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WASHINGTON (AP) - Dogs who get a little green under the fur while traveling gained the first drug Wednesday to prevent vomiting associated with motion sickness. The Food and Drug Administration said the drug, Cerenia, is the first to prevent and treat vomiting in dogs. When used in tablet form, the Pfizer Inc. (PFE) drug can prevent vomiting associated with motion sickness, the FDA said. The agency also approved an injectable form of the drug, known generically as maropitant citrate, that it said can prevent and treat acute vomiting due to chemotherapy, parvovirus, kidney disease, pancreatitis and other causes. Severe vomiting can lead to dehydration and death in dogs, the FDA said. Both versions of the New York company's dog drug are available only by order of a veterinarian.

CATARACT, Wis. (AP) - Jason Schindler says he wouldn't be alive if it were not for his dog, Dude. The 27-year-old rural Cataract man said the 8-year-old mixed-breed hound jumped between him and an attacking black bear Thursday night, saving his life but giving up his own. The animal sustained at least 28 puncture wounds to his chest and neck, he said. "I'd hate for someone else's dog to go through what mine did," he said. Schindler and his wife, Kimberly, buried the dog with a blanket and pillow the next day, using a rented jackhammer to dig the grave in the frozen soil. He said he heard the dog yelping loudly Thursday after dark and went out to see what was happening. Suddenly, "all I saw was this dark thing lunging at me," Schindler said. But his dog jumped between the two and was quickly snatched up in the bear's jaw, he said. "If not for the dog, I wouldn't be standing here," Schindler said. The bear, estimated at being between 400

CLIFTON, N.J. (AP) - The city of Clifton is not going to the dogs. At least not if the City Council has anything to do about it. Later this month, the council is expected to introduce an ordinance setting a limit on how long dogs can bark. Noisy canines will be defined as those that bark for more than 30 minutes on two consecutive days. The city already has nuisance and "noise laws that can be used to address annoying and disturbing noises such as constant barking." But officials said those laws are sometimes difficult to enforce. Police have to investigate complaints, and the city Health Department sent 11 letters last year warning that a summons could be issued if the barking continued, health officer John Biegel said. Clifton has issued 3,756 dog licenses this year. Getting a summons is rare, because the person who complained must go to court to sign a complaint. Fines for the new ordinance could start at $250, Biegel said.

WASHINGTON (AP) - That fur trim on your jacket that you think is fake? Tell it to Fido. An animal advocacy group says its investigation has turned up coats - some with designer labels, some at higher-end retailers - with fur from man's best friend. Some retailers were set scrambling to pull the coats from shelves, take them off Web sites and even offer refunds to consumers. The Humane Society of the United States said it purchased coats from reputable outlets, such as upscale Nordstrom, with designer labels - Andrew Marc, Tommy Hilfiger, for example - and found them trimmed with fur from domestic dogs, even though the fur was advertised as fake. "It's an industrywide deception," said Kristin Leppert, the head of the Human Society's anti-fur campaign. The investigation began after the society got a tip from a consumer who bought a coat with trim labeled as faux fur that felt real. Leppert and her team began buying coats from popular retailers and then had the coats

CHICAGO (AP) - There's an open secret in medicine: Patients lie. They lie about how much they smoke and whether they're taking their medicine. They understate how much they drink and overstate how much they exercise. They feign symptoms to get appointments quicker and ask doctors to hide the truth from insurance companies. "Doctors have a rule of thumb. Whatever the patient says they're drinking, multiply it by three," said Dr. Bruce Rowe, a family doctor in suburban Milwaukee. "If they say two drinks a day, assume they have six." Hippocrates, the father of medicine, is said to have warned his students around 400 B.C. that patients often dissemble when they say they've taken their medicine. TV's fictional Dr. Gregory House repeats the same message to his crack team: "Everybody lies." But lying can lead to expensive diagnostic procedures and unneeded referrals to specialists. It also can have disastrous results. "I definitely learne

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Despite the feel-good story of Velvet, the black labrador mix who helped keep three Mount Hood hikers warm and alive, some experts say taking dogs up the mountain for warmth and companionship is a foolhardy practice that could do more harm than good. "Any sport that requires safety gear, like harnesses, crampons, ice axes and rope, is probably not an appropriate place for a pet dog to be," and could endanger both the dog and owner, said Julie Kittams, a Portland veterinarian for sled dogs in the Iditarod. Taking a dog on a mountain-climbing expedition, she said, is "like caring for an injured team member. It just hinders your ability to get safely off the mountain." The dog kept the climbers warm as they were tucked into sleeping bags Sunday night in a whiteout snowstorm at 7,300 feet, about 4,000 feet shy of the summit. A sheriff declared that the dog saved the hikers' lives, but it was not clear whether they took the dog along for anythin

