“Fox” is a species that you used to find on a list of exotic pets, but after 50 years of breeding in, where else, Russia, they have made their way onto the domestic list. For a while, owning a pet fox was about as safe as owning a pet wolf – maybe slightly safer as a given their smaller size. They were nippy, hostile, and all around unhappy living with human owners. Now, the Siberian Fox is a new tame breed of silver fox, affectionately known as the “SibFox.” This new breed of pet is all the rage in Europe and becoming more common in the U.S. as well.

As is true for wild foxes, the SibFox is small, comparable to the size of a medium-sized dog. SibFoxes have sleek, silvery coats, big, intelligent eyes, and the trendiest new pet since toy potbelly pigs. Of course, upon hearing this most joyous of news, you want to buy one and take it home and love it and name it Foxy. So what can you exactly can you expect from your new pet, Foxy?

Food – What will Foxy Eat?
Foxy will need to eat 1 to 1 and ½ pounds of food each day. You can feed her a balanced diet of vegetables, red meat, poultry, fish, and veterinarian prescribed vitamins, although canned/wet dog food formulated for medium sized dogs is just as well. Canned dog food is also an easier solution that fixing your Foxy special meals. If you should choose to cook for Foxy, watch out for bones and fats in the food you give her. If she is energetic, and her coat is fluffy with a healthy sheen, you will know that you are feeding her right. Overfeeding is a danger; even more so than with dogs because the fox metabolism is designed for a higher level of activity than Foxy will probably get as a domestic fox. In other words, it is easier for her to become overweight. Also, Foxy will drink a lot, so make sure to check her water supply daily. If it is often dry when you check it, then check multiple times a day. Foxy, you’ll discover, is a drinker. The hotter and dryer the climate, the more she’ll tend to drink.

Housing – Where will Foxy Sleep/Live?
Foxy can live indoors or out, just like a medium to large dog. If you want her to live outside, Foxy will need shelter from severe weather like snow and rain and excessive heat. Be sure that she has a shade and a little house type structure lined with a blanket or towel. She will need to be in a fenced in area, with either a bottom to her cage or a fence that goes several feet down into the ground so that she can’t dig out underneath it. Remember, she’s not that far removed from her cousin the fox. They’re diggers.

If you want Foxy to live indoors, she will be just fine sleeping in a medium sized dog bed. She can also feel at home inside of a medium to large dog kennel or crate, especially during the adjustment period. This will help her to feel protected, and like she has her own space. It is likely that once Foxy is accustomed to her new home, she will enjoy snoozing on couches, chairs, and even the foot of your bed, just like a cat! However, if you are a person who is strict about, “no dogs on human furniture,” her own bed will be perfect.

Other Care – What Else Do You Need to Know About Foxy?
Foxy should be walked on a leash for about 30 minutes a day, whether that ends up being three 10-minute walks, two 15-minute walks, or one 30 minute walk, this is for exercise. Foxy will need quite a bit of it, similar to a Greyhound or Labrador. If you want Foxy to do her business outside, those walks will have to be separate. Foxy can be trained to use a litter box like a cat. But exercise is paramount for this breed.

Also, Foxy will be quite easy going. She should get along fine with any dogs or cats that already live in the house, though she may be hostile to smaller animals like rabbits, ferrets, rats, and other rodents that may have been food sources for her in the wild. Excellent training and establishing yourself as pack leader will mitigate any oopses that end up with your rabbit being um, Foxy’s lunch.

The most important thing to remember is that while Foxy may share traits in common with other household pets like a dog or cat, she is a fox – a domestic fox, but a fox nonetheless. You will need to learn about her just as you would your first dog or cat in order to help your pet/owner relationship to be the best it can be!

Health, wellness, prevention – these are hot topics for humans, but for dogs? Just as obesity in the human population has become increasingly well known, canine health problems such as obesity, cancer, psychological problems and arthritis are becoming better understood by both vets and owners. And the advice to dog owners sounds incredibly familiar: eat reasonable quantities of healthy food, and exercise regularly. But how do you get started?

