2015 NEW PET PRODUCT SPECIAL - WEEK 3 of 5

Animal Radio's New Pet Product Special is rounding its third week. Our #5 pick was Kitty Kush Catnip and #4 was the Green Interactive Feeder. This week, Dr. Amanda Landis-Hanna introduces our #3 pick, the VOYCE band. This gadget monitors your pet's activity level. And yes, we have giveaways!

Dr. Amanda Landis-Hanna, D.V.M., is the Director of Veterinary Medicine for i4C Innovations, the creator of VOYCE. Dr. Landis-Hanna states that the VOYCE is a health and wellness monitoring device that can track your dog's resting heart rate, resting respiratory rate, activity, calories burned and distance traveled.

The VOYCE is a band that is worn comfortably around your dog's neck like a collar. It can be worn in addition to your dog's collar or as a replacement for a regular collar. However, you are advised not to attach your leash to the VOYCE, because it can offset the activity tracking and you want to make sure your dog gets all the credit it can for the activity.

The information goes into the VOYCE, which you can then access any time, anywhere on a smart phone, laptop or notebook, no matter where you are.

The VOYCE allows you to find trends for your dog's vital signs, which gives you a certain degree of peace of mind. It also allows you to do things as simple as checking to see if your dog walker is actually coming on time. In addition, it can do things as advanced as sharing the information with your veterinarian, so they can help you pick up on trends to help diagnose diseases sooner.

It's hard enough to keep track of how many minutes we walk each day, so it is so easy for us as individuals to lose track of how many minutes our dog is walking on any average day.

VOYCE Allows you a way to keep a more objective view of what your dog is doing so you can pick up on things like pain and arthritis. This may be shown by a dog that starts to fidget more in the night or a dog whose activity levels have dropped off.

It also allows you to pick up on early indicators of heart and respiratory disease, even heart failure. The sooner those issues are addressed; the better the chance that your vet is going to be able to treat it more successfully.

Dr. Amanda Landis-Hanna has been a full-time practicing veterinarian for 13 years and states that she only has a few minutes in an exam room with patients and there is a lot she needs to get in. This not only includes education but the physical exam and trying to understand what the patients are doing at home and what the client is actually reporting. Sometimes a client may not have an exact recollection of things that have transpired. They may guess that a particular event occurred one week ago or two weeks ago.

VOYCE now gives her more objective information to help her pinpoint what's going on. She can also save the client money, because she is now able to more specifically make recommendations for certain tests or certain treatments. It is also great for the client, because they are now more involved and have access to education and to materials that they never really had access to before.

VOYCE now allows you to track your dog's information day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year, and by having that information, you and your vet can help pick up on trends to help keep your dog happy and healthy. No one wants their pets to suffer, so this gives you a chance to be much more involved in your pet's care.

http://www.mydogsvoyce.com

Internet Rumors Quashed
Dr. Marty Becker

Animal Radio Veterinary Correspondent Dr. Marty Becker examines the prolific rumors about Beneful pet food and topical Flea and Tick medications. The social media's desperate hyperbole can force a food company to sell for ten cents on the dollar.

Everyone loves the Internet (well, most people do!). The problem is that you can find anything you want on the Internet but it may not all be true, which can start panic and witch hunts. Some things you've probably heard are, "This food poisons; this parasite product kills; this product chokes pets; and this product causes respiratory problems."

For example, you hear about dogs getting sick while eating a certain food. You have fed your dog this food, among other types of food, and then your dog becomes ill. Perhaps they have an infection, cancer, or a multitude of other issues. However, since you've heard the food was bad, you automatically think it was the food that made your dog sick.

Another example is that if a cat dies from kidney failure, that would have happened anyway, but because they just switched to this pet food that has claims of killing animals a week ago, they are sure it was the food. Most likely though, there is almost certainly no correlation between the two.

Think of Internet rumors of the past. Do you remember when FeBreeze was stated to be killing animals? It turned out to be nothing. Then dogs were choking on Greenies. This also turned out to be false.

There are many rumors out there about food, flea and tick medication killing animals. You want to use caution, but don't get alarmed. So what do you do?

There are things you can do. First, understand how these knee-jerk responses happen. They probably come from social media hype and scare tactics rather than data and science.

There are two sources to get the data and science. One is your veterinarian. If there truly were anything to worry about, your veterinarian would know. Another source is Snopes.com. There, you will find levelheaded information and reviews with no media hype and grabbing headlines.

