PETS
Wednesday March 21, 2012
Albany Democrat Herald, Albany, Ore. Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, Ore. Lebanon Express, Lebanon, Ore.
Take time to find the perfect pet Determine qualities you want and get to know an animal before bringing it home By JENNIFER ROUSE
You want to adopt a pet — great! But now you’re at the shelter, and all those adorable furry faces are looking up at you. How can you ever pick the right one? Don’t worry — you’re not alone if you feel overwhelmed by the decision. It’s common for new petowners to have concerns about selecting the right companion. The trick, animal behavior experts say, is to do most of the work before JESSE SKOUBO | CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES you ever step foot out of Kelton and Brady Benson, of Philomath, get to know their newly adopted Staffordshire bull terrier your house.
Evaluate your lifestyle First, you need to determine how much time you have for pet care. “We all have the love for a pet,” said Sharon Gakstatter, behavior and training coordinator for Safehaven Humane Society. “But love is not enough. You need to have the time.” If you’re not home very often and you don’t have other family members or roommates who can help, then a dog might not be for you. “Dogs need consistency,” said Brittany Gardner, director of operations at Heartland Humane Society. “If you can’t provide that, then maybe you need a kitty, or even a fish or a hamster.” Other considerations include money — Gardner estimates that basic food and veterinary care for a healthy dog or cat will cost about $600 per year — and living situation. How big is your house or apartment? If you have a yard, is it fenced? If you live in a small space and you choose an active pet, you’ve got to commit to a regular outdoor exercise schedule, or you’re likely to run into problems. “If your idea of exercise is to throw a ball 10 times and be done, then you’re not going to want a border collie,” Gakstatter said.
Evaluate your desires So what do you want? What does pet ownership look like in your dreams? Do you want a pet who will snuggle up in your lap, or do you want a pet to accompany you on long-distance runs? Gakstatter suggests having each family member write down what qualities they would like in a pet, and then comparing notes, just so that everyone is on the same page. It’s a lot easier to find Mr. or Ms. Right when everyone is in agreement on what their new pet should be like.
Meet the pet – round one When you visit the shelter, take your time, experts advise. There are a lot of pets there, and in a large group an animal might behave differently than it will one-on-one. If there are a few different pets you are drawn to, ask the staff for recommendations. “Not every staff member knows every single ani-
mix, Hannah, in the lobby of Heartland Humane Society. mal, but if I don’t know much about a certain animal, I can find someone who does,” Gardner said. For one thing, every pet that enters a shelter is given a basic behavioral evaluation. How does it respond to strangers? Is it guarded around food? What does it do when it hears a knock on the door? If the pet has been surrendered by a previous owner, staff will likely have even more information. “We have them fill out a huge questionnaire, and we do have the information on file, plus information from what we have seen in the shelter,” Gakstatter said. At Heartland, they’re even planning to roll out a new program styled somewhat like an online dating service. It’s called “Meet Your Match,” and it’s aimed at matching up shelter cats with their ideal owners. “Every cat undergoes a behavioral evaluation, and then when people come in looking for a cat, they fill out a questionnaire that we score,” Gardner said. The numbers get crunched, and the potential owner is provided with a list of the kitties best suited to be that particular person’s perfect feline companion.
Meet the pet – round two (or more) Once you have an idea of which animal seems to have the characteristics you want, you need to spend time with it. Shelters have private rooms and
play yards where families can interact as much they want to. “They should spend as much time as they can,” Gardner said. “When a shelter pet gets taken out, it’s so exciting for them. You need to let them calm down and do their more normal behaviors.” Garnder also stressed that it’s important for every person who is living in the house to come meet the pet. Some pets are different around men than around women, or around children vs. adults. When you’re with the pet, watch how it behaves. “Does it like to be petted? Does it crawl in your lap? Really spend some time with it,” Gakstatter said. In fact, don’t be afraid to go home and come back another day. The staff won’t mind, and it will give you a chance to observe the animal on different days, when its behavior might be different. “This is not an impulse buy,” Gakstatter said.
Allow for adjustment Even once you have found the pet that seems right for you, expect that things won’t be perfect. “No one ever fits just right at first,” Gardner said. “Dogs are going to have training needs.” Both Gardner and GakJOY PARIANTE | CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES statter recommend taking a training or obedience class Cybil Stockman and her daughter, Faye, bond with Lucky at Safewith a new dog. It’s a way haven Humane Society in Albany. It can take a couple of trips to visto bond with your pet, and it an animal to determine if it’s a good fit for your family. it’s a way to make sure your pet is going to be a well-behaved citizen, both at home and out in public. If your animal knows how to behave — and you know how to train it — you’re much less likely to get into the kinds of frustrating situations that lead people to surrender their pets. “You need to consider it about the same has having a child,” Gakstatter said. “It will grow up, into that really great family pet — it just won’t happen instantly.”
All About Pets
Jennifer Rouse is a freelance writer who lives in Albany. She writes about a variety of topics relating to the mid-valley.
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Albany Democrat Herald, Albany, Ore. Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, Ore. Lebanon Express, Lebanon, Ore.
