How to Recognize Poisoning in Dogs

Dogs can be poisoned by a number of different things including chocolate, grapes, and candy containing xylitol. Just like with humans, poisoning is a very serious issue for dogs, but if you know the signs you can help your pup and get it to the vet in time!

To figure out if your dog has been poisoned, look to see if its gums or tongue are blue, purple, white, bright red, or brick colored. Place your hand on the left side of the dog’s chest and listen for a pulse of 180 bpm or higher. Observe your dog to see if it is vomiting, having diarrhea, are dizzy or disoriented, pant heavily for over 30 minutes, or if it's lost its appetite for over a day. If you see any of these signs, contact your vet immediately.

Examine Your Dog’s Body

1)  Look in your dog’s mouth.

Your dog’s gums and tongue should be pale to medium pink. If your dog naturally has black gums, look at its tongue. If the gums or tongue are blue, purple, white, brick colored or extremely bright red, seek veterinary medical attention immediately. This means that something is impeding the flow of blood throughout your dog's body.

You can also do a "capillary refill time" test to determine if a poison is impeding your dog's blood circulation. Lift the upper lip and press above a canine tooth with your thumb. Release your thumb then watch for a color change where you pressed. The gum color should change from white to pink within two seconds. If there is significant delay (more than three seconds), check with your veterinarian.


2) Take your dog’s pulse.

If a dog’s heart rate is over 180 beats per minute, and you have any reason to suspect poisoning, seek immediate medical attention. A normal resting adult dog’s heart rate is between 70 and 140 beats per minute. Larger dogs are typically at the lower end of the scale.

You can check your dog’s heart rate by placing your hand on the left side of its chest, behind its elbow, and then feeling for the heart beat. Count how many heart beats you feel in 15 seconds and multiply that number by four to get the beats per minute.

If you have enough foresight, write down your dog’s normal pulse rate in a dog journal for future reference. Some dog's heartbeats beat faster by nature.

3 Take your dog's temperature with a thermometer. 

The normal temperature range of a dog is between 100 and 102.5 degrees Fahrenheit (38.3 to 39.2 Celsius).  A fever does not necessarily indicate that your dog has been poisoned, but it does point to some general infirmity. If your pet is stressed or excited, you may get a falsely elevated temperature. If your pet is acting lethargic and ill and has an elevated temperature, contact your veterinarian immediately.

Ask a partner to help take your dog's temperature. One person should hold the dog's head while the other inserts the thermometer into the dog’s rectum, which is found directly under the tail. Lubricate the thermometer end with petroleum jelly or water based lubricant like K-Y. Use a digital thermometer.

Identifying Strange Behavior

1) Examine your dog's balance. 

If your dog is staggering, disoriented, or dizzy, it could be suffering from neurological or heart problems, as well as low blood sugar caused by poisoning. Again, seek veterinary medical attention immediately.


2) Watch for vomiting and diarrhea. 

Both are highly irregular in dogs. They are signs of your dog’s body attempting to expel foreign poisonous substances. Examine your dog’s vomit/stool for content, color, and consistency. Your dog’s stool should be firm and brown. If your dog’s stool becomes watery, loose, yellow, green, or deep black, contact your vet.


3) Pay attention to your dog’s breathing. 

Panting is normal for dogs most of the time. It is their way of expelling heat. Heavy panting lasting for longer than 30 minutes may be a sign of respiratory or cardiac difficulty. If you can hear wheezing or crackles as your dog breathes, seek immediate veterinary medical attention. If your dog ingested something, it could be affecting its lungs. 

You can determine your dog’s respiratory rate by watching the dog’s chest and counting how many breaths they take in 15 seconds and multiply by 4 to get the breaths per minute. The appropriate respiratory rate of a dog is 10-30 breaths per minute.

FOLLOW US!

Authorities Investigating Allegations of Frozen Kittens at Spencer County Shelter

ROCKPORT, Ind. — Authorities are investigating allegations in Spencer County of animal abuse in the form of freezing kittens that were still alive as a way to euthanize them.

