Pawcurious Vet Blog: With Pet Blogger and Veterinarian Dr. V

Fashion Xanax

If I seem a little stressed in the next couple of months, I have a good excuse: we are going to try and sell our house. I say “try”, because this is one of those housing markets when upon saying “I’m going to put my house on the market” the universal response is, “Well, good luck with that.”

We’re staying in the area- after seeing all those pictures from Colorado this weekend I think it’s safe to say I am actually quite content here in San Diego, thanks- and the decision is one that has more to do with commutes and schools than anything else. Now, the last time we sold a house was in 2004, and as you probably know, the market was a little different back then. You could put a ramshackle log cabin on the market in 2004 and it would be sold for a ridiculous bucket of money back then. Our place sold in 10 days, to the second person who saw it. Ah, to be back in 2004 again.

Now, buyers are a little pickier. And the prospect of trying to keep a house in showable condition for possibly months, with two messy kids and a really rowdy Golden who would love nothing more than to go nuts each and every time someone comes by, has me in apoplectic fits. Worse than when I was taking the boards, worse than when I was pregnant. I have NO idea how I’m going to do it.

But I have a point here, and my point is: this is how we found ourselves at the mall on Saturday looking at little knick knacks, because my husband decided potential buyers would be impressed by more candles in the house. Now, I am ambivalent about that kind of stuff to begin with, and all I could think while we were wandering through the store was “It won’t matter, there’s no way the house is going to sell and then we’re going to be stuck in this house forever WITH A BUNCH OF EXTRA CANDLES TO HAVE TO STORE” and then I got even more stressed out and couldn’t concentrate.  (more…)

Giveaway Tuesday: Moda Pet Sunflower bowl!

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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Rug Doctor Saves the Day (and a mini giveaway)

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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Product Review: Tagg, the Pet Tracker

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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Tagg the Pet Tracker Unboxing

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.

SuperZoo Product Picks!

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…)

Litter Robot Review

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…)

There’s an App for That: Top 6 iphone/ipad apps for pet people

We are an Apple family. Between the iphone, the ipad, and the Mac, I’m constantly on the lookout for the next great app. I love Angry Birds as much as the next guy, but given my background I’m also always hunting down good pet-related products. They’ve been a little slow to come out compared to other categories, but I’m finally starting to see some quality apps on iTunes that I deem worthy of the bucks.

For Back to School Week Wednesday, we’re going high tech: Here are my top 6 iphone apps for pets (because I just couldn’t narrow it down to 5!)

Kibble Katch

Based on the popular website Free Kibble, Kibble Katch is a game that directly translates into free kibble in real life. For every 250 pieces you ‘catch’ in the game, FreeKibble.com will donate a meal to a pet in need. $2.99. (more…)

Sleepypod Yummy Bowls Review

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…)

Tagg Pet Tracker: Another ruffolution

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…)

The Litterbox Chronicles: Scoop Free Litter Box Review

As you know, Apollo has some marking issues that have made life rather, well, pungent. That is not a good thing.

On the bright side, by following veterinary behaviorist Dr. Yin’s advice to create a beautiful, austere, absolutely delightful potty palace for the cat I have been able to reduce a large amount of that behavior.

So now that we’re in a good place, I think you can understand why I was nervous to mix things up and try a new litter box, but in the name of technological advancement, we all must soldier on.

I’ve used the LitterMaid back when it first came out, but it was kind of a pain, messy and sticky and clumpy. The makers of the ScoopFree litter box sent me an Original Scoop Free box to test out, and lo and behold, automatic litter box technology has come a long way. And that is a good thing. (more…)

Giveaway Tuesday: Freezy Pups

Congratulations to our winner, Rachel- who won from her FB wall post! I hope Preston loves them!!

With the fourth of July just around the corner, a man and beast’s thoughts turn to tasty frozen treats. As anyone who saw my pupsicle post is well aware, we are all about tasty frozen treats around here.

And while making such elaborate affairs is fun and rewarding, I’m the first to admit there are two main problems with making homemade Frosty Paws or similar sorts of treats on a regular basis:

1. They’re big, which means unless you have a huge dog they represent a large portion of their daily caloric intake.
2. They are time-consuming to make, which means I don’t make them all that often.

Which is why I am super excited to have, in my hands as we speak, a tray of Freezy Pups for review. And soon, my friends, one of you will too. (more…)