HoundsGood: Chronicles of a Virtual Volunteer

I discovered another new dog site, DoggedHealth.com. This one has the niche of canine health.  There are all sorts of articles about senior and puppy care.

One article suggests tips for selecting a vet.

When you meet the vet, is he or she welcoming and patient? Does he or she take the time to make your dog feel comfortable? Does he or she communicate well with you – offering clear explanations and diagnoses, listening and taking into account your concerns, and anticipating potential issues?

There is one particular vet in my life that I was particularly impressed with.  When I was in college, my family adopted a puppy.  Truthfully, we failed at fostering and he became a permanent family member.  He had a long fight with parvo but ultimately survived.  He was a little scared during his first vet visit and he hid under my chair.  The vet came out and sat on the floor, talking to the little guy.  He told him there was nothing to be afraid of, that he was going to grow into a very handsome dog, and there would most likely be a treat in his near future.  Even though I have moved around, so it would be impractical for him to be my vet, I still think about Dr. M and the impression he made.   I have considered looking up to see if he is still in practice, even though it had been quite a few years ago now.

In general, there is a lot of good information on the site.  There isn’t anything very earth shattering, but that’s okay.  I think the more sound medical information is out there, the better, so a person may be alerted to when they should take their dogs into the vet. It may be a matter of life or death that they could be missing. What I was a little disappointed with was the placement of ads.  I don’t mind seeing ads on a site, but the Google adwords in the middle of the text is a little cumbersome.  The site does talk about adoption, which is good.   It does talk about selecting a breeder and states that good breeders check all kinds of references and do rescue also.  Unfortunately, there are backyard breeders and puppymills that know that rescuing is on the checklist for a good breeder, and therefore they state on their websites that they rescue, sort of as a marketing ploy, which is unfortunate.   In my opinion, there should be more encouragement to choosing adoption as the site is especially geared towards a general audience.

I know that I shouldn’t use a site’s stance on breeding as a litmus test all the time, but I guess I am not going to quit until the shelter problem is under control, that there are not hundreds of thousands of pets killed for lack of a home or someone who loves them.

Have you tried out DoggedHealth.com?  What did you think?

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