Help Your Local Dog Shelter

Whether you bought your dog from a breeder or adopted from a shelter, I think we all can agree that the number of dogs in shelters in the United States is a crying shame.  According to the ASPCA, there are about 5,000 community animal shelters in the United States, and this number doesn’t doesn’t include [...]

Are Canine Dental Bones Really Necessary?

We’ve all laughed at the doggie denture commercial from Pedigree Dentastix, and many of you may be wondering how important special bones are to your dog’s dental health. Here’s our guide to the good, the bad, and the ugly of bones advertised to keep your dog’s teeth in tip-top shape. First, a little about dental [...]

Premium Dog Food

A recent survey on doggies.com indicates that nearly 50% of you feed your dogs premium commercial food, so we thought it might make some sense to provide a guide to the available premium foods currently on the market. It would be nice if there were one “fair and balanced” source that ranked all of the [...]

Homemade Dog Food Recipes

Looking for a little extra way to spoil your dog?  Why not try providing homemade dog food, where you’re sure of the purity and proportion of the ingredients instead of buying the cheapest bag you find at the store.  In general, you want to keep your proportions to at least 1/3 protein and 2/3 grains [...]

Preparing Your Dog for The Worst

With much of the country underwater due to heavy flooding following lots of snow and rain, it seems appropriate to talk about being prepared to care for your dog in the event of a disaster. Sheltering in Place In some disaster situations, such as when the power is out for an extended period of time [...]

Your Dog’s Anal Glands

(Editor’s note:  Do NOT read this article over the breakfast table.) If you’ve ever noticed a putrid odor coming from your dog’s hind end, you may have been smelling impacted anal glands.  These small sacs, located on either side of the dog’s rectum, normally empty themselves whenever the dog empties his or her bowels, but [...]

What to Expect When Your Dog Is Expecting

There are few things as exciting as the pitter-patter of little feet, even if they are of the  canine variety.  Are you ready to take the plunge with your dog? How do I know when my dog is fertile? Each female dog is only fertile twice a year, with each fertile period lasting from 3 [...]

Canine Epilepsy

My 10-year old Golden Retriever was just diagnosed with epilepsy, so it seemed like a good time to do a little research on the topic for Straight Poop. What exactly is epilepsy? Epilepsy is most easily defined as the presence of repetitive seizures over time.  Seizures may be the result of a specific brain injury [...]

Canine Mammary Cancer

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and we’ve all seen everyone going pink to support the cause.  Even the NFL has its players wearing pink shoes, sweatbands, and mouth guards.  But how much do you know about canine mammary tumors?  Did you know, for instance, that mammary tumors are the most common tumors in female [...]

Canine Mobility Assistance

We’ve all heard the old adage that a dog year is equivalent to about seven human years.  That really might not mean too much to you until you begin to consider what happens to your own body as you age.  One of the major symptoms of advancing age is that the joints and muscles begin [...]

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