Tibetan Terrier Boxer Shorts?

Tibetan Terrier Boxer Shorts

Enjoy the roomy comfort of our Boxer Shorts sexy boxers as underwear or sleepwear. They're 100% cotton, open fly for thinking outside the boxers. Boxers, because you don't want to be brief.

Tips on Getting Your Dog Ready for Spring

Spring is finally here! It's time to get outside and take advantage of all the season has to offer and do things that the cold winter may have prevented you from doing. To help you and your dog get ready for spring, American Kennel Club Canine Partners offers the following Fido fun tips.

- Get a clean bill of health. It's good to take your dog for a checkup after being cooped up in the house for the winter. This will ensure he is healthy and ready to start springtime activities.

- Drop the winter weight. Many of us pack on a few pounds during the cold winter months, and chances are our dogs have too. If your dog is looking a little fuller these days it's time to talk to your veterinarian about a safe weight loss regimen for Fido. Try cutting back on treats that add calories to your dog's diet. Instead, try giving him baby carrots.

- Play outside. Now that the weather is warming up, take the opportunity to get outside with your dog. Start slowly if your dog hasn't exercised much over the winter. Try taking a walk to the local dog park, or playing fetch in your yard. You can even begin training for agility by teaching your dog navigate through weave poles, run through tunnels and over jumps!

- Beware of the grass. Your dog will finally be able to run and play on the grass, but be careful where you let Fido go. The chemicals used on lawns don't belong on your dog's paws. Make sure you clean his pads after playing on grass.

- Groom the coat. Shedding increases in the springtime as dogs lose their winter coats. Make sure to brush your dog regularly. This will help keep the shedding under control, as brushing loosens and removes dead hair and dandruff from Fido's coat.

For more information on how to have fun with your dog, visit the AKC Canine Partners website at www.moredogfun.com

Do you and your dog have matching love handles? Get tips on exercising with your pet

Walking your dogs delivers physical and mental benefits for you and them

Exercising with your pet is a win-win situation because both you and your pooch, or even your cat, benefit from the activity. Get tips on how to exercise with your animal during a live web chat today, Monday, April 25, at 11 a.m. Pacific time (1 p.m. Central, 2 p.m. Eastern). Guest Jackie Epping is a public health scientist in the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and she recently presented her paper "An Exercise Machine with Hair? How Dogs Can Increase Physical Activity" at the American College of Sports Medicine's meeting. She has five dogs and a cat that keep her very busy.

We asked Epping why exercising with your pet is so important:

"A pet can provide social support," she said, "and part of social support is creating expectations: If your dog expects to go for a walk, you are more likely to do that than if you planned to go by yourself. If it's just you, you're more likely to skip it because you don't feel like it, or the temperature is too hot or too cold.

"Dogs need exercise for many of the same reasons we do. There's a parallel obesity epidemic going on in dogs as there is in humans, with some of the same chronic diseases involved, such as diabetes. Dogs also need exercise for mental stimulation; they need different scenery that stimulates their senses.

"Walking a dog is also good for people who might not have social contacts or who tend to isolate themselves. People who walk dogs are seen as more approachable, and they tend to have more contact with people. That's good for your mental health.

"Obese people might feel uncomfortable doing social types of physical activities, or they don't have the skill sets or level of fitness to do them. These people can benefit the most from walking with their dogs."

Relishing the Part of a Dog’s Best Friend

Isabella Rossellini with Bau

For young Bau, there is a lot to learn yet. For instance, that it’s not a good idea to walk your human full speed into a lamppost. Especially when your human has a money face. When she is, say, Isabella Rossellini.Ms. Rossellini is, of course, an actress of some renown, but during a recent stroll in Midtown Manhattan, she wasn’t acting, she was training. Bau, the trainee, is a 6-month-old black Lab who, if he proves to be a good learner and have the right personality, will some day be a guide dog for a blind person.

“I do like a lot of animals, but dogs are so close to us,” Ms. Rossellini said during the stroll down Eighth Avenue with Bau. “No; leave it.” That last phrase was directed at Bau, who was eyeballing a pigeon that was pecking at someone’s trash on the sidewalk. Any other puppy would see an opportunity for fun; Bau was learning that there is no pigeon chasing while on the job.

Ms. Rossellini is a “puppy walker,” someone who will spend a year with a young dog teaching rudimentary skills and habituating the animal to crowds, bright lights, cats and, yes, pigeons. If Bau shows promise in that year, he will be turned over to another trainer to gain the specialized knowledge needed by a guide dog. The dogs, Ms. Rossellini said, can learn 200 commands.

Ms. Rossellini also walks a four-legged trainee around town in “Animals Distract Me,” an hourlong documentary she made for the cable channel Planet Green that is having its premiere on Saturday. In the film, that dog, Sweety, drops in on some of Ms. Rossellini’s famous friends, like the chef Mario Batali, and Ms. Rossellini gets a chance to expound not just on guide dog training but also on her broader concern for animals, cruelty-free menu choices and other subjects.