First Steps
Just like a person who is out of shape, the first stop for your dog, before heading out to go for a run, is the animal hospital. Have the vet give Pookie a thorough once over and alert you to any potential concerns. Just like humans, dogs can have heart problems that require a little monitoring, or musculo-skeletal breed peculiarities that you should be aware of before starting out. Once you know what to look out for, your vet can give you some guidelines. For example, with an overweight and out of shape dog, don’t start out throwing a ball or Frisbee up, encouraging the dog to jump. Joint injuries could easily result. Throw grounders, encouraging Pookie to hone her fielding skills until she’s in better shape and has trimmed down a bit.

Once you have the green light from your vet, start walking. Yes, walking. Add a 10% intensity increase every week, but start with an easy distance that you and Pookie can already enjoy. A 10% intensity increase means you are increasing either distance (walking one mile this week? Make it 1.1 miles next week) or time (a ten minute walk this week becomes eleven minutes next week). Or you can increase the intensity by adding short sections of jogging, starting with ten seconds out of every five minutes. The point here is to increase gradually so that neither you nor Pookie end up sore, injured or dreading your walks.

Keep in Mind
Where are you doing this walking? Every location has its own set of concerns and challenges to get used to managing. City sidewalks are generally concrete and thus very hard on both Pookie and your joints. Be on the lookout for signs of muscle or joint soreness, limping, swelling or a sensation of heat in the knees, ankles or hips – all these would indicate tendonitis or bursitis. If you notice these symptoms, back off, going back to last week’s regimen, and add more rest in between walks. If you don’t see an improvement, check with the vet.

Walking in the woods or on wooded paths? Check for splinters, ticks and cuts or scrapes. While uneven terrain is great for Pookie (and you) as you develop more core strength and peripheral muscles, pebbles, splinters, and even woodchips or other materials used as trail coverings can get into the sensitive tissue between the Pookster’s toes and cause irritation of infection.
Are you guys walking somewhere where there are lots of other dogs? Before you shift into “exercise mode” let Pookie do all her sniffing, bathrooming, and general dog business before you expect her to start trotting by your side. Give her a few minutes to get her doggie ya-yas out and she’ll be better able to be a good girl on your walk.

Mix it Up
Dogs thrive on stimulation, especially when you balance support with demand. Keep offering new and fun experiences alongside clear expectations and structure so that Pookie knows how to be a good girl while she checks out new things. What kind of new things? Is there a dog park in your area with agility equipment? How about a pond of a lake? Have you tried hiking on a mountain trail? Or even just setting up an obstacle course in the back yard with some weaving poles or tires? If you always run a particular route, pop ol’ Pookie in the car and try running somewhere else – the change of scenery will help both of you keep it interesting. If you don’t have access to any of the above, you can go the super simple route of just plain teaching Pookie tricks: “sit up” improves balance and strengthens core and back muscles!

Beyond the Basics
Once you and Pookie have achieved a basic level of fitness, the world of dog sports opens up! Agility, rally, dock dogs, Frisbee dogs and even training for search and rescue become possible. But perhaps most gratifying of all, you and Pookie are now a team. The bond that comes from getting in shape together and maintaining fitness together is deeply satisfying to both human and dog. Get out there and enjoy it!

Juggling our busy lives, balancing our schedules, checkbooks, chauffeur duties, and perfecting our tumbling routines through the workday, school day, and weekend activities – most dog owners are acrobats! Don’t let that case of dog dandruff get you down! Do you worry that perhaps poor Oreo is lost in the shuffle, and not getting all the attention or exercise she needs? Do you also dislike coming home, tired and Oreo has been cooped up all day and is raring to go? Is this honestly fair to either of you? While seemingly extravagant, have you considered doggy day care as a way to meet some of her needs for socialization, exercise and daytime attention?

Who Does Well in Doggy Day Care?
Your dog’s personality, temperament and breed characteristics will determine whether he or she will be a success in doggy day care. Dogs have different temperaments and personalities — just like their owners. Some people, and some dogs, are extroverted and thrive in a group environment. Others need the safety and security of home, with consistent routines and relative quiet. Some dogs are flexible and relaxed, and can “go with the flow,” while others are “control freaks” who stress out over change or stimulation. It is important to stack the deck in your dog’s favor at day care, so knowing your dog’s personality and attitude towards all the situations doggy day care might present is key.

