ohmidog!

How hard Hurricane Irene might hit North Carolina and the northeast is impossible to predict at this stage, but, given its whopping size, animal welfare organizations are recommending preparing yourself and your pet for the worst.

If you haven’t put together an emergency kit for your pet, now would be a good time.

Here’s what the Humane Society of the United States recommends you include in it:

• Food and water for at least five days for each pet, bowls and a manual can opener if you are packing canned pet food.
• Medications and medical records stored in a waterproof container and a first aid kit. A pet first aid book is also good to include.
• Cat litter box, litter, garbage bags to collect all pets’ waste, and litter scoop.
• Sturdy leashes, harnesses, and carriers to transport pets safely and to ensure that your pets can’t escape. Carriers should be large enough for the animal to stand comfortably, turn around and lie down. Your pet may have to stay in the carrier for hours at a time while you are away from home. Be sure to have a secure cage with no loose objects inside it to accommodate smaller pets. These may require blankets or towels for bedding and warmth, and other special items. Newspapers, paper towels, plastic trash bags are a good idea.
• Current photos and descriptions of your pets to help others identify them in case you and your pets become separated and to prove that they are yours.
• Pet beds and toys, if you can easily take them, to reduce stress.
• Information about your pets’ feeding schedules, medical conditions, behavior problems, and the name and number of your veterinarian in case you have to board your pets or place them in foster care.

You can find more information from the HSUS here.

PETA’s website also offers some valuable information on protecting your pet in a disaster. PETA’s home office in Norfolk, Va., is in one of the areas potentially in the hurricane’s path. Cats who live at the organizations headquarters have been evacuated, and all PETA vans have been moved to high ground and stocked with food and water to help animals in crisis during and after the deluge. Extra staff and volunteers are on call.

As for what steps you can take at home, PETA has a list of emergency precautions that can be found here.

Petfinder.com is reminding pet owners to make sure all cats and dogs are wearing securely fastened collars with up-to-date identification.

If you are forced to evacuate, check beforehand to see which community shelters accept pets, or make other arrangements.

Petfinder.com offers disaster preparedness tips in English and Spanish here.

A Hurricane Irene Animal Rescue Resources page — allowing people who need help with their pets to hook up with people willing to provide it — has also been posted on Facebook. It can be found here.

The pet friendliest airline? It’s not one you can travel on.

But according to Petfinder.com, Pet Airways is where your dog can expect the best service.

Petfinder released its annual review of pet-friendly airlines this week, outlining the best options for traveling in-cabin with animal companions. (Petfinder advises against shipping your pet in cargo holds.)

Here’s which airlines came out on top in the various categories.

Most Pet-Friendly Overall: Pet Airways. Dedicated to providing a superior travel experience for animal passengers, the first-ever pet-only airline tops the list for this category due to their outstanding policies and first-class treatment of pets.

Best Amenities for Pets (and Pet Parents): JetBlue. For the second year in a row, JetBlue’s superior JetPaws program landed the airline in top place for the pet-friendly amenities category. The airline provides travelers with a pet carrier baggage tag, a travel “petiquette” guide, 300 TrueBlue points each way, and a comprehensive e-booklet with pet-friendly hotels, restaurants, parks and animal hospitals in some of JetBlue’s major cities.

Best for Transporting Pet Variety: Frontier Airlines. Frontier allows the most diverse variety of pets in cabin, including domesticated dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and small household birds.

Best for Budget-Conscious Consumers: WestJet. Included in Petfinder.com’s review for the first time, WestJet tops this category allowing small dogs, cats, rabbits and birds to travel for $50 each way in-cabin. Coming in a close second, AirTran Airways allows domesticated dogs, cats and birds to fly in cabin for $69 each way.

Best for Flying Multiple Pets in Cabin: Frontier Airlines. Frontier allows up to 10 pet containers on each flight, though only one per human.

Best for Big Furry Friends: Pet Airways. Pet Airways can accommodate some of the biggest pups in town, with the maximum height allowance being 34 inches.

“As the proud parent of a huge pet family, I know how important it is to find a way for your pets to travel safely and comfortably with you, whether across the country or across the state,” said Betsy Banks Saul, the co-founder of Petfinder.com.

“All too often we hear stories of pets dying or getting injured while traveling in a plane’s cargo. We feel strongly at Petfinder.com that you should only travel with your pet in the cabin with you when flying, which is why we continue to review and promote the pet policies of airlines each year.”

Rescued by firefighters, an Akita-chow mix named Hachi had burns over 60 percent of his body when he arrived at a southern California animal hospital.

That was back in the fall of 2009 when the dog was pulled from a Gardena auto shop that had been set ablaze in an apparent suicide.