Ms. Rossellini’s acting résumé is certainly eclectic: highlights include David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” in 1986 and “Wild at Heart” in 1990, the foodie favorite “Big Night” in 1996 and a recurring role on the ABC series “Alias.” But for real eclecticism, you need to see her work as a filmmaker. In one especially ridiculous scene in “Animals Distract Me,” Ms. Rossellini and André Leon Talley, the fashion editor, begin talking gibberish to illustrate how Sweety perceives their conversation.

Two series of very short films that Ms. Rossellini made for the Sundance Channel, “Green Porno” and “Seduce Me,” about the sex lives of spiders, dolphins and assorted other creatures, border on the bizarre. They are droll and informational at the same time and, like some vignettes in “Animals Distract Me,” feature Ms. Rossellini in an array of outlandish costumes. For instance, the whale suit she dons to show the male half of that species in midreproduction leaves nothing to the imagination in terms of the animal’s appendages. Ms. Rossellini may have a highbrow pedigree — her father was the director Roberto Rossellini, her mother Ingrid Bergman — but she has a wicked, winking sense of humor.

“She always has a point of view about the world that is a little off center,” said Laura Michalchyshyn, president of Planet Green, part of Discovery’s group of channels.

In the new film “she’s making a big statement about how humans and our interactions influence the world, but she doesn’t do it with straight finger-pointing, she does it with humor,” added Ms. Michalchyshyn, who first worked with Ms Rossellini when she was an executive at the Sundance Channel. “She doesn’t take herself so seriously that she can’t talk dog-talk with André Leon Talley or can’t dress up as a cabbage.”

She is serious, though, about the work she does for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind in Smithtown, N.Y., on Long Island. Bau — the name is from the Italian equivalent of the sound of a dog’s bark, as in bow-wow — is the eighth dog she has trained. She also sometimes acts as a midwife to pregnant dogs being used by the foundation; she takes them into her home in the Long Island town of Bellport and oversees the birth and the first five weeks of the puppies’ lives.

“Mostly they are Labs or golden retrievers,” Ms. Rossellini said, though efforts are being made to turn poodles into guide dogs because some people who are allergic to other breeds aren’t allergic to them. Another trend comes from war: “Now they’re breeding very big dogs that act like walking sticks” for veterans with head injuries that leave them with impaired balance, she said.

On the stroll through Midtown, at 40th and Eighth, Bau was a bit distracted by a food cart. Crosswalks were still a problem. And so were obstacles like trash cans and lampposts.

“The dog is always calculating so he doesn’t walk you into a pole,” Ms. Rossellini said, referring to fully trained dogs, not to Bau. She then demonstrated his need for work in this area by letting him walk near a lamppost. Sure enough, Bau — the dog is always on the human’s left side, by the way — didn’t have the calculation thing down yet; he left himself enough room to get past the pole, but Ms. Rossellini, had she been blind, would have clanged right into it.

An amble down a sidewalk, though, is only the simplest thing a guide dog is asked to do; any old mutt can probably manage that. But it takes a dog with a certain kind of personality, Ms. Rossellini said, to make the command decisions that are sometimes needed.

“The dog has to be obedient, but it has to be willing to overrule,” Ms. Rossellini said. For instance, a blind person going by sound may be ready to step off the curb to cross the street, but the dog needs to have the last word, in case a bicyclist or a super-quiet electric car is coming along.

“The puppies she raises for us are very well-adjusted dogs,” said Doug Wiggin, a field representative at the Smithtown foundation who has done the next level of training on some of Ms. Rossellini’s graduates. Especially useful, he said, is Ms. Rossellini’s fearlessness about taking the puppies to the city, into crowds and so on. “The puppies have quite a bit of exposure, which is great for our purposes,” he said.

The walk ended at Penn Station, a spot nicely suited to Ms. Rossellini’s needs. “All of this is fantastic for training: loudspeakers, crowds, that noise,” she said, as she prepared to disappear onto an ordinary commuter train with Bau for the trek to Long Island.

When she’s out and about with a trainee like this, who gets the most attention, the movie star or the dog?

“Probably the dog,” she said.

Molly is Safe and Back at Home!!!!

Just received this update on Molly, a Tibetan Terrier from Concord, California:

"Molly has been found and is safe at home. She was found by someone on our street and taken to Animal Services this afternoon. They were able to contact us using the microchip she has implanted in her. Thank you for all your help and well wishes."

Dog Massage? Isn’t Petting Enough?