The initial investigation was led by the Spencer County Sheriff's Office, who refused to comment about the case to the Courier & Press. Officials only have said they turned the investigation over to the Prosecutor's Office due to a potential conflict of interest. 

Former Spencer County Animal Shelter worker Bridget Woodson said during her 3.5 months working at the county's shelter, she'd been asked on two separate occasions to put still-alive kittens in a plastic bag and then into a freezer to kill them at the direction of the Spencer County Animal Control Officer. A call to the officer was unanswered as was a text message. Calls to the shelter were unanswered, and the shelter's Facebook page has been taken down.

To read more on this story, click here: Authorities Investigating Allegations of Frozen Kittens at Spencer County Shelter

FOLLOW US!

After a Brush With Fame, Dexter, the Pet Peacock Who Was Refused a Seat on United, Has Moved On

When the artist Ventiko and I walked downstairs in the spacious Venice home she was visiting, Dexter was perched on a wraparound sofa that had been covered with pee pads. His long tail feathers cascaded gracefully to the floor.

Dexter's claws were painted a vibrant — you might say peacock — shade of blue. Ventiko's toenails, as it happened, were the same color. "Matchy, matchy," she said with a smile.

She stood in front of the bird, cooing. He raised his face to her. She gently cupped her hands around his face and began rubbing them together, the way you do when you're trying to get warm.

"He loves when I do this," said Ventiko, a single-monikered conceptual artist and photographer whose thwarted flight from Newark to Los Angeles last month made headlines after United Airlines refused to let her bring Dexter aboard as a support animal, even after she purchased him a seat.

Their story set off a debate about emotional support animals: Where is the line? Who gets to draw it?

I believe all pets provide emotional comfort and support, be they feathered or four-footed. I can understand an airline not wanting a passenger to bring aboard a 15-pound peacock with a yard-long feather train. And I can understand not wanting to check a beloved pet like a piece of luggage.

To read more on this story, click here: After a Brush With Fame, Dexter, the Pet Peacock Who Was Refused a Seat on United, Has Moved On


FOLLOW US!

Yes, People Should Clean Up Their Dogs' Poop, But Does This Poster in England Go Too Far?

A few years ago a borouh's campaign poster  included a picture of a boy eating dog poop, and it went viral on the Internet. Is it too much in the war on poop?

Some people take dog poop really seriously. If you work here at Dogster, it's kind of hard not to notice. Recently, Michael Leaverton wrote about the neighborhood in Brooklyn (my old neighborhood, actually), that was fighting dog poop via webcams, and activists in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and Boulder, Colorado, have advocated using DNA testing to catch owners who don't clean up. And in a moment of true hipster weirdness, two Brooklyn artists had a turf war over painting dog poop gold.

These examples aren't much, though, when compared with the anti-poop campaign unleashed by the borough council of Spelthorne in Southeast England. These people really hate dog poop, and they've grossed out about half the planet in the process.

A poster in the council's "No Messin'" campaign features a picture of an adorable ginger-haired toddler looking at the camera. The child is holding two lumps of what looks like dog poop in his hands, and it's smeared around his mouth and cheeks. The caption reads "Children will touch anything. Dog feces can be harmful to human health and can cause blindness. An infection called Toxocara canis can be caught if the waste is not removed immediately."

The campaign was launched last year but recently exploded across international borders when it was posted to Imgur.com. Since it went up Sunday, the poster has gotten 1 million hits on Imgur and been reposted to scores of other sites.

Some people have declared the poster to be "vile," but the Spelthorne Borough Council continues to stand behind its approach. In a statement, one council member said that the campaign was effective precisely because it was "hard-hitting." The statement further reads:

"The council takes the view that these kinds of messages and imagery are necessary to have the required effect. It is using a number of different images and messages to deal with this problem which, it hopes, will persuade people to act more responsibly."

