Pet Gear
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Dr. V | Tuesday | January 17, 2012 |
We go through a lot of dog toys in these parts, and I can say with confidence that Brody has yet to come across a Kyjen toy he didn’t love. They’re fun, they’re well-made, and they have interesting configurations that engage the dog in a way different from standard toys, either with a big mat of squeakers or hidden eggs or an unusual food puzzle. To this day Brody’s penguin egg is the only toy I have actually ordered replacement parts for. He loves it that much. So today, I’m happy to be giving you all several opportunities for some fantastic goodies from this great company.
The first giveaway is for an Excursion Dog Backpack, size M. I actually used this as a demo in the news story I’ll post the video of tomorrow, so the tag is removed. It’s a great backpack and I was tempted to not give it away, but the medium is for a size 18-50 pound dog so Brody really needs a large. I’m sure one of you will have lots of good times with it backpacking in Nepal or something along those lines.
The second giveaway is for not one, not two, but THREE random selections of Kyjen goodies. Each of the three winners will each get three items that could be any combination of the following: (more…)
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Dr. V | Tuesday | January 10, 2012 |
You know by now how I feel about cutesy pet stuff, right? I mean, it has its place, but as far as my own tastes go I’m constantly on the lookout for something that falls on the sleeker end of things. (This from the person who bought a dinosaur barrette from Anthropologie, so take it with a grain of salt.)
But I digress. When it comes to pets, function still has to have a place over form, or you end up like me with a nice wooden bowl holder that is chomped to bits within a few weeks. So when I see a product that has both form and function, I get admittedly disproportionately excited. I can’t help it.
I recently received a bowl from ModaPet (“Moda” means fashion in Italian, for those keeping track) and I’m hooked. So hooked that I want you to have one too. I’m giving away one ModaPet bowl in the happy Sunflower color.
Form: This particular bowl is a 4 cup version, enough for even the big pooches like Brody and Koa, and comes in a variety of jewel tones like orange, teal, and red. They have the weight of a heavy ceramic bowl, but with the look of glass. They’re pretty enough that my daughter put a handful of flowers in them before realizing they were actually a dog dish. And somehow despite this fragile appearance, this is a bulldog of a bowl.
Function: ModaPet bowls are made of BPA free plastic that is dishwasher safe. The sturdy soft plastic bottom makes it skidproof, and because it is molded on as opposed to being glued on, it will hold up through multiple go rounds in the washer. This puppy is heavy. Even Koa leaves it in place, and I’ve seen her push steel bowls clear to the dining room when she’s in an eating frenzy.
I really like these bowls an awful lot, and I’m not one to wax poetic about eating implements, usually. So here is your chance to have a lovely bowl all for yourself, and you can impress your guests with your Italian designed dog ware to distract them from the Italian shoes they just trashed. Well, at least that’s what I did.
To enter, you know the drill! Comment on who you would like this bowl for, and make sure you enter on the Rafflecopter widget. US/Canada only, please.
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Dr. V | Friday | December 30, 2011 |
I can hardly believe it myself, but I’ve just passed the thousand post mark on the blog. That’s a lot of hammering on the keyboard. What a cool benchmark to ring in 2012! Thank you for sticking with me through all of it- the good, the sad, and the goofy.
I know lots of you are reading this from chillier climates than mine, so to celebrate, we’re having a giveaway of one Original Goose Down Filled Doggie Coat from Joy Pet Products!
Our Original Goose Down Filled Doggie Coats are so unique they have two US Patents! Filled with 550 fill power white goose down – no inexpensive feather down blends here – the Original Goose Down Filled Doggie Coat features cozy fleece reversing to water resistant nylon for two different looks. Quick and easy on and off with two secure Velcro closures. Offering a very adjustable fit, easy wash and dry care and plenty of hip coverage, this coat will help keep your best friend warm and dry when temperatures dip. Smaller sizes are available with an opening for the lead to pass through. Sizes XS through XL. Made in Canada or USA .
These coats normally retail for $79- $100, but there’s a huge end-of-the-year sale going on right now, so even if you don’t win the giveaway, this is a chance to get a coat for HALF off! Almost makes me wish we lived somewhere it snowed, because Koa would look stunning in leopard print. I’m just sayin’.
Enter below! For the blog comment just let me know who you want to win this for. Winner will notify Joy Pet Products of the size (size chart here) and Joy Pet Products will choose the color from available stock. Good luck!
