Having a pet can be a real learning curve, but there’s one aspect of pet parenthood that leaves no room for error: fire safety for four-legged friends. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reports that more than 500,000 pets are affected by home fires each year. With Pet Fire Safety Day approaching on July 15, Petplan is raising awareness about prevention and planning for emergencies, and revealed the most common fire-safety mistakes people make: To read more on this story, click here:The Three Biggest Fire Safety Mistakes Pet Parents Make
As much as we adore them, it can drive cat lovers crazy to see their beloved feline claw at their furniture. Cats are capable of precious snuggles, amazing acrobatics, and hilarious antics but watching furniture get torn to shreds is not fun! Of course, clawing is a completely natural behavior for cats. According to PAWS, cats will scratch at furniture, carpet, and other objects for numerous reasons, such as to remove the dead outer layer of their claws, to mark their territory by leaving a visual mark and scent (cats have scent glands on their paws), as well as to stretch their bodies and paws. Unfortunately, for some inexperienced guardians, a cat’s need to claw might drive them to return or abandon their new feline. 70 percent of shelter cats end up being killed including strays, feral and surrendered cats, so it’s important we keep cats happy and safe in their home by any means possible, and keep them out of shelters. So, if your cat is scratching at furniture and other items in the house, here are some tips for how to deter them. To read more on this story, click here:How to Keep Your Cat From Scratching Furniture – and Why You Should Avoid Declawing at All Costs
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Tardigrades have a reputation as the toughest animals on the planet. Some of these microscopic invertebrates shrug off temperatures of minus 272 Celsius, one degree warmer than absolute zero. Other species can endure powerful radiation and the vacuum of space. In 2007, the European Space Agency sent 3,000 animals into low Earth orbit, where the tardigrades survived for 12 days on the outside of the capsule. To a group of theoretical physicists, tardigrades were the perfect specimens to test life's tenacity. “Life is pretty fragile if all your estimates are based on humans or dinosaurs,” said David Sloan, a theoretical cosmologist at Oxford University in Britain. The tardigrade lineage is ancient. “Tardigrade microfossils are reported from the Early Cambrian to the Early Cretaceous, 520 million to 100 million years ago,” said Ralph O. Schill, an expert on tardigrades at the University of Stuttgart in Germany who was not involved with this research. “They have seen the dinosaurs come and go.” Sloan, with his Oxford colleague Rafael Alves Batista and Harvard University astrophysicist Abraham Loeb, decided to try to rid the planet of tardigrades. In theory, anyway, in a report published Friday in the journal Scientific Reports. Through the powers of mathematical modeling they tossed three of the most devastating cosmic events at Earth: killer asteroids, supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. “These are the biggest ways you can transfer energy to the planet,” Sloan said. The tardigrades kept on theoretically trucking, outlasting 10 billion years' worth of cataclysms. Until the point that the sun failed or engulfed the planet. In picking their apocalyptic poison, the scientists first tried to sterilize the planet with radiation. In the lab, some tardigrade species can survive radiation doses of 5,000 to 6,000 grays. (“You would be very, very lucky to walk away” from a dose of 5 grays, Sloan said.) But long before the scientists blasted Earth with enough radiation to kill all the tardigrades, they calculated that the radiation's energy would boil the oceans away. The sticking point for tardigrades, then, was the evaporation of the planet's water. For an asteroid to deposit that much energy into the ocean, it would need a mass of at least 1.7 quintillion kilograms. Of all the asteroids in the solar system, only 19 fit the bill. (By way of comparison, the asteroid that finished the dinosaurs was six miles across; an asteroid called Vesta that is one of the potential ocean killers has a diameter of 326 miles.) The chances of such a massive collision are so small, the scientists said, that the sun would die first. Likewise, the closest stars that could explode into supernovae are too far away to boil the oceans. Gamma-ray bursts were a bit more complicated — “we don't really understand where they come from,” Sloan said — but not impossible to calculate. And though the bursts would strip off parts of the atmosphere, killing animals like humans, tiny and durable creatures under the ocean, huddled around hydrothermal vents, would be “sufficiently well-shielded,” Sloan said. But lumping all tardigrade species into one unkillable chimera was a fatal flaw in this argument, according to tardigrade expert William R. Miller. “I can't say anything about the physics,” he said, “but they can't say anything about the animals.” Not all tardigrades dwell in water; some species live in moss and lichens on trees. (Their variety of habitats is reflected in nicknames like “water bear” and “moss piglet.”) Miller, a biologist at Baker University in Kansas, said that the authors of the new work treat tardigrades as a single animal, ignoring that they are in fact a phylum of 1,250 different species. He compared this approach to arguing that “a sixgill shark at the bottom of the ocean is the same as a snow leopard in Siberia.” Sloan emphasized that he was approaching the tardigrade apocalypse as a physicist, not a biologist. He said such doomsday calculations commonly take a human perspective, but such an approach misses the true resilience of life. The cosmic implications of this study, he said, “means that if life did get started on another planet in our galaxy, it probably should still be there.” Land-dwelling tardigrades endure extremes thanks to an ability called cryptobiosis, in which the animals lose all but 3 percent of the water in their bodies. It is in this state that tardigrades can survive the hottest heats, the coolest colds, crushing pressures or the complete lack of it. They desiccate, and then they persist. Joseph Seckbach, a biologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that a tardigrade “can be in dormancy for 30, 40 years, and wake up and say, ‘Hello!’ ” But there is no indication that water-dwelling tardigrades are capable of the same process, Miller said. “The illusion that marine animals survive with a cryptobiotic plan is just dead wrong.” Nor are they indestructible. “We work with active animals and they're quite easily murdered,” he said. “We kill thousands of them every day.” Shill noted that tardigrades had evolved to survive in particular microhabitats. “I believe that the resistance to radiation is a product of chance,” he said. “If an astrophysical event sterilized all life on Earth, it does look also bad for the future of these amazing animals.” That's not to say cosmic tardigrades are out of the question. In 2014, Miller and physicist Ran Sivron calculated that tardigrades could survive the 4.37-light year trip to Alpha Centauri (and then longer, if they presumably landed on a friendly exoplanet). Even then, though, “the ability to go into this cryptobiosis survival mechanism probably isn't going to work,” Miller said, “if they still don't have food, water, habitat or atmosphere.”