You’ll need to select your next ingredient: the day care itself. Consider all the variables, among them should be:

• The cost
• The convenience
• The facility’s cleanliness
• Its overall set up
• The dogs that are “full time” as well as those who come in once or twice a week
o Any fights? If so, how did staff handle them?
o Are they all getting along well?
• You can check with the city to see whether the facility has ever been given a citation for anything
• Be sure to look carefully at both inside and outside
• Observe staff interactions with dogs
o Do their training, play mimic your style?
o Given the cost involved, check out the staff to dog ratio
o Are they trained or just high school students looking to make a quick buck?

Some day cares really focus on offering a calm and quiet environment for older or infirm dogs, while others pride themselves on their exercise regimen. Some offer more structure and some less. Visit more than once if possible, and definitely schedule a visit without your dog present so that you can focus on the day care itself without paying attention to your dog’s responses. Visiting with your dog is a must and the day care provider should welcome such a request. Your hackles should go up if the day care is not welcoming of questions and visits.

Consider Your Dog’s Breed Characteristics
If Polly is a purebred, in which group does she belong? Sporting breeds, such as spaniels and pointers seem to do well in daycare, provided the day care environment offers sufficient outdoor play time and appropriate amounts of exercise. Herding breeds, however, can have difficulty in day care, especially in less structured environments. Even breeds that can be difficult to socialize or have a bad reputation for aggression, such as pit bulls or rottweilers, can do well in the right daycare setting, but special attention to safety of all the dogs and humans involved is important.

If you have, and please forgive the insinuation, a spoiled dog who is used to ruling the roost at home, doggy daycare is probably not for your dog and you.

Why Go Through All This Bother?
Is this starting to sound like a lot of work? Interviewing day care providers, matching your dog’s natural inclinations with a program (or lack of one), ensuring safety, cleanliness and health is maintained and promoted… sheesh! Wouldn’t it be easier to just leave poor Buster at home?

Easier perhaps, but remember doggy day care does have some real benefits. For most dogs, at least some mental and physical stimulation is a real health benefit. Being around people and dogs can help alleviate separation anxiety and the accompanying behaviors. Increasing Buster’s activity level can improve his quality of life at any age. And most dog owners know this time tested adage all too well: a tired dog is a good dog. A dog that has had a full day at day care is a pleasure to be around for the evening.

Last But Not Least: Consider the Alternatives
For some dogs, staying home really is the best idea. A dog walker or pet sitter who comes to your home might be the solution for long workdays in these cases. Staggering your work shifts with your partner’s and/or your children’s school schedule so that your dog is alone no more than 2 or 3 hours per day is a workable solution for some families.
There may not be a perfect solution for your dog and your family’s lifestyle, but doggy day care may be a helpful part of making it all work.

Fussy is absolutely the cutest Puggle in existence. Scratch that, she’s the cutest dog who has ever existed, ever. Since her very first puppy sneeze, you knew that she was the most special little canine companion you could ask for.

Everything she does is perfect, funny and touching. She looks amazing in every photo and sounds like she’s singing Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance when she barks. Therefore, the responsibility falls on you, her owner, to share the wonder that is Fussy with the entire world. That’s right, you need to make your pooch a Facebook page. After all, she can’t create one herself!

How To Get Started
As with any Facebook page, you will need to start with an email address. You cannot use your own if it is the email for your Facebook. The easiest thing would be to go to a free email service site, for example: hotmail, gmail or yahoo mail and set up a completely separate account just for Fussy. Once you have successfully created an email account for you pet, like FussyWiggles@gmail.com, you will be able to get her a Facebook page of her very own.

Use your pet’s email to make him or her a facebook page. If you can, use the same password from the email and Facebook account to make it easier for yourself to remember.

You will have to give your pet a full name. This is typically the pet’s name, which becomes his or her first name, and then your own last name. However, sometimes your pets have their own full name. If this is the case, give Fussy her own full name for her profile. You will be able to customize all of her likes, interests, activities and birthday.

