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Ask A Pet Owner

Being a dog owner myself, I have learned that there are many options for pet care while living in the Frisco and Plano regions of Texas. After having some real bad experiences with boarding my pets, I finally decided to hire a pet sitter. I knew right away that using a pet sitter was by far the best option for my 2 dogs. Being that I already have dedicated my life to animals, I then decided to open up Bestest Buddies Luxury Pet Services here in Frisco, Texas. What I have learned over my years in pet sitting is that once you choose a pet sitter, you will never board your pets again. If you don’t believe me, just ask any pet owner who uses a pet sitter. Here are just a few things that pet owners would say about their pet sitters.

Flexibility

Having a Frisco pet sitter makes your life easier. You have no need to take your pet to and from a boarding facility. All boarding facilities have a check-in and check out time for your pets. If you happen to work weird hours or have last second plans, you might not have an option for your pets. With a pet sitter, you are easily able to make an appointment for when you will be away. Have last second plans? Do you have a flight that leaves late night? Using a pet sitter makes these things a non issue, for both you and your pets!

Price

Since boarding facilities do have check-out times, even if you come home even just an hour late you will end up paying for an additional day. Since my work schedule was rather unpredictable at times, I always ended up paying for 2 days of care even though I only was away for 10 hours. Worst yet, I was not able to pick up my dogs until the next day which was rather inconvenient. With a pet sitter, you will be in charge of how many visits you pet will need while you are away. More importantly, after you do finish working that long day at work or after a long flight, there is nothing in the world better than coming home and having your pet greet you at the door! Having a pet sitter really does make a huge difference in peoples lives, as well as their pets.

Care

I cannot tell you how many times my pets would get ill when going to a boarding facility. I always took great care of my dogs. What I realized is that you cannot trust others with their pets. My dogs were constantly coming down with something when I boarded them. If it was not a virus, it would have been fleas. Once my older dog came home limping after playing rough with another dog. With a pet sitter, you will never have to worry about other people’s pets. Any vet will tell you that your dog is at their safest when at home. With a pet sitter, you won’t have to take your pets to the vet as often. We all know you love your dogs, cats and caged animals, but how can you fully trust other people’s pets? You can’t, so using a pet sitter and having your pets at home is really the best option. To me, it is the only option.

Service

Our pet sitters at Bestest Buddies have on-call services. Do you want to go out after work but know your dog needs to go to the potty? Call us, our pet sitters will gladly make sure your pet does not suffer because you want to go out on the town. Have you ever been snowed in or missed a flight? Our pet sitters easily accommodate changes in plans. There is no need to keep your pet boarded for an additional night because you are going to be home a few hours late! With our pet sitters this will never a worry! We also make sure that while you are away, you will receive pictures of your pet with a daily updates on all of the fun they are having. We believe at Bestest Buddies that your pets deserve the highest standard of care while you are away. This is why 95% of our business is either repeat business or from client referrals.

In Conclusion

Owning pets is one of the biggest joys of our lives. It has been proven that pet owners live longer and are more happy than non-pet owners. Though work and travel can be stressful, having a pet sitter “on staff” can make your life much much easier. There is nothing better than knowing that your pet has someone dedicated to them and their happiness! I know this first hand not because I own a pet sitting company, but because I use pet sitters myself!

Most cockatiel health problems are the result of malnutrition or improper care.  Many of these conditions are life-threatening and can easily kill your bird before you can tell anything is wrong.  Some of these conditions include Polyoma, Psittacosis, Pacheco’s disease, and Candidiasis.  This article will discuss some of these common cockatiel health problems.

Polyoma

Polyoma is a condition caused by a viral infection that usually targets younger birds.  The virus can be transmitted via feather dust, droppings, and respiratory secretions.  It can also be transmitted via eggs.  It’s best to have your bird vaccinated against this disease when they reach 40 days old.

Psittacosis

Another common disease of cockatiels is Psittacosis.  It’s also known by various other names such as parrot fever and chlamydiosis.  This condition is caused by bacteria that can be transmitted via droppings, nasal secretions, and feather dust.  Infected birds show symptoms such as shortness of breath, runny nose, lethargy, eye discharge, dehydration, and loss of appetite.  Treatment involves administering antibiotics for 45 days and removing calcium from the diet.

Candidiasis

One of the next common cockatiel health problems is Candidiasis, a condition caused by yeast.  Like Polyoma, it usually affects younger birds because of their immature immune system.  However, older birds with a weak immune system can also develop the condition.  The most common reason for birds to develop it is because of long-term antibiotic use.  However, hand-fed chicks are also susceptible especially when the equipment isn’t properly sterilized.

