Tagged: pets

More than 100,000  cats and dogs are euthanized every year in Texas shelters. Euthanasia by carbon monoxide – essentially a gas chamber –  is still common practice in nearly 30 shelters.  

Within the last five years, almost 30 Texas cities banned gas chambers, switching from carbon monoxide to lethal injection. Pennsylvania and Louisiana banned gas chambers statewide last year.

With so many care options for the four-legged family members, how do you determine where to take yours for a check-up? There are high-end pet spas, plain vet clinics and everything in between. And still, there is a new player in the nearly saturated market.

One of the dogs at this clinic is Frida. She is blonde, tall and beautiful. But, according to her doctor’s report delivered by Mr. John, Frida has some weight problems. 

During our week-long casting call for public radio-loving pets, we received dozens of great entries from our listeners as well as (some furry) fans tuning in around the country. And while there were lots of cute critters submitted, the seven photos in the slideshow below are the National Pet Radio Contest finalists, which were selected by a panel of NPR judges.

Vote Now: Take a look through the images below, and vote on your pick to win by Sunday, Feb. 17, at 11:59 PM (ET).

Many of us here at NPR have pets or are animal lovers, and recently discovered that National Dress Your Pet Day is in January. We were inspired by this to ask you to show your appreciation for public media by accessorizing your pet.

To have a little fun with it, we want you to snap a picture of your pet listening to your favorite public radio station.

Austin is known as a dog friendly city. There’s dog parks, ample off-leash areas – heck, even the City Council passed an ordinance allowing dogs on outdoor restaurant patios.

And along with the local acceptance of dogs has come tolerance of the occasional accident. We’ve all seen them – on our front yards, exercise trails and even along the bottoms of our shoes.

Dogs can’t help it – it’s instinctual for them. Their owners, however, can. It’s their responsibility to tend to their animal's needs, little plastic bag in hand, so that when Fido finishes his business, no one else has to deal with the matter.

Unfortunately, some dog owners at The Pointe at Onion Creek, a small condominium complex in South Austin, haven’t been doing their due diligence. Now the home owners association is considering using DNA testing to find out which pooch is pooping and fleeing the scene.

Tim League is a pretty big deal in the movie business. He’s founder of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema – which in turn led to distribution arm Drafthouse Films. He also founded Rolling Roadshow and Fantastic Fest. But Tim League could soon be best known for his role as a judge in an internet cat video contest.

That’s right, internet cat videos. If you're one of the few humans left on earth unfamiliar with the concept, you can head over to a little website called YouTube and type in “cat.” You’ll get funny cats, funny cats in water, how to wrap a cat for Christmas and about 1.8 million others. Internet cat videos are big.

Just last month, Minneapolis hosted the first ever Internet Cat Video Film Festival. The idea was attributed to the Walker Art Museum’s “cat-lady-in-residence” but went on to draw an estimated 10,000 attendees. Internet cat videos are truly big time.