Pictures and Videos
The pictures you post of your pet should be clear and of high quality. People who look at your pet’s page don’t want to see grainy cell phone pictures where your dog’s eyes are green from the flash. No one wants to see blurry pictures of paws or tails. Make sure you only post good pictures of Fussy for the world to enjoy. Pictures of your dog and you also always make for good Facebook content.

Fussy wants to put her best foot forward for the world to see. You should also be discerning about what videos you post. A 3-minute video of Fussy barking is probably interesting only to you. A video posted on your dog’s Facebook page should be relevant and serve a purpose. A video chronicling some of your dog’s activities are great. Playing a few good games of fetch, running after your cats, your initial efforts to train Fussy, eating and playing with you would be much better.

Fussy’s Furry Friends
Now that she has a great new profile, who will be Fussy’s friends? If your friend’s pets have pages, add them as your pet’s friends. Otherwise, if Fussy’s as great as you know that she is, your friends would probably love to add her as a friend of theirs. Fussy already has many built in friends in your family members. You can also “like” pages for Fussy of activities and things she likes. Her favorite dog food, cats, dog biscuits, along with activities she loves are great for starters.

Don’ts
Surprisingly, there are plenty of don’ts for having a Facebook profile for your dog. Be classy guy about your dog’s page.
• Don’t list your pet as your child. As much as your dog may be part of your family, typically, this will turn people off because instead of your pup’s Facebook page making her seem cool, it will just make you seem lonely.
o The exception to this is if you are married and already have a pack established.
• Don’t update your dog’s Facebook statuses in “doggie” language. This will usually come across as cheesy and annoying.

Remember, Fussy’s Facebook profile should say something about her personality. Otherwise, what is the point of her having one? Also, to keep from giving the wrong impression to people reading Fussy’s Facebook profile, be subtle. Subtlety is key in keeping your pet’s Facebook fun and not lame. For example, try making Fussy’s smiley faces with their tongues hanging out, like this:

If you are a dog owner whose canine friend has access to the great outdoors, the safety of your treasured animal companion can be a constant concern. You worry that if he leaves the protected environment of your yard he might become lost, stolen, or be hit by a car. At the same time, you would like him to be able to go outside, to be free to frolic in the sun chasing birds and squirrels in the area near your home. You don’t want him to be stuck inside all of the time, nor do you want to put him in one of those horrible pound-style cages that so many people who have outdoor dogs choose to use.

Putting up a fence is the obvious answer. This way Nathan can enjoy the scenery while cavorting in the safety of your (hopefully spacious) front or back yard. However, fences made from metal, wire or wood can be expensive and unattractive, and they often require a lot of work to clean, repair and maintain. Because of this, many people in this situation turn to invisible fencing, which has been advertised as a cheaper, more convenient alternative to the traditional fence.

Invisible fencing, for those who don’t know, is a wire buried underground that connects via radio signal to a special collar worn by your dog. When Nathan comes close to the invisible fence line, an audio warning signal is sent out. If Nathan is feeling adventurous and continues to move forward, when he passes over the wire he will receive a sudden electrical shock, letting him know that it is time to retreat. The manufacturers of invisible fencing are quick to claim that this shock causes the dog no pain; but it is a shock, how can it possibly work if it does not cause some kind of unpleasant sensation? So there is certainly pain, albeit temporary and not physically disabling. But for many dog owners, invisible fencing can seem like the perfect alternative because it is hidden from sight and relatively inexpensive.

However, you should never lose sight of the fact that invisible fencing works through the use of pain. Nathan is supposedly a beloved member of your family; and yet you are planning to use a method of behavioral training that involves the intentional infliction of suffering. It may in fact be relatively mild, but even that assumption is somewhat questionable because we really do not know for sure how other species experience pain.

Even beyond this unpleasant fact, there are other problems with the invisible fencing concept. It is well known by dog trainers that a dog will always associate punishment or pain with whatever he was doing or whatever was happening immediately before receiving the shock. So if a dog moves to the fence in response to friendly calls from a neighbor, for example, he may come to associate the shock with that particular person, or with being called by humans generally. There are even some dog aficionados who claim to have encountered canines with grass phobias based on their experiences at home with invisible fencing. Needless to say, if Nathan develops of fear of walking on your lawn the outdoor experience you crave for him is going to turn into a nightmare.