Spelthorne isn't the first government body in England to use this tactic, either. Last year, officials in Bristol put up a billboard as part of its war on poop showing a little girl eating fake (we hope) poo. Our man Leaverton wrote a hysterical take on this one, Why Is This Little Girl Eating Dog Poop on This Billboard?

It's certainly the responsibility of every dog owner to clean up after his or her pet, but -- does this go too far? I have to admit that my inner 12-year-old is giggling up a storm, but grown-up me is kind of squirming. I'm all for confrontation and making people uncomfortable in the name of a good cause. A good part of my urge to write is driven by the old maxim to "Comfort the troubled and trouble the comfortable."

But this is dog poop. Is the situation really this out of control?

What do you think? Is the ad a good way to draw people's attention to a serious problem, or a bunch of people blowing things out of proportion with shock tactics?

                          Clean up after your pets by Shutterstock.

The poster that's gained so much international infamy for Spelthorne.

Another poster from the same "hard-hitting" campaign. This one kind of looks like the dog poops money. Isn't that a good thing?

                              Piece of poop on the beach by Shutterstock.


FOLLOW US!

The Obsessive Search for the Tasmanian Tiger

Andrew Orchard lives near the northeastern coast of Tasmania, in the same ramshackle farmhouse that his great-grandparents, the first generation of his English family to be born on the Australian island, built in 1906. When I visited Orchard there, in March, he led me past stacks of cardboard boxes filled with bones, skulls, and scat, and then rooted around for a photo album, the kind you’d expect to hold family snapshots. Instead, it contained pictures of the bloody carcasses of Tasmania’s native animals: a wombat with its intestines pulled out, a kangaroo missing its face. “A tiger will always eat the jowls and eyes,” Orchard explained. “All the good organs.” The photos were part of Orchard’s arsenal of evidence against a skeptical world—proof of his fervent belief, shared with many in Tasmania, that the island’s apex predator, an animal most famous for being extinct, is still alive.

The Tasmanian tiger, known to science as the thylacine, was the only member of its genus of marsupial carnivores to live to modern times. It could grow to six feet long, if you counted its tail, which was stiff and thick at the base, a bit like a kangaroo’s, and it raised its young in a pouch. When Orchard was growing up, his father would tell him stories of having snared one, on his property, many years after the last confirmed animal died, in the nineteen-thirties. Orchard says that he saw his first tiger when he was eighteen, while duck hunting, and since then so many that he’s lost count. Long before the invention of digital trail cameras, Orchard was out in the bush rigging film cameras to motion sensors, hoping to get a picture of a tiger. He showed me some of the most striking images he’d collected over the decades, sometimes describing teeth and tails and stripes while pointing at what, to my eye, could very well have been shadows or stems. (Another thylacine searcher told me that finding tigers hidden in the grass in camera-trap photos is “a bit like seeing the Virgin Mary in burnt toast.”) Orchard estimates that he spends five thousand dollars a year just on batteries for his trail cams. The larger costs of his fascination are harder to calculate. “That’s why my wife left me,” he offered at one point, while discussing the habitats tigers like best.

To read more on this story, click here: The Obsessive Search for the Tasmanian Tiger 

FOLLOW US!

Beautiful Cats With Mesmerizing Eyes

When we’re growing up, we learn that not everyone is the same. What’s more, we learn how important it is that we all come into this world with various attributes that make us unique.

This is particularly apparent with our eye color, especially since not everyone has the same color eyes. You might be born with bright blue eyes, for instance, but your best friend could have brown eyes, and these small differences are what make us so interesting! In the animal kingdom, there’s an incredibly rare condition in cats that not only affects their eye color, but everything about their physical appearance. Once you get a glimpse, you won’t be able to look away…

Heterochromia is rare condition in cats in which each of their eyes is a different color. You’ve probably seen that condition before in other animals—or in famous celebrities, like the late David Bowie, for example.

