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60 million people have watched this touching clip of a woman feeding her dog chocolate

"For us, dogs are just a chapter, but for them, we’re their whole story."

via Steph Munden/Pexels

A golden retriever relaxing on the couch.

Veterinarians strongly urge people to avoid feeding chocolate to dogs. Cocoa beans are toxic to them because they contain two methylxanthines, theobromine and caffeine. Dogs are unable to metabolize theobromine, which can lead to chocolate toxicity.

Caffeine raises blood the dog’s blood pressure and causes dangerous cardiac arrhythmias. If a dog consumes too much chocolate, they can suffer from gastrointestinal upset, vomiting, tremors, seizures, heart failure and even slip into a coma.

Given that chocolate is dangerous for dogs, there is one time when vets will allow them to enjoy the sweet treat. Sadly, that’s before they are put to sleep. Recently, an animal hospital in Smiths Station, Alabama, made headlines for its jar of Hershey’s Kisses that says, “Goodbye Kisses: This jar is reserved for our euthanasia appointments... because no dog should go to Heaven without tasting chocolate.”

A touching video posted to TikTok by Mackenzie Seton has over 59 million views because it shows a tender moment when her dog is able to enjoy the taste of chocolate before going to the vet to be put to sleep.

“I miss my best friend,” she captioned the video.

The video has moved countless people to tears, as evidenced by the comments. "For us, dogs are just a chapter, but for them, we’re their whole story. It’s sad," the most popular commenter wrote. I read this quote many years ago that said, 'I have loved you your whole life and will miss you the rest of mine,' and I’m just not ready to lose my baby," Taasha120 added.

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dogs

Joy

Should declawing cats be illegal? Maryland to join New York in banning the practice.

Photo by Dan Smedley on Unsplash

States are passing legislation making cat declawing illegal.

Anyone who has had cats knows they can do a number on your furniture. Even if you get a scratching post for them, they may prefer to claw your chair backs or sofa arms. Even if you make liberal use of a spray bottle to shoo them away from things you don't want them to scratch, they may throw a huge claw-sharpening party in your living room while you're asleep.

They are soft and gorgeous, but they have razors on their feet. That's just how cats are.

Some people try to circumvent this reality by having their pet cats declawed. By surgically removing a cat's claws, pet owners remove the problem of furniture clawing. But they also remove a major part of a cat's anatomy, which can cause lifelong problems for our feline friends.

In fact, the practice is so potentially detrimental that states are beginning to make laws banning it.

In 2019, New York became the first state to ban onychectomy—the technical term for cat declawing—in most instances. The only exceptions are if the amputation procedure is being done to treat a cat's medical condition, such as infection or injury. Veterinarians who declaw a cat for any other reason face a $1,000 fine.

Now Maryland has joined New York, with its own legislation prohibiting the practice passing in both the state house and senate. According to the Associated Press, the bill stipulates that vets who declaw cats for any reason other than "therapeutic purposes" would face a fine of up to $5,000 for a first offense and up to $10,000 for a second offense, as well as possibly having their license suspended or revoked.

"Declawing is a horrendously painful and disfiguring surgery," Senator Mary Washington (D-Baltimore City) said, according to WUSA 9 News. "It is positively inhuman and conducted solely for the benefit of the owner. It has no benefit for the cat, in fact, quite the opposite."

As the Humane Society of the United States points out, declawing a cat isn't the cat equivalent of a human manicure, like many people believe it is. It's the equivalent of cutting off our fingers at our last knuckle, removing our fingernails entirely. Imagine how much more uncomfortable and limiting our lives would be without our fingertips, not to mention the painful recovery from such a surgery. That's similar to how declawing impacts cats.

"Medical drawbacks to declawing include pain in the paw, infection, tissue necrosis (tissue death), lameness, and back pain," writes the Humane Society. "Removing claws changes the way a cat's foot meets the ground and can cause pain similar to wearing an uncomfortable pair of shoes. There can also be a regrowth of improperly removed claws, nerve damage, and bone spurs."

Declawing cats may also create challenges for them while using the litter box and may lead a cat to bite more than they normally would as well.

A big round of applause for the state of Maryland for being the 2nd state behind New York to recognize that cats have the right not to undergo forcible amputation - in other words they\u2019ve outlawed declawing!https://people.com/pets/maryland-will-become-second-state-to-prohibit-pet-owners-from-declawing-cats/?amp=true\u00a0\u2026
— Jackson Galaxy (@Jackson Galaxy) 1647050693

While the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) discourages the practice of cat declawing and animal rights activists have pushed for it to be banned, the New York State Veterinary Medical Society was a vocal critic of New York's ban. The organization, which is the largest veterinarian organization in New York, said that declawing should be allowed if an owner finds themselves with no alternative other than abandonment or euthanasia.

Animal rights activists, however, have celebrated the legislation as a victory for cats, who rely on their claws as essential body parts. When we know better, we do better, and knowing how declawing cats negatively impacts their quality of life makes it a practice that should only be done if it's medically necessary for the cat not for the convenience of the human charged with their care.

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What's the best place to be a cat? These are the most feline-friendly cities in America

Photo by Daria Shatova on Unsplash

The life of a housecat is generally pretty cozy, but some cities make it easier to spoil our kitties than others.

According to a new ranking of cat-friendly cities from OneVet, felines in Florida are particularly fortunate. The state boasts the honor of having three cities in the top 10, and is the only state to have multiples cities on the list. (Florida. Who knew?)

The "Best U.S. Cities to Be a Cat" rankings are based on five equally-weighted factors: the number of pet-friendly rentals, number of veterinarians, number of cat cafes, number of pet stores, and number of cat adoptions in 2020 (all per 100K population). A pretty solid set of criteria, at least from a human perspective.

(If cats themselves were making these rankings, we'd be looking at number of mice per square block, number of birds visible through windows, number of sucker humans that can be convinced to put food out for us, etc.)

Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

Anyhoo, pouncing in as the number one cat-friendly city in America is Miami, Florida, with a score of 43.47 out of a maximum score of 50. In a close second was Orlando, followed by Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati.

Offering a nice geographical spread, the cities of Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Tampa, and Riverside, CA rounded out the top ten.

blog.onevet.ai

So how about the worst places to be a cat?

Well, you can take your pick of cities from coast to coast, with New York City being the worst, with a shockingly low score of 5.23, and two California metros—San Francisco and Los Angeles—making the bottom 10.

Others on the cat-unfriendly list include Memphis, New Orleans, Jacksonville (so Florida isn't all feline-friendly), Phoenix, Detroit, Houston, and Virginia Beach.

blog.onevet.ai

Of course, the care and feeding of a cat is mainly a product of how wrapped around their owner's finger they are, but it is interesting to see how much varies from city to city as far as cat-friendly amenities goes. Apparently the Northwest is remarkably average, with no cities in the top or bottom 10. (Either that, or the region just entirely forgotten about, which happens a lot.)

But really, cats themselves don't care all the much. As long as they get rubs and snuggles when they want them (and only when they want them) and as long as everything is exactly as they feel it should be, they're happy wherever they live.

Photo by Yerlin Matu on Unsplash

And hey, at least Florida has something to brag about other than off-the-wall people and off-the-rails politicians. "Most cat-friendly state in the U.S." may not be much, but it's something.

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veterinarians

60 million people have watched this touching clip of a woman feeding her dog chocolate

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Should declawing cats be illegal? Maryland to join New York in banning the practice.

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