In addition to this, there are some dogs who develop a tolerance for invisible fencing over time, learning to move past it despite the shocks. And if something causes Nathan to get so excited he runs across the fence some day despite the shock, he will then be trapped outside the fence line without any way to get back into your yard.

Is There an Alternative?
So what is the answer to your dilemma, if you are determined to keep your outdoor dog safe and secure from the threats of the outside world? Behavioral training is the best answer – dogs are very intelligent, and they can be effectively trained to do just about anything you want them to do as long as it does not cause them too much difficulty or hardship. A method recommended by experts to eliminate outdoor wandering involves walking the dog around the perimeter of your property on a leash. When he steps outside your pre-determined safety line, you can then use clearly communicated correcting signals to make sure he knows he has stepped into a no-dog zone. Eventually, you can walk him without a leash, using verbal commands to reinforce the desired behavior, which he will have already learned from your previous training.

Your determination to help Nathan enjoy the wonders of nature is admirable. But if you need to keep him safe, let your love and affection for him guide you to the best training methods available – those based on clear communication and positive reinforcement, not on the intentional infliction of pain.

In scientific circles, there is a continuing debate over the reality of psychic phenomena. On one side of the debate you have parapsychologists and other scientists who go to great lengths to develop airtight tests of psychic ability, and on the other side you have skeptics who perform somersaults of logic in order to come up with any excuse imaginable in order to justify their dismissal of the frequent positive results of those tests. For those who actually live with animals and love them, however, the scientific terms of the debate are not in the least bit interesting. Among this group, it is just the sort of anecdotal evidence that science will not even consider that makes the existence of ESP in animals seem not just possible, but very real.

There is a British biologist named Rupert Sheldrake who has done extensive work with domestic animals studying their apparent ability to know ahead of time when their humans are returning home. The experiments are simple: cameras are set up in the homes of various pets who are alleged to have shown this ability, and their behavior is observed to see if they go to the door, or look out the window more often, when their human companions are still away but in the process of returning home (at varied and completely random times for the sake of the tests). Both dogs and cats have been studied, with positive results for each – although the percentages for dogs are somewhat higher. More than one cat-smart observer has suggested that cats are probably just as good at psychically sensing the return of their people as dogs, but they are too cool to show they actually care.

One area where cats seem to outdo dogs significantly is in the long journey home department. There have been literally dozens of well-documented incidents of cats separated from their owners far from home, only to show up months later on the doorsteps of their shocked and delighted human companions looking bedraggled and half-starved. Even more remarkably, there have actually been cases of cats lost during moves who have eventually found their way to their owners’ new homes – where they had never been before – after traveling distances of hundreds or even thousands of miles. Skeptics have tried to explain such cases as mistaken identity (the owner mistakes another cat for his own), but anyone who has ever had a pet knows how absurd this suggestion is.

Cats are also experts at the detection of impending natural or man-made disasters. Cats – as well as other animals – have been known to act very strangely before earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, sometimes disappearing just before the disaster hits. In China, government-sanctioned attempts have been made to use unusual animal behavior as an earthquake predictor in seismically vulnerable zones, apparently with some success. In London, during the World War II Blitz, cats became famous for knowing when air raids were imminent well before any planes could be heard, and the lives of many cat owners were saved because they heeded the warnings of their furry whiskered companions and headed immediately to shelters.

Examples of these kinds of stories could go on and on; if you own a cat, it is likely that you have experienced moments of connection with your companion that have seemed to transcend the normal rules of time and space. What these kinds of stories and anecdotes seem to imply is that the bonds of love and friendship we form with our companion animals are so strong that they can connect us in some mysterious way that cannot be diminished by mere physical separation. If indeed it is very difficult to prove the existence of psychic phenomena in a laboratory, as even defenders of its reality readily admit, then perhaps it is because things like precognition or ESP need a strong emotional element in order to manifest. If this is the case, then it is hardly surprising that cat devotees everywhere would have some fascinating and intriguing stories to tell that challenge our normal understanding of what is truly possible.