Pet News Review Weekend Edition May 29

Got six minutes? You can make some of the easiest, cheapest, wholesome dog treats with a can of tuna, some flour and an egg!  Take a look at Karen Friesecke‘s post at Doggie Stylish.  Then go and check out her wonderful handmade custom dog collars and leashes and you’ll see why I recently dubbed her Queen of the Etsy crowd. There’s a great DIY tutorial section that teaches you how to make your own leashes, has free patterns, and other fun things!

Just yesterday I was excited to read about how music really does soothe a dog’s savage breast and there’s science to prove it. Bridget K. Smith and her dog Wrigley guest posted at Edie Jarolim‘s Will My Dog Hate Me?, sharing the fact that music and science teamed up to design music to calm and enhance the health of dogs in their Through A Dogs Ear books and CDs.   Fearful, shy, anxious dogs should experience great benefits, but you and your dog now have another avenue to share quality time de-stressing=:)

Blogger’s in the pet sector are busy working on various projects to help shelters help animals. One of these projects, headed up by Maggie Marton of Oh My Dog, is focusing on Denver, Colorado and their notorious decades-long Breed Specific Legislation that bans pit bulls from that city.

Marton is attempting to both advocate for the citizens who have been harmed by this law and educate those who believe the myths of pit bulls and what passes for conventional wisdom in Denver about the merits of BSL. If I sound a little testy, it’s because officials can’t(or far more likely refuse to) provide numbers indicating this law has had its intended effect of lowering bite incidents. Lack of accountability and transparency is simply unacceptable. Doing something positive to influence change is important.

This campaign to end BSL will send a mile’s worth of 4 x 6 postcards to the Mayor, that’s 10,560 postcards. She has created a postcard template that you can download, she has suggestions and information on how to design them, where to get pictures if you don’t have any, so you can make your own statement and then send it back to her.  She will handle the printing (which could use donations at the Paypal page).  Each card will cost $.0235 and any overage will go to a Colorado Bully Breed rescue, and Marton is taking suggestions.

Most of these dogs never had a record of wrongdoing.  To compound matters, Animal Control have grabbed dogs that were boxers, claiming they were pit bulls. (Remember to steer clear of the cities that have breed bans in your summer travels with your dog.) Estimates of pit bulls and pit bull-like dogs killed range from 2000 to 3000. If you’d like to join in this worthy effort read more here.

Kim Campbell Thornton over at Pet Connection had a great post, with an assist from dog trainer Liz Palika, on how to break up a dog fight safely.  Thornton had long ago grabbed a dog by his collar and twisted, recalling how lucky she had been that he just didn’t reach around and nail her.  Palika has a solution and some useful tips to head off trouble before it starts.

And I’ll leave you with a fun video of a dog with remarkable obedience training that most of us will never get to see up close - have a good one!