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Dr. V | Wednesday | December 21, 2011 |
It’s not too late to grab some last minute goodies for your pup if you’re like me and still scrambling to get things together between now and Sunday! If you’re still looking for some ideas or stocking stuffers, here are the products I’m featuring this morning with Santa on Fox 5 San Diego’s morning segment:
Freeze-dried treats are the perfect choice for those who like an all-natural, no filler sort of treat. Just freeze-dried chicken, salmon, or beef with no added sugars or grains. These are also a good choice for a training treat! Available at Petco and other large pet retailers. (more…)
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Dr. V | Monday | November 28, 2011 |
Welcome back! Hope everyone here in the States had a lovely Thanksgiving. And in celebration of that and all the work it took the rest of the weekend to put the place back together, a post about cleaning products, something with which all pet owners are all too familiar.
I bought my car six years ago. Six years ago, I was obsessed with the idea of a black car with a beige interior. Sleek. Contemporary. Gorgeous. Six years ago, I was also very naive, with a nine month old who had yet to start throwing stuff on the floor and leaving red crayons on the seat.
So now, two kids and two dogs later, my beautiful beige car interior can best be described as “house of horrors”, a visual timeline of every insult that has been heaped upon it in the last half decade. No matter how much we try to stay on top of it, it’s a lost cause. It’s quite sad. I’ll come back to this in a minute.
A couple of weeks ago, Rug Doctor invited me to St. Louis to tour the factory and learn some more about their products. I figured hey, why not? I have an incontinent dog and two little kids and a spraying cat, so we definitely are familiar with carpet cleaning.
OK, so I’ll never be one of those Price is Right spokesmodels. But you’ve seen these displays in your grocery store, right? They’re everywhere.
I’ve rented the machines before, though not as often as the every 3-6 months (gulp) it’s recommended that you clean the carpets. I suppose I haven’t put much thought into the mechanics of getting a carpet clean, but Rug Doctor has.
Each Rug Doctor machine has three components: the spray hose, which shoots the cleaning product into your rug; the vibrating brush, which vibrates at 1700 vibrations a minute, and the vacuum hose, which pulls everything back out. Compared to what I usually do when there’s a spot on the rug, this is the mega-nuclear cleaning approach. Seek and destroy.
There are two main keys to getting the rug clean: The machine and the cleaning product you use in it. Here’s a nice tan rug, right? Remember this.
We got a demonstration from engineer Jason Hill, who told us about lift- the industry standard for suction. It’s near impossible to describe suction in a positive way that does not have some sort of inappropriate connotations, so let’s just leave it at “they demonstrated convincingly the superiority of this product’s ability to lift all sorts of garbage from your carpeting.” They run those motors to failure in the lab, just so they know before sending them out to stores how many hours of use they can expect (it’s about 1400, if you’re wondering.)
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Dr. V | Thursday | November 3, 2011 |
There are few things worse than that sinking feeling of looking around for your pet, and realizing he or she is gone. Not just hiding, but gone. Perhaps you’re like my neighbor, whose tricky latch on the side fence meant that whenever the gardener didn’t pull it shut all the way, the labs would push it open and go for a run.
Or you have one of those dogs who likes to dig, dig, dig, right under the fence and out onto the street.
Or you’re just unlucky, like a client of ours whose dog Tinker pulled his leash right out of his owner’s hand in our parking lot and disappeared for a month and a half before being found, slightly thinner but miraculously none the worse for wear, up in the hills, communing with nature.
They are all happy endings, though not without a great deal of stress and angst on the owner’s part. Not all stories end well, as we all know. Which is why I was so happy to get to be one of the first people to review the new Tagg the Pet Tracker, a GPS tracking device for dogs from SnapTracs, a division of Qualcomm. You may not know Qualcomm, but if you own a smartphone, you know their mobile technology.
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Dr. V | Tuesday | October 25, 2011 |
They’re on business cards, magazine ads, and pamphlets, so why not ID tags? QR codes are the next big thing in giving people quick access to information, and FurCode ID tags have taken it to the next level by putting them on a pet ID tag.
Each ID tag has a unique code on it; when the code is scanned by a smartphone or input into the website, users will have access to the pet’s profile containing contact information, veterinary information, vaccine history, and any other notes you’d like to include. I always disliked how traditional ID tags only have space for one or two pieces of information, especially in this day and age when we all have multiple phone numbers and means of access. Between myself and my husband we have about five various phone numbers at which we might be accessible, but if you want to get a hold of me fast, you know to e-mail me.
FurCode has offered TEN tags to pawcurious readers. Want one? Leave a comment below.
Details:
Contest open worldwide.
Ends November 8, 2011 at 11:59 PM PST.
You may enter once a day.
Good luck!
