Embrace Pet Insurance Blog

Let me out!

When a dog's gotta go, a dog's gotta go, and if you aren't paying her the attention she deserves, she might just let you know she needs to go outside RIGHT NOW by scratching the door or barking and whining at you until you pay attention.

Well, I was sniffing around the web (ha ha - must put that in my pet puns list) and I came across solution to that - Poochie-Bells! You hang the bells on the door handle and your poochie rings them when she needs to go out.

There are a couple of cool things on this website. First, there's a video of Poochie-Bells in action, and there's also a competition to win some Poochie-Bells if you can find all five blue doors on the site. The instructions are on the home page at the bottom.

There, you've found one already! (on their home page, not this one, silly!)

TheStreet.com article on pet spending

How cool is this!

There's a new article on TheStreet.com (the home of Jim Cramer's Mad Money if you are into investing in the US) called My Kingdom for a Pet that has a very good write up of pet insurance and Embrace Pet Insurance with quotes from Bennett (moi!) sprinkled throughout.

The journalist, Hema Oza, did a great job (no, we're not biased) and even summarizes the article here in a video piece.

We love you Hema :)

Related Posts:

• Embrace Pet Insurance featured in MainStreet.com article
• Embrace Media Articles

What is Parvo virus?

We get all these routine vaccinations for our cats and dogs but do we know what they protect our pets against? I know I really don't know much about the diseases since I don't ever expect to come across them for real.

I was checking the web for some enlightenment on parvo virus and came across this excellent Parvo FAQ put together by Moc Klinkam at www.workingdogs.com.

Parvo is an intestinal virus that dogs get, particularly younger dogs.

The virus attacks and kills these cells, causing diarrhea (often bloody), depression and suppression of white blood cells -- which come from another group of rapidly dividing cells. In very young puppies it can infect the heart muscle and lead to "sudden" death.

For some reason, Rottweilers, Doberman Pinschers, and other black and tan breeds are especially prone to Parvo, and seem to succumb to parvo faster and with less chance of recovery than any other breed.

There's more where that came from.

Photo credit: PenelopeB

Fleas?

When I was having Barnes groomed, I asked Karen, our groomer, to check if he had fleas because I haven't had him on any preventative medication. After his makeover, she said she hadn't seen any fleas on Barnes (phew!) but also hadn't seen any on any animal she'd groomed over the summer (this is in Cleveland Ohio).

Wow! Do you think the wet June in the North-East had something to do with it? What have you been seeing?

Barnes gets groomed

Barnes gets quite lethargic in the summer as he has a lot of long black fur that really traps the heat. Since he has had kidney problems in the past, I don't want him to get overheated or dehydrated in any way, so we have started to get him groomed during the summer starting last year.

Yesterday was the big day this year and I had the Aussie Pet Mobile come by to groom Barnes. It took about an hour (nail trimming, grooming, bathing, drying and of course, perfuming!) and cost $85 with a $5 off coupon for new customers.

I have posted the photos in Flickr - look to the right for the link for the full set.

We may smile when we see the final result, but Barnes loves it and feels so soft. He really thinks he's the king with his new "do".

What do you think?

Poll Result: Did you take your dog to work last Friday (Take your dog to work week)?

And the results are:

Yes: 14%

No: 29%

Wasn't allowed: 29%

Don't have a dog: 29%

So there's still a ways to go before "Take your dog to work day" makes it to a routine occurance for pet parents.

Big dogs that likely don't need pet insurance

The movie The Terminator comes to a pet store near you? Robots in the form of dogs are being developed for military purposes.

They're a bit creepy without heads don't you think - but then again, I don't think they were ever meant to be cute!

Link to Robo-Doggie's New Pal

Hat tip to Doug the Infoman for the story.