Pet Resources: Traveling with your pet? Looking for a lost dog? Want to adopt from a local shelter? Visit here for more information. Learn how to boycott petstores who profit from 'puppy mills'.
Pet Pop Portraits is your one stop shop for your Star Pets!
* What is Pet Insurance? Pet Insurance is very similar to human health insurance which offers a range of programs tailored to suit the needs of domestic pets. While pet insurance remains a relatively underdeveloped product in North America, with less than 1% of all pets being insured, European levels of insured pets range from 12% to 50%.
* QuickCare Pet Insurance: QuickCare offers accident and illness coverage for your dog or cat and financial protection for you! Your pet is a part of your family, prepare for the unexpected. At QuickCare, we're committed to eliminating the financial stress associated with your dog's or cat's healthcare needs through a selection of affordable easy to understand pet insurance programs.
* Why do I need Pet Insurance? Advances in the field of animal medicine have been exponential in past decades allowing veterinarians to successfully treat conditions that were previously considered untreatable. However with these advances comes an escalating cost of veterinary care. It is estimated that North American pet guardians now spend over $10 billion a year on healthcare for their pets.
* Consider these facts: One in three pets will need emergency veterinary treatment every year.
Two out of every three pets experience a significant health problem during their lifetime.
In a recent nationwide poll of Angie's List members, 81 percent said they have at least one pet and 51 percent have two or more. The majority of respondents said they are still investing in their pets' preventative health care, despite the difficult economic times, with 60 percent spending between $200 and $1,000 last year on their pets' health and another 18 percent spending more than $1,000.
Angie's List went to its highly rated veterinarians to find out about the two most common causes of health concerns to household pets:
Weight management
* Obesity is as common a problem in household pets as it is in people. It's important that you avoid allowing your pet to take in more calories than he or she will burn off per day. Obesity can cause an array of health problems, including cancer. Nearly 40 percent of respondents to the Angie's List poll say their pet has health issues, and nearly 1 in 4 say their pet is overweight.
* Seeing the veterinarian at least once per year is an important part of your pet's preventative medicine program. Older pets should be seen more frequently based upon their age and other medical issues.
* Properly examining and discussing health risks allows your veterinarian to work with you in designing a customized health program for your pet's specific health requirements.
* Early detection of problems like dental, cardiac, gastrointestinal, orthopedic, or behavioral issues allows a greater chance of successfully treating your pet's health conditions.
Dental Hygiene
* Opening your pet's mouth and examining her or his teeth and gums gives you one clue to their overall health. Shiny white teeth, pink healthy gums, and fresh breath are major signs of health. Stinky breath, red lines or swellings on the gums, and bad breath indicate a need for your veterinarian's assistance.
* Pet owners can attempt to brush their pets' teeth themselves on a regular basis, but that should not replace regular dental care by a professional.
* Bacteria from the mouth because of poor dental health can lead to more serious problems, including significant damage to the organs.
* Dental health is so important in our pets that veterinary medicine now has specialists who are veterinary dentists, these doctors deal specifically with diseases of the mouth, including teeth, gums, growths/tumors, and bone disease or injury to the mouth.
* If your pet has dental issues, look for a vet who carries the Veterinary Oral Health Council (VOHC) seal of approval. Pet dental cleanings generally require general anesthesia.
Questions to ask your veterinarian before a cleaning are:
* Will a doctor examine my pet's teeth after the dental cleaning?
* How do you monitor your patients under anesthesia?
* Have you received training in dentistry in school or after school?
* Will a doctor be performing any extractions needed?
* If extractions are needed, will you present me with other options before treating?
* Does your office have dental x-ray capability?
Give your pet the very best - Find the best local pet services with unbiased reviews at Angie's List. Join today!
Angie's List is where thousands of consumers share their ratings and reviews on the local contractors and service companies they hire. Founded by Angie Hicks in Columbus, OH, in 1995, Angie's List takes the "ask your neighbor" approach to a higher level, putting reliable, unbiased information on local companies at the fingertips of consumers in major cities across the country.
Not only can members find out which companies were rated highest by other consumers, they also get detailed comments and reviews.