Renee Lane's living room had been transformed into a spa. Candles twinkled on the coffee table; lavender oil scented the air; lilting guitar music played softly on the stereo. Grace, Ms. Lane’s 2-year-old caramel-colored toy poodle, leaped onto the sofa and, in response to Ms. Lane’s cooing invitation (“Want to lay down for Mama?”), got into position for her evening massage.

Ms. Lane took a deep breath and began making long stroking motions down the length of Grace’s back with her palms. With her thumbs, she kneaded the tissue around the dog’s delicate shoulders, and then began working her way toward the muscles in the dog’s legs. By the time the 20-minute massage session was done, Grace had entered a state of canine bliss, eyelids drooping, tongue lolling.

“Grace absolutely loves it — she just turns into a puddle,” said Ms. Lane, 43, a public relations and business development consultant in Edgewater, N.J. “I want to keep her around as long as I can, and I think it’s going to keep her healthy. She helps reduce my stress, so why shouldn’t I reciprocate?”

That is a question that a number of dog owners — and even some cat owners — have been asking themselves, buoyed by a belief that pet massage confers the same benefits as human massage: increased circulation, improved digestion, strengthened immunity, stress relief, comfort at the end of life and muscle relaxation after a hard day (even if it was spent at the dog park).

Some pet owners scoff at this idea. What’s wrong with regular old petting? they ask. And many veterinarians say that evidence of its benefits is flimsy. Nonetheless, pet massage workshops have flourished in recent years at pet stores, dog day-care centers, veterinary clinics, animal hospitals, massage schools and holistic institutes like the New York Open Center in Manhattan, where Ms. Lane and more than 75 other dog owners took a one-day class last summer.

“People realize more and more that what’s good for me, including massage, is probably good for my animal,” said Jean-Pierre Hourdebaigt, an animal massage therapist and teacher in Wellington, Fla., whose book “Canine Massage: A Complete Reference Manual” is considered the standard text.

“Today, you also have the baby boomers whose kids are gone,” Mr. Hourdebaigt said. They “have more time and money, and it’s easy for them to spend a couple hundred bucks on a massage seminar for their dog. The animal benefits, the benevolent action makes them feel good. Everybody’s happy.”

By most estimates, only a few of the nation’s pet dogs and cats — which the American Pet Products Association estimates at 78.2 million and 86.4 million, respectively — are fortunate enough to receive massages. But the numbers may be growing. The International Association of Animal Massage and Bodywork, a professional group in Toledo, Ohio, now has more than 500 members, up from just 200 in 2007. And a survey of more than 1,200 pet owners across the United States and Canada by the American Animal Hospital Association in Lakewood, Colo., found that the number who were pursuing alternative therapies for their animals — including acupuncture, massage, chiropractic and herbal medicine — rose to 21 percent from 6 percent between 1996 and 2003. (It may still be rising; the survey was discontinued after 2004.)

Many pet owners interested in massage hire professionals to perform the treatment. But the D.I.Y. approach — in which pet owners like Ms. Lane learn the techniques themselves — also seems to be gaining in popularity, as Mr. Hourdebaigt maintains. At the Northwest School of Animal Massage in Fall City, Wash., 170 people took the basic amateur workshop last year; eight years ago, only 24 people enrolled. At the Boulder College of Massage Therapy in Colorado, enrollment in a similar class has jumped 30 percent in the last two years.

Becky Brandenburg, an animal-massage practitioner and teacher in Martins Ferry, Ohio, said she started offering occasional workshops for pet owners last year, but now plans to offer them monthly. “Every time I announce a class, it’s filled within a day or two,” Ms. Brandenburg said. “It’s really taken off.”

The origins of pet massage can be traced to equine massage, a treatment popularized in the 1970s and ’80s by Jack Meagher, a massage therapist who worked with the United States equestrian team. By the early 1990s, a handful of people experienced in human or equine massage, or both, had begun adapting Mr. Meagher’s technique for use on dogs and cats.

Sometimes, it is veterinarians who suggest the practice to pet owners. Nanci Sloan Cummings, a mortgage loan officer in Lake Oswego, Ore., said she was urged by her veterinarian to try massage for her 12-year-old arthritic collie, Baxter. Although in his sprightlier days the dog could trek several miles, by last year he was able to walk only a couple of blocks. To see if she could help him become more limber, Ms. Cummings took a three-hour massage workshop at a dog day-care center in January.

Nearly every evening since then, she has put down a cushioned mat near the ficus tree and potted fern in the living room of her three-bedroom house, and performed the routine she learned: kneading, squeezing, stroking and tapping Baxter.

“At night, when I watch ‘American Idol,’ I’ll sit on the floor and massage him to the music,” Ms. Cummings said. “It’s very distressing to see your aging animal suffer, and very rewarding to think that maybe you can help him feel better. I think just the attention and affection, if nothing else, is helpful.”

