News & Info

Expert Tips on How to Keep Pets Safe in Cold Weather (ABC)

When 2-year-old Clara dons her four rubber booties to go out into the intense cold of a winter morning, she typically does a hop and a skip before she settles down…read more


5 Tips to Keep Your Pet Safe and Comfortable in Extreme Heat (WJCT News)

As oppressive heat continues to blanket much of the U.S., it’s especially crucial to take precautions to protect yourself and your loved ones — furry friends included. Heat waves can pose the same kinds of risks to animals as they do to humans…read more


Here’s Why Cat Owners Should Be Extra Careful When Doing Laundry

Cat owners should always check the dryer, catproof their home — such as keeping cabinets closed and avoiding toxic houseplants — keep tabs on all household cats and know where the closest emergency animal hospital is, just in case. And on laundry day itself, they should write down a reminder to check the dryer just one extra time for safety…read more


How to Best Keep Your Pets Safe During Thanksgiving

With assurances from top doctors that vaccinated families can safely gather this Thanksgiving, people also need to consider the safety of their pets during this time of year…read more


Sociologist Confirms What Pet Parents Know: Pets Really are Part of the Family

Do you sign your pets’ names to your holiday card? Have you ever sent your dog to day care? Do you shop regularly for cat or dog toys? Welcome to a new breed of American family—the multispecies family…read more


How to Stop Your Child From Tormenting Your Pet

It was an unfamiliar, acrid stink that tipped me off. Each time I passed within a few feet of our gray tabby cat, Bumpus, the funk shocked my nostrils. “Cat emitting bad smell,” I typed into an internet search bar, realizing quickly that cats, like skunks, can release a powerful odor when they are anxious or frightened. A close look at Bumpus revealed the possible stressor: Someone, it seemed, had clipped the whiskers and eyebrows on the right side of her face. It didn’t take much sleuthing to pinpoint my son, then 7, as the perpetrator.read more


Your Dog Could Have the Flu Too

Canine influenza best known as dog flu rarely leads to death. However, it’s really contagious among dogs. Dogs flu is a relatively new virus that only passes from dog to dog wither through contact, or items like dog bowls, toys, and human clothes. Veterinarian, Kevin Kumrow of Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center said it usually takes two hours of exposure for a dog to get it…read more


NYC students catch science “bug” with help from CVM scientists

More than a dozen dedicated teenage scientists spent their lunch hour Oct. 24 learning for Cornell scientists about the chemistry of the Hudson River and its invasive species. As a storm approached, students from Brooklyn’s Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School enjoyed a taste of real-life environmental research. Wearing life jackets while exploring wooden piers along the wind-whipped Hudson, the teens dipped plastic bottles into the choppy tide for water samples...read more


Lost a Pet? How to Help Your Other Pet Grieve (The News & Observer)

When a family pet dies, naturally the humans in the household grieve the death of their beloved companion. However, surviving animals in multipet households may also react to the loss in a variety of ways. If grief is measured by changes in behavior, then grieving is common throughout the animal world. Fall Allergy Woes Affect Our Furry Friends, Too ....read more


Fall Allergy Woes Affect Our Furry Friends, Too (Journal-Advocate)

Do you suffer from seasonal or year-round allergies? You might be surprised to learn that pets often do, too....read more


Pets Help Kids with Deployed Parents Cope with Stress (Military.com )

A newly published study finds that military children with a deployed parent who have a close relationship with a pet cope better with stress than those who do not. The study, released by Tufts University October 29, examined 300 middle and high school students from military families who were involved in programs with the Military Child Education Coalition…read more 


How Owners Can Help Monitor Heart Disease in Their Pets (Veterinary Medicine via dvm360.com)

Veterinary cardiologist Dr. Sonya Gordon discusses an easy but important way owners of pets with heart disease can catch early signs that their pets might need more intervention…read more


Tips from FEMA for Caring for Your Pets in the Event of a Disaster (Federal Emergency Management Agency)

If you are like millions of animal owners nationwide, your pet is an important member of your household. Unfortunately, animals are also affected by disaster. The likelihood that you and your animals will survive an emergency such as a fire, flood, tornado or terrorist attack depends largely on emergency planning done today…read more


Pets Can Improve Retirees’ Physical, Emotional Health (USA Today )

Nancy Westphal, 65, of Rockford, Illinois, loves coming home to her 55-pound female dog named Charlie who greets her enthusiastically at the door. “It’s unconditional love she gives me,” says Westphal, who is single. “She is somebody to talk to. You can have a connection with a pet.”…read more