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Dr. V | Saturday | October 22, 2011 |
My husband insisted we make an unboxing video for the Tagg the Pet Tracker we received to review this week. Unboxing videos are definitely a guy thing.
“What do I do?” I asked. “I haven’t gotten to review it yet.”
“You don’t review it,” he said. “You just take it out of the box and explain what you see.”
It makes no sense to me, but I’d watch people unboxing Louboutins all day so I suppose you like what you like. Anyway, I actually have an actual review of the Tagg coming up, but if you’d like a sneak peek at the box it comes in, as well as what the device itself looks like, here you go. It really is a nifty device, by far the most attractive of the GPS devices on the market.
I do think a handsome Golden would have been great for the box. I’m just saying.
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Dr. V | Friday | September 16, 2011 |
I’ve spent the last 4 days in Vegas, feverishly taking notes on what’s up and coming in pet products at the annual SuperZoo pet retailer convention. The expo floor was this massive labyrinth of pet foods, toys, grooming supplies, software, treats…you get the picture. Every time I thought I covered the floor there was some alley or other that I had missed and more goodies to check out.
Cat scratching posts from Imperial Cat. I love cardboard scratchers- I think cats really do prefer them. I was so impressed at how sturdy the cardboard is in these, because a lot of cardboard scratchers are flimsy. Plus, they’re just super cute! Who doesn’t need a Halloween lounge shaped scratcher in their lives? (more…)
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Dr. V | Monday | September 5, 2011 |
There are litterboxes, and then there are litterboxes. The kind that make you stop in your tracks and say, “Wow. I can’t believe I am so impressed by a cat toilet.”
Since the first time I stood mesmerized watching a Litter Robot in action, I’ve been coveting one. And because I am lucky, Litter Robot recently sent me one of these mysterious little devices to try out for myself.
For such a complicated looking device, it’s actually ridiculously easy to put together. Stick the tray in the bottom, place the globe on top, fill, and go. It took 5 minutes, tops. (more…)
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Dr. V | Tuesday | August 16, 2011 |
Back to School Week continues with a stylish offering from one of my favorite designers of modern pet accessories: Sleepypod’s Yummy Travel Bowls!
I have a dog who, despite his low-maintenance background as a retriever, is much too fussy to actually drink water from a bottle and prefers it to be delicately decanted into a bowl. Preferably chilled.
Whenever we go for a walk, this means I have to remember to bring his travel bowl. This offering from Sleepypod is my new favorite, for a few reasons:
- it’s sturdy (I hate those flimsy ones that bend as soon as you put water in them and spill all over the car)
- it allows you to carry food and water together, in a sealed package
- it’s covered
- it’s cute
It matches my blog. I can’t help it. I love that. They have other colors, too, if teal isn’t your thing. (more…)
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Dr. V | Monday | August 15, 2011 |
I’ve spent the last two weeks feverishly snapping up shoes, backpacks and pencils trying to get my kids ready for school. I forgot how much thought your average six year old needs to put into deciding what kind of lunchbox she wants for the year. That is pressure, man.
In the meantime, since I’m in a consumer state of mind, I decided this was the perfect week to do some Back to School reviews and previews of stuff your star pet might be interested in this autumn. So welcome to Back to School week! I’m starting off with a snazzy device for the technophiles- it’s super duper cool.
Back to School Week Monday: The Tagg Pet Tracker
My neighbors are sort of your archetypal ditzy dog owners. They have two big goofy labs, a pool guy who never pulls the gate shut all the way, and a severe case of procrastination when it comes to updating their ID tag information.
The first time their dogs got out, I helped them canvass the neighborhood. They eventually found them about 8 houses away, hanging out in a neighbor’s garage. The second time they got out, they made it even further- about 2 miles in a 2 hour period. A good samaritan put up a sign saying “2 Beautiful Labs Found!”
I bought them ID tags after that. I don’t know if they ever got around to updating their microchips.
Point being, you want multiple layers of safety when you’re trying to keep your pet from getting lost. Obviously an ID tag is simple and nice, assuming you have someone who actually finds your dog, hangs onto them, then calls you. A microchip eliminates the problem of a collar coming off, but even more chips have to fall into place for your pet to be reunited with you: they have to end up in a place with a scanner, the scanner has to locate the chip, your information has to be up to date. It’s far from perfect and not particularly efficient.
Wouldn’t it be amazing- just awesome- to have a GPS tracker on your dog? One that worked instantaneously to ping which direction your dog took off in, so you didn’t have to guess and hope you get to them before they scoot across that busy intersection?
It happened. They’ll be available to buy next month. And I am really excited about it: The Tagg Pet Tracker.
Here’s some snippets from today’s big announcement: (more…)
