PetHealth.

Kristen Seymour Amy D. Shojai is a certified animal behavior consultant and the award-winning author of 23 pet care books, including "Complete Care for Your Aging Cat" and "Complete Care for Your Aging Dog." Do you love a senior citizen canine? Join the crowd! Fifty percent of owners share their hearts with pets age 7 or older. Modern veterinary care helps many dogs stay healthy a decade or more, and small dogs sometimes double that and age gracefully well into their twenties. A longer life increases the odds dogs develop "old fogy" problems, though. Medical help is important, but you can keep your old-timer happy and healthy with simple and/or inexpensive tips for dealing with these ...

katbert, Flickr Going on a trip can be stressful enough without adding your dog to the mix. Some organizations, including the Humane Society of the United States recommend against flying with your dog at all because of numerous cases where the animals didn't arrive safely. But if you'll be taking to the skies with Fido in tow, some advance planning can ensure that both you and your pet will be ready for takeoff. Assess whether your dog can handle the trip. Radio show host and pet travel expert Stephanie Abrams points out that every breed and every dog has its own temperament that can affect your trip. "Some by nature are more high-strung," she says, and not good at dealing with the motion ...

adria.richards, Flickr No matter how careful we are as pet owners, dogs and cats sometimes still manage to cut themselves, get overheated and eat things they really shouldn't. In honor of National Pet First Aid Awareness month, we at Paw Nation want to help you be prepared should trouble strike. We asked Dr. Elisa Mazzaferro, Director of Emergency Services at Wheat Ridge Animal Hospital in Colorado, and the official veterinarian of Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl VI what she recommends you do in these five common situations: 1. Treating A Cut or Scratched Paw "One of the most important things clients can do if injury is on the animal's paw is to put pressure on it with a clean towel and ...

Talk about a diamond in the ruff! A hungry golden retriever made headlines when he swallowed a three-carat diamond worth $20,000, reports WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C. The expensive meal was eaten at Robert Bernard Jewelry Store in Rockville, Md., where Sollie goes to work everyday with his owner, George Kaufmann, who co-owns the store with his business partner, Robert Rosin. When a visiting diamond dealer was showing the men some loose diamonds, one of the glittering gemstones dropped to the ground, according to WTTG-TV. What occurred next was stunning. "Saw Sollie go for the diamond -- gobbled it up," Rosin told WJLA. "Tried to get it, couldn't get it -- gone!" "Stones have dropped ...

A lurcher. sheyne, Flickr A 23-year-old British man was charged with reckless driving and lost his license after police witnessed the man, Paul Railton, driving his car and walking his dog, a lurcher, alongside the vehicle as he held the dog's leash out of the driver's side window. Railton pled guilty to "not being in proper control of a vehicle," reports the (U.K.) Guardian. He was fined the equivalent of about $100 and -- due to prior penalty points accumulated on his license -- was banned from driving for six months. The matter was initially brought to the police's attention by a concerned cyclist, who was riding down a country road and spotted what appeared to be a dog being dragged ...

Many of us look back on the early- to mid-20th century as a time when life was simple, intentions were pure, and America was a shining beacon to which the rest of the world looked for guidance and inspiration. That is until you see this ad from the June 1936 issue of Popular Mechanics featuring the Dog Sack, a handy-dandy device used to strap your dog to the side of your car so it can ride "safely and comfortably" on the running board. Then you realize that some of the inspiration America was selling involved truly insane ideas. Those poor dogs! Here is hoping that no one actually bought this thing. ...