Annotated Links To Expert Resources About Companion Animals

This list is intended to focus on websites that offer expert information. A few blogs written by non-specialists who have specialized information are also be included. The list is always in process, and isn’t complete. Please, suggest a website for inclusion!

Cat Health

American Association of Feline Practitioners

The website of an organization for vets who focus their practice on cats. In addition to professional information for the veterinarians, the site has information about finding a “cat vet,” medical conditions cats experience, wellness, signs of disease and nursing cats.

CATalyst Council

From the mission statement: “Our Vision is to raise the level of care and welfare of cats by cat owners – one that any owner will embrace through the human-animal bond and can achieve – supported by the highest quality veterinary care, preventative medicine, and cat specific products.”

Winn Feline Foundation

Feline Health Center
Cornell University
College of Veterinary Medicine

Cat Man Do

The blog of Dr. Arnold Plotnick, founder of Manhattan Cat Specialists, a feline-only veterinary practice in New York City. Dr. Plotnick also publishes articles on feline health and behavior.

Feline CRF Information Center

This site is intended as a resource for humans who care for cats in chronic renal failure and is written by a cat caregiver whose cat had CRF. Click on “Site Guide” for a great index to what’s available on the site.

Tanya’s Comprehensive Guide to Feline Chronic Kidney Disease

This site is written by a cat caregiver for caregivers. It deals with symptoms, the meaning of test results, possible treatments, and the emotions that go along with caring for cats with kidney disease. Food is a particular focus of the site. Everything is presented with an eye to finding the best supplies and food for the least money and understanding what the vet is saying. The site also touches on heart problems, hyperthyroidism, diabetes, polycystic kidney disease, pancreatitis and dental problems that can be related to kidney disease.

Newt’s Website for Cats with Liver Shunts

Portosystemic shunts, a liver condition in which toxins are not removed from the blood, are connected with copper eyes in cat breeds that normally don’t have copper eyes. The condition is rare in cats. Newt’s site features cats who are living with the condition, research on liver shunts in cats and vets who have experience treating the condition.

Cat Behavior

Jackson Galaxy — The Cat Daddy

The Cat Coach

Steve Dale’s Kitty-K

Curriculum for kitten class based on the work of Australian veterinarian Kersti Seksel. Class is designed to desensitize kittens to the carrier and get them used to riding in the car and going to the veterinarian.

Catification

Make your house nice for cats in really healthy ways.

Hauspanther

Those of us attending BlogPaws have seen in person some of Kate Benjamin’s wonderful recommendations for products that make living in our houses nicer for cats. The website also has articles and contests to win great cat products.

The Cat’s House

Community Cats

Vox Felina

Alley Cat Allies

Cat History

 Cat Ancestry – Tracing the Lineage of Your Feline

From the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory of the University of California at Davis Veterinary School, this site offers background information on a genetic test to identify cats’ ancestry.

Talk about Cats + more

Catster

This is the center of cat lifestyle in the U.S. Cat enthusiasts actively publish on topics from the hottest conflicts to soft cuddles. Catster forums are active. Forums are good places to find out what is on cat guardians’ minds and to find people who could be sources for stories.

Cat World

This site is published in Australia and has lots of articles about feline health and behavior. A point to remember, the health articles aren’t written by veterinarians and should be used in conjunction with other sources. Forums seem to be active.

Pet Health

When writing about pet health, it’s vitally important to use authoritative information. Bloggers should consult and cite up-to-date resources written by veterinarians. Personal experiences with the health of a pet are important too, but we shouldn’t generalize particular experiences to other pets. I advise avoiding giving advice about treatments completely and suggesting that readers consult their own veterinarians.

Your veterinarian can also be a great source to write about pet health topics.

When evaluating online sources about health, or any other topic, look for a site that is affiliated with a credible organization (a veterinary school, for example) or professional person (a veterinarian, animal behaviorist, for example). Also, check the date of publication and/or revision. You want the most recent information because science develops over time. What vets thought was the best possible therapy in 1993 has probably been surpassed by 2013. If you can’t figure out who wrote the article you want to refer to, write to the contact email on the site. If you find neither a contact email, nor a clear statement of authorship, search for a more authoritative source.

Veterinary Practice News

News that is important to veterinary practice is produced by a team of reporters, writers and editors who specialize on the pet industry. The site is published by a major pet publishing company. Articles are written by experts or based on expert source by expert journalists. The site publishes its standards, which is a strong support for its credibility.

AVMA Literature Reviews

Reviews of scientific knowledge related to various issues in animal health and welfare, such as ear cropping, declawing and dogs riding in truck beds.

AVMA Reference Guides

These guides cover a wide range of animal health and welfare, from the AVMA’s positions on animal welfare to disaster readiness to saving money on animal care. While backgrounders stick to science, reference guides aim to cover all aspects of the topic.

WebMD Pet Health Community

This is a moderated discussion page that also gives access to WebMD search features. WebMD covers pet health as well as human health questions. Affiliated with AVMA.

Aardvarks to Zebras

The AVMA aims this site at children and teachers. It has information about the role of veterinarians in the lives of animals of all sorts, zoonotic diseases (those that are communicated from species to species) and the human-animal connection. There’s a special section with resources for teachers.

