When I first brought home my Golden Retriever puppy, I did what most new puppy owners do: I stood in the pet food aisle for 25 minutes, picked up every bag, read every label, and still had no idea what to buy. The breeder said one thing. The vet said another. The internet said twelve … Read more
Last August, my Golden Retriever spent an entire afternoon panting on the tile floor, refusing to move. The AC was running, fans were going, but nothing helped. She just lay there with that anxious look dogs get when they’re too hot and can’t fix it. That’s when I went down the cooling mat rabbit hole. … Read more
4 Dog Crates That Hold Up to 90-Pound Labs Without Costing a Fortune Last spring, my neighbor Carla called me in a panic. Her 85-pound Lab mix, Buster, had eaten through an entire couch cushion while she was at work. Again. This was the third time in two months. She needed a crate, she needed … Read more
I almost got scammed by a dog vitamin. Last year, my vet mentioned my aging beagle might benefit from a joint supplement. I went on Amazon, typed “dog vitamins,” and was hit with page after page of products promising to fix everything from stiff hips to bad breath. Half of them cost 40 bucks. The … Read more
My dog Murphy has a routine. After every bath, he sprints downstairs, rubs his face into the carpet like he’s trying to erase the memory of what just happened, and then lies there scratching at his belly for the next hour. For a long time, I thought that was normal post-bath behavior. It wasn’t until … Read more
I used to think dog hair was just something you accepted. You get a dog, you get fur on everything. That is the deal. My couch had a permanent layer of golden fur. My car seats looked like they were upholstered in it. I was buying lint rollers in bulk and still walking out of … Read more
The first time I bought cheap training pads, my beagle mix puppy tiled the kitchen floor. Not a little spill around the edge. I’m talking a full-on river that crept under the baseboards and into the grout lines before I even knew what happened. That was the day I realized “budget” and “actually works” are … Read more
I was standing in the pet food aisle last month, phone calculator open, trying to figure out if the 55-pound bag of Purina was actually cheaper than the 30-pound bag of IAMS sitting next to it. A woman walked by, glanced at me doing long division in the middle of the aisle, and gave me … Read more
Last spring, I watched a guy get dragged halfway across a parking lot by his German Shepherd. The dog weighed maybe 85 pounds. The guy was holding a leash attached to a flat collar, and when the dog spotted a rabbit, it was game over. He didn’t fall, but his shoulder will never be the … Read more
The last dog bed I bought before starting this project lasted exactly eleven days. It was one of those cheap polyfill things from the pet aisle at a big box store — looked fine in the packaging, had a cute paw print pattern, and cost about twenty bucks. My 72-pound Lab, Bessie, laid on it … Read more
