Archive for the ‘news’ Category

With so many pet stories around the web each week it’s hard to keep up. Table Scraps is our weekly roundup of memorable pet news around the internet.

• I never understood how people, and now cats, made it out of the 70′s alive. (Jezebel)
• Yip it.  Yip it good.  (Vanity Fair)
• I’ve spoken with my dog and its Lick It List includes a trip to the Sizzler and the answer to what’s long and fluffy and wiggles right behind it. (People Pets)
• A little girl, an overgrown bunny and one persnickity semi-law.  (Fox News)
• Hank the Cat gets his claws ready for his campaign. (Huffington Post)

Image: Thru Mikes Viewfinder

Breaking news: kitties have adventures when we’re away, and they cuddle up to strangers when we’re not around. Do I still love them? Yes.

In a collaboration between National Geographic and the University of Georgia, researchers did what I have always wanted to do: put cameras on dozens of cats to see what they’re up to when they’re alone. It’s been done on smaller scales before, but this seems bigger and very official and research-y. From CBS News:

“They spent a lot of time under cars, inside of cars, inside of sewers, climbing roofs, climbing fences,” Hernandez said. “I think they have intriguing lives because they do things we’d never expected them to do.”

But if you want loyalty, get a dog. “A lot of cats were found cheating on their owners,” Hernandez said. “In that they were spending a lot of time with other families, and were fed by other families and slept on the beds of other families.”

The study answers many of our curious questions, and it confirms many of our suspicions about their alone time. But, the best part: it also helped researchers learn about their interactions with urban wildlife and the various dangers our outdoor friends face in the big bad world.

Photo: kamome on Flickr.

With so many pet stories around the web each week it’s hard to keep up. Table Scraps is our weekly roundup of memorable pet news around the internet.

• Who doesn’t love to remember when their puss was young?  (Jezebel)
• Dog in pain, man with heart, tissues out annnnnd commence sobbing.  (Huffington Post)
• Apparently parrots can reason like a 3 year old child which probably explains why mine can’t help giggling every time someone says “poop.”  (MSNBC)
• Tent Cat!  (New York Daily News)
• I feel like this is not what Bob Barker and all his pet chatter was referring to.  (Desert Sun)

Image: anitakhart

We’ve written extensively about caring for our pets when we’re on vacation. From boarding the dogs, to sending the dogs on a vacation without you, to trusting the pup with a good friend while we’re away, you name it, we’ve thought about it. Over and over again, it comes down to some balance between cost, QT with our pets, and time spent calling in reasonable favors.

But what about bringing them with you? According to a TripAdvisor survey, pets are in tow roughly half the time on our quests for R&R. Of that half:

56 percent will stay in hotels with them – up from 51 percent who have done so in the last year, while 35 percent plan to stay in a vacation rental, up from 24 percent.

The survey focused on pet-friendly travel within the United States. A flight — from an hour to 10 hours — obviously proves trickier and far more expensive. We flew with Ms. Gida Boston once from CA to TX, and I can’t see us doing it again anytime soon, especially as airlines crack down on brachycephalic dogs flying the friendly skies.

When it comes to road-trip weekenders away, I’m far more willing than I was even a couple years ago to pay a pet deposit. I definitely lean toward pet-friendly vacation rentals and cheapie hotels, too. But where do you stand? What are the variables at play for you?

Photo: kiyoshi.be on Flickr.