Las Vegas Shelter Kills 1,000 Dogs, Cats Feb 16, 12:40 PM (ET) LAS VEGAS (AP) - An outbreak of contagious diseases at a shelter where officials admit they kept animals for too long without destroying them has forced the killing of about 1,000 dogs and cats, officials said. Visiting inspectors from The Humane Society of the United States discovered the outbreak of the diseases - distemper and Parvovirus in dogs and panleukopenia in cats - Lied Animal Shelter spokesman Mark Fierro said. The mass culling, which began Feb. 9, is believed to be the largest in the city's history and has prompted shelter officials to change their methods of caring for animals. Animal rights activists said they were outraged by the killings. "It's unforgivable in light of the fact that it was absolutely preventable," said Holly Stoberski, legal counsel for Heaven Can Wait Sanctuary, a group that has worked with Lied to find homes for impounded animals. "They were not properly vaccinating

A Very Special Kitty A Friendly and Outgoing 4 year old Maine Coon Female Fritzy is very friendly and outgoing. She is a kitty who loves lots of companionship and attention. She loves to play and even walks on a leash! She is quite dog-like for a cat. She has all of her shots up to date and has been microchipped. I even have the funds donated from a rescue group to have her spayed. I pulled Fritzy from the shelter where I work. She is intolerant of cages and has tested positive for FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus). Fritzy was brought to the shelter where I work in November. She did not do well in the shelter atmosphere. She needed to be caged and that was too stressful for her. Her enthusiasm for life started to fail. In early January it was decided they would euthanize her so I pulled her from the shelter and she has been staying at a friend’s house who has kids and a dog since then. I cannot bring her to my apartment to live with my kitties and I. My friend, at whose home she is n

This past holiday, we made a big trip up to the northeast to see all our relatives. We traveled by SUV with the two doggies and the whole trip lasted 3 weeks. Part of the trip was spent in New Jersey visiting my grandma and aunt. They live about 10 minutes from the shore (the ocean, for you non-Jerseyites!), and a visit to the shore was on my list of things-to-do. My sister, hubby and I drove to the beach, and I was able to get about 20 yards from the breaking waves via a new "boardwalk" that I could wheel on. While I sat in my wheelchair looking at the ocean, my sister and the hubby walked a bit on the beach. It was unseasonable warm while we were there and even with the ocean breezes, I was comfortably cool. A woman walked up behind me on the boardwalk on her way to the beach. She was dressed nicely in a coordinated track-suit, and we made some small talk. "There isn't anything else like it, is there?", she said. I agreed. "I'm living in Texas no

Sometimes I feel like my pets define me. When I got my first dog (pet dog) JoJo , I became a "dog owner". Then I began dog-training classes, beginner, intermediate, and advanced... and became a "dog trainer". When I trained my first Service Dog, also JoJo, I became a "service-dog trainer". I guess my reptiles also define me. Once I got my first reptile, a Texas Alligator Lizard named James , I became a "lizard owner". Some would disagree with that and say I actually became a nut-case for owning a cold-blooded, cricket-eating beast. (I do have friends that have nightmares about my house and what's in the freezer right now!) As I expanded my reptile brood, I soon became a "herpetologist" and a "lizard breeder". My relationships define me too. I'm a "big sister", a "daughter", a "grand-daughter", a "cousin", a "niece". I'm also a "wife", and some would say w

Zoo Tours Cash in on Hot Monkey Love TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Genevieve Chandler has been visiting the Lowry Park Zoo since she was a kid, but the tour she got the other night was definitely not the G-rated fare of her childhood. Among the things Chandler, 30, and her date learned on their "Wild at Heart" zoo tour: Male pigs have a unique corkscrew endowment and impressive, um, output; manatees have orgies and don't really care if their partners are male or female; and a male porcupine has only one four-hour window a year to mate - very carefully, of course. Valentine's Day is the time of year when zoos around the nation seek to woo a new adult audience with risque tours that couple champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries and candlelight dining with impressive facts about how animals do the wild thing. Credit for the concept goes to Jane Tollini, a former penguin keeper at the San Francisco Zoo. Tollini conceived the idea two decades ago while watching her penguins' c

