The Hartsdale Pet Cemetery, one of the oldest of its kind in this country, will host a memorial service for military dogs and those who have been trained to assist fire, police and the like at 1 p.m. on Sunday at the cemetery, 75 Central Park Avenue in Hartsdale.

The cemetery includes a bronze and granite War Dog Memorial, first erected in 1923, that stands 10-feet high.  Started in 1896 by a Manhattan veterinarian, there are now nearly 70,000 animals interred at the cemetery.

Yeah it’s cute to see a dog with its head hanging out the car window on a hot day, but is it safe?

Not according to the video of one German crash test for pets, which showed the consequences of securing dogs (or not securing dogs) in a variety of ways, including crates and seatbelts.

I don’t speak German, but the results are pretty clear. My own dogs ride in the car in a shared hard-sided plastic crate that sits on the backseat with the door to the crate facing the backseat passenger door.

I had always thought that was pretty safe, but was surprised to see how quickly a plastic crate disintegrated upon impact. My crate, however, is not tied down, which is what looks like caused most of the destruction.

Thoughts?

It’s long been reported by researchers and behaviorists that animals can have a positive effect on a person’s health. That’s one reason why many hospitals are eager to let working therapy dogs visit seriously ill patients.

This report from NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams showcases another way dogs can help humans in the most difficult of positions. The feature showcases Puppies Behind Bars, a program which involves dogs being trained by prisoners and then sent to live with people who need their assistance and companionship.

As the report noted, these dogs not only provide the prisoners in this women’s maximum security prison a way to give back to the society whose laws they violated, they give those who are suffering, including soldiers, a reason to get on with life.

The Journal News reported today that Lenore, the miniature goat reported missing last week from a home in West Nyack has been found dead in her barn.

The Szymanski family had been concerned that Lenore had been stolen and used for some kind of black magic or witchcraft sacrifice. But in the end, Lenore, acting out in a way many animals do, went off to find a private place to die.

Readers on our forums have been blasting the family for going to the police and the media about a missing goat, but they still lost a member of their family.

(Photo courtesy of the Szymanski family. Lenore is the smaller of the two goats pictured.) 

Credit goes to one smart bird and his smart owners for the latest in amazing animal rescues.

Yosuke the parrot flew the coop from his home near Tokyo, but was able to tell veterinarians his name and home address. He was reunited with his owners, the Nakamuras, shortly after.

Some people may laugh, but I’d teach my dogs their address and names if I could. There is some great ways to help reunite missing pets with their owners, but this takes the cake.

The best I could do was have microchips implanted in my dogs. Those chips, which can be scanned at most shelters or vet offices, carry their information and mine. Some people rely on simple collars—some now have GPS built into them—and others tattoo their animals.

But again—a big bravo to Yosuke and the Nakamuras for great thinking.

Apparently police in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico have too much time on their hands. Or they were desperate to fill some kind of incarceration quota.

Media outlets are reporting that police there jailed Blacky the donkey for three days after he  bit and kicked two men.

And it seems Blacky hasn’t been the only four-legged creature in the slammer in the area. A dog was jailed in 2006, also for biting someone.

The full story can be read here.

How would you feel if your community required you to spay or neuter your pet by 4 or 6 months of age or else be fined? Would you still do it after hearing some pet health providers say that these types of surgeries at earlier ages may be leading to other health problems? That’s the debate raging in some communities across the country, according to a story on MSNBC.com.

Several veterinarians cited in the article say they oppose mandating spaying and neutering, which is required in place like Los Angeles, San Mateo and Belmont, Calif.; Palm Beach, Fla.; and North Las Vegas, Nev.

Some of the health problems that could result of earlier spaying and neutering include some thyroid cancers, aggression in male dogs and incontinence in female dogs.

We had our Lab Maggie spayed when she was about 6 months old. Now 10 1/2, she has experienced some incontinence problems, which our vet said is common in spayed older females. The vet said they could give her medication to help control the incontinence, but it occurs so infrequently that we prefer to take her out to the bathroom more often than medicate her, for now. As for Otis, we waited to neuter him until he was about 1 year old because we weren’t sure if we were going to show him. No aggression problems there—he’s a giant mush.

Did you spay/neuter your dog or cat? At what age? How would you feel about mandatory spaying/neutering?

Photo by Stuart Bayer/The Journal News

A lot of credence has been given to technology, but there may be cause to look back in history for another way to predict natural disasters.

Animals have long been used in some cultures as a warning system. And now there are media reports that animals from toads and peacocks to zebras and elephants acted strangely in the hours before this weeks devastating earthquake in China.

Scientists have long said that animals can sense things humans can not. Dogs are said to have been able to detect early cancer and oncoming seizures while cats are sensitive to approaching storms.

While using animal “vibes” so to speak is not the only way to handle such emergencies, it might be a good idea to pay closer attention to them.

Probably.  At least, I hope so.

But take a look through this MSNBC.com feature about animal smarts. I was particularly impressed with Betty the crow who fashioned a food-retrieving tool.

And I’ll always be fascinated with dolphins. Researchers believe they have their own language and are one of the more creative mammals (outside humans, of course.) When I visited a dolphin preserve in Florida this spring I attended an hour-long lecture on dolphins and their behaviors and I was super impressed… and informed.

Did you know that dolphins consider a person nodding their head to be saying “No?”

That it’s considered “rude” not to look them directly in the eye?  Or that they sometimes like to play tricks on humans and each other?

Just one more reason animals need to be treated with a lot more respect than they get from most.

Beauty the bald eagle will soon be able to regain the use of her beak for eating, drinking and preening.

The 7-year-old eagle suffered severe damage after her beak was shot off and scientists have built her a prosthetic to keep her alive.

A CNN.com article details the efforts made to save Beauty with a procedure experts aren’t sure will even work.

 (AP Photo/Young Kwak)