Archive for the ‘Pets’ Category

Is your dog a picky eater?

Maybe he'd like to try Nature's Harvest Fresh, a new gently cooked dog food from Global Pet Foods.

Photography: Ildar Sagdejev

Made with locally sourced whole food ingredients, the fresh frozen patties have been gently cooked to the point of pasteurization and are available in four flavours: beef, chicken, lamb and salmon. You can find them at your local Global Pet Foods in boxes of 12 (for $21.99) or as individual patties (for $1.99 each).

You can also win one box of each flavour right here! Unfortunately, this contest is open to readers in only Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Please note that the winner will have to pick up the boxes at a Global Pet Foods store. (I, too, wish we had plane tickets to give away.) Here are the stores that carry the product:

ONTARIO
Ajax – 314 Harwood Ave. S.
Alliston – 113 Victoria St. W.
Aurora - 15440 Bayview Ave.
Bowmanville – 2316 Highway 2, Unit K1
Bradford – 170 Holland St. W.
Brampton - 2901 Queen St. East, Unit 4.
Brantford – 39 King George Rd #6
Cobourg - 471 Division St.
London – 509 Commissioners Rd. W.
Markham - 5990 16th Avenue. Unit 208
Newmarket - 130 Davis Dr. box 40
Oakville - 1011 Upper Middle Rd. Unit E5
Orangeville - 47 Broadway (Broadway & HWY10)
Ottawa – 700 Eagleson Rd. Unit 105
Ottawa – 1200 Wellington St. W. Unit E
Ottawa –  1029 St. Laurent Blvd.
Shelburne – 226 First Ave. E. SS 2
Thornhill - 70 Doncaster Ave.
Toronto - 243 Danforth Ave.
Toronto - 808 York Mills Rd. Unit 6
Toronto - 1753 Queen St. E.
Toronto - 125 Lower Jarvis
Waterloo - 425 University Ave. East, Unit 14
Waterloo - 440-450 Columbia St. West

QUEBEC
Brossard – 8200 Boul. Taschereau Unit 1265
Ile-Perrot – 475 Boul. Grand
Montreal – 5326 Chemin Queen Mary
Pierrefonds – 14905 Boul. Pierrefonds
Pointe-Claire – Plaza Pointe-Claire. 245-F Boul. St. Jean
Saint-Eustache – 136 25E Avenue
Sainte-Rose – 683 Boul. Cure-Labelle
Vaudreuil – 585 Ave. St. Charles #220
Vaudreuil – 3100 Boul. Harwood

NEW BRUNSWICK
Dieppe – 9 Rue Champlain
Moncton – 1126 Mountain Rd.

NOVA SCOTIA
Dartmouth – 100 Main St.
Halifax – 9-201 Chain Lake Drive
Sydney – 800 Grand Lake Rd.

For your chance to win 4 boxes of Nature's Harvest Fresh, please leave a comment on this post by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, telling me what food your pet turns his nose up at. One comment per person, please; this contest is open to residents of Canada only. Not open to any TC Media employees or the people they live with. I'll randomly select and announce the winner on Wednesday, March 28, 2012.

And after you've entered, why not spoil Fido with a batch of Tested Till Perfect Classic Canine Cookies.

Perhaps you heard about the kerfuffle between singer Jann Arden and Via Rail last weekend.

(image via Wikipedia)

Arden boarded the train in Toronto Sunday morning, en route to a show in Ottawa that evening. Her travelling companion was her pet morkie, Midi.

Before getting on the train, Arden, per protocol, passed through three checkpoints at Union Station: having her ticket verified before getting on an escalator leading up to the train platform; being pointed to the correct passenger car once at the top of the escalator; and being greeted by a staff member at the door to the passenger car. The entire time, Arden says, Midi’s head was popped out of her carrying case.

It wasn’t until the train was approaching Oshawa, about a 35-minute ride east of Toronto, that a Via staff member noticed the dog. The problem? Via’s policy:

“Pets – excluding guide dogs – are not allowed in passenger cars. They must travel in the baggage car, which means aboard trains that offer checked baggage service.”

Arden was given a choice: move Midi to the baggage area or disembark the train in Oshawa. Arden chose the latter. As she explained in a note on her Facebook page, “I would no more do that to my dog [put her in baggage] than I would my mother.”

Arden took to Twitter to voice her displeasure. Via apologized for the incident the same day, saying they should have flagged things in Toronto, but reiterated their policy on pets.

The debate between the wants of passengers wishing to travel with their pets versus the needs of passengers with allergies to animals is not new. In this case, the fault goes both ways: a little more so with Arden and her assistant who booked the ticket, who should have looked into Via’s policy on travelling with pets; and with Via, where someone should have spoken up sooner.