Story Highlights • Witnesses say a hospital van left a homeless patient on Skid Row in Los Angeles • The man was paraplegic, wore a hospital gown and had a torn colostomy bag • Witnesses gave van's tag number to police • Spokesman at Hollywood Presbyterian says it is investigating LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A hospital van dropped off a paraplegic man on Skid Row, allegedly leaving him crawling in the street with nothing more than a soiled gown and a broken colostomy bag, police said. Witnesses who said they saw the incident Thursday wrote down a phone number on the van and took down its license-plate number, which helped detectives connect the vehicle to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site. Police said the incident was a case of "homeless dumping" and were questioning officials from the hospital. "I can't think of anything colder than that," said Detective Russ Long. "There was no mission around, no

Our bed is up on risers, making it pretty high off the floor. It's pretty kewl because it gives us space to store stuff underneath, plus it makes the bed nice and tall for tall-drink-of-water me. Last night, when climbing into bed, Frankie came along side me and put his front paws on the bed (leaving his rear paws on the floor). He stretched as tall as he could (which is pretty dern tall since he's a tall boy) and looked at me as if to say "mommy, can you pick me up onto the bed?". That would be a No. So I talked to him, saying "hup", trying to get him to jump into bed like he always does. Did I mention it was 2 a.m.? I moved about a foot to the right of him and kept encouraging him to jump onto the bed. He decided he was too tired to jump up, and instead moved sideways over to me and leaned on me. Pretty cute. For a doofus... I mean the dog. Oy.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) - Man bites dog; dog bites back. That was the sequence when Alsatian police dog Edge cornered two suspects on a cliff side after a grocery store robbery in Napier, New Zealand, police said on Thursday. One of the suspects leaped down the slope and landed almost directly into the hands of police officers waiting at the bottom. The other suspect, who was armed with a knife took on Edge, and bit the dog in the struggle. "He bit the dog first," Detective Sergeant John McGregor told The Associated Press. Edge was unfazed, sinking his teeth into his attacker. "The dog did win the fight, the offender ended up with one or two lacerations," McGregor said. "I think he knew he was going to get bitten - so he bit the dog first." Two men were arrested and appeared in Napier District Court Wednesday charged with aggravated robbery for the attack on the grocery store on Tuesday, during which the owner was stabbed. They were ordered to remain

COVINGTON, La. (AP) - A Covington man was arrested on animal cruelty charges after police seized 21 pit bulls from a house filled with dog feces and urine, police said. Officers were overwhelmed by the stench Tuesday when they entered the ramshackle home, where the wooden floors had rotted from the animal waste and urine trickled down the stairs, Lt. Jack West said. "The smell was so strong some veteran officers had to run outside to keep from throwing up," he said. John Austin Adams, 57, who neighbors said was breeding the dogs and trying to sell them for $500 each, was booked with 21 counts of animal cruelty and other charges. "I had no idea he had so many dogs," said Kathy Clark, who runs a title company in a house across the street. "We sat and watched from the window as they brought out one dog after another after another after another." --- Information from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.timespicayune.com

As some of my readers know, I keep reptiles as pets . I find they make great pets for us crips and I do enjoy learning about them. It keeps my brain active and that's important. A friend of mine had Prehensile-Tailed Skink , which is one of the lizards I keep. He would let his skink have the run of the house. It had it's own tree to climb up, and would defecate in the same spot every time and wouldn't mess all over the house. He told me a great story that really shows how smart these lizards are. A few years ago, his house caught on fire. It was pretty much a total loss. He lost all his birds and almost all of his reptiles. All but one, that is. The firemen found his prehensile-tailed skink at his back door. Alive. It had crawled across the room to the nearest door, and stayed alive by breathing the fresh air coming in under that door. A small crack of air saved it's life. Smarty lizard.

A friend recently adopted a rescued Rottweiler "puppy". I put puppy in quotes because this doggie is 6 months old and already weighs 65 lbs! It's paws are like bear paws!!!! Anyway, my friend didn't realize that I trained dogs. So I offered to run a few dog-training classes for him so we could work on basic obedience. He's very interested in teaching the dog hand-signals , which is my forte. We talked about some basic stuff during my visit. Since this pup is so large and will eventually be a beast, maintaining the alpha position will be imperative for the humans in the house. Here's an article I wrote about training for the alpha position. I'll be starting the class soon. For my local friends, if you read this and are interesting in bringing your dog for a refresher course, I'll be sending out emails when I schedule the class. Should be fun... No charge as usual! (But dog-cookie tips are welcome!)