Dr. Becker has been practicing veterinary medicine for more than 30 years and is a best-selling author, syndicated columnist and a frequent guest on national shows. You can also find Dr. Becker on Vetstreet.com, a new animal health and lifestyle website dedicated to giving pet owners the most accurate information possible to keep their pets healthy and happy. Follow Dr. Becker on Facebook and Twitter.

http://www.drmartybecker.com

"HERO PEOPLE OF THE WEEK" - Posthumous Hero Christine Hamilton (11/18/46 – 2/27/13) - Grey Muzzle Rescue

This week's Hero Person sacrificed her life, quite literally, to fund the rescue she started with her husband. There is no better hero than one that exchanges their life for the lives of creatures great and small. Christina Hamilton's husband Thayne will accept the honor.

Thayne and Christine Hamilton (11/18/46 – 2/27/13) started the Grey Muzzle Rescue in 2003. They originally started out as lifelong friends who later married.

The Grey Muzzle Rescue was Christine's idea, as she already had a couple of rescue dogs. Together they started rescuing more and more and decided that that was what they wanted to do with their lives.

The Grey Muzzle Rescue is located on Orcus Island, in the San Juan Islands chain, just off of the Washington coast, near the border of Canada.

The Orcus Island doesn't have an animal problem and in fact, most of the time their animal shelter is empty. Most of the dogs Thayne and Christine rescued came from all over the nation. They work with different rescues and rescue the "worst of the worst" abuse cases.

They started out rescuing older dogs and at one time had a 10-year rule, meaning that any dog they rescued had to be at least 10 years old, thus the name "Grey Muzzle Rescue." However, Thayne said the some of the stories that called to them made them take on dogs of all ages. They even rescued a litter of puppies that were going to get their voice boxes surgically removed so they could be sold to apartments dwellers.

During this time, Christine was diagnosed with a terminal illness and made a decision that would affect the animals. Thayne and Christine were unfortunately in a place in their lives where neither of them had health insurance. They were living on a limited income and at one point Christine was kicked out of ICU and told to find alternative health care, but unfortunately they didn't have the money to do so.

After the experience, they both decided to have a "Do Not Resuscitate" form on file. They had to make a decision at that point whether or not they would ever run up another hospital bill if anything happened again. They didn't want to take the chance of losing their property and all the rescued dogs that they had both given their lives to, for hospital bills. It was decided that neither of them would go to the hospital again.

A year and a half later, Christine fell ill, and chose not to go to the hospital. Christine Passed peacefully at home on February 27, 2013 in her husband's arms and surrounded by the many rescued dogs she loved.

Before passing away, she asked Thayne to continue their rescue work as they had done so many years together. He has honored her wishes since then and currently has 15 dogs under his care.

Two years after Christine's passing, Thayne has met a wonderful woman named Carol Matthews and is engaged. Carol is also a rescuer, from Nebraska, and they met over dog rescues. Carol is now helping Thayne to continue the dream.

If you'd like to help Grey Muzzle, there's a GoFundMe page for Thayne.

http://www.greymuzzle.org

Thinking Globally. Acting Locally. Do you know someone that should be nominated for our Hero Person of the Week? Send us an email to: YourVoice@AnimalRadio.com.

Animal Radio's HERO PEOPLE is brought to you by Zeuterin a safe, permanent and virtually painless alternative to surgical castration.

The Dogfather's Grooming Tip with Joey Villani

Should You Groom Your Dog Before or After Surgery?
When Joey took his own dogs to the vet's to get a dental, a woman there asked him whether or not she should have her dog groomer before or after having surgery.

Most people think you should have your dog groomed after surgery, but this is incorrect. You want your dog to go into surgery with the least amount of hair as possible. This doesn't mean you should shave your dog down before surgery, but just get it cut.

If your dog is on a regular grooming schedule, try to get the grooming appointment as close to the surgery date as possible. However, if your dog gets groomed just once or twice a year, make sure you get it groomed at least two weeks prior to surgery. This is because if your dog isn't groomed regularly, they might get a skin irritation or infection from the clipping, because of lack of grooming. You want to make sure that your dog doesn't have any skin issues just prior to having surgery done.

All of this will make it easier for the technicians and doctor to work on the pet because there is less hair and matting, plus the pet is clean.

How to NOT Train a Dog -Dr. Debbie

The other day I was walking my dog in a community area and encountered a lady with two Shih Tzu's. As we approached, her dogs rallied with barking and tugging on their leashes. I asked if her dogs were friendly, so as to decide if we could approach. The lady scowled, embraced her still barking dogs and grumbled, "Do they look like they're friendly?"

Realizing this dog owner was more unsociable than her dogs, I decided to vamoose, but not before I envisioned this blog topic - how pet owners mold unsocial dog behavior.

