Stretching the families scarce finances to take care of our dear pets can get quite expensive on occasion. We know that pet meds are a necessary part of life in order to keep our pets happy and have a long life.  There is a wide range of pet medicine manufacturers and various treatments to choose from and with all the competition in the marketplace, we can be sure that by eliciting some basic research we can find that we can find less expensive pet meds can be bought somewhere.

Frequent pet health problem remedies for our pets can be as simple as preventative tick and flea prevention especially as the warm weather arrives. More severe threats are vision and nutritional ailments and heartworm prevention. Heartworm is a early killer and Heart Gard or a generic version of that medicine will save your pet from a premature death. These meds are available from online pet pharmacies at competitive prices.

It isn’t difficult to buy brand name pet medications at less expensive prices. There are a number of options from internet sources as well as department stores, even your pet’s vet.

When you buy from online pet stores it’s cheaper than going to the veterinarian or local pet store.  There are a number of varieties of the same pet med constituent elements are available in generic off label branded items. The same exact drugs ingredient from a recognized brand name can be discovered in an off brand and it can be yours for less money.

For whatever reason, if your pet meds are too expensive for your taste it can pay to look to see what other possibilities exist. You have choice with the extensive marketplace of generics. This allows you to benefit and redistribute some of your wealth into your wallet.

The time it takes to find a better deal is less than traveling to a local store or going to the vet.  Weight the cost of shipping fees against the free shipping fee offers.

Most do not realize that purchasing pet meds is cheaper from Australia.  The ingredients are the same and there are no differences in the pet medicine other than labeling and packaging.  There are a significant range of pet meds that do not require a prescription for sale in Australia and important savings are given to the consumer.  

Small animals for company, supplies, accessories, various types of pet food, toys and pet magazines can be found in pet stores. You go to pet stores when you need to change a collar, buy a leash, renew the food supply or order a customized ID for your animal. Children usually like to go to pet stores because there are so many things to enjoy there. Here you will find hamsters, Guinea pigs, rabbits, fish and birds; pet stores are colorful and great fun.

In terms of supplies, pet stores sell toys, beds, grooming tools, food, furniture, bowls, cat litter, cages, carriers, covers, temperature control devices, fish tanks with maintenance equipment and so much more. This is where people shop to get supplies for the basic animal needs. Besides the products they sell, pet stores may also offer various services to their customers. Pet sitting, pet grooming and pet walking may be available.

Although pet stores do not sell dogs and cats, they help you find such pets. Animal shelters and rescue centers often place notes on the announcement boards, in a special corner of the pet shop. You can find a really great pet like this. There are also private cat and dog owners who leave notes and advertise pet donation by such means. Finding homes for many pets is definitely difficult.

Some pet stores sell exclusively on the Internet, and they enjoy quite a good level of commercial activity. It is due to intense online advertising that organic pet food has grown so popular. Not all pet stores have organic products available, and some pet owners will prefer to order supplies on the Internet than feed their pets food treated with additives. Some web pet stores make incredible profit by selling organic pet food and organic cleaning products.

The prices are sometimes very similar for the same products sold in pet stores. For bulk orders you can get discounts too. There are also special promotions and coupons that you can use to get a free gift for your pet such as a toy, a flee shampoo or a hair brush. Normally, it is really great for children and adults alike to go shopping in pet stores. You’ll aways find something nice to stare at!

One of the best ways to make an aquarium come to life is to add real wood. Wood not only looks great, it also makes good habitat for both fish and reptiles and can support beneficial bacteria. But you must choose your aquarium wood carefully. Some wood will decay and pollute the water and some are high in tannin, which can discolor the water and throw off the PH levels.

Manzanita wood is quickly becoming a wood of choice for aquariums. Manzanita looks great with its colors and unusual and sometimes twisted shapes. The natural wood can provide many hiding places and habitat for fish and other aquarium animals.

Manzanita is non toxic, non resinous and chemically neutral. It will leach some tannin in the beginning but much less than most wood. After soaking for a few weeks most of the tannin will be gone. This soaking will also saturate the wood, which will allow it to sink. Once it is saturated there is no need to weight the wood and it will stay on the bottom all on its own.

Manzanita wood is very dense and durable and resistant to decaying. It will last in an aquarium either submurged or unsubmerged for many years or decades or longer.

Before you put the wood in the water it should first be seasoned. If it is still green it will be more likely to decay. The bark should also be removed since it will decay too. In most cases commercially available aquarium wood will come with the bark stripped or sandblasted off. You should soak the wood before you introduce it to your aquarium for two weeks to a couple months depending on the size of the wood.

Replace the water that you soak it in daily or every other day. Notice the discoloration of the water from the tannin in the wood. Once the water is no llonger has color when you change it, it is safe to put in the aquarium. If it still floats, either keep it soaking or weigh it down in your aquarium until it becomes fully saturated. You may still get a little tannin leaching for a while but small amounts will be harmless and can be removed with a filter.

The Emergency provision Guide is meant to offer you advice on how to prepare for and survive a plethora of potential emergencies with which you might be presented with at home, in your office and while away from home.

While there are numerous clear similarities among different kinds of calamity, each kind of emergency brings with it certain individual needs.

Family Animals

In the USA, our family pets outnumber humans by about sixty million. Nearly 65% of all households own a pet, Almost 50% own two or more. We own an estimated 75 million dogs, 95 million cats. We spend roughly $2000 per year on a dog, over $900 on a cat, which includes the vet, food, boarding, grooming, vitamins, snacks and pet toys. As for emergency preparedness supplies, there are no estimates.

Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call for emergency preparedness, not only for ourselves but also for our beloved pets.

Of an approximated 1/4 million pets left behind in New Orleans, only about 15,000 were ultimately saved. These suffered from heartworm disease, parasites, severe lack of water, trauma, wounds from debris and standing water, malnutrition, lethargy and exhaustion, according to the AMVA.

•  Don’t leave your family pets behind if you have any say in the matter.

What you need to do:

Don’t forget your pets in an emergency plan. We talked repeatedly in the past about the importance of having a plan, having it in written form, making sure everyone in the household comprehends it, and actually practicing it. It should include your pets.
Keep pet permit and shots up to date. Make sure that a collar ID and rabies tags are worn by the pet at all times. The ID must include mobile telephone  number, in addition to any temporary shelter address you might have. You may apply tape to back of the Identification tag and write with permanent sharpie or marker. Have a list handy of all boarding possibilities (including friends/relatives) out of the direct peril area. Most emergency shelters won’t allow pets other than service animals that aid people with disabilities.

• Bring pets inside well ahead of a natural disaster.
• Prepare an indoor area in which pets can stay. Should be an area easy to clean; away from breaking glass, wind, noise; and have ample food and water. If danger of flooding, area should be as high as possible and/or allow access to a high place.
• Keep a sturdy leash available for each pet.
• If possible, keep cats and dogs apart. They may get along with each other in typical times, but emergencies are not normal times.
• Keep pets steadfastly leashed when outdoors. Emergencies are very stressful, and frightened pets may panic and make an attempt to escape.
• Have pet emergency products readily available to take along on limited notice. 

What you require:

•  Food. Dry, preferably vacuum packed. If wet food, be sure to have a can opener. Enough for at least 72 hours.
•  Water. In sealed pouches or sealed gallon jugs. Enough for 72 hours.
•  Food/water dish(es).
•  Medications. If your pet is on medication, have a two week supply.
•  Toys. One or two favorites.
•  Crate(s). A sturdy pet carrier.
•  Plastic bags for waste. Litter box and litter for cat(s).
•  Photo for identification if pet is lost.
•  Pet First Aid Kit.
•  Backpack or Five Gallon covered bucket to hold the above.

In Summary

The key to surviving any emergency is being prepared. If you have to be merely another statistic, be one of the good ones…survivors. Remember…have a plan and rehearse it. No Plan will include every possible contingency. Good luck, and remain safe.

Hermit crabs aren’t generally at the top of most people’s cute-and-cuddly-pets list, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t make fantastic companions. Inexpensive, easy to care for, fun to watch, and safe for children to handle, hermit crabs are an excellent beginner pet or great for adults who just don’t have a lot of spare time. However, buying any animal takes consideration. Hermit crabs, while relatively easy to maintain, can live for more than fifty years! Before making yourself responsible for the health and well-being of any pet, be thorough in your research.

So here they are, a handy compiled list of the most common hermit crab myths–things that the sales people in pet stores will tell you but aren’t necessarily true.

10. Crab Foods Should be Chopped Up Into Tiny Pieces

I see it all over. Recommendations and descriptions that talk about dicing crab foods up into tiny crab-bite size pieces. The only hermit crab that needs their food made very small is a crab that is missing both of it’s pinchers or if the food is very very hard to break into pieces. Hermit crabs come fully equipped to disassemble all manners of foods. It’s the biological duty! In addition to that they have very few activities to do in the tank so don’t deprive them of the opportunity to sit and pick a big hunk of apple or walnut apart. It makes eating an action oriented activity rather than just a set of motions. Food in large chunks also allows them to detect exactly what they are eating without being confused by several ground foods mixed together.
9. Crabs Prefer Painted Shells

I’ve seen this stated in several different places, however not one of them could point me to an article or study that proved that this was true. It’s certainly a convenient statement to justify selling painted shells to unsuspecting parents. Not only do crabs not prefer painted shells, the methods used to get crabs into them are cruel at best. In what amounts to nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy to get children to try to talk their parents into an impulse-pet-buy, painted shells are one of the last approved methods of animal cruelty allowed in pet stores. Click here to read a longer article about painted shells.

8. Commercial Food: Adequate and Complete

This is another common myth perpetuated by the petstore industry and some others. Commercial food is problematic for a number of reasons. First it often contains harmful additives and preservatives like copper sulfate and ethoxoquin. Additionally, even healthy crab diets are not complete (even if they state that they are). Hermit crabs require variety, they are biologically imprinted to move to different foods every 12 hours or so. Offering them the same manufactured foods over and over will cause them to lose interest and deprive them of the true variety that they need.

7. Gravel is the Best Substrate.

In truth, gravel should be nowhere on your acceptable substrate list. There are people who use limited amounts of gravel under the water dish but using gravel as a general substrate is a bad idea. It’s impossible to dig and bury safely in, it’s often painted, and it’s easy for bits of gravel to make it into the shell of your crab, injuring their soft abdomen.

6. If Your Hermit Crab is Sick, Put Them in the Dark

Hermit crabs are very dependent upon the natural day/night light cycle to regulate their metabolism. If you have a sick crab, give them a hiding spot, like a coconut hut but do not remove them from all light or cover their tank with a towel. The light/dark cycle will help their bodies work as they were meant to and will increase their chances of getting better. This is especialy true for treating Post Purchase Stress.
5. Hermit Crabs are Exclusively Nocturnal

It’s true that hermit crabs in the wild are most active at night with the heat of the sun and visibility to predators making the day time much less hospitable. Hermit Crabs in captivity however are much more active