What Makes People Look Like Their Pets?  (Slate )

So what is it, exactly, that enables us to correctly link owners and their dogs? That’s the mystery that Sadahiko Nakajima, a psychologist from Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, set out to solve in a recent study published in the journal Anthrozoös. This wasn’t Nakajima’s first stab at it. In prior research, he and his colleagues had shown that research participants could match photos of owners and their dogs by facial appearance alone…read more 


Five Ways Pets Benefit Your Health (CNN) 

The benefits of having a pet extend well beyond companionship, and sometimes our furry friends don’t receive the credit that’s due. Pets are a shoulder to cry on, an alarm clock, an exercise partner and a true member of the family. There is over 25 years’ worth of research that shows living with pets provides a bounty of health benefits…read more


Personhood for Pets? How the Human-animal Bond Has Evolved (LiveScience via Yahoo News)

Since humans first domesticated cats and dogs, these furry friends have taken on increasingly important roles in people’s lives. Now, a growing movement aims to recognize Fido and Felix not just as pets, but also as legal citizens. As wild animals, dogs and cats first entered human life in the role of hunting animals and guardians, then as companions and finally as family members… read more


Yellow Ribbons On Dog Leashes: What Do They Mean? (AVMA)

This week (May 18-24) is National Dog Bite Prevention Week, sponsored by the American Veterinary Medical Association. With an estimated population of 70 million dogs living in U.S. households, millions of people — most of them children — are bitten by dogs every year. The majority of these bites are preventable… read more


Can Puppies Help Fight Cancer? New Study Aims to Find Out (TIME)

Puppies can kill you with cuteness, but they may also be able to help cure you. At least that’s what a new study hopes to prove. Finding that hard scientific proof is the goal of a new study by the American Humane Association that aims to provide empirically proven facts of what many anecdotally know to be true — puppy love can make you feel better… read more


The Nation’s First Cat Cafe Comes to New York  (Bloomberg Businessweek)

As the city that never sleeps, New York City has a seemingly unquenchable thirst for decent coffee, a fact not lost on the likes of Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and, most recently, Purina ONE, which opened the continent’s first pop-up cat café on New York City’s Lower East Side. The point is to introduce coffee-drinking customers to felines up for adoption…. read more


Ancient Egyptian Kitten Skeletons Hint at Cat Domestication (Fox News)

The skeletons of six cats, including four kittens, found in an Egyptian cemetery may push back the date of cat domestication in Egypt by nearly 2,000 years. The bones come from a cemetery for the wealthy in Hierakonpolis, which served as the capital of upper Egypt in the era before the pharaohs… read more


Never Underestimate a Goat (Smithsonian)

Goats are members of a diverse group of mammals called ungulates. Ungulates include barnyard favorites like cows, sheep and donkeys — all great additions at petting zoos but not known for winning any intelligence prizes in the animal kingdom… read more


Relationship Between Man and Cat May Be Older Than We Think (Pacific Standard)

Humans and cats have been enjoying, or at least tolerating, one another’s company for a very long time. But when, exactly, did we start hanging around together? … read more


Help Exists for Those Struggling to Pay Veterinary Bills (Veterinary Information Network)

Denying medical care to a sick or injured animal can ruin days and induce lasting guilt. Even so, the scenario is familiar among veterinarians with clients who can’t afford medical treatments for their pets. Financially strapped owners often turn to euthanasia to alleviate an animal’s suffering — sometimes prematurely… read more


More Americans Are Writing Their Pets Into Their Wills (The Wall Street Journal)

The number of Americans owning pets is at a record high, and more people are making provisions in their wills to provide for these animals after they’re gone. But to ensure your pet is cared for as you intend, it’s important to set up a pet trust — an arrangement that 46 states permit… read more


Here’s Why Birds Fly In A ‘V’ Formation (The Huffington Post)

Anyone watching the autumn sky knows that migrating birds fly in a V formation, but scientists have long debated why. A new study of ibises finds that these big-winged birds carefully position their wing tips and sync their flapping, presumably to catch the preceding bird’s updraft — and save energy during flight… read more


Pet Health Crisis: Americans Skimp on Preventive Care (USA Today)

There’s an American health crisis that doesn’t have anything to do with federal health care websites, rising deductibles or doctor shortages. Our pets are getting sicker, and many pet owners don’t even have a clue… read more


Humans and Dogs Use Same Brain Area to Get Others’ Emotions (LiveScience)

Human and dog brains process sounds in similar ways, and this may allow the two species to understand each other’s emotions, new research shows… read more