Now that the summer season is in full swing, walking with your dog requires a few extra precautions to keep them safe and healthy. Practically every pet parent knows the rule about not leaving your dog in the a hot vehicle, but not as many know the damage that hot asphalt, pavement or even sand, can wreak on a dog’s paws.
The air temperature doesn’t have to be excessively hot to burn a dog’s skin. The air temperature only has to be 77 F for the asphalt to be 125 F, and at 125 degrees, skin destruction can occur in just 60 seconds!
Hot pavement can cause painful blisters, welts or severe burns on a dog’s feet and lead to health complications like infections.
Every pet parent loves to see their dog run in grass. However, there are some wild grasses that dogs should stay away from. Foxtails are grasses with seed awns that are extremely dangerous to dogs. That’s because the awns on foxtails are barbed, razor-sharp needles, designed to burrow into the ground with the seed. However, they can also burrow through a dog’s skin and enter soft tissue where they can cause serious injury, infection and even death.
Foxtails torpedo-shaped awns are like bullets and can penetrate any part of a dog’s body. The awns most commonly lodge in a dog’s nose, ears, underbelly, rear end and paws. Long-haired dogs are particularly susceptible, as the barbed foxtail stays attached to the dog’s long fur and are difficult to spot.
Xray of foxtail traveling inside muscle of dog’s leg (left); foxtail awns (top right); abscess in paw from foxtail (bottom right).
Every year, the Kennel Club holds a photographic competition for dog enthusiasts all over the world. Professional and amateur photographers alike submit their photos to the prestigious event, and now in its tenth year, the 2015 competition received almost 13,000 entries from a staggering 90 different countries!
“The entries for this year’s Dog Photographer of the Year competition were some of the best we have ever seen,” said Rosemary Smart, Kennel CLub Chief Executive. “Each of the winning photographers beautifully captured the essence of their canine subjects on camera, demonstrating how important dogs are to us in every walk of life.”
When you see the images, I’m sure you’ll agree all the photographers are very talented and show off the dogs in the best possible light! And be sure to check out future years’ winners in the links at the end of this article.
Anastasia Vetkovskaya was selected as the overall winner of the competition with an image of Sheldon the English Springer Spaniel entering the water early one morning. The image initially won the ‘Dogs at Work’ category.
When most people think about helping homeless animals, they picture shelters rescuing dogs and cats. One shelter in Rio de Janeiro decided to help the people caring for them, too
Founded in 2017 by journalist Glenn Greenwald and his late husband David Miranda, Abrigo Hope (HOPE Shelter) was built around a simple but powerful idea: many people experiencing homelessness already share what little they have with abandoned dogs and cats, offering them food, companionship, and protection despite their own hardships.
Rather than overlooking those relationships, the shelter chose to build on them.
HOPE began employing homeless people who had shown exceptional care and compassion for the animals living alongside them. They were paid to help rescue, care for, and protect abandoned dogs while working at the shelter.
But the support didn’t stop with a paycheck.
Working alongside a team of social workers and psychologists, the shelter also helps its employees obtain government identification, open bank accounts, manage their income, and eventually secure housing of their own.
One of the first people hired was Lucas, a 20-year-old who had been living on the streets. After joining the shelter, he was able to use his earnings to find a place to live.
The rescued dogs receive veterinary care, food, safety, and the opportunity to be adopted into loving homes. The people caring for them receive employment, dignity, support, and a chance to rebuild their lives.
The shelter, which is entirely funded by public donations, has already found homes for thousands of dogs and cares for nearly 200 at any given time. It also provides food and medication stipends to lower-income pet owners throughout the city, helping families keep the animals they love.
In 2024, HOPE secured a new parcel of land to build a larger shelter that will double the number of dogs it can care for. It is opening in the summer of 2026.
It’s a beautiful reminder that sometimes the best way to help animals is to help the people who love them, too.
When Jill rescued a tiny mouse named Carolyn, she never expected her best friend would be Cowboy, her rescue pit bull. At The Dodo, we couldn't get enough of their unlikely sibling bond.
Gardens and yards are wonderful places to relax with your family, including your dog. But is your yard safety-proofed for your dog? Although it’s not possible to rid your yard of every potential danger, there are a few simple steps that you can take that can help improve your yard’s safety for your dog.
Basic Safety
Don’t leave garden tools out. Dogs can bite, or step on, rakes, hoes and trowels and other garden tools and hurt themselves. They can also get tetanus (lock jaw) from dirty scrapes.
Secure garbage bins and composts. Teach your puppy or dog to relieve him/herself in a spot away from this space and clean up after him regularly.
Puppies are curious and love to explore, so they should always be supervised when outside and corrected in behaviors you do not want to encourage (such as eating plants, digging in the garden).
Clear mushrooms from the yard and grass as most wild mushrooms are highly toxic to dogs.
Secure pesticides and chemicals away from their reach and use sparingly (see details below).
Reduce dangers at a dog’s eye level
Examine your yard from a dog’s point of view to remove or fix things that could hurt them accidentally.
Slowly walk around your yard looking for sharp rocks, uneven stone work, pit holes and other obstacles that could hurt your dogs feet or trip them up.
Sit on the ground and look around for hazards such as protruding nails sticking out of decks, fences
Trim pointy branches or thorny bushes that can damage a dog’s eyes or cause injury to their noses, or mouths.
For five long days, a small dog lay trapped beneath the wreckage of a collapsed building after Venezuela’s devastating twin earthquakes.
Hidden deep inside the rubble in Caraballeda, she had no way out. Then rescuers heard something that stopped them in their tracks. A bark.
Emergency crews from El Salvador immediately began searching through the twisted concrete, refusing to give up on the little survivor. For five painstaking hours, they dug through the debris, following the faint sound until they finally reached the frightened dog.
The moment she emerged from the darkness, exhausted but alive, the crowd erupted in applause.
The little dog, named Giselle, wasted no time showing her gratitude. As soon as she was safely in her rescuer’s arms, she began showering his face with grateful kisses—a touching moment captured on video that has since moved people around the world.
Rescuers wrapped Giselle in a blanket and gently fed the hungry pup with a syringe before giving her a thorough medical check. Despite spending five days trapped beneath the rubble, they reported that she was in good health.
Sharing the rescue, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele wrote:
“After 5 hours, we managed to rescue this little dog who responds to the name Giselle. If anyone is her owner, they can approach our teams in the area and prove with photos or videos that she is theirs.”
As rescue teams continue searching through the devastation for survivors, Giselle’s rescue has become one of the many small miracles to emerge from the tragedy—a reminder that every life matters, and that hope can still be found beneath the rubble.
