heart+disease/feed/rss2/Rawhide%20chews%20are%20potentially%20dangerous%20because%20they%20can%20be%20a%20choking%20hazard%20or%20cause%20gastrointestinal%20obstructions%20if%20your%20dog%20manages%20to%20chew%20off%20a%20piece%20that%20is%20small%20enough%20to%20swallow,%20but%20too%20large%20to%20pass%20unimpeded.%20In%20addition,%20some%20rawhide%20chews%20are%20hard%20enough%20to%20break%20or%20damage%20teeth. - search results

Most of the time, when dogs do something we don't want them to do (such as stealing our socks or jumping on our elderly...

Yes, puppies again. My local shelter called yesterday to ask if I could foster a litter of 10 pit/German Shepherd/who-knows-what-mix puppies. Well, sure, of course; I will always say yes if I am not on my way out of town or something. But this group is seriously challenging. Why? They are too young to be separated from their mom.

Selecting good dog jackets for winter can be as overwhelming as deciding what food to feed your dog or what type of collar or harness to...

This excerpt is the first chapter of  Dog Smart, a new book by Linda Case, MS, founder and head trainer at AutumnGold Dog Training Center in Mahomet, Illinois, and the author of a number of books on training and animal nutrition. Case also taught at the University of Illinois Department of Animal Sciences and College of Veterinary Medicine for 20 years.

In the San Francisco Bay area, part-time pet sitters and dog walkers are now so numerous that they can be seen on literally every block. It's there that I have witnessed dog walkers doing things that horrified me – such as talking on their cell phones while walking half a dozen shut-down-looking dogs, each equipped with a shock collar. I recently saw a professional" dog walker park 100 feet from the gate to a dog park

As omnivores, dogs can digest plants as well as meat. Many nutritionists believe a mixture of both is important for a healthy dog.

Ice cream, of course, contains milk. And just like humans, some dogs (not all) are lactose-intolerant. If you feed milk to a lactose-intolerant dog, he may experience diarrhea, painful gas, or vomiting. Of course, ice cream is a treat, not a diet staple, so start by giving your dog no more than a spoonful, and wait for a day to see if he has any negative response to the frozen dessert. As long as he does not, he should be able to enjoy a prudent amount as an occasional treat.

Those of us who love dogs tend to assume that everyone else in our circle of friends and family does, too. Sadly, that's not always the case. In fact, even those who do share our passion for canine companions don't always appreciate the over-enthusiastic attentions of a happy hound, especially when they are trying to enjoy the company of human friends in the comfort of a private home. Whether you are a visitor bringing your own beloved dog with you to someone else's house, or a host greeting friends at your own front door with your canine family members milling about your feet, here are some tips to help you make sure your dog/human visits go well.

This morning, I saw an obviously lost dog on the road. This isn't your standard farm or ranch dog – and in case there was any doubt at all, the fact that he was wearing a harness, to which a four-foot leash was attached, ruled out the likelihood that he was a local dog who had roamed off his property. Most likely, in my opinion, was that he was in the back of someone's truck, and rolled off when the person made the sharp turn onto or off of the nearby highway and onto or off of this bumpy farm-country road.

While some of the early mixed-breed identification tests used a blood sample, all of the products on the market today extract DNA from cells swabbed by the dog's owner from the inside of the dog's cheek. The swab is sealed in a container provided by the company and mailed off to the company's lab. There, technicians extract your dog's DNA from the swab, and use computers to identify and compare specific bits of it to bits taken from dogs of known lineage.

give the cue

When I open the dog food container and all of a sudden it's incredibly low, or I'm feeding a starving mama and her nine growing puppies and going through food at an unpredictably fast rate and I've been crazy-busy putting the magazine to bed and haven't so much as taken a shower for a couple of days, being able to punch up my favorite online store and order food and have it on my porch in two days – you guys, that's a blessing. Mama is not keeping up with the demand, and I just ordered five pounds of milk-replacing formula to get us through the next couple of weeks. And the dry puppy food I like to soften in formula and feed to the growing pups is not one I can get in my very close chain store, OR my favorite independent store 30 miles away.