FDA Animal and Veterinary

This site covers pet food and drugs, primarily. Go here for a full list of recalls on pet foods, for example. Information for consumers of pet products is available on a number of topics such as marketing a pet food, melamine and pet medications.

 PetMD

PetEducation.com

Doctors Foster and Smith (of the pet supplies online store) run this website to provide information on the health of dogs, cats, fish, birds, ferrets, reptiles and other small pets. More than 2,500 articles are written by vets on the staff of Drs. Foster & Smith. In addition to the articles, you’ll also find information on veterinary medications, a veterinary dictionary, information on abbreviations and acronyms and the tests that veterinarians perform. The site also has a list of symptoms with possible problems that might be connected to them.

Veterinary Partner

This site has been publishing for more than a decade and is updated and revised weekly. There are about 2,500 articles in the site. The articles are written by veterinarians.

American Animal Hospital Association

In addition to a search function to find AAHA accredited animal hospitals, this site has articles on pet health, pet care, the human-animal bond and also features databases of lost and found pets and listings of adoptable pets.

Morris Animal Foundation: Pet Health Resources

Morris Animal Foundation: Funded Research

Morris Animal Foundation: vetNEWS

Pets and Parasites

This is the official website of the Companion Animal Parasite Council and presents expert information for dog and cat guardians. An interactive map breaks the country into states and states into counties to show rates of tick-borne diseases, intestinal parasites and heartworm in dogs and cats (including toxoplasmosis).

American Heartworm Society

This site offers information for both vets and pet guardians. Founded in 1974, AHS’s mission is to further and disseminate scientific research on heartworm disease.

Dog and Cat Training

Animal Behavior Society

International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants

American Kennel Club: Canine Good Citizen

Everything you could want to know about the standards a dog must meet to gain certification as a good citizen. The site has the test elements a dog/human pair must pass, information for evaluators, follow-up activities for the Canine Good Citizen.

Human-Animal Bond

 Human Animal Bond Research Initiative Foundation

HABRI has compiled an incredible bibliography of published research, conference proceedings and other resources on a wide range of topics concerning the bond between humans and animals. Research in a number of academic disciplines is included. Registering for a free account on the database allows one to favorite references. Some of the resources are available in full, others provide an abstract of articles or chapters published elsewhere.

International Association of Human-Animal Interaction Organizations

Institute for Human-Animal Connection

Graduate School of Social Work

University of Denver

Center for the Human-Animal Bond

Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine

Human Animal Bond Lecture Series

The Vet School of Mississippi State University sponsors a lecture series on the Human-Animal Bond and sometimes publishes the talks online. In 2009 Temple Grandin was the main speaker.

Animals and Society Institute

 The American Association of Human-Animal Bond Veterinarians

News, information about activities, member directory to help find a vet who specializes. Newsletters are available from 2008.

Animal Therapy

CENSHARE

Center to Study Human Animal Relationships and Environments, University of Minnesota. Information on animal therapy, events and service of the Center. Has a reading list of books on animal therapy.

 Pet Partners

This national organization trains and certifies pet therapy teams and supports the work of volunteer pet/human teams in a variety of situations. The resource page offers articles about the health benefits of animals in human lives.

Animal Hoarding

The Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium

A group of specialists from a variety of disciplines communicates the results of their research through this website. Representing animal welfare, humane law enforcement, forensic psychiatry, social work, veternary medicine and hoarding psychology and intervention, the group began working together in 1997, publishe a community intervention manual and provides referrals to colleagues around the country with expertise on animal hoarding.

 ASPCA: Animal Hoarding

Anxiety and Depression Association of America: What is animal hoarding?

Animal Sheltering

Association of Shelter Veterinarians

Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters

Animal Organizations

This list is not complete. It focuses on organizations that are national or international in their scope of activity. To be listed, an organization must have work with companion animals as part of its activity. Most of the organizations listed have news resources on their own activities, on legal issues facing animals, and on welfare or rights issues that are of current concern. They are good resources for expert knowledge of issues, finding experts to consult about specific issues a blogger is writing about and for issues to look into locally.

Inclusion in the list does not imply that Cheshire and Robin endorse an organization’s activity. We would love to learn about other national or international organizations that should be included on this list but aren’t. We included only sites in English because we are preparing these resources for BlogPaws 2013, a pet social media conference in the United States.

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

American Humane Association

Animal Legal Defense Fund

Animal Welfare Institute

Best Friends Animal Society, Best Friends Magazine

Blue Cross

Born Free USA

Cats Protection

Dogs Trust

 Eurogroup for Animals

Friends of Animals

Grey2KUSA

The Humane Society of the United States

International Fund for Animal Welfare
IFAW has official websites in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. This is the link to the site in the U.S.

League Against Cruel Sports

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

PDSA
People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Scottish SPCA

SPCA New Zealand

Society for the Protection of Animal Rights in Egypt

WSPCA International

World Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has national organizations in many countries. The international site will direct you to them in a pop-up box when you land on the homepage.

 

 

 

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