Sectoral heterochromia, however, is a little bit different from what you’ve seen before. With this type of heterochromia, both of the cat’s eyes are two different colors! It’s truly an awesome sight to behold…

Cats with heterochromia are mostly white, though no one knows why. Maybe it’s because Mother Nature knew that a white coat would make it really easy for these cats to show off their striking eye colors? Each kitty that sports this look is as stunning as the last.

Although most of these cats have a solid white coat, others have white spots or different patches of color. This doesn’t make them any less cute, though! Check out this frisky fellow eagerly showing off his good looks.

Some of these cats’ eye colors are a bit… intense. With a face like this one, you can hardly blame the little guy. It’s almost as if gazing into his eyes will send you into a hypnotic state… that will encourage you to feed him all of the cat food, of course.

Some of them look like real life cartoon characters, like this little guy for example. Can’t you just imagine the hijinks he could get himself into? Well, if by hijinks, you mean malevolent plans to take over the world…

Evil or not, these cats are all positively captivating. This hairless cat already looks so unique, but when you add his differently colored eyes to the equation, that really pushes his unique factor up to another level!

This kitty looks like a living work of art, and you can tell that he’s wild about getting to spend all the time he can in the arms of his owner. These cats might look a little bit different than others, but that doesn’t mean that they are any less lovable!

This cat has eyes that kind of look like a planet. Maybe the fine folks at NASA could learn something from her! You don’t need to spend years preparing to travel in a spacecraft when you can just adopt one of these special kitties!

This kitty is positively hypnotizing! Look at the way his eyes seem to completely match the colors behind him. He couldn’t have planned it any better if he tried. This pretty kitty is definitely ready for his closeup!

This cat seems to be using her special eyes to focus on something exciting. Sure, it’s probably the family dog’s wagging tail, but something about her unique appearance makes her intense hunting stance even more impressive than usual! Watch out, Fido!

With those eyes and that nose, this cat wins the award for most unique-looking. He might also win the award for “most likely to be scooped up and cuddled and petted and kissed,” because he is so darn cute!

You won’t be able to look away from this beautiful cat’s gaze! Some ancient cultures actually believed that cats were gods; while that’s gone out of fashion today, it’s easy to see why they thought so when you come across photos like this one.

Looking at this cat could absolutely pass as your moment of zen for the day. Have you ever gazed into a more peaceful pair of eyes? Probably not! It’s like this cat is sending you positive vibrations through his purrs! So, who’s ready to adopt their very own cat just like these?

The colored area around the pupil of the eye is called the iris. The iris has two layers, the stroma and the epithelium. Both of these layers contain pigment-producing cells called melanocytes. In the stroma, those melanocytes are loosely arranged, and in the epithelium, they are more tightly packed.

The amount of melanin — the pigment that turns our own skin darker when we get a suntan — determines eye color in both humans and cats. The white or white-spotted gene found in some cats is normally the cause of heterochromia in them.

All kittens are born with blue eyes. As the kitten grows, melanin moves into the iris of the eyes. When the kitty reaches 7 to 12 weeks old, her eyes will become the color they will remain.

Because purebred cats are bred to meet a specific breed standard, which often includes eye color, breeders select for cats that have more intense colors or particular colors. For example, the Bombay cat breed standard requires copper-colored eyes; and the Tonkinese has aqua-colored eyes.

Cause for concern surfaces when an older cat develops heterochromia. This could be caused by a buildup of blood or iron within the chamber nearest to the front of the eye.

Having eyes of different colors will not interfere with your kitty’s natural instincts of looking, leaping, lazing and lunging. Her “eye-catching” eyes can see things as clearly as you can… maybe even better.

FOLLOW US!

A Woman Who Contracted an Extremely Rare Bacterial Infection Has Died Just Days After She Was Nipped by Her Puppy

A woman who contracted an extremely rare bacterial infection has died just days after she was nipped by her puppy.

Sharon Larson, 58, started experiencing flu like symptoms on June 20, the day after she received a minor cut to her hand from her puppy, Bo. The next day, she felt so weak that she couldn’t even hold a glass of water.

