Thanks to the United States Humane Society and Mary O’Connor Shaver from Columbus Top Dogs for this information. 

The U.S. Senate at the end of last week followed the lead of the House of Representatives and overrode President Bush’s veto of the Farm Bill, ushering in key new protections for animals.

The final bill (which is now considered law) - except for one section excluded due to a technical glitch - bans the import of puppies from foreign puppy mills for commercial sale in the U.S. The law spares young, unweaned and unvaccinated pups from harsh, long-distance transport during which they are exposted to extreme temperatures and often die in cargo holds — and will keep foreigh breeders from the tragic overpopulation of pets in this country.

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Coping with the grief after losing a pet can be a difficult thing to do. Those experiencing pet loss need to arm themselves with their toughest defenses because outliving a pet is a heartbreaking situation. The loss of any type of pet – guide animal, police animal, companion animal or other, is a devastating loss of a best friend.

The deep emotional bond one shares with an animal is hard to put in words. Whether you are grieving, or sympathizing with someone who is, take a soul-soothing journey through the pet loss poetry on this page. Pet loss poetry serves a dual purpose: it’s healing and supportive at the same time.

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A big part of this blog is promoting animal welfare, by spreading the word for rescue groups, wildlife groups, and other animal lovers. So if you are part of an animal welfare group, send me your events and rescue stories to help spread the word. I am happy to pass this information on in the effort to promote animal welfare, and it also helps your website gain exposure.

Another thing that I am happy to do is to help promote companies that make great products for pets and pet parents. Every now and then you may see a product or website review on this blog, hopefully you will find them helpful. If you are a company that would like to have a product featured here, please contact me for details on how that works.

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For the sake of keeping us all together and making new friends in the pet blogosphere I have started talking about my favorite pet blogs once a week.

The pet blog of the week this week is the famous Dogster For the Love of Dog Blog. Dogster is wildy popular among animal-lovers and has a great mix of information, pets in the news and cute stories.

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This week, May 4-10 is the American Humane Association’s Be Kind to Animals Week! The group created this celebratory week in 1915 to celebrate the unique bond between humans and animals.

Though we all love our fur-babies, there are some special things we can do this week to work towards a better future for all animals, everywhere.

So how can you be kind to animals this week? The AHA recommends the following:

Speak out for animals. Get active in local animal welfare policies and legislation.

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Highland Canine Training, LLC would like to congratulate the new officers and board of directors for the Humane Society of Iredell. Many of the people elected were involved in the capital campaign that resulted in the construction of the Humane Society of Catawba No-Kill Animal Shelter and SNIP Regional Spay-Neuter Clinic in Hickory. One of the goals of this group is to build a shelter in Iredell County and to decrease the euthanasia rate. They plan to expand the usage of area low cost spay/neuter programs and seek ways to increase adoptions of animals. They also plan to hire an executive director to oversee daily operations with no cost to the Humane Society the first year. We look forward to working with these new officers and board members to continue to help the animals of Iredell County.

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Here is a very interesting recent article that really lets you know about the importance of dog training, and the
problems that go with an untrained dog. Very well written article by Hannah Silverman.

Dog training subsidy plea
Article from: Sunday Mail (SA)

HANNAH SILVERMAN

March 23, 2008 12:30am

DOG owners should receive special subsidies to attend classes to help prevent canine attacks, animal welfare groups say.
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In an effort to clean up the city for the upcoming Olympic ceremonies, the city of Beijing is inhumanely killing all of the city’s cats. No, they are not being euthanized by injection. No they are not being gassed. They are being sent to death camps where they will suffer for weeks on end and die slow deaths from disease and starvation. No food and water.

Supposedly the government thinks the cats are spreading SARS around the city. It has told citizens this so people are actually surrendering their cats and tossing them out of their homes to be picked up by the roving death squads.

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Almost a week ago a local Sheriff’s Department in Mississippi attempted to take a mentally ill subject into custody for his well being. Unfortunately, he struggled with the deputies and fled on foot into a large wooded area. The deputies were concerned for his welfare and knew that they needed to locate the individual.

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Today we received an Excellence Award from our friend Rusty at Chasing Squirrels with Rusty. We have never gotten an award before, YAY! Wags, wags, purrs, purrs. Of course the award was probably more

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