Unwanted doggie behavior such as lunging and barking on the leash become established when the dog owner hasn't made it clear what the appropriate behavior is, fails to correct and redirect to a more suitable behavior, or simply reinforces the undesirable behavior through actions or words. Face it - there aren't bad dogs, just poorly trained ones.

Avoid making these top 5 training mistakes:

1. Secluding Your Dog in the Back Yard
Keeping your dog in lock down almost guarantees problem behaviors will develop such as biting, inter-dog aggression and phobias to anything from noises to car travel. Isolated dogs lack the experience and confidence when faced with novel situations while socialized dogs adapt easily.

I see it all the time - the dog owner prides herself in keeping her dog safe. "I didn't want Fido to catch any diseases as a pup, so I didn't let him out of our backyard till he was a year old." The overwhelming fear of infectious diseases like parvovirus causes some well-meaning owners to confine their new dog or puppy to the limits of house and yard. Even more extreme is never allowing a puppy to step foot outside until after their last puppy vaccinations! Puppies are most adaptable to new experiences between 6 and 16 weeks - this is the time to expose them to unfamiliar places, people and animals.

That doesn't mean you should take your eight week old puppy to dog parks, but rather to use good sense selecting low dog traffic areas and visiting with family and friends outside of the home that have properly vaccinated pets.

2. Skipping Obedience Training
Going to school is a must for any new dog to a home, whether a puppy or adult. No two dogs are the same, and each learns differently. Formal obedience training is a useful tool to gently reaffirm who's in charge and sets the rules in the house. Statistics show that dogs that go through formal obedience training are less apt to develop behavior problems and be relinquished to shelters.

3. Reinforcing Fear at the Veterinary Office
In the exam room I cringe when I see a dog owner comforting a nervous, fearful or aggressive pet. That "good boy" and pat on the head reinforces your dog's behavior, making it more likely that on the next hospital visits he'll behave the same, or worse. Some problem behaviors escalate making it difficult for the veterinary staff to examine or treat the animal. This may mean additional costs for sedation or anesthesia for routine medical needs.

It's natural for a pet owner to want to reassure a pet when he is frightened and it can be difficult to hold back the urge to soothe him. However, the best strategy is to ignore those fearful behaviors in the vet office. Don't be tempted to kiss, snuggle or hold Fido on your lap when he is misbehaving. Rather, place the dog on the floor, refocus your dog's attention to you, and cue him to "sit" or "lie down."

4. Not Using Food as a Reward
Food shouldn't just be for the taking. Don't leave food out for your dog to graze whenever he wants and don't give treats just for the sake of giving a treat. Present food and treats as a reward for good behavior such as sitting quietly, going to a pillow, or performing a trick or obedience work. This places you at the top of the household hierarchy. You become the provider of great edibles in the house, and your dog will be motivated to listen to your requests in other situations.

We all love to spoil our dogs and give treats at times. But be sure to give treats for a reason, or you will have a spoiled doggie brat on your hands.

5. Not Exercising Your Pet Enough
Inadequate exercise can result in obesity and boredom, and may lead to problem behaviors like separation anxiety, destructive chewing and excessive barking. Dogs should get 30 to 60 minutes of sustained physical activity each day for optimum mental and physical benefit. And no- letting Buffy run around the backyard during the day is not adequate exercise.

Not all breeds are cut out for all exercise - a Labrador may enjoy retrieving games or swimming, a Jack Russell terrier may thrive with jogging or Frisbee, while a Basset hound will be satisfied with a leash walk.

Your dog can't be a well-adjusted, socialized canine citizen without you, as the pet owner, taking an active role in training. Put the time in, and you'll be thanked many times over with an outgoing, friendly canine pal that can accompany you on life's adventures.

Featured veterinarian known as "Dr. Debbie" on national pet radio program, Animal Radio. Ebook author of "Yorkshire Terriers: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend"; "Pugs: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend"; "Mini Schnauzers: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend"; and "Shih Tzu: How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend."

http://www.drdebbie.net




It's a Wacky Wednesday Here at the Animal Radio® Studios

WackyWed Contest IS ON - LIKE your FAVORITE pic and the three pics with the most LIKES & SHARES are this week's winner will receive a Fun Basket of Non-Rawhide Chews from DreamBone.

TO ENTER Send us your FUNNY pet pic to WackyWed@AnimalRadio.com - (Please put WACKYWED in the subject line & give us your pet's name, your name & where you hail from) If YOUR pic is chosen then spread the word to your friends & family on Wednesday - the pics w/the most LIKES and SHARES will be the winner!

This week we are giving away a Fun Basket of Non-Rawhide Chews from DreamBone which is the next generation dog chew that has all the benefits of a rawhide chew - without the rawhide.

