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With high temperatures across the country, pupsicles are an easy and highly customizable treat that can entertain your dogs while keeping them cool and hydrated. Pupsicles don't take the place of making sure your dog is drinking fresh water, but they are a fun way to add more hydration to your dog's day. Here are a few easy popsicle recipes your dog is sure to enjoy.

My senior dog Otto has great survival techniques for coping with the heat. He finds the shadiest places in the yard, and digs holes under plants that are watered daily by the sprinkler system, planting himself into these holes and laying low. My younger dog mostly pants and scratches at the door to come inside. Help! It's hot!""

Back in my smaller town, it was sounding like the Civil War. As I hurried around, feeding and cleaning up after the foster pups, my friend's dog started going into his full-blown panic state. My friend was prepared with a veterinarian-prescribed dose of alprazolam (Xanax), and she gave him his first dose then. (The blood levels of the drug take about two hours to peak, and start to wear off in about four hours, so he needed one more dose to get through the night.) Woody was resting on the couch, obviously having experienced some relief from the procedure at the vet, and oblivious to the fireworks sounds, still audible behind the sound of the house fan and the TV.

Preventing your dog from pottying in the wrong place is the first and most important housetraining task. Since most of us cannot keep our eyes on our dogs every minute, having a safe, comfortable confinement area is key to housetraining success. Most dogs naturally avoid going potty in their sleeping areas, so confining your dog in a small enough area that is more bed-like than room-like not only prevents unwanted accidents but also will help him develop bowel and bladder control.

One of our newest contributing authors is a veterinarian who practiced emergency medicine for more than nine years. She's been the impetus for our recent rash of articles about various ways to prevent canine health emergencies, and how to behave if you, despite your best efforts, end up dealing with one anyway. (Speaking of rashes – perhaps I should ask Dr. Ashe to write about that?)

There are many times in your dog's life when she needs to be able to control her impulse to engage in a behavior. Last month, we discussed Wait" and "Stay" – but impulse control goes far beyond these "don't move" cues. "Leave it" is another impulse-control behavior that is very useful for your dog to know. The cue means

Basic screening tests, in combination with regular physical exams, are foundation components of a good health care program. In younger dogs, routine tests are done to establish normal baselines, exclude congenital problems, and/or ensure safety for anesthesia. In older pets, these tests often provide the first indication of possible health problems.

If Otto is on one end of a seven-foot sofa, and I (or anyone) sits on the other far end, he will give that person a sort of dirty look and leave the sofa. If I am sitting on a couch and pat the cushion next to me, and encourage Otto to come on up, he will come and stand close, and wag his tail and blink his eyes … Nance

can save your dog's life.
Thanks to Morgan Macy, training assistant at The Canine Connection in Chico, CA, for demonstrating these techniques.üStart teaching the food bowl wait" with the food bowl held high. Look for your dog to shift her eyes from the bowl to your face.üClick (or use another marker) to indicate she's doing it right

Most of the ingredients in freeze-dried diets are raw and/or very lightly processed. All the freeze-dried raw diets we reviewed are grain-free – not because we think grains are inappropriate in these foods; it's the food manufacturers who seem to have decided that raw feeders won't buy a product that contains any grain. Many people who feed home-prepared or commercial raw diets to their dogs when they are home replace this diet with a freeze-dried raw food when they travel, or when the dog is left with a sitter who doesn't want to deal with a fresh or frozen raw diet.

At a performance by The Marvelous Mutts, as the name suggests, you won't see any pedigreed dogs, but you will definitely witness focused owners and competitive dogs! Looking at a photographic gallery of The Marvelous Mutts, one could easily be confused with having found the listing for a rescue promoting their mixed-breed adoption candidates. Instead, it's an inspiring model, both for what rescue dogs can do and what highly motivated dog owners can do for shelter and rescue dogs.

When we are out in public, I am pretty confident in Woody's ability to pass as a well-trained, well-behaved dog. But when I was driving with him toward meeting a dog trainer whom I respect but have never met, I found myself feeling anxious. I should probably warn her about Woody's predilection for walking through people's legs, I thought; it's a tad alarming when he dives between someone's thighs, even though he's always wagging his whole body when he does this. Short people and kids sometimes get lifted off the ground for a moment; it's his special way of saying hi!