Was Via right in its ultimatum? Do you think pets should be allowed to stay with their owners on a train? Or should a car be set aside for people travelling with pets?

Exercising would be twice as fun if you could convince Fido to work out with you. That's what one dog owner seems to have realized, training her pet pooch to match her stretch for stretch.

My boss, Donna Paris, sent this video my way. I can't decide what my favourite part is. Is it that Splash works out with a doggy dumbbell? Is it Splash's dance-like moves when he crosses his legs over? Or maybe it's that the other dog thinks it's a cat and looks on like a couch potato?

Do you exercise with your pet? Or has your pet ever caught you working out and felt compelled to join in?

Last week I shared some of my favourite quotes about cats. Now for a few words about their mortal enemy, the dog.

• “If you can look at a dog and not feel vicarious excitement and affection, you must be a cat.” – Anonymous

• “Dogs are miracles with paws.” – attributed to author and illustrator Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy

• “There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.” – author Ben Williams

Photography, Soccersmp

• “Happiness is a warm puppy.” – Charles M. Schulz

• “Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the centre of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.” – Roger Caras, president emeritus of the ASPCA

• “Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.” – humorist Dave Barry

• “My goal in life is to be as good a person my dog already thinks I am.”
– Anonymous

Photography, Sigismund von Dobschütz

• “A dog is nothing but a furry person.” – Anonymous

• “A well-trained dog will make no attempt to share your lunch. He will just make you feel so guilty that you cannot enjoy it.” – writer Helen Thomson

• “Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that is how dogs spend their lives.” – comedienne Sue Murphy

Photography, ccrv

• “A person who has never owned a dog has missed a wonderful part of life.” – Bob Barker

• “If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them.” – Phil Pastoret

• “If your dog doesn’t like someone, you probably shouldn’t either.” – Anonymous

Please share your favourite quotes about dogs in the comments section below!

Felines. Tabbies. Fur balls. Mousers. Felis catus.

No matter what you call them, cats have a way of inspiring the wordsmith in anyone. We've gathered up a baker's dozen of our favourite quotes about cats.

(Update: You can now find a few words about dogs here.)

• "In the beginning, God created man, but seeing him so feeble, He gave him the cat!" – pet psychologist Warren Eckstein

• "The cat was created when the lion sneezed." – Arabian proverb

• "A meow massages the heart." – Scottish politician Stuart McMillan

Photography, Christoffer G. Thomsen

• "No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch." – author Leo Dworken

• "If a man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." – author and humorist Mark Twain

• "Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." – Anonymous

Photography, David Corby; edited by Arad

• "A thing of beauty, strength and grace lies behind that whiskered face."
– Anonymous

• "Cats regard people as warm-blooded furniture." – author Jacquelyn Mitchard

• "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
– theologian, philosopher and physician Albert Schweitzer

• “Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.” – writer Joseph Wood Krutch

Photography, Loliloli

• “When I play with my cat, how do I know that she is not passing time with me rather than I with her?” – author Michel de Montaigne

• "Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience." – author Pam Brown

• "Beware of people who dislike cats." – Irish proverb

Do you have a favourite quote about cats? Feel free to share in the comments below.

What would you choose: your home or your pet?

That's the decision seven seniors in Moncton, N.B., are now being forced to make.

(Photo: Matthew Paul Argall)

The pet-owning residents of Lions Tower, a subsidized complex for seniors, have been told to evict their pets or face eviction themselves after a fellow tenant complained of there being animals in the building.

(While the building's lease specifically says no pets allowed, and there's also a provincial ban on pets in subsidized housing, many residents have lived in the building for years with their pets without a problem.)

With many of the seniors living off of their pensions, moving is not a financially viable option. And by surrendering their pets, residents would be saying goodbye to a friend who has been shown to enrich a person's health and well-being, whether a senior or not.

Protesters as well as politicians are making their voices heard. As reported in the Toronto Sun:

"NDP Leader Dominic Cardy has written Social Development Minister Sue Stultz asking her to reverse the order and calling on the province to either scrap the no-pets rule, or enact legislation like Ontario's that prevents people from being evicted for having pets.

'There is significant research linking pet ownership and reductions in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other disorders that often disproportionately afflict seniors and those living in assisted housing,' Cardy wrote.

I hope this leads to a thoughtful discussion and re-examination of the legislation. Do you think the province should reconsider its ban on pets in subsidized housing?

Meet Byron.

On first appearance he looks like your typical golden Labrador. But an article earlier this week from the Daily Mail introduced readers to what really is a seven-year-old Super Dog.

