Pet Parents Blog
Guides on keeping pets safe, healthy, and findable.
It's Black Cat Awareness Month. In One Shelter's Records, Black Cats Were Adopted at 3.9% in October — and the Halloween Story Isn't the Reason.
A study of 7,983 shelter cats found a real but small disadvantage for black coats — and a much bigger one for being picked up as a stray. The October dip is its own separate thing.
A 93-Country Study About Cats Has Been Everywhere This Week. In Shelters, a Microchip Took a Cat's Odds of Going Home From 1.8% to 38.5%.
Cat data is having a moment. Underneath the happiness headlines sits a less cheerful set of numbers: 56% of lost cats are carrying no identification at all, and shelters return 3% of the cats they take in.
Coyote Dispersal Season Starts This Month. Of 247 Denver-Area Pet Attacks With Detail Recorded, 76% Were on Dogs — Not Cats.
Young coyotes leave home in the fall, which is why the sightings pick up now. The research on urban coyotes and pets contradicts several things everyone repeats — including the one about dawn and dusk.
It's Child Passenger Safety Week. There's No Federal Standard for the Thing Holding Your Dog, So the Testers Borrowed the One for Car Seats.
Child Passenger Safety Week runs September 20–26. There is no federal crash standard for pet restraints, so the Center for Pet Safety applied the child seat one — and in its harness study, one product out of twelve passed.
It's National Indoor Plant Week. Across a Decade of Poison-Control Calls, the Single Most Common Thing a Cat Got Into Was a Lily.
National Indoor Plant Week started Monday. In ten years of poison-control data, lilies were the most common single exposure for cats — and a 2025 study found nearly half of exposed cats developed kidney injury.
Searches for "Private Dog Park" Are Up More Than 11x This Year. In a Study of 288 Public Off-Leash Parks, 85% Had at Least One Dog Shedding Parasites.
Renting a stranger's backyard by the hour solves the problem most people go looking for. It's worth knowing which problem it doesn't touch.
September Is the Biggest Month of the Year for Snakebite Calls. Cats Survive Them at Roughly Twice the Rate Dogs Do.
Cooling mornings put snakes back on a daytime schedule just as hiking season picks up again. The pet numbers hold a couple of genuine surprises, starting with which species does better.
Star Trek Turned 60 Yesterday. Data's Cat Was Played by at Least Six Different Cats, and Changed Sex Between Seasons.
Spot started as a male Somali and finished as a female orange tabby with kittens. Porthos was three beagles, one of whom got dyed to match. The reason productions do this says something useful about real cats.
Four Years Ago Today, the Queen Left Two Corgis Behind. Six in Ten Pet Owners With a Will Never Mention the Pet.
Queen Elizabeth II passed away four years ago today, and the question of who keeps her corgis still doesn't have a tidy answer. Most households have even less written down — here's the short-term plan and the long-term one.
Nathan Fielder's Theranos Documentary Dropped Its Trailer. A $65 Dog DNA Test Once Ended With a Pug Being Euthanized.
Pet DNA testing is a $400 million market with almost none of the oversight human genetic testing has. What the $60-$200 buys, which parts of the report hold up, and what to do with a result that frightens you.
The NFL's First Regular-Season Game in Australia Is This Week. Bringing a Dog There Takes Nine Months and One Scan That Can Undo All of It.
The 49ers and Rams open the season at the MCG — in the same city as Australia's only pet quarantine facility. The rules for getting a dog or cat there run about nine months, and every single step is keyed to one number.
World Food Prices Hit a Near Four-Year High on Friday. Pet Food Is Up 1.3% — but One in Five Dog Owners Has Already Traded Down.
Pet food inflation is running below grocery inflation, but owners are trading down anyway. Doing it well comes down to one label statement, a seven-day schedule, and knowing that cats are on a much shorter clock than dogs.
It's California Wine Month and the Crush Started Early. The Reason Grapes Hurt Dogs Turns Out to Be in Your Baking Cupboard, Too.
For about twenty years nobody could explain why grapes damage some dogs' kidneys and not others. The answer — tartaric acid — also shows up in cream of tartar, tamarind, and homemade playdough.
College Colors Day Is Today. A Dog Dyed Purple Needed Anesthesia Before Anyone Could See the Burns.
Team bandanas are easy. Dye is where it goes wrong — and human hair dye on a dog is a chemical burn waiting to happen, plus a second dose the dog swallows off her own coat.
It's National Wildlife Day. Cats Are the Most Commonly Reported Rabid Pet in America — and the Wildlife Comes to Them.
Cats account for 200 to 300 reported rabies cases a year, more than any other domestic animal in the US. Most of them never went looking for it — a bat got into the house.
Chad Powers Came Back Today. Glen Powell's Dog Started as a Bakersfield Shelter Puppy Named Ambrosia.
Season 2 of Chad Powers dropped on Hulu this morning, which means Brisket is back on red carpets. His route from a Central Valley shelter to an actor's arms in Enid, Oklahoma is a good look at how a modern rescue adoption actually works.
A Recent Study Found Dogs and People Share the Same Mortality Signature. It Took 2.6 Years of Follow-Up Instead of 28.
Researchers measured 133 molecules in the blood of 937 Dog Aging Project dogs and compared the results against nine human studies. The molecules that predict earlier death in people predict it in dogs too — which is a real finding, and also not a test you can go buy.
Illinois Just Broke the U.S. Tornado Record With Four Months Left. After Katrina, Only 15–20% of Rescued Pets Made It Home.
Illinois has logged 243 preliminary tornado reports this year, passing a national state record that stood since 2015 — and the second tornado season hasn't started yet. National Preparedness Month begins today, and the part of a pet plan that fails most often isn't the evacuation.
The FDA Posted a Nationwide Raw Pet Food Recall Friday. The Cat Bag and the Dog Bag Have Different Lot Codes.
Northwest Naturals recalled two frozen raw products — one for cats, one for dogs — after FDA testing found Salmonella and Listeria. Here are the exact lot codes, and the cleanup step that protects the people in the house.
CBS Airs Its Dolly Parton Tribute Tonight. Her First Single, at 13, Was Called "Puppy Love."
Dolly Parton passed away on August 25 at 80. The animal thread in her life ran from her 1959 debut single to the pet line she built to fund a Tennessee rescue farm.