Helping a Wild Bird

Beth McMaster of Wildbird Recovery in Middlesex offers these guidelines for what to do with a wild bird that appears to need help:

To catch and pick up an injured bird, throw a pillowcase or towel over it and gently …

Veterinary Specialties

Veterinary Specialists

The facts don’t lie. Every year pet owners are willing to spend more money on keeping their animals healthy. This means that owners are willing to spend more money on more complicated treatments and surgeries if their pets …

Dog Tails – Why Dogs Wag their Tails

“….In some ways, tail-wagging serves the same functions as our human smile, polite greeting, or nod of recognition. Smiles are social signals, and human beings seem to reserve most of their smiles for social situations, where somebody is around to see them. Sometimes, vicarious social situations, as when watching television or occasionally when thinking about somebody special, can trigger a smile. For dogs, the tail wag seems to have the same properties. A dog will wag its tail for a person or another dog. It may wag its tail for a cat, horse, mouse, or perhaps even a butterfly. But when the dog is by itself, it will not wag its tail to any lifeless thing. If you put a bowl of food down, the dog will wag its tail to express its gratitude to you. In contrast, when the dog walks into a room and finds its bowl full, it will approach and eat the food just as happily, but with no tail-wagging other than perhaps a slight excitement tremor. This is one indication that tail-wagging is meant as communication or language. In the same way that we don’t talk to walls, dogs don’t wag their tails to things that are not apparently alive and socially responsive.

A dog’s tail speaks volumes about his mental state, his social position, and his intentions. How the tail came to be a communication device is an interesting story.

Canine Leptospirosis

Summertime’s warm weather means that dogs get to spend more time playing outside. A great majority of dogs love to swim at the cottage and explore the different smells the environment has to offer. Summertime also means that local wildlife, …

Water Danger and Dogs – 153

Did you know that not all dogs have the natural ability to swim? In fact, water can be downright dangerous even to dogs that love swimming! There are no ‘doggie lifeguards’, hence it is your responsibility to watch over your …

How Old is My Cat – Guessing a cat’s age – Pet tip 201

When people adopt a new cat or are thinking about buying a cat they often want to know how old that cat is. If the cat is a kitten this is usually easy. The original owner should know how old the kitten was or if you bring the kitten to a veterinarian, the vet should be able to tell how old the kitten is with a reasonable degree of accuracy. If good records were kept from kitten-hood or previous adoptions, again this is an easy task. The problem occurs when you are considering getting an adult cat whose age and/or history are unknown.

Cat Diabetes

In North America, one of the up and coming disease “epidemics” to be noted in people is diabetes (diabetes mellitus). This is a disease that most often affects obese, middle-aged patients. Coincidently, the same phenomenon can be found in our …

Pica in Dogs and Cats – Pet tip 151

You’ve probably heard about a million pet owners claim “my dog eats anything” or “my cat eats everything”. Maybe you’ve even said so yourself. More often than not, when people make these statements, we chock it up to exaggeration. People …

Issue 8: August 2003

Welcome to our eighth issue of the Pets.ca newsletter. This issue features two important articles on pet nutrition; one on older pets and their eating habits and one on dairy products. Keeping in line with this theme, our expert answers …

Giving Medication to Pets

Your dog is sick – your cat is sick and you have to give your pet medication.

How do you give a pill to a cat or dog?

Pets will tend to resist being handled with force more than actually …