Treating dog or cat urinary tract infections

If your dog or cat has been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, or even if you suspect one, it is important to make sure he or she is drinking a lot of water.

This can be a bit trickier with cats than dogs, but I have had excellent success in putting a few teaspoons of tuna fish juice in the water dish.   Cats who had no interest in drinking will often lap it up.

And of course be vigilant in making sure that the water dish is cleaned well twice a day.

Early detection for dog urinary tract infections

Bacteria present in the bladder or urethra causes urinary tract infections, or UTI’s in dogs, just as with humans.  The most common symptom is pain during urination. And as with humans, the pain can be pretty intense.

The UTI should be treated at an early stage, not just to prevent further discomfort for your pet, but also because the infection can spread to the kidneys and cause potentially serious problems that are more difficult and more expensive to treat.

Pet kidney health….protecting your dog and cat’s health

An important reason to feed your dog or cat the best quality food you can is to help the kidneys with their job of filtering toxins from your pet’s body through the urinary tract system.  As your animal ages, the kidneys have to work harder to filter toxins, so it is much easier on their system to have less toxins to filter.

Purifying their diet ~  food and water and treats ~puts less stress on your animal’s kidneys.

ThePetCheckup helping FIV cats

We received another nice email from someone who has an FIV cat and is using ThePetCheckup to keep a close watch on the cat’s health.

FIV cats can certainly live long and healthy lives, but there is concern for secondary infections and other illnesses that they are susceptible too.  Using ThePetCheckup as an early detection screen is a wonderful addition to their care. 

We are really pleased that the product is so helpful in caring for them. And hopefully, it will encourage others to provide homes for more FIV cats.

amazing new picture of Christian the Lion

I love to read Ace Bourke’s blog.  So well-written and informative.

Many of his blogs feature animal welfare and related issues and there are always many links that I want to check out.

Recently he published a photo in the blog that was taken on the very last visit with Christian.  Ace himself only found out about the picture last year.  It is truly an amazing picture and you won’t want to miss it.

http://acebourke.wordpress.com/

another great quote about dogs

This is a quote about life with a dog…I had never seen it before, and it is beautiful and so true.  I am enjoying Cape Cod with Lily this week….she is legal on some of the beaches (after Labor Day) and the weather is fabulous.

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring – it was peace. ”

— Milan Kundera

Animals as Property

Francis Battista from Best Friends Animal Society wrote  a great article on the value of animal life in our society and what we have to do to finish the No More Homeless Pets campaign.  Check it out:

http://bit.ly/cnegs8

He did a fabulous job of putting the situation in a logical, affirmative direction.  I try to always read his articles.  In addition to being a very proactive, compassionate person, Francis is also a great writer.

Airline travel with pets

Although there is still a lot of information missing regarding the 7 puppies that died recently on an American Airlines flight to Chicago, the Dept. of Transportation issued some pretty shocking statistics regarding air travel for pets:

From May 2005 to May 2010 there were 144 reported deaths of pets during air travel.Of those, 122 were canines. That is an alarming number of casualties.

I flew Lily from Iowa to Logan airport in 1999 when my sister adopted her, and we had a relatively OK trip. But it is not something I would do again…too many risks these days.  Lily was such a trooper though.  I’m sure she knew she was going to her forever home and she was so excited!! Nothing scared her.  Even the revolving doors at Logan–I remember how bravely she walked through.

Testimonial for at home urine test

A nice, short and to the point testimonial came in this morning for ThePetCheckup from one of our repeat customers.

“easy to use and combats worry”

People making a difference

I just read a great article in The Christian Science Monitor about “ordinary” people doing great things.  Check it out.  It is really inspiring to see the amazing things that people are doing.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Specials/making-a-difference