The Wisconsin grandmother was rushed to the emergency room where doctors told her husband, Daniel Larson, that her kidneys were failing.

Two days later, Ms Larson’s blood tested positive for capnocytophaga canimorsus, common bacteria found in the mouths of dogs and cats. Though the bacteria are common, it’s extremely rare for them to cause serious illness.

Doctors treated her with antibiotics, but she died the next afternoon.

Ms. Larson’s heartbroken family remember her as “amazingly kind” and caring.

“Her smile will live on through her five grandkids and a sixth on the way,” her adult daughter, Stacy Larson-Hruzek, told NBC.

Her death comes just weeks after another Wisconsin resident, Greg Manteufel contracted the same infection, ultimately leading to the amputation of parts of his arms and legs .

Despite their close proximity, experts have insisted their cases are not linked.

FOLLOW US!

Justice, An 8-Year-Old American Quarter Horse, Is Suing His Owners For Neglect

Group files suit in name of animal; experts say ruling would be revolutionary

Estacada, Oregon - Justice is an 8-year-old American quarter horse who used to be named Shadow. And when he was named Shadow, he suffered. At a veterinarian’s exam last year, he was 300 pounds underweight, his black coat lice-ridden, his skin scabbed and his genitals so frostbitten that they might still require amputation.

The horse had been left outside and underfed by his previous owner, who last summer pleaded guilty to criminal neglect. And now Justice, who today resides with other rescued equines on a quiet wooded farm within view of Oregon’s Cascade mountains, is suing his former owner for negligence. In a lawsuit filed in his new name in a county court, the horse seeks at least $100,000 for veterinary care, as well as damages “for pain and suffering,” to fund a trust that would stay with him no matter who is his caretaker.

The complaint is the latest bid in a quixotic quest to get courts to recognize animals as plaintiffs, something supporters and critics alike say would be revolutionary. The few previous attempts — including a recent high-profile case over whether a monkey can own a copyright — have failed, with judges ruling in various ways that the nonhumans lacked legal standing to sue. But Justice’s case, the animal rights lawyers behind it contend, is built on court decisions and statutes that give it a stronger chance, particularly in a state with some of the nation’s most progressive animal protection laws.

“There have been a lot of efforts to try to get animals not only to be protected but to have the right to go to court when their rights are violated,” said Matthew Liebman, director of litigation at the Animal Legal Defense Fund, which filed the suit in Justice’s name. Those “haven’t found the right key to the courthouse door. And we’re hopeful that this is the key.”

These efforts have been made amid broad growth in legal protections and advocacy for animals. Three decades ago, few law schools offered courses in animal law; now, more than 150 do, and some states have created animal law prosecutorial units. All 50 states have enacted felony penalties for animal abuse. Connecticut last year became the first state to allow courts to appoint lawyers or law students as advocates in animal cruelty cases, in part because overburdened prosecutors were dismissing a majority of such cases.

These developments count as progress, animal rights lawyers say, in persuading lawmakers and courts to expand the traditional legal view of animals — as property — to reflect their role in a society in which dog-sitting is big business and divorces can involve cat custody battles.

“Our legislature acknowledged that people care a lot about animals, and that’s something that’s evolving and increasing,” said Jessica Rubin, a University of Connecticut law professor who serves as an advocate in that state’s cruelty cases. “The law, hopefully, is catching up to where our morals are.”

But expanding the protections for animals is quite different from granting them legal standing, which courts have not been willing to do. In 2004, a federal appeals court shot down a suit in the name of the world’s cetaceans, in which President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were sued over the U.S. Navy’s use of sonar. In 2012, a U.S. District Court dismissed a suit filed on behalf of five SeaWorld orcas, which argued that their captivity was a violation of the 13th Amendment’s prohibition on slavery. This spring, a federal appeals court ruled that a crested macaque that took its own photo could not sue for copyright protection, saying “this monkey — and all animals, since they are not human — lacks statutory standing under the Copyright Act.”