DreamBone Non-Rawhide Chews are made with vegetables, wholesome grans and real chicken.

Join Animal Radio® on Facebook for Wacky Wednesday! Win great prizes every week for your wacky pet pictures. Last month we gave out goodies from Diamond Wipes, Gibi, Sturdi Products, Pet Acoustics and more. Visit us on Facebook now.

Animal Radio® News - Tammy Trujillo

Madrid Bans Killing of Stray Animals
Let's hear it for Madrid. Lawmakers there have passed a historic bill banning the killing of stray animals. The new law makes abandoning pets and euthanizing homeless dogs illegal in Spain's capital and largest city. The animal rescue and advocacy group El Refugio has been fighting for 19 years to make Madrid and the surrounding areas no-kill. They did it with a series of petitions and lots of help from local residents and volunteers from all over the country.

Dog-Napper Gets Caught
Missing pet stories don't have the endings we hope for as often as we might wish, but this one does and then some. A woman's dog in Seattle, Washington went missing while she was at a pub in September of 2012. Mary Wolfe went crazy looking for her dog including dealing with frightening, threatening emails and messages. It took nine months and a lot of detective work, much of it by some very brilliant local rescuers, but Nahla was found and reunited with Mary. But don't mess with Mary. After finding out who took her beautiful dog, the whole matter ended up in court. The judge found that a woman, Chris Riley, who had also been at the pub that night in 2012 had stolen Nahla from in front of the pub knowing she had no authority to do so and knowing that Wolfe was Nahla's lawful owner. Riley was not only found guilty of theft, but also ordered to pay $27,000 in damages.

Michael Jackson's Gators & Croc Die In Fire
Pop Super Star Michael Jackson was well-known for his love of exotic animals and it's been somewhat of a mystery about what happened to them all after Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County in California closed. Now we learn that Michael's seven alligators and a crocodile died last month in a fire that also destroyed a video production studio at Garold Wayne Interactive Zoological Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma. Deputies suspect arson because the park received a threat before the fire. The state's fire marshal and the FBI were investigating the blaze.

New Cancer Treatment for Animals
This may be the year of a new cancer treatment for dogs. TVAX Animal Health of Kansas has gotten $2-million-dollars more in financing to begin clinical testing in dogs this year. The company has already gotten approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to sell its products to veterinarians for treating cancer in dogs, cats and horses. It says the clinical trials are designed to gain additional data on the types of cancer the product can treat in dogs. The company expects the product will be available to veterinarians in the U.S. later this year and in the future for cats and horses. Over $1-billion-dollars is spent in the U.S. each year on treating cancer in pets.

Only Five White Rhinos Left in the World
There is only one northern white male rhinoceros left on the planet. His home is at a conservancy in Kenya. He's named Sudan and it's up to him to save his species. There are also two female northern white rhinos there and together they are three of the last five remaining northern white rhinos in the world. The rhinos have been pushed to the verge of extinction by poaching that has been going on since the 1960s. A rhino's horn can sell at prices upward of $75,000 per kilo, that's just over two U.S. pounds. Thank goodness there are people who want to make sure the Northern White Rhino doesn't just become a memory. A team of conservationists and scientists are turning to artificial fertilization techniques in a desperate attempt to save the species. Cell samples will be collected and stored, while scientists run appropriate tests before they can attempt to use a southern white rhino as a surrogate.

New Device Sends Alerts if Kids or Pets Left in Hot Cars
The weather is getting warmer and that means we will start hearing more stories about animals and kids left in hot cars. Not if a brilliant young woman has her way. Nancy Dominguez is a mechanical engineering student at UT Dallas and did her internship at the AT&T Foundry in Plano, Texas where new ideas are fabricated into technology prototypes. She came up with an invention that uses a thermometer, a wireless connection and an infrared sensor, coupled with a motion detector that can see if something living is inside the car. Once the sensor recognizes that a person or animal has been left behind in the vehicle, it tracks the temperature. When the air inside the automobile nears a level that would be considered too hot or too cold, the gadget sends a text message to the driver. If the driver doesn't respond quickly, and the person or animal remains inside the closed car, the device alerts emergency responders, passing along the car's location and make and model. It could be incorporated into the electronics of a "smart car." There appears to be a lot of interest. As for Nancy, since she was an intern when she created the device, she would not make any money if it winds up in your next car, but she says it helped with her resume and hopes it might help her get a job with AT&T after graduation.

NEWS UPDATE brought to you by Drs. Foster & Smith, affordable pet supplies. Low prices every day, so you save on every order.

Listen to the entire Podcast of this show (#802)