PETS
Wednesday March 21, 2012
Take steps to keep your pets safe in the garden By JENNIFER ROUSE
As sunshine re-appears and the ground starts to warm up, mid-valley gardeners head outdoors — and so do their furry companions. However, many people don’t realize that some of the things they’re using around their home and garden could be toxic to dogs and cats. Here are some veterinarian-approved ways to keep both your garden and your pets in top condition.
Dogs love to help in the garden by digging. Be aware of where they’re digging and make sure they aren’t getting into toxic chemicals, poisonous plants or roots.
AT A GLANCE
JOY PARIANTE CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES
Know what you’re spraying Did you know that there’s an easy-to-find spot where you can get all kinds of information about any garden product’s uses, ingredients, toxicity, and what to do if you think it’s been inadvertently ingested? Yep. It’s called the label. “Always read the label and save the containers,” said Dr. Michael Peterson, an Albany veterinarian and former professor of toxicology at Oregon State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine. Most fertilizers and herbicides don’t pose a problem to dogs or cats, but there are some precautions you can take, just to be on the safe side. If you have any outdoor food or water dishes or bird baths, cover them up before you spray or fertilize. After you’re done, let your lawn dry before you let your pets walk on it A few products in particular that can cause problems for pets: Rose food is also high in iron and can cause sickness for pets, and uncovered compost piles are like bacteria-filled beacons for dogs who like to sniff and roll around in muck.
your freshly sprouted plantings, it can be hard to resist the urge to blast them out of existence. However, if something is toxic to pests, it can be toxic to pets as well. “You can read the label and see whether it says it’s pet-safe or not,” Peterson said. “But even ‘pet-safe’ just means less toxic. The truth is, everything is toxic if you get too much of it. If you drink too much water, you die. You just have to pay attention to the dose.” Slug and snail bait containing metaldehyde is one particular item to be careful with. “That stuff is actually palatable to dogs and cats,” Peterson said. To make it safer, watch how you apply it. “What you need to do is cast it,” Peterson said. “Spread it out, so it’s not in little piles.” It’s harder for your dog to poison himself if he has to sniff out one single pellet at a time, rather than scarfing up an entire pile. Powdered fly baits can be another culprit in pet sickness. If you use them, put them in a location where pets are not likely to walk through them. Be careful with pesticides “Cats tend to do themWhen you’ve got pests in selves in this way — they your garden chewing up walk through it, and then
they clean themselves,” Peterson said. “When they’re licking it off their feet, that’s how it happens.” Peterson is especially passionate about reducing the use of a new kind of pesticide with the active ingredient bromethalin. It’s an especially potent rodent poison with no antidote. “My concern is that you put some baits out in the garage or the shed, and two years later someone forgets they’re out there, and the dog gets into them,” Peterson said. “Why take a risk?” Standard types of rodent pesticides are anti-coagulants, take 24 to 48 hours to act after ingestion, and can be treated for if they’re accidentally ingested. Anything other than this anticoagulant variety is especially dangerous, he said,
Want more information about pesticides and what’s safe for your pets? The National Pesticide Information Center is a storehouse of information, and it happens to be operated by Oregon State University. For more information, call the hotline at 800-858-7378, email npic@ace.orst.edu, or see npic.orst.edu to read and/or download a wealth of information on the subject.
and works more like the nerve gas that’s used in chemical warfare. Unless you’re running a serious commercial business like a dock or a warehouse, he said, there’s no need to move beyond the anticoagulant pesticides. “The average homeowner doesn’t need to go nuclear,” he said. Nonchemical pest-control options such as diatomaceous earth or fermented beer can be a completely safe choice for gardeners concerned about pet health.
Plants and mulches
yard and pointed out all the things that are toxic,” Peterson said. “The thing to keep in mind is dose. With most of them, you really have to eat a significant amount before there’s a problem.” Lilies can be a problem for cats, Peterson said. “It doesn’t take too much of that to do them in,” he said. The problem is magnified if the cats are indoor-only and you keep lilies as house plants. “Most animals that are able to go outside, if they want to chew on a plant, they’ll chew on the grass,” he said. “But if they’re inside, they might chew on a house plant.” Cocoa bark mulch is another culprit — the smell can be attractive to dogs, but the chemicals in the cocoa plant are dangerous. Choose a different mulch
material and you’ll be on the safe side.
Call if you’re worried If you have any concerns that your pet may have eaten something dangerous—if the animal is vomiting, shaking, has abnormal bowel movements, or just doesn’t look right — call your vet sooner rather than later. “Don’t wait to see how bad it’s going to be,” Peterson said. “With the treatments we can do, the effectiveness drops after an hour.” Most of all, just garden away and take a few precautions before letting pets and chemicals mix. “These are all commonsense kind of things, but unfortunately common sense isn’t so common anymore,” Peterson said.
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Items of lesser concern are the plants and ground coverings themselves. Although there are some items to watch out for, most pets won’t eat a plant or mulch in such large quantities that it’s an area of major concern. “You’d have a heart attack if I went around your
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