Symptoms of Candidiasis include depression, vomiting, diarrhea, and weight loss.  If the yeast infect the mouth and beak, then your bird will likely have bad breath and white material in the mouth.  This disease has to be treated with antifungal medications.  Your bird will also need to avoid eating fruit and sugar while he still has the disease.

Pacheco’s Disease

Pacheco’s disease is caused by a very deadly virus.  Birds often die suddenly.  Signs of this condition include intermittent diarrhea, ruffled feathers, anorexia, and lethargy.  This disease can be prevented thanks to vaccination.  However, some birds have been known to have a reaction to the vaccine.

The evolutionary history of the horse is one of the most-covered subjects in modern biology. And no wonder – of all modern animals, the horse has behind it the most intact and visible family tree.Our story begins millions of years ago – with the Perissodactyls.

No, not “pterodactyl” – those clawed flying relics of the dinosaur age as imagined in B-movies and The Flintstones. The “Perissodactyls” are hoofed animals with an odd number of toes on each foot (they are also distinguished by their tooth structure); this group of animals is itself, say scientists, descended from the same ancestor as the tapir and the rhinoceros but, unlike these animals, gradually adapted to life on drier land than the tropical forests preferred, even today, by the rhino.

One creature’s evolution often influences that of other creatures in its environment, and this was true of the equids (the horsey branch of the Perissodactyl family tree), who began eating grass as this new crop began to flourish. Such a diet favored the spread of new sorts of equids who had larger teeth.

Likewise, the equids – adoption of a dry, steppe-like habitat, where predators lived and where the comparative lack of foliage made it harder to hide, encouraged the survival of those equids who ran the fastest. Gradually longer-legged equids with a long third toe (which allowed for greater running efficiency) began to predominate. The Mesohippus species of 40 million years ago reflect this trend.

It’s a common – but disastrous – mistake to see evolutionary history as a smooth straight-line progression from early to middle to modern versions of an animal, with the modern animal taken as the final copy of the earlier animals’ rough draft, as if we were viewing successive sketches of Michelangelo’s David in a line that ended with the real statue.

In fact, though, most equid species lived their day and died, without having any influence on today’s horse; they existed in their own right, and we shouldn’t think of the modern horse as the “goal” of all this equine living and dying. Many genealogical lines simply ran out, while one (leading to our horse) happened to survive; but it could as well have been any, or all, of the others, given slight modifications in some habitat a million years ago or so.

In any case, of the many horselike species whose fossils have been found, it’s thought that Plesippus – a species descended from the earlier Dinohippus – is the father of the modern horse. This species responded to falling North American temperatures by heading, either to South America or across the Bering Strait from North America to Eurasia, about 2 and a half million years ago, with a few staying behind in North America.

Somewhere toward the end of the Tertiary period or at the beginning of the Quaternary – that’s scientists’ talk for the beginning of the most recent Ice Age, roughly 1.8 million years ago – descendants of Plesippus gave rise to offspring different enough from their sponsors, and like enough to our modern horses, that scientists have dubbed them Equus stenonis, the first “true” horse.

They crossed into North America and survived for millions of years, perhaps giving rise to the other ancient horses known to have inhabited the area during this period – the super-sized Equus scottii giganteus, whom the present author swears he is not making up (they seem to have exceeded modern horses in size). But all North American horses died out, rather inexplicably, around 11,000 years ago – at the same time as many other kinds of animals, and for reasons scientists have yet to discover. Was it some mega-virus of the ancient world? Or, a more tantalizing possibility, did humans (arriving on the North American scene, according to some theories, at about this time) hunt them to extinction?

In any case, horses had no purchase on this continent until after European colonization of the Americas began in 1492; for this long period, then, from 11,000 BCE to 1491, the horse’s development took place in Eurasia instead. (Another tantalizing thought – after the colonizers had reintroduced horses to Mexico, the southwestern US, and Peru, some indigenous tribes told stories about how “the grass remembers” these new animals.

Did these people groups retain some memory, perhaps through myth and legend, of the long-gone North American horse?)

The outline of horse-history given here is just one sketch, based on one strand of scientific theorizing. Like those ancient Perissodactyls giving rise to many species of not-quite-a-horse, most of which flourished in their time and died without contributing in any way to the development of modern horses, scientific speculation as to the origin of any species will include many interesting, intelligent “dead ends.” So who knows.

A popular theory, the “Four Foundations” theory, suggests that at some point long predating the horse’s disappearance from North America, four basic types of horses developed in Europe (from those Plesippi, perhaps, who crossed from North America to Eurasia before the last Ice Age began). Warmblooded, forest-dwelling horses and draft horses of northern Europe, plus taller, slimmer Asian horses and pony-sized Tarpans, are considered, in this theory, to be the “basic” horses from which all others are descended.