Category Dog Care Basics

How to Keep Your Dog Cool in Summer Two summers ago, during a brutal heatwave, I made a mistake I still feel guilty about. I took my terrier mix out for his normal midday walk — same route, same pace…

How to Travel With Your Dog Safely The first road trip I took with my dog was a six-hour drive to visit family, and I prepared for it the way I prepare for everything: not at all. I threw his…

Spaying or Neutering Your Dog: What New Owners Should Know The first time my vet said the words “we should talk about scheduling the spay,” I nodded like I understood — and then went home and fell down a three-hour…

How to Socialize a Puppy the Right Way When I brought home my first puppy, I thought socialization meant letting her play with as many dogs as possible, as fast as possible. So on day three I took her to…

There is a special kind of torture known only to new puppy owners: you have this tiny creature with legs like pipe cleaners, the sun is shining, and every instinct screams take the puppy outside — while your vet, your…

The first time I realized something was wrong with Biscuit’s sleep, it wasn’t dramatic. My sister’s beagle puppy — the same land-shark who once ate a remote control — had started sleeping through her evening zoomie hour. Three days of…

Let me tell you about the worst advice I ever followed. When Biscuit — my sister’s beagle puppy, who I “temporarily” fostered for four months — hit twelve weeks old, a well-meaning guy at the dog park told me the…

Every morning at 6:40, my alarm goes off and roughly four seconds later, a cold nose touches my elbow. That is Rusty — a scruffy terrier mix with the timekeeping skills of a Swiss train station. When I first brought…