Angie's List membership comes with unlimited access to the List and a subscription to our magazine, which includes stories, tips and information on home and consumer topics. Members also have access to the Angie's List complaint resolution service.
Petfinder.com The temporary home of 276,100 adoptable pets from 12,196 adoption groups
On Petfinder.com You Can: Search for adoptable pets with our advanced search or our Quick Search. Locate shelters and rescue groups currently caring for adoptable pets. Browse our resource library and learn more about how to care for your pet. Post classified ads for lost or found pets, pets wanted, and pets needing homes. Sign up to be a volunteer to help your local shelter or rescue group.
The Petfinder.com Foundation helps support the thousands of animal welfare organization members of Petfinder.com through programs, outreach and fundraising. Our purpose is to increase the number of homeless pets adopted. We affect not only the four-footed animals waiting to be adopted, but also the people who care for them. The Foundation gives grants of equipment, supplies and funds so that thousands of homeless pets have healthier and happier lives and thousands of shelter and rescue folks can do their jobs better.
Past support from The Animal Rescue Site has enabled the Petfinder.com Foundation to provide care to rescued animals, and has helped Petfinder.com shelters and rescue members respond to recent disasters across North America, including hurricanes, wildfires, ice storms, severe wind storms and tornadoes.
Together we are helping more than one animal in more than one community.
Hearts United for Animals is a national no-kill animal shelter, sanctuary and animal welfare organization dedicated to the relief of suffering. We rescue dogs from all over the country and specialize in long distance adoptions. We take the creatures who are lost, afraid, hungry or ill and comfort them, give them a warm, soft bed, good food, medical care and most of all, love.
HUA is a place of happiness, joy and love. Everything we do is in the best interest of the dogs. There are no cages. The dogs have big fields of grass and trees in which to run. Our primary interest is what will make them happy. HUA is a place to celebrate the joy of life.
Have you ever wondered what you could do to help make the world a better place for millions of homeless pets? Well we did, and that's why we started 1-800-Save-A-Pet.com! Thanks for stopping by!
1-800-Save-A-Pet.com is a non-profit pet adoption charity that helps shelters, humane societies, SPCA's, and pet rescue groups advertise their homeless pets to adopters for free. We're all about getting homeless pets into homes. We use the power of TV, the Internet and a toll-free phone number to connect adopters with shelter pets and help pets go from alone to adopted. We're working to help the good people at shelters and rescue groups find homes for their pets.
It's a big job, and we're just a small group, mostly volunteers, who believe every pet has a right to live a full life in a loving home. Our pet-saving team includes "The Save-A-Pet Folks", David & Abbie, as well as Pia & her adopted pooch Pickles, who together host our upcoming TV program, "The Save-A-Pet Show".
Our volunteers run the spectrum from young kids to our celebrity spokes-stars such as Drew Barrymore, Kelsey Grammer and Eddie from "Frasier", Dick Van Patten, "Golden Girl" Rue McClanahan, Ed Asner, Burt Ward ("Robin" from the TV series "Batman") and more! We even have the "Taco Bell" dog helping us save pets!
If you like what we do and want to help save shelter pets, please visit them to join the team and be a part of it all!
When you click, we display ads from our site sponsors. 100% of the money from these advertisers goes to our charity partners, who fund programs to provide food and care for rescued animals.
Our store gives a portion of every purchase to our charity partners.
Today, you and others have generated the value of 61,216 bowls of food. Thank you! (Please note that the click value updates every ten minutes.)
Your clicks count! Since The Animal Rescue Site began in 2002, together we have funded more than 126,000,000 bowls of food for rescued animals in shelters and sanctuaries. Please see the results page to learn more about how you have helped.
We urge you to visit this site and learn how pet stores profit from horribly inhumane actions. There are graphic images that will turn your stomach, but we must not turn a blind eye.
In Association with HUA and The Coalition Against Misery
Hundreds of thousands of dogs suffer in puppy mills in this country. The dogs are prisoners of greed. They are locked in small cages. They freeze in the winter and swelter in the summer. The dogs never get out of their prisons. They are bred over and over again until they die. The only way to free them from the misery of these horrid puppymills is to eliminate the demand for puppies by refusing to buy a puppy in a pet store and boycotting those pet stores that sell puppies. When people stop buying puppies in pet stores, the puppy mills will go out of business and the misery will end. The state and federal governments do not enforce the laws to protect the dogs. The commercial breeders and brokers have huge well-funded lobbying efforts. Please join this fight to free the prisoners of greed. The only person who is going to make a difference for the dogs suffering in puppy mills is you. You, the people, can free them from their puppy mill prisons.