In New York courts, a group called the Nonhuman Rights Project has for several years sought writs of habeas corpus for captive chimpanzees, arguing that they are “legal persons” — a term that can apply to corporations and ships — and have a right to freedom. While judges have occasionally praised the effort, they have ultimately rejected it, saying chimpanzees cannot bear the duties and responsibilities required of legal persons.

Against that backdrop, Liebman says Justice’s case is “more reasonable” than the others. It does not involve the Constitution or historically weighted concepts such as slavery or a writ of habeas corpus. It’s not so, well, silly-sounding as copyright for a monkey.

Instead, he and colleagues say, it is a logical next step. Their argument goes like this: While some state cruelty laws were written to protect animal owners or public morals, Oregon’s anti-cruelty law makes plain it is intended to protect animals, which it calls “sentient beings.” What’s more, state courts have ruled that animals can be considered individual victims. And because victims have the right to sue their abusers, the lawsuit says, Justice should be able to sue his former owner.

Justice, of course, has no idea he is suing. Sarah Hanneken, an Animal Legal Defense Fund attorney in Portland, says that Justice’s ignorance of the lawsuit is irrelevant.

“This whole idea of somebody who has been injured by the acts of another and not being able to speak for themselves in court, so having an adult human do it for them, this is not new,” Hanneken said. “Children are allowed to bring lawsuits, because we recognize that children have interests that laws protect.”

According to court filings, Justice’s former owner, Gwendolyn Vercher, surrendered the horse to a rescue organization in March 2017 at the urging of a neighbor in Cornelius, west of Portland. In a letter to law enforcement, an equine veterinarian who examined the horse at the time said he was “severely emaciated,” lethargic and weak. That poor condition probably contributed to a lasting problem — the animal’s penis had prolapsed, and his inability to retract it led to frostbite, trauma and infection.

“When I got him, he was a lot worse than I anticipated,” said Kim Mosiman, executive director of Sound Equine Options, which takes in and finds homes for about 100 horses each year.

Justice, whom Mosiman fondly describes as “like a grumpy old man,” has gained weight and become more social. On a sun-soaked afternoon at the dusty farm in Estacada, he nibbled grass alongside a retired racehorse named Flick and used his nose to nudge the notebook of a visiting reporter. But the lawsuit says his penis may require partial amputation and that his medical conditions will demand long-term care.

“I’m trying to find someone who wants to adopt him,” Mosiman said. “But if they find out they’re going to have to be financially responsible for him, he’s never going anywhere.”

Some animal law experts warn that Justice’s lawsuit is extreme, even dangerous. Richard Cupp, a Pepperdine University law professor who has been critical of the chimpanzee personhood cases, said he thinks the horse case has even more radical implications.

Allowing Justice to sue could mean any animal protected under Oregon’s anti-cruelty statute — a class that includes thousands of pets, zoo animals and even wildlife — could do the same, he said. (Livestock, lab animals, hunting targets, rodeo animals and invertebrates are exempted.) If this approach were adopted elsewhere, Cupp said, a stampede of animal litigation could overrun courts.

“Any case that could lead to billions of animals having the potential to file lawsuits is a shocker in the biggest way,” Cupp said. “Once you say a horse or dog or cat can personally sue over being abused, it’s not too big a jump to say, ‘Well, we’re kind of establishing that they’re legal persons with that. And legal persons can’t be eaten.’ ”

Cupp emphasized that he supports Oregon’s progressive animal cruelty laws and rulings. But legislation is a more reasonable way of expanding animal protections, he said. Justice’s case, for example, could be addressed through a law requiring an abuser to cover an animal’s future care. “This would not be bad for society,” Cupp said. “We do need to evolve. We’re not doing enough to protect animals.”

Cupp points to a Connecticut law as one that maintains an important distinction between animals and people. It focuses on “the interests of justice,” not the animals’ interests.