Byron’s owner, Kate Cross, suffers from Ehlers Danlos syndrome, an inherited disorder that affects her joints, skin and blood vessels. As the article explains, her joints are so weak that she could dislocate a shoulder just from opening a door.

About five or six years ago, Kate’s emotional state began to suffer. She’d been forced to take early retirement from her job as a schoolteacher and had basically sought refuge in the safety of her home. As she says in the Daily Mail:

'When I first got Byron, I hadn’t left the house by myself for almost 18 months. I felt useless, and I hated going outside – people stared and didn’t know how to speak to me.

"Once, I was in my wheelchair going through the park, when a gang of teenage boys playing football decided to use my chair for target practice. I was so upset, I couldn’t imagine going out again. I became afraid of the world."

Then she heard about Canine Partners, a charity that matches assistance dogs with people who need help. Now, thanks to Byron, Kate not only has an easier time with her day-to-day activities but also feels free again. “Byron hasn’t just changed my life; he’s given me my life back,” she says.

Byron knows more than 100 different commands and is able – among other things – to:

• open and close doors
• load and unload the washing machine
• make the bed
• take money out of the ATM (Kate just has to key in her pass code)
• help with the groceries by fetching items from the lower shelves, loading the conveyor belt and handing Kate’s purse to the cashier

A best friend, indeed.

Over to you: how much of a rock star is Byron?

You carefully track your kids around the playroom, armed with your point-and-shoot camera, waiting for that magic moment when they'll hold still for one second. Just. One. Second. Pleeeease? Hold it, and snap!

You got the shot, only to review it a few seconds later and find that's it's a whirl of blur. Artistic, maybe. But not exactly something you can send to Grandma and Grandpa. It happens to the best of us, doesn't it?

Whether you're an amateur or a professional, mastering a few photography basics can make more of your snapshots worthy of framing and displaying. The following pro tips from Toronto-based photographer, Jennifer Pearson, will help you to take better photos starting...now.

1. Motion
It may seem counter-intuitive, but holding your camera as still as possible, while tracking your moving subject, can keep your subject in focus. That's what I didn't do right in this shot:

Moving traffic on Toronto's Gardiner Expressway blurs while the sunset remains clear with a steady hand. Photo by Jen Melo

Had I tracked the traffic with my camera as it zoomed by, I could've gotten a clearer shot of the cars, but that probably would've blurred the lovely sunset. And so, I learned, every shot is a photography lesson.

According to Pearson, manually adjusting camera settings in favour of a quick shutter speed (choose a higher number) can help you to capture your action shots at their best. And that's probably what I should've done to get a clearer shot of the zooming cars. Noted for next time.

But video just might be the best way to capture the action, so consider shooting video clips too. Had I spent more time with my new Panasonic Lumix GF3X's instruction manual, I'd have known that it has an auto-focus function that can lock its focus on a subject while in video mode, and gradually shift its focus to another moving subject at my fingertip's command.

2. Lighting

Light and shadows add dimension to my treasured hibiscus bloom, non? Photo by Jen Melo

Whether you're shooting with a flash indoors or outside in natural lighting, know where your light is and pay attention to those shadows.

When photographing outdoors seek "open shade," a photographer's trick for ensuring a flattering photo. Position your subject under an awning for example, with the sun behind you, and over your shoulder. This magical lighting can help make your subject's eyes look bright and vivid while eliminating squinting and distracting shadows.

When shooting indoors and flash is too harsh, consider manually adjusting your camera's exposure setting or directing the flash upwards, "bouncing" it off a low, light-coloured ceiling.

3. Framing
"Pay attention to your background," says Pearson. "It can make or break your shot."

Look for simple and/or interesting backgrounds like a brick wall, for example, to make your subject stand out. For picture-perfect results, look for natural or architectural borders and frames such as archways and door frames.

You can find plenty of framing options at playgrounds too, but if you want to avoid having a bunch of strangers' kids in your shot, follow Pearson's advice: "Get there early."

4. Composition
Experiment with the rule of thirds. Break up your frame into thirds vertically and horizontally. As you look through the viewfinder or at your camera's LCD screen, align your subject with the lines or place a focal point such as a person's eyes where the lines intersect. "It can make for a more interesting shot," Pearson explains.

5. Creativity
With digital photography enabling you to photograph and delete without incurring film and photo processing costs (remember those days?), dare to try various approaches and unleash your creativity. Alternate close-up shots with wide shots, people and objects, to help tell a story. Use photo filter options (if available on your camera) and see your photos in new and different ways.

