Protecting Your Pet's Health

Thursday, March 1, 2001

Protecting Your Pet’s Health (NAPSA)—There are a number of ways to help keep your pet’s health from going to the dogs— and veterinarians say it’s important for pet owners to learn as manyas possible. Many current and potential pet owners, however, fail to consider the effort that goes into caring for a pet properly and responsibly. One organization may help change that, by highlighting what it considers the “three main steps” of pet care—spay/neuter, vaccinate and microchip—onits website, ResponsiblePetCare.org. Spay/Neutering Manypeople overlook the problem of pet overpopulation because it is not always easy to see. Experts say the fact is, each year, millions of cats and dogs enter shelters and many never find homes. Spaying and neutering a pet can ensure that it does not contribute to the pet overpopulation problem. Vaccinating Like humans, pets can be pro- tected from a variety of diseases—ranging from rabies to respiratory infections—with vaccinations. Learning about vaccinations and the diseases they fight is an important step for pet ownersto take. Microchip Identification Statistics show microchippingis one of the most reliable methods Animal lovers can go online to find tips on howto care for their pets. for permanently identifying and keeping track of pets. Tens of thousandsof lost pets have been recovered using microchip identification systems. In addition to learning about pets, people who visit the site can help them by submitting a pet story to the site’s “e-Tales” campaign. For every 50 stories received, a donation will be made to an animal shelter on behalf of a variety of sponsors. Each donation will be used to help spay/neuter, vaccinate and microchip shelter-animals to prepare them for new homes. The goal of the “e-Tales” campaign is to receive 100,000 pet stories and provide up to $50,000 in donations to animal shelters by December 31, 2001. For more information, visit www.ResponsiblePetCare.org.