Geordie Duckler, a Portland animal law attorney who represents Vercher, said he views the horse lawsuit as a publicity stunt, one he does not expect Oregon courts to take very seriously.
“There’s a massive chasm between saying a thing is a victim and saying now it must have rights, and the rights are apparently the full panoply of rights, and must include a right to sue,” Duckler said. “There’s no such thing as a right in a vacuum. … As soon as you have animal rights, then you’d better have animal jails and prosecutions against animals.”

The slippery-slope arguments are familiar to Mosiman, who calls her group an animal welfare, not animal rights, organization. When she considered Justice’s long-term needs, though, she had no qualms about signing him up as a plaintiff, she said.

“It was pretty clear-cut: If he wasn’t starved, this wouldn’t have happened,” Mosiman said as Justice languidly scratched his neck and head against a towering pine tree. “It’s about him.”

FOLLOW US!

How to Raise Butterflies

Look out your window and see a beautiful butterfly flutter past you. Amazingly, such beauty originated from an inch long, garden dwelling caterpillar that probably feasted on your prized roses. As you stare longingly at the butterfly, you think to yourself, "If only there were another way." And then it hits you – "Raise them myself!"

Catching a Caterpillar

1 - Prepare a well-ventilated container. Containers for caterpillars can be found in hobby and pet shops, on the Internet, or you can fashion one from items around the home. Preferably this should be one made from wire mesh, to give the caterpillar something to cling to. An aquarium or a one-gallon jar can work, too, provided it's lined with a screen or cheesecloth tightened with a rubber band at the top.

• Don't use jar lids with holes in them, however, as these don't provide adequate ventilation and can also cut the delicate caterpillars with sharp edges around the holes.

• Put a two inch layer of dirt and grass on the bottom of every container if you think your caterpillar may pupate below ground. If not, a layer of paper towels or newspaper will do fine.

2 - Look out for caterpillars on your plants. Instead of spraying or squishing the caterpillar, identify it (see Warnings) and capture it to grow into a butterfly. Butterfly season is from late spring to summer, depending on your region. If you don't know of a spot that caterpillars like to frequent, consult a local field guide to determine which plants are preferred "host" plants for butterflies, like the Peterson First Guide to Caterpillars, Caterpillars of Eastern Forests, or on the Internet. Make sure you're not capturing an endangered species, which could be illegal. Different types of butterflies prefer different hosts. Some common host plants include:

• Milkweed - Monarch Butterfly
• Spice bush - Spice bush Swallowtail
• Paw-Paw - Tiger Swallowtail
• Thistle - Painted Lady
• Parsley, dill and fennel - Black Swallowtail
• Cherry - Cecropia Moth, Viceroy, Red-Spotted Purple

If it's not caterpillar season, or you simply don't have time to go caterpillar searching, consider buying them from a caterpillar supplier. We'll discuss that in the last section.

To read more on this story, click here: How to Raise Butterflies


FOLLOW US!

Poodle Cats: The New Rage for Feline Fans

In 1987, a mutant kitten was born in Montana with hair like a poodle. Named Miss DePesto, this kitten grew up and birthed curly kittens of her own. As the curly cat family tree grew, Miss DePesto's descendants eventually became recognized as a new breed: the Selkirk Rex.

Now, 25 years and about nine kitty generations later, researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Austria, have confirmed that these felines are genetically distinct from previously known breeds, making Selkirk Rex the fourth curly-haired cat breed known.

The genetic quirk that makes a Selkirk Rex's hair kink is a dominant trait. This makes the trait easy for breeders to retain even while crossing breeding to maintain genetic diversity. Selkirk Rex is usually crossed with Persians or British Shorthairs, making it a particularly laid back cat.

And while the Selkirk Rex is one of four curly-haired cat breeds, it easily has the best hair. Devon Rex and Cornish Rex are breeds with curly, downy, super-short hair, prone to balding, while the unimaginatively named LaPerm breed has curly hair of average length hair -- but not nearly as plush and thick as Selkirk Rex. Miss DePesto would be proud.

Check out some of these good looking mutant kitties below.

FOLLOW US!