But there are plenty of veterinarians who believe that massage offers little beyond the attention and affection. They note that few clinical studies of pet massage have been conducted, and that claims of its benefits are usually extrapolated from research on humans. At best, they say, pet massage fortifies the bond between human and animal in the same way that a good belly scratch does, and at worst, it may aggravate a serious medical condition or prevent owners from seeking veterinary help.

“I have two dogs, and I pet them all the time,” said David W. Ramey, a veterinarian in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles, and a co-author of “Complementary and Alternative Veterinary Medicine Considered,” a book that looks at the science behind various alternative therapies for pets. “I think everybody should pet their dogs. But I don’t refer to that as ‘massage,’ and I certainly wouldn’t send anyone to a glorified school of dog petting.”

Narda Robinson, a veterinarian at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, has a more benign view. Dr. Robinson, who established a canine medical massage course at the university in 2008, believes that massage, properly administered, can help dogs recover from illness, injuries and stress. And while massage classes for dog owners are largely unregulated and of varying quality, she said, they can be helpful as long as they are “based on actual science, rather than lost in mysterious energies.”

For many pet owners, though, the goal is not therapeutic — it’s just to make their dogs feel good.

One recent Sunday afternoon, several people showed up for an advanced canine massage class at My Dog’s Place, a training school in Mystic, Conn., along with their charges: a miniature dachshund, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, a cocker spaniel and a few others. The dogs sniffed their hellos, then settled on blankets on the floor, and Suzin Webb, who teaches about 15 such courses a year, began her instruction.

For two hours, the students worked the muscles along their dogs’ spines, stretched their limbs, rolled the dogs’ skin between their fingers and gently tugged their tails. By the end of the class, none of the dogs seemed particularly eager to move.

The miniature dachshund, 13-year-old Wylie Angelo, lay on his back, tongue out, limbs splayed. His owner, Cricket Murphy, a 67-year-old aesthetician, had taken Ms. Webb’s beginners’ class three years earlier to help Wylie Angelo heal from disk surgery. Since then, she has been massaging him every morning.

Their ritual takes place in the bedroom of her house overlooking Long Island Sound in Niantic, Conn. Ms. Murphy fetches a dish of water and a homemade cranberry biscuit for the dog, and then the two sit on Ms. Murphy’s king-size bed, she with her back against the headboard and Wylie Angelo in front of her on a down pillow. She begins the massage by rubbing his belly with rose ointment.

Ms. Murphy said she believes that this daily routine has improved Wylie Angelo’s mobility and bolstered his circulation. But she is more certain about other benefits.

“He goes straight to la-la land,” Ms. Murphy said. “It’s a very quieting time for us. We’re in bed together, he’s propped up on a pillow, and pretty soon, he’s just in the zone.”

Sit, Stay, Relax

Jean-Pierre Hourdebaigt, a teacher and practitioner of canine massage, recommends that pet owners interested in learning the technique enroll in a class, study a textbook like his “Canine Massage: A Practical Guide” or watch one of the many instructional DVDs on the topic. He also offered a few pointers.

• Start with light pressure. “Most people have so much power in their hands, they don’t realize that it can be too much for some animals,” Mr. Hourdebaigt said. Only if the dog seems comfortable should the pressure be increased.

• Maintain an even speed. “If you’re erratic — starting fast, slowing down, getting fast again — the animal worries too much,” he said. “If you maintain one stroke per second, whether you’re doing gentle kneading or friction, the animal can relax in the flow of the rhythm.”

• Place the pet on a table to keep your own posture comfortable. “If you massage on the floor on your knees, you will get sore knees and a sore back, which makes you tense up and makes the whole experience more negative,” he said.

• Avoid massaging the animal with other animals nearby. “If you have several dogs in your house, and take one particular dog aside and isolate him on the table while the others are having fun, he’ll feel like he’s missing out on something and won’t relax.”

• Learn palpation, a technique of touching aimed at discovering abnormalities. “Any time you feel unusual heat, puffiness or swelling on the animal, back off,” Mr. Hourdebaigt said. And before doing any massage on the suspect spot, ask a veterinarian.

Tibetan Terrier Molly missing in Concord, California

Molly, a beautiful Tibetan Terrier, who lives in Concord, California is missing. Please pass this information on to friends in the area.

Here are the details on her escape....

Our back gate was accidentally left open and we didn't realize she was missing until she was gone. Three of us drove around for about an hour tonight and found no sign of her.

She is a white and black/gray Tibetan Terrier. She is an important member of our family and we hate the thought that she is out there tonight ALONE!

We live close to Baldwin Park near Port Chicago Highway. I'm hoping your readers can keep an eye out for her. She got a bath today so unfortunately she did not have her collar on, but she is chipped.

Hopefully Molly will make it home very soon!

If you've seen her, or know where she is located, please email mayorofclaycord@yahoo.com