As October’s “Adopt-A-Shelter-Dog month” comes to an end, shelters are urging the public to consider adoption. According to a recent study by the National Council on Pet Population Study and Policy, the number of cats and dogs entering shelters each year is approximately 6 to 8 million. Of those animals, only 3 to 4 million are adopted, leaving 3 to 4 million animals euthanized each year.

The most common reason for surrendering a dog to a shelter is that the owner is moving. Other reasons include too many animals in the house, cost of pet health, and not having time for a pet. Surprisingly, behavior problems ranked last on the list.

There are several things to consider before adopting a dog from one of your local shelters. You should first consider the ages of the people in your household. This will help you determine the size of dog you should choose. For example, families with small children would generally do better with a smaller dog.
Before adopting, it’s also important to make sure that you have the time necessary to dedicate to caring for a dog. Do you have time to walk and train your dog every day?

Finally, consider how much money you can spend on the dog. Take into consideration adoption costs, routine yearly dog health care and the dog’s food and supplies. There are also unforeseen costs, such as taking an emergency trip to the vet after an accident or illness. It’s also a good idea to consider purchasing pet health insurance.

Make sure when you are making the decision to adopt a puppy or an adult dog, that you are committed to providing the dog with a loving home for the remainder of his life.

While there are no surefire ways to ensure that your dog will not have an accident this Halloween, there are things you can do to lessen the chance that they will occur. With all of the hustle and bustle of people coming to your house for Halloween parties and the endless ringing of the doorbell by trick-or-treaters, there are ample opportunities for an accident to happen to your pet.

Having dog health insurance can help cover you if an accident does occur on Halloween, but there are also steps you can take to help keep your dog safe this year.

During Halloween it is important to protect your dog from the dangers of eating Halloween candy. The candy itself as well as the wrappers pose serious health risks to your dog. Keep candy in places where your dog can’t gain access.

Another Halloween danger for dogs are flames from burning candles. Candles can peak the curiosity of your dog and lead to a burned nose or worse. Your dog may also accidentally knock the pumpkin over, which could burn his fur or start a fire.

Costumes can be a risk for dogs during Halloween. If you decide to dress up your dog, be sure that his costume doesn’t hinder his abilities to see, breath or walk. Make sure that your dog only wears the costume when he is being supervised. Dogs that are left unsupervised in costumes may chew the costume, thereby ingesting it, or may injure themselves trying to get the costume off.

Even if you have taken steps to reduce the chances of your dog having an accident, it can still occur. Lessen your chance of having financial strain from a dog accident or emergency by having pet care insurance.

As cats get older, they become more prone to feline health issues. Cat health care, especially in older cats, is important to catch diseases early. Catching a disease in its early stages can add years to your cat’s life.

It’s a good idea to have elderly cats examined every 6 months as opposed to once a year. Pet health can change drastically in just a few months. Having more frequent exams will allow your vet to keep a close eye on your cat’s weight. Common cat weight loss causes include feline hyperthyroidism and diabetes.

Feline hyperthyroidism is a disease that is cause by an overactive thyroid gland. The thyroid gland produces too much of the thyroid hormones. The increase in the thyroid hormone levels can cause weight loss, excessive hunger, increased thirst and even vomiting and diarrhea. When owning a cat, it is a good idea to compare pet insurance and select the best cat insurance for your cat.

There are three choices when it comes to treating hyperthyroidism:

1. The first choice is the administration of a daily medication to regulate the thyroid hormone levels. Additional blood tests will be needed to monitor the thyroid levels of the cat. Based on the bloodwork results, the vet will determine if the thyroid medication needs to be adjusted.

2. A second treatment choice is having the thyroid gland surgically removed. This procedure requires the cat to be in relatively good health in order for them to tolerate the anesthesia.

3. The third choice is having an injection that kills the tissue of the thyroid gland. This is the most costly treatment option and requires a stay in the hospital for several days.

Let’s face it, if you have a puppy, your little ball of fluff will experience a bout of puppy diarrhea at some point.

But what can somtimes just be an upset tummy can actually be a dire dog health care issue– or even death. Suddenly your puppy not only has diarrhea but has now begun to vomit.

Your normally playful puppy has become lethargic and you know something serious is going on. A simple puppy diarrhea treatment has turned into a hospital stay with a vet bill that can be very pricey without the help of pet insurance. With a diagnosis of parvo virus, your world can be turned upside down.

Parvo virus is a serious, life-threatening illness that primarily affects dog health care in puppies. The symptoms of parvo usually come on suddenly with the onset of diarrhea that is usually accompanied by vomiting. The puppy will become very ill quickly. Puppies with diarrhea and vomiting need urgent care and should be checked out by a veterinarian immediately.