More expert photography tips:

• Play with angles. Shoot from above, below and on the same level as your subject.
• Forget the fake smiles and try some candid shots. Avoid instructing, "smile!" before every shot. Some of Pearson's most "soulful" portraits come from natural facial expressions, free from coaching.
• Use the grid feature on your camera's view, not only to work with the rule of thirds, but also to use the straight lines as guides. Say goodbye to crooked shots of horizons or tall buildings.
• I've said it before but it's worth repeating. Read your camera's instruction manual and take time to get to know your camera's settings. There could be plenty of unexplored features just waiting to turn your photos into wonderful works of art. Or at least some answers on how to find that shutter speed setting that'll help you to get that perfect portrait of your active child.

Motion shots are my biggest challenges so some of my favourite subjects -- kids and pets -- are commonly the sources of my photo woes but I'm learning more with every shot I take.

And now, I'd love to hear your thoughts on your most common photography challenges so please post a comment below. Would you rather photograph a squirmy two-year old or a hyperactive dog? How about shooting both the dog and the kid together? I welcome -- and look forward to -- your photography tips.

“Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

February is Heart Month, and Global Pet Foods is asking you to open yours to the homeless animals in your community.

(image via Wikipedia)

Their seventh annual Show Us Your Heart campaign aims to raise money for local animal shelters. Each Global Pet Food store across Canada has chosen a local shelter to support, so any money you donate goes directly to the homeless pets in your area.

Here are just a few places that will feel the love:

• In Sydney, N.S., ABAS Society, an animal rescue for abused and neglected dogs
• In Saint John, N.B., Earth Spirit Horse Rescue, a group dedicated to saving horses from abuse, neglect and slaughter
• In Aurora, Ont., North Toronto Cat Rescue, a volunteer-run, no-kill and no-release shelter
• In Saskatoon, New Hope Dog Rescue, a network of foster homes for dogs
• In Crossfield, Alta., animal rescue shelter Tails to Tell

So how do you get involved? There are several ways:

1. Visit your local Global Pet Foods store between now and Feb. 14 to donate in person. (Global and Hill's Science Diet will give $1 for every donation they receive.)
2. Text “heart” to 20222 to donate $5.
3. Make a donation via their Facebook page.

Last year's campaign ran for just one week and raised $100,000. Here's hoping even more animals are reached this year.

Here’s a question to ponder: If you’re an airline, how do you simultaneously accommodate passengers who wish to fly with their cats while also ensuring that people who are allergic to the animal don’t suffer?

Oh, just cancel my flight. No way the plane has this much leg room (image via Wikipedia).

It’s a question Air Canada, Jazz and WestJet have been mulling over since late last year. In December, the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) ruled that the airlines had to modify their policy on allowing cats in aircraft cabins. (The policy counted a cat in his crate as one piece of carry-on baggage.)

The decision came about after three passengers who suffer from severe cat allergies issued a complaint. The CTA ruled that the airlines must do one of two things:

• ban cats from being on the same flights as passengers with severe cat allergies (“severe” in this case meaning respiratory problems, not just sneezing and a running nose); OR
• upgrade all of their planes’ air filters AND ensure a five-row buffer zone between travelling cats and passengers with allergies.

And the solution doesn’t appear to be as simple as people just leaving the family feline behind while the rest of the gang flies to Maui for a sunny holiday. For some people cats act as “emotional support animals” – basically, they’re not only a pet, but also a service animal. As such, the animal is permitted on the flight as long as the passenger can provide a note from a certified mental-health professional.

Having had time to consider their options, Air Canada finds its hands tied. As reported in The Calgary Herald:

“Air Canada says that with the exception of its Dash-8 fleet, it is ‘prepared to implement the accommodation suggested by the agency’ – namely, to upgrade the air quality and to create a cat-free buffer zone of five rows between a person with a disability as a result of their cat allergy and cats carried as pets in the cabin.

With its Dash-8 fleet, Air Canada said cats who are deemed as pets would not be carried when there is a passenger ‘with a demonstrated allergy to cats that amounts to a disability.’

But a ban on a cat classified as an emotional support animal on Dash-8 flights could put the airline ‘in breach of other legislative requirements.’”

So, indeed, what’s an airline to do? Let Fluffy fly, but be prepared to revoke his boarding pass for some Dash-8 flights (and if he does fly risk the possible – but probably unlikely – scenario of the cat breaking free from his crate and commandeering the cockpit). Or keep Fluffy grounded and risk breaking the law.

Do you travel with your pet? And what do you think of this situation: Should the rights of the passenger with allergies come before the rights of the passenger who requires the presence of their pet to travel in comfort?