Hundreds of thousands of puppies are raised each year in commercial kennels.
Puppy mills are distinguished by their inhumane conditions and the constant breeding of unhealthy and genetically defective dogs solely for profit.
Very often the dogs in puppymills are covered with matted, filthy hair, their teeth are rotting and their eyes have ulcers. We have seen many dogs whose jaws have rotted because of tooth decay.
The dogs are kept in small wire cages for their entire lives. They are almost never allowed out. They never touch solid ground or grass to run and play.
Many of the dogs are injured in fights that occur in the cramped cages from which there is no escape.
Many dogs lose feet and legs when they are caught in the wire floors of the cages and cut off as the dog struggles to free themselves.
Very often there is no heat or air-conditioning in a puppymill. The dogs freeze in the winter and die of heat stroke in the summer. Puppies "cook" on the wires of the cages in the summer.
Female dogs are usually bred the first time they come into heat and are bred every heat cycle. They are bred until their poor worn out bodies can't reproduce any longer and then they are killed. Often they are killed by being bashed in the head with a rock or shot. Sometimes they are sold to laboratories or dumped. This is often by the time they reach five years old.
Puppy mills maximize their profits by not spending adequate money on proper food, housing or veterinary care.
The food that is fed in puppy mills is often purchased from dog food companies by the truck load. It is sometimes made of the sweepings from the floor. It is so devoid of nutritional value that the dogs' teeth rot at early ages.
Dogs in puppymills are debarked often by ramming a steel rod down their throats to reputure their vocal cords.
Puppies are often taken from their mother when they are 5 to 8 weeks old and sold to brokers who pack them in crates for resale to pet stores all over the country.
The puppies are shipped by truck or plane and often without adequate food, water, ventilation or shelter.
Innocent families buy the puppies only to find that the puppy is very ill or has genetic or emotional problems. Often the puppies die of disease. Many others have medical problems that cost thousands of dollars. And many have emotional problems because they have not been properly socialized in the mills. Don't bring this misery into your home.
There are over 4000 federally licensed breeding kennels.
Approximately 3,500 petstores in the United States sell puppies. They sell approximately 500,000 thousand puppies a year. It is estimated that the puppy industry in Missouri is valued at 40 million dollars a year. The puppy industry in one county in Pennsylvania - Lancaster - is valued at 4 million dollars a year.
There are seven states that are known as puppy mill states because they have the majority of the puppymills in the country. They are: Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.
There is federal law, the Animal Welfare Act, and many states have laws that purport to regulate puppymills, but the fact is that those laws are rarely enforced.
Pet stores often tell customers that their puppies come from local breeders or quality breeders. Don't believe them, ask to see the paperwork and find out where the puppies really come from.
If the people of the United States refused to buy a puppy in a pet store, the misery of puppy mills would end. Please tell everyone you know about the puppymill and petstore connection.
Buying a puppy in a pet store has significant risks for the purchaser and their family. A state funded survey in California found that nearly half of the puppies sold in pet stores were sick or incubating diseases. This doesn't count the ones suffering from genetic diseases. Imagine bringing a puppy home from a pet store only to have it die from parvo and cost thousands of dollars in vet expenses because of genetic problems like hip dysplasia.
Some dogs are so psychologically scarred from the mind numbing boredom of being imprisoned in a small cage for year and years that they have developed repetitive habits like going round and round in circles for hours and hours or barking at the wall for hours.
What is a puppy mill?
There is no definition of a puppymill. In our opinion anyone who breeds dog with profit as the main motivation and without consideration for the health and well being of the dogs and puppies is guilty of ethical crimes.
There are two kinds of these people - backyard breeders and puppy millers. They should both be driven out of business.
Anyone who has so little concern for the well being of the puppies that they have caused to be brought into the world that they sell them to someone else who will resell them qualifies as a mill in our opinion.
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