Parvo is a highly contagious virus that is passed on to other puppies and even onto adult dogs that have not been vaccinated against it. The virus has the ability to contaminate an area for several months. The virus can remain on the surfaces in the house and in the soil in which the stool has come into contact with.

Getting pet insurance for your puppy as soon as you get her can save you the heartache of having to deal with a sick puppy and having to worry about how you are going to afford treatment.

“Of all the things I miss from veterinary practice,
puppy breath is one of the most fond memories!”- Dr. Tom Cat

Finding a veterinarian is often a personal journey, just like finding the perfect pet and choosing an upstanding pet insurance company. There is no rule that says you have to pick the closest veterinarian or the cutest dog or cat. Your personality might gel better with the vet across town, and the quirkier looking cat at the shelter just might steal your heart.

Even if you get a referral from a friend who loves her veterinarian, the chemistry just may not be there between the two of you. There is nothing wrong with taking time to perform veterinarian clinic comparison, pet insurance comparison, and pet food comparison. Such actions just prove that you are a caring, responsible pet owner and that you are concerned about pet health.

It’s well understood that the number-one reason veterinarians choose their field is because they love animals. We would all love to believe that when we take our beloved pet to a vet clinic, the people treating him sees in him exactly what we see. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way. A vet clinic is still staffed with people who are at work, and may not be having the best day. Your pet is probably stressed out and not on his best behavior, either.

Likewise, you’re probably as stressed out as every other pet owner there that day, as well. Everyone needs to work together calmly to get to the goal: a happy, healthy, comfortable pet. But during this process, you don’t deserve to be made to feel like a number, or your pet like he’s on a conveyor belt.

If you can find a clinic that remains professional through the chaos, and communicates patiently with you until you understand, you may have found your veterinarian. If you feel calmed by a vet’s bedside manner, and he takes a moment to look into your pet’s eyes when they aren’t shining as brightly as they once were, you may have found a gem.

My cat has a bizarre pet health condition– asthma. Other than a cousin I haven’t seen since childhood, he’s the only one—human or animal—I’ve ever known to have it. Yet today, I find myself knowing more about asthma than I ever thought I would.

When I tell people that I give my cat an asthma inhaler by holding a mask over his face, I get a variety of responses. Most are just surprised that you can give a cat an asthma inhaler. Others are sure I have the tamest cat in the world (I don’t), and that he must let me do whatever I want to him (he doesn’t). Then I usually hear something like, “If I tried that with my cat, my eyes would get scratched out.”

We pet lovers sometimes surprise ourselves in the lengths to which we find ourselves going to care for them. We spend hours doing pet insurance comparison shopping, we type the slightest odd behavior into search engines to see if it’s normal, and we become experts in food labels, deciphering which brands have optimum protein-to-carbohydrate ratios.

So what other human-like pet health issues can cats suffer from? How about herpes…of the eye! My co-worker and her family were recently adopted by a stray pregnant cat. After the kittens were born, the momma cat started having eye issues that were thought to be caused by a flailing newborn kitten’s claw. Imagine the surprise of my cat-owning-virgin of a co-worker to learn it was herpes.

Since her daughter had suffered from a bout of shingles just last year, this diagnoses sealed the momma cat’s permanent spot in their home!

One day soon, another condition my co-worker’s cat might share with her teenage daughter is acne. Acne in a cat often appears as a dirty chin. But try as you might, the dirt doesn’t seem to come off. This is often harmless and remedied by changing all food dishes to non-porous ones like ceramic, glass, or stainless steel.

Sometimes, however, a secondary bacteria infection or lesions can form. This could be a symptom of other underlying issues, in which case affordable pet insurance will come in handy to get some tests done to help kitty keep that gorgeous complexion and pet health vigor of its youth.

A recent Veterinary Practice News article paints Pets Best Insurance President Dr. Jack Stephens as an industry guru.

The article, written by Phil Zeltzman, DVM, addressed many concerns veterinarians share when faced with the idea of recommending dog or cat insurance to their clients. Read the full article.

The first concern Zeltzman sheds light on, is the notion that recommending pet health insurance is “inappropriate for vets.”

Dr. Stephens, who founded pet insurance in the U.S. in the early 1980’s disagrees with this stance.

“Nothing that helps clients and pets receive veterinary care is inappropriate,” Dr. Stephens told Veterinary Practice News. “Just as nutritional counseling or providing products for clients is good for the pet, advising about pet health insurance is good and very well may save the life of the patient.”

