piece of furniture or a used car. To dog lovers everywhere the concept is as offensive as renting your children out. Dogs have feelings and emotions, and they form attachments very quickly. They’re also the type of animal that bonds with one master.

Cutting off a dog’s tail, or tail-docking as it is more commonly known, is a practice that goes back hundreds of years to UK breeders of working and sport dogs. At that time, there were some very good, practical reasons to dock a dog’s tail when he was a puppy. The procedure saved the dog injuries later in life from getting caught in briar bushes or getting attacked by another animal on a hunt.

If you’ve done any reading at all on the Newfoundland breed, you may have heard this story before. In 1995, a hearing impaired man dredging for gold in the Yuba River in Northern California fell into the raging torrent and was not able to pull himself out. Screaming for assistance, it was unlikely that anyone could have gotten to him before the waters closed above his head, a situation that would certainly have meant his demise. Luckily, Janice Anderson and her ten month old Newfoundland name “Boo” just happened to be walking by.

There are far too many dog pictures and movies that depict our canine companions as unable to keep up with their feline friends. Hollywood’s take on the situation seems to be that cats are smarter, but a recent study done at Oxford University's Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA) proves otherwise. Focusing on the size of a mammal’s brain in relation to their body, they found that dogs have a larger brain than cats. Does that prove they’re smarter?

Feeding your dog can always be something we humans feel bad about.  Your dog comes running up to the kitchen table or where you are cooking, sits there with their cute little eyes saying, "Food Please!!!"  I know it is hard to resist but feeding your dog from the table is never a good idea for many reasons.  One thing you really need to be careful when it comes to feeding your dog from the table is chocolate.  Chocolate is addicting to dogs and if they get one taste, they are going to be sniffing it out until the cows come home.  Here are a few question