Over the weeks he received treatment for his burns at the Affordable Animal Hospital in Torrance, dozens of people expressed interest in adopting him — but no one followed through. About a year ago, Hachi — after surviving the fire, after prolonged and costly medical treatment — appeared headed for a sadly ironic end.

When Faith Summerson, founder of Pal Rescue, heard Hachi was about to be euthanized by the county shelter due to lack of space, she stepped forward, and Hachi was rescued again.

She picked him up and sought to find him a forever home  – keeping him in one of her kennels and later at her own home.

Pal Rescue was founded in 1995 and has helped find homes for over 3,000 cats and dogs. Hachi, though — despite gaining notoriety on the Internet, because of his unusual appearnace, as the “Terminator” dog — didn’t appear destined to become one of them.

Until last month, when his year and a half wait ended.

After his story appeared on the news, Pal Rescue reports, they heard from a man who had recently lost his own dog. While many had offered him dogs to fill the void of his previous dog’s death, he had turned them all down, opting to wait instead for a dog  who truly needed him — one not everybody else would want.

Call it rescue No. 3 for Hachi, a dog named, after his first rescue, for the legendary Akita, Hachiko, who waited every day at a train station in Japan for his master to return from work — and continued to do so for another 10 years after his master’s death.

The rescue organization reports that  Hachi’s new dad is “a very dedicated and experienced dog owner that has had many beloved dogs in his lifetime, and always gravitated to the ones most in need.”

“The two hit it off immediately when we home delivered Hachi yesterday … Hachi was at ease the moment he walked in the door.”

You can find Hachi’s full story at petfinder.com

Petfinder.com has announced its annual ranking of the 10 most popular names for adoptable pets in 2009.

For the third year in a row, “Buddy” and “Max” came in at first and second for dogs, with “Lucy” and “Smokey” topping the list of cat names.

While many of the most common names have remained consistent year-to-year, there was one new name turning up on the list for both cats and dogs – “Bella.”

The top 10 dog names were: 1. Buddy; 2. Max; 3. Daisy; 4. Lucy; 5. Charlie; 6.  Bella; 7. Molly; 8. Jack; 9. Sadie; 10. Lady.

The top 10 cat names: 1. Lucy; 2. Smokey; 3. Midnight; 4. Bella; 5. Molly; 6. Daisy; 7. Oreo; 8. Shadow; 9. Charlie; 10. Angel.

Petfinder.com is also sharing its favorite quirky and unusual names of the year, selected from more than 170 submissions received via Facebook and Twitter.  Here are their favorites:

Shyanne Thailand Moo Goo Guy Pan, Mr. Tomfoolery Scardeycat Eliot, Rusty Buckets, KeelHaul, Too Fancy for You, Angry Donut, Maple Syrup, Hoseclamp, Prince Xavier Binxley, Hoku-ho’okele-wa’a.

“While funny names are always a big hit, we are also seeing a trend of pet parents giving their furry friends middle names, such as ‘Sunshine Ray,’ ‘Roxanna Bobanna Little’ and ‘Madison Wisconsin,’ suggesting that these animals are more like family members than family pets,” said Betsy Saul, the co-founder of Petfinder.com.

Petfinder.com is an online, searchable database of animals that need permanent homes, compiled from 12,900 animal shelters and adoption organizations across the USA, Canada and Mexico.

Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, and Operation Scarlet, a Shar Pei rescue group based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania have won the first round of voting — and $1,000 grants — in the The Animal Rescue Site’s $100,000 Shelter+ Challenge.

A total of $100,000 in grants will be awarded to shelters and rescue organizations in the 2009 Challenge, which wraps up July 26.

Members of the public can vote for their favorite shelters once a day at theanimalrescuesite.com.

This year, a grand prize of $20,000 will go to the top vote-getting organization. The second place winner will receive $5,000 and third place will receive $3,000. Honorable Mentions of $1,500 will go the fourth and fifth highest vote-getters.

“Because the voting lasts for fifteen weeks on our site, there is plenty of time left for new shelters to leap into the lead,” said Rosemary Jones, a spokesperson for The Animal Rescue Site. “We’ve also increased the number of grants, so there are more even opportunities for all types of Petfinder.com shelters and rescue organizations to receive anywhere from $1,000 weekly winner (for the most votes cast that week) to regional awards to the $20,000 grand prize.”

As of April 30, the top ten shelters in the Challenge in alphabetical order were: Best Friends Animal Society, Kanab, Utah; Days End Farm Horse Rescue; Lisbon, Maryland; Humane Society of Huron Valley, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, Inc., Pittsville, Wisconsin; Oasis Sanctuary, Benson, Arizona; Operation Scarlet Inc, Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary, Ovando, Montana; SBU Cat Network, Stony Brook, New York; Seminole County Animal Services, Sanford, Florida; and Wynne Friends of Animals, Wynne, Arkansas.