The next topic Dr. Stephens addressed was the idea that “promoting pet insurance is an unproductive activity.”

In retrospect to what some veterinarians may think, Dr. Stephens argues that promoting cat and dog insurance is productive because it increases client spending power—ultimately, helping to eliminate euthanasia due to cost of care.

“Take, for example, a client who could afford to spend $1,000 for veterinary care. If that pet is insured with an 80 percent plan, [as Pets Best Insurance does] the client can now afford nearly $5,000 with a $100 deductible” and still only pay the $1,000 out-of-pocket.

The next myth Dr. Stephens debunks is the idea that pet insurance increases veterinarians’ paperwork.

“In almost all claims filing there is no more paperwork than veterinarians provide now with a receipt,” Stephens told the source, adding that the actual claim filing is most usually entirely up to the policy holder—not the vet.

For more information on pet insurance, visit www.petsbest.com.

Many years ago, I met a mysterious Persian cat in the alley next to my apartment in Chicago. His background was a mystery, his age was a mystery, but it was no mystery that he was beautiful, sweet, and staying with me.

After 12 years, I lost him to a mysterious liver disease. The last couple of years were rough, and I was under a lot of stress worrying about him each time his quality of life dipped. Not only was I nervous for him, I was nervous for my bank account. When he finally did pass away, I had a strange sense of hope through my sadness. “How nice it would be,” I thought, “to have a brand new, healthy kitten that I didn’t have to worry about.”

So I got that brand-new kitten. But oh, was I wrong about the rest. I had forgotten that a kitten’s immune system wasn’t fully developed yet. I forgot how they are so small, it would be easy to injure them just because you don’t see them underfoot. I thought I was doing everything right and by the book, but for the first few weeks I had her, it seemed like something was always wrong. After I almost lost her to pneumonia at four months old, an experience that cost me $700, I started looking for pet health insurance for the first time.

I had no idea if I could afford it, but after a bit of comparison shopping I found the best pet insurance for my kitten. It doesn’t take the mystery out of how healthy she may or may not be in the future, but it definitely removed the fear of not knowing if I could afford to treat the pets I love so much.

Cat pet care is essential to ensure that your cat lives a long and healthy life. Annual check-ups will allow your veterinarian to keep track of the health of your cat. Preventative care should include vaccines, bloodwork and medications to prevent parasites. If your cat exhibits any cat illness symptoms, he should be checked out by your veterinarian as soon as possible.

Catching cat health care issues early is crucial in ensuring that your cat gets the treatment he needs. Due to the fact that many of the common diseases have similar cat illnesses symptoms, tests must be performed to diagnose and rule out other diseases. It is possible for a cat to have a primary disease and have a secondary disease that is caused by the primary disease. Treating cat illnesses quickly often allows the cat to recover more quickly.

Diagnosing diseases in cats begins with a thorough exam. Based on the findings on the exam and any symptoms that the cat exhibits, the veterinarian will determine which diagnostic tests need to be performed on the cat.

The most common tests used to diagnose diseases in cats are urinalysis and blood work. These tests check the function of organs and measure blood levels of various hormones in the blood. Other diagnostic tests that may be used include x-rays and ultrasounds. Make these diagnostic tests more affordable for your family by having your cat covered with a cat pet insurance.

Feeding kittens may need to be done as a supplement when a mother cat does not feed her kittens adequately. Bottle feeding kittens is usually needed when kittens have become orphaned or when the mother cat rejected a kitten. Kittens need to be bottle-fed for the first four weeks of life. Similar to human babies, newborn kittens need to be fed around the clock to ensure proper cat health care.

It’s important to feed kittens formula that is specially formulated for kittens. Kitten milk replacement can be found at your local pet store. The most common kitten milk replacement is KMR. When feeding newborn kittens, it is best to use a bottle made for kittens. These can be found in the store near the kitten milk replacement. The milk replacement comes in a liquid or powder form. The powdered form is mixed with water to make a liquid for feeding. The powder formulation is usually cheaper than the liquid formula. If you have to feed more than one kitten the powder formulation is a better choice. The water that is going to be mixed with the powder should be boiled and cooled before mixing with the powder.

Kittens should be fed every 2 to 3 hours. For newborn kittens, start with feeding the kitten 2 ounces and increase the amount as they grow. Refer to the milk replacement packaging for a feeding guide. Once a kitten reaches 4 weeks, it can be introduced to wet kitten food mixed with the kitten milk replacement. Once the kittens are able to eat the kitten food, and pet health is stable, wean kittens from the milk replacement.