It's that time again to spring ahead into spring! Sunday morning at 2 AM we welcome Daylight Saving Time (DST) here and in many areas of the world...which means...we will have "longer" lighter days to have more fun doing things outdoors with our pets! Daylight Saving Time is also the time of year I like to reshare with everyone some very important seasonal health and safety tips: PET MEDICATIONS TIME : If your pet is on specifically timed medications (like our furangel Epi-Husky Gibson who was on meds for Ca nine Epilepsy that he had to take 12 hours apart), you can help reset your pet's internal clock for these medications by staggering them by a half-hour starting on Sunday. Example : If your pet had been receiving their dosages at 7:30 AM before DST, then under the first day of the new time, give it to them at 8:00 AM*; then do the same for the PM dosage. On the second day, you can return back to the norm...

Harley with my First Aid book from class. Do you know how to help your pet in case of an emergency? Are you certified in First Aid...for your pet? Do you have a First Aid Kit all stocked and ready? April is National Pet First Aid Awareness Month , and today for Blog the Change for Animals ,  (which is part of Be the Changes for Animals, or BtheC4Animals , where bloggers share their "cause" quarterly to help benefit the welfare of animals worldwide), we here at the FiveSibes homestead are talking about Pet First Aid Awareness. To kick it all off, we are starting with a brief pop quiz to test your knowledge on recognizing and responding to a pet emergency. Now come back here...no one likes quizzes, but this one could save your pet's life... Ready? Here we go... 1. Your dog has a seizure, what do you do? 2. How do you know if your pet ingested/inhaled, or absorbed a poison? 3. Do you know the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke? 4. What to...

It's spring. Everything is turning green. Lots of great things for an adventurous dog to do in the backyard. Trees are budding. Bugs to chomp. Maple roots (or canine Pixies Stix as I like to refer to them) to chew and suck on. Birds and squirrels to chase. And delicious Stinging Nettles leaves to munch on.   NOT! Oh, these green leafy innocent looking plants suddenly grow up and tantalize the canine nose, tricking them into coming over and taking a chomp and then seriously regretting it. Now while these plants can be cooked up and are apparently delectable in some recipes (sorry, we'll skip it and just take folks' word for it), the little "stinger" hairs on the leaves and stems that are called "trisomes" and they release  histamine and  acetylcholine, two chemicals which causes a contact dermatitis when touched by people and pets, and it really hurts and burns when touched, which is certainly enough to deter me from tangling with them.  Photo ...

"Hey, Mom, is our yard all safe for us to play in?" March is Poison Awareness Month, with the third week being Poison Awareness Week (Happy 50th Anniversary to the Poison Prevention Week Council !) While this is the end of the month, Poison Awareness is something we all need to be vigilant about every single day of every month throughout the entire year.  So let's use this annual reminder to double-check our pets' surroundings and keep them safe and healthy. First and foremost, keep your vet's, veterinarian emergency hospital's, and poison control numbers up-to-date and readily posted by our landline phones and in our cell phones. And...Pet Poison Helpline now also has a "Pet Poison Help" iPhone app for just 99 cents! With Easter just around the corner, please keep children's Easter baskets that are filled with yummy things for kids high up out of reach of the family pets. Chocolate, little plastic toys, button batteries in talking book...