Did you know more than 40,000 pets die each year in house fires and that 1,000 dogs cause fires every year? As the summer heats up, so too does the danger of fire. Here are some tips to keep both you and your dog safe. How Pets Start Fires Candles create a beautiful glow, but can be a fire hazard as your dog or cat knocks them off a table. Now they make flameless candles, which are just a pretty as the real ones … plus they are less messy! Pets are curious so be careful of them approaching fireplaces as well. Do not let your dog or cat chew electrical cords. Be careful of crock pots that can be tipped over while you are away from home and your pet is alone. Believe it or not, many dogs and cats have managed to turn on a stove or range with their tails! Consider stove top covers like the kind used to baby proof your home. Puppies can often chew through cords and start electrical fires. You may want to keep your puppy in a crate while you are gone during the day to keep him out of mischief. Beware of water bowls on wooden decks. The hot rays of the sun, when filtered through a glass water bowl can actually ignite the wooden deck. To read more on this story, click here:July is National Pet Fire Safety Month
Boston -- Police dogs simply follow their noses to sniff out narcotics. But inhaling powerful opioids can be deadly, so officers have a new tool to protect their four-legged partners: naloxone, a drug that has already been used for years to reverse overdoses in humans. Law enforcement officers have started carrying naloxone with them on drug raids, when K-9s are often sent into houses or cars to find narcotics. Three police dogs in Florida were rushed to an animal hospital last year when they ingested fentanyl, a powerful painkiller that is often mixed with street heroin but 50 times more potent. Massachusetts State Police started carrying naloxone for their K-9s in March. Police in Hartford, Connecticut, started in January. Even just a small amount of powdered fentanyl can sicken police officers who come in contact with it during an arrest. Just last month, Ohio police officer Chris Green nearly died from an accidental overdose after patting down a suspect and getting white powder, believed to be fentanyl, on his hands. To read more on this story, click here:New Drug Kits Save Police Dogs from Opioid Overdoses
During the dog days of summer, the last place your dog should be is in a car alone. In Maryland, it is illegal to leave a cat or dog in a standing or parked car in a manner that endangers the health or safety of that animal. It is also illegal for a bystander to smash a car window to save a pet trapped in a hot car. The law allows for police, local and state public safety employees, animal control officers, and fire rescue volunteers to use reasonable force to remove a cat or dog left in a car without being held liable for any damages. “Even if you have the windows down, even if it's in a shady place, I recommend just trying to avoid [leaving a pet in a car] at all costs” said Dr. Amelia Kaeding with Falls Road Animal Hospital. Different breeds can feel the effects of heat faster, particularly older dogs and puppies. “Swollen tongue, so if their tongue is looking really big. And then once heatstroke gets much more serious, I worry about vomiting and diarrhea, especially if there's blood in it; muscle weakness, shaking, tremors, they can even get seizures,” said Dr. Kaeding. Dogs with a lot of hair or smooshed faces are also very susceptible to heat stroke, and it doesn't take long for a car to get hot. “Even on a 70 degree day and it feels nice and cool out, if you leave a dog in a car, it can get to 90 degrees in about 10 minutes,” said Stephen Wells the executive director with the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF). The ALDF tracks various “hot car” and “Good Samaritan” laws in different states. Twenty-nine states have some form of a hot car law that prohibits leaving a companion animal in an unattended vehicle. However, the laws differ place to place. “In Maryland, there is a law that allows emergency responders to be able to break into a car but not members of the public, at this time,” Wells said. Wells added it’s not likely for someone to face charges if they saved the animal, but there’s always a chance. He said it helps to do a few things to make sure you’re covered. “It's good to have a witness, have somebody there. Make sure you're prepared to take care of that dog once you get them out. Do the least amount of damage possible and just make sure you don't risk the dog's or anyone else's safety while you're doing that,” Wells said. Eleven states currently have Good Samaritan laws that grant immunity to anyone freeing a trapped animal. Dr. Kaeding also warns pet owners to watch that their pets don't overheat while playing outside. If they do, it's recommended you take them to the veterinarian. You should also blow a cold fan on them, and dip them in cool water. Do not use ice or ice cold water. It can constrict the blood vessels and cause the dog to actually retain heat.
At 4' 4" tall and weighing in at 50 pounds, Darius is currently the biggest rabbit in the world! The craziest part? He may not hold that title for much longer because his son is on track to be even bigger. Jeff is 3' 8" and still has about 6 months of growing left. His owner, Annette Edwards, expects him to be much bigger than his dad. The two are members of the Continental Giant breed, which was bred for their meat, but are now loving house pets. They are so large that they must sleep in large dog crates instead of rabbit cages. The rabbits eat their way through 2,000 carrots and 700 apples a year.
Montgomery County Humane Society: We are low on a few items: *Fabuloso *Toilet paper *Paper towels *Canned kitten food *Dog & cat toys *trash bags (30 gallon) If you can help us, our hours to drop off are from 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. daily at 601 S. Stonestreet Avenue, Rockville, Maryland 20850 Thanks you guys so much for your support!
