While the impact of this pandemic has ranged from absolute boredom to more serious things like job losses and health issues, some of our pets are coping in their own ways. A local veterinarian who focuses on animal behavior and stress is not surprised to hear our pets are stressed, too. Matt O'Donnell spoke with Dr. Carlo Siracusa of Penn's Ryan Veterinary Hospital about Bailey, his generally happy and spoiled 8-year-old Shichon. To read more on this story, click here:Pet Owners Note Behavioral changes in Their Cats and Dogs During the Coronavirus Pandemic
FOLLOW US!
They loved us long before they looked domesticated. By answering an age-old question about man’s best friend, scientists have figured out how wolves became the dogs we all know and love today. It’s pretty common knowledge that dogs are related to their wild canine cousins, but the new study lays out how the transformation occurred. Namely, it asserts that wolves became good boys behavior-wise before they started looking more like domesticated dogs than wolves. To read more on this story, click here:How Dogs Went From Wolves to Man’s Best Friend, According to Scientists
If you have a pet that you’ve adopted, you know just how wonderful of an experience it was to give your little furbaby a second chance at life. There is nothing sweeter than seeing their faces light up when they realize that they’re leaving the shelter. And it makes you feel good knowing that you helped save a life and make a difference. But how much more of a good feeling would it be knowing that you’re being rewarded for choosing adoption? One state might soon be giving tax credits to those who adopt animals. To read more on this story, click here:Proposed Law Would Give $125 Tax Credit To People Who Adopt Rescue Pets
FOLLOW US!
You’re a honeybee. Despite being around 700,000 times smaller than the average human, you’ve got more of almost everything. Instead of four articulated limbs, you have six, each with six segments. (Your bee’s knees, sadly, don’t exist.) You’re exceptionally hairy. A shock of bristly setae covers your body and face to help you keep warm, collect pollen, and even detect movement. Your straw-like tongue stretches far beyond the end of your jaw, but has no taste buds on it. Instead, you “taste” with other, specialized hairs, called sensillae, that you use to sense the chemicals that brush against particular parts of your body. To read more on this story, click here:What Is It Like to Be a Bee?
FOLLOW US!
The nation's hospitals, facing dire shortages of lifesaving ventilators as the coronavirus outbreak continues, are finding help from an unlikely source: animal doctors. The country's largest veterinary schools, animal hospitals and even zoos are offering up ventilators to hospitals that are scrambling to care for a growing number of critically ill coronavirus patients. Similar efforts elsewhere could produce hundreds of machines and save countless lives. "Every single one of these ventilators makes a difference," Dr. Andrew T. Maccabe, chief executive officer of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges, told ABC News. To read on this story, click here:Ventilators shipped from veterinarians to hospitals to combat COVID-19 shortage
The thought of being anywhere near a giant spider is terrifying to most of us. It’s easy to see why gigantic arachnids appear in books and films as villainous creatures — they just look like the stuff of nightmares. Luckily, big bad spiders like Shelob in Lord of the Rings and Aragog in Harry Potter only exist in the fictional world. However, there are scary spiders in this world that are very much real, like the Goliath Birdeater. To read more on this story, click here: Meet The Goliath Birdeater, The World’s Largest Tarantula That Eats Sparrows
FOLLOW US!
The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, in effect the executive committee of the Chinese Communist Party, in late February issued an edict banning the country’s “wet markets,” including those in Wuhan, the source of the current COVID-19 outbreak. The statement notes that “it is necessary to strengthen market supervision, resolutely ban and severely crack down on illegal wildlife markets and trade, and control major public health risks from the source.” The Straits Times of Singapore has reported that eight laws have been passed in the last week. We have no details on the contents of the legislation. It’s too soon to know, though, whether we have been down this road before. To read more on this story, click here:The Chinese Wild-Animal Industry and Wet Markets Must Go
FOLLOW US!
If you’ve ever noticed angry, red circles on your dog’s stomach, then your first reaction would be to rush them to the vet’s – and rightly so. However, it turns out that they may not be as bad as you might initially think. A while back, the Morinville Veterinary Clinic based in Alberta, Canada, shared a message regarding a common affliction to their Facebook page in order to reassure worried pet owners. To read more on this story, click here:Vet Says More Owners Have Been Seeing ‘Red Circles’ On Their Dog’s Stomachs
