• Animals

#DOTUS On Instagram

• #DOTUS
• dogs
• Joe Biden
• White House

Normalcy will return to the White House in January — the First Family will again have pets!  The Bidens have two dogs, Champ and Major, and now an Instagram account with 60,000 followers, and even their own hashtag #DOTUS.  The Obamas had two dogs, Sunny and Bo, and the Bushes had two cats and a […]

• Animals

Dogs Can Sniff Out COVID-19

• #COVID
• dogs
• science

Scent detection dogs may be the best tool for finding and fighting the spread of COVID-19, according to some promising new research at the University of Helsinki.

Why This Matters:  COVID-19 detecting dogs could be immensely helpful in rooting out the disease in places where it might otherwise be hard to detect, such as sporting events, airports to find the virus on surfaces, and border crossings, and places where early detection is important, like nursing homes and retirement communities, and by helping to screen people within the medical care sector who test positive so as to avoid unnecessary quarantines for those who have been exposed.

• Animals

One Pet Thing: 7 Surprising Ways Your Dog Says ‘I’m Stressed’

• animals
• coronavirus
• dogs

Dogs are usually balls of joy but even man’s best friend can get stressed. Do you know how to spot the signs of a nervous, stressed, or otherwise unhappy dog? Take it from a canine behaviorist. Also, coronavirus can infect cats — dogs, not so much. But scientists say it’s unclear whether felines can spread the virus to […]

• Animals

One Cute Thing: International Puppy Day

• #NationalPuppyDay
• dogs
• National Parks
• puppies

Yesterday was National Puppy Day and there were plenty of cute pics on social media (check out our Instagram for Monica’s dogs).  These two photos come from the National Park Service’s tribute to dogs of the Parks on this day in 2018.  Cooper of Lake Mead National Park, above, was the single most clicked-on photo […]

• Animals

One Yiddish Thing: Teaching Dogs to “Zits” in Central Park

• Central Park
• dogs
• obedience
• Yiddish

The non-profit Workmen’s Circle, a social justice organization that powers progressive Jewish identity through Jewish cultural engagement, held a class last weekend in Central Park in NYC aimed at combining preserving Jewish culture and love of dogs.  According to dog trainer Miguel Rodrigues who led the class, “Yiddish, I find that the words are pretty […]

• Animals

One Important Dog Safety Thing: Toxic Algae Could Poison Them

• algae blooms
• climate change
• dogs
• toxic algae

Toxic algae are harmful not only to humans but also to dogs, which are particularly vulnerable to blue/green cyanobacteria — owners should prevent their pets from coming into contact with it.