It’s Puppy Bowl time again.

A perennial favorite for those seeking an alternative to the Super Bowl, the Puppy Bowl is basically two hours of watching rambunctious puppies frolic on the gridiron of Animal Planet Stadium.

Puppy Bowl V will be the first to feature an entire cast of shelter and rescue dogs – all 20 dogs featured are up-for-adoption pets, or free agents to use the sports term. Two are from our neck of the woods — the SPCA of Anne Arundel County.

The SPCA also provided the cats that will be featured as half-time entertainment.

To kick start this year’s sports extravaganza, “Pepper the Parrot,” will be singing a unique rendition of the National Anthem.

To find out more about the Puppy Bowl, and how to vote for Most Valuable Puppy, visit Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl web page.

The Puppy Bowl airs from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday on Animal Planet network.

Here’s a look at last year’s action:

Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter (BARCS) is lowering its adoption fees for the rest of December, and will waive it entirely for animals two years old and older.

The move comes amid a surplus of abandoned dogs and cats — many of them dropped off by families facing financial difficulties.

“We’re being inundated with healthy, adoptable animals,” said BARCS executive director Jennifer Mead-Brause told the Baltimore Sun. “We have people driving up in U-Hauls, dropping off their pets. It’s heartbreaking.”

On top of that, the economic downturn has resulted in fewer people showing up to adopt.

For pups and kittens six months and younger, the fee will continue to be the usual $65, which includes spay/neuter, vaccinations, and preventatives. For animals aged 7 months up to 2 years, the fee hs been dropped to $10, and for animals under two, there will be no fee at all.

The reduced fees are in effect from Dec. 13 through Dec. 31.

To see the animals now at BARCS, you can visit BARCS Petfinder page, or visit in person, at 301 Stockholm St. Shelter Hours are Monday to Friday, 12:30 to 6:30 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Petfinder has announced the results of its dogs in ugly holiday sweaters contest, and they’ve chosen three submissions to go on ugly holiday e-cards that you can send by going here.

Of course, we’re using “ugly” in a nice way. Perhaps we should spell it a different way, like phat instead of fat. How about “uglee?” Something that is uglee, pronounced ug-LEEEE, is so hideous as to actually be cool; whereas ugly, pronounced UG-lee, is, well, just plain ugly with no redeeming value.

Feel free to use my newly coined hip phrase at your will. But back to the contest winners.

Above is Bella, a lab/pit bull mix adopted from the Bowling Green Warren County Humane Society (in Kentucky). Her owner, Megan Fisher, says they call this her ”Cosby Sweater” and reports that she loves wearing it.

 The other finalists included Kasey, who has outgrown the number being modeled above, and Landon, a Yorkie mix currently up for adoption through PPAWSS, Promoting Pet Adoptions and Welfare in Sulphur Springs (Texas).

Then there was Hot Momma, the Chinese-Crested (a breed that actually needs sweaters) who was submitted by Angela M. Shatzer of Carolina Poodle Rescue in Spartanburg, SC; and Isabel, whose owner notes she ”definitely looks like a chub of sausage in this sweater.” Isabel’s not fond of the sweater, but it keeps her from rubbing the hair off her belly.

You can see all the finalists and read about them on Petfinders blog.

But be forewarned, they (the sweaters, not the dogs) are ug-LEEEEEE!

(Photos courtesy of petfinder.com)

It’s time again for the most popular — and most unusual — pet names, as determined by Petfinder and its adoptions list of 145,242 dogs and 140,269 cats

For the dogs, Buddy was the number one name, and Max was number two, for the second year in a row.

The rest of the top ten, in order were: Daisy, Jack, Lucy,  Molly, Charlie, Sadie, Jake and Lucky.

For cats, the top ten names were Lucy, Molly, Oreo, Kittens, Smokey, Princess, Shadow, Tigger, Angel and Missy.

Read more »

The only thing worse than a tacky holiday sweater, we all know, is a tacky holiday sweater on a dog.

I think this guy’s expression pretty much sums it up — sort of, “c’mon, are you serious?”

But here’s a chance to put that holiday sweater to good use. Petfinder.com is having an ugliest pet sweater contest, and the winner will grace a Petfinder holiday e-card.

You must act quickly though, and submit your picture — it can be you, your dog, or the both of you in ugly holiday sweaters — by Sunday, Nov. 23.

Submit your picture here.

(Photo courtesy of petfinder.com)