News, Advice and Resources for Thoughtful Pet People
Moses is a rescued kitten who was found after his mom was hit and killed by a car. He has his own blog. Be sure to enlarge the video to full screen so you can really see those wily feet of his!
And here is Maggie, an 8 month old Boxer mix, who needs a thumb to suck to fall asleep. What a sweet girl!
Cool! (ha!) It turns out we don’t need to worry so much about our dogs’ feet getting too cold. Researchers have learned that dogs’ feet are specially adapted for cold weather and are similar to penguin wings, dolphin fins, & arctic foxes. The vascular network draws cold blood from the surface of the pads and also rewarms the blood before it continues into the dogs’ core because the veins (carrying cold blood) are running right next too arteries (carrying warm blood) which rewarms the blood in the veins. (thanks Margaret!)
Just because they can withstand extreme cold though, doesn’t mean your dog wants to. And you do need to protect them from other things that might harm their feet like de-icers, etc.
Amazing! Oscar lost his two back feet in a combine, but two, groundbreaking bionic feet are giving the cat a new life. Made me tear up for Oscar, but also for what this means for humans. What is remarkable about these feet is that the skin and bone have grown into the metal pegs. This type of implant is called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (Itaps).