Home Zookeeper

With the activity in the Atlantic with the third named storm of the season, it is a reminder that we are still in hurricane season and to have an emergency plan. Thousands of animals were left homeless after Katrina, so it’s important to also have plan for your pets if you have to evacuate.

Some shelters will allow animals or most will at least help you find a temporary home for your animals in case of an evacuation. A lot of people will open up their lands to people evacuating with animals especially those with large animals like horses. It’s best to find have an idea of a place you will be evacuating to and then check in that area for such shelters. Typically churches and the Red Cross open up as emergency shelters. The Red Cross might have a list of contacts for those evacuating with animals.

Many people will not evacuate without their pets, so it’s important to have an evacuation plan that includes them.

I love to go to our local zoo. Admission is only a few dollars and is a couple of hours of entertainment for my little girl. She loves the prairie dogs. I think I have about as many pictures of prairie dogs as I do of her. Well, ok, it’s not that close but I do have a few pictures. They are so cute, though, that I have to snap a few pictures on each visit. Here is one I really like. He blends in very well with the dirt.

It’s great to have pets indoors but sometimes you can get unwanted guests - like tens of thousands of them. I’m talking about fleas - those small pesky enemies of your pets. Our flea problem was quite bad, and we did everything under the sun to get rid of them.

We tried flea foggers first, which seemed to help some. Apparently fleas can live in the worse living conditions, so the foggers were mildly successful. Another trick was to use flea carpet powder and also to vacuum often. Put a flea collar in your vacuum cleaner bag to keep fleas from living in it. If you use powder, leave it down for a while as they are suppose to eat the powder and dry out.

Whichever methods you try, be patient as it will take weeks for the final flea to disappear. Some days it will feel hopeless but keep pressing on. Eventually you will have a breakthrough and see your hard efforts are paying off.

Pet blogs are a great way to share your pet’s personality and idiosyncrasies with the world. From time to time, I will be spotlighting pet blogs that I come across. If your pet has his/her own pet blog, let me know by leaving a comment.

The Purrfect Website chronicles the nine lives of eight kitty cats and their human Mommy and Daddy. The website has a nice cat theme that is really cute. The blog is fairly new but has plenty of pictures - which is a must when blogging about animals - and fun stories from the world from a cat’s point of view.

It has a clean style and features some adorable cats of all ages. There’s pictures and videos for your enjoyment. The Purrfect Website is a “purrfect” example of a good pet blog.

One of my favorite animal videos is one that has been around for a while. It was one of the first videos I remember watching on the web. Well, first you had to download and then watch it. Yeah, it was that long ago like 2 years or something. Well, maybe a little longer than that but you get the idea. It’s a cute video this guy did about his cat. The song is really catchy, too. Sometimes I can’t say “Cat..” without hearing “I’m a kitty cat” after it. It’s too cute not to share though even if it is dangerously addictive.

Scrapbooking is a great way to preserve memories from special events in our lives. We all have happy moments with our pets, so why not create their own scrapbook as a way to treasure those days for years to come?

At most scrapbook supplies stores, you an find an array of pages, stickers, and die cuts to make scrapbook pages. You can always check out websites like PetPageMemories.com that specialize in pet scrapbook pages and accessories if you have trouble finding things to use in traditional scrapbooking places.

Clipart, fonts, and other finds on the Internet can be used to create some cute scrapbook pages. A pet scrapbook is not that much different than any other scrapbook. You can choose to keep the pet scrapbook simple since it is unlikely the pet will much care about a lot of decoration. However you want to preserve your pet memories is up to you. It could be as simple as a photo album or as elaborate as you would like. It’s your memories and how you choose to help you remember then is totally up to your discretion.

Flint River Ranch will send you a free pet food sample for either your cat or dog just for the asking. Flint River Ranch specializes in over baked, healthy food choices for pets. I think I spend about as much time choosing the pets’ food as I do ours since I’m always looking to add variety and something healthy to their diet.

When filling out for your free sample, add it to the shopping cart. There is no need to fill in the credit card information. The order will go through fine, and you will get a confirmation email.

It’s always nice to treat our pets. It’s especially good if we can treat them for free.

pet food, free pet food

While looking through a website that had printable awards for children, they had a great selection of printable pet awards, too. Kids love to receive awards, so why not awards for our fur babies also?

Pet parents love to brag when their animal learns a new trick or has been especially good. Now they can print out awards for their pets. It would make great decoration for a room that is mostly the pet’s domain. Our pets seem to have a favorite room in the house, so we will hang their award there.

It’s a fun site with some good awards for pet lovers to give their beloved pets.

pet awards, pet certificates

Here are a couple of pictures of my cats. This is Calisto, who is a Calico and loves attention. She is more of a hunter than our other cat.

And here is Fade. She is definitely the prissy one. She was dubbed “the cuddle kitty” by my niece who was her original owner.

They are both just over 1 year old, so they are still quite playful and love attention. Having them around has been a real joy.

My name is Lynn, and I’m the new blogger for Homezookeeper.com. I already write for one blog for 451Press, SeoDance.com. When I’m not researching the best SEO techniques or reading blogs, I enjoy playing with my two cats, Calisto and Fade. Our neighbors have two dogs that we love like they were ours, so we count them as part of our fur family.

I will be sharing stories of our animals as well as anything else animal-related. I absolutely love to talk about my pets since they give me plenty of material. Feel free to chime in at anytime with your own pet stories. I will hopefully get to my “official” first post today, if not check back Monday and we will begin pet story sharing fun then.

This site is currently in need of a writer. If you have any interest in writing on the topic this site covers, feel free to submit an application at 451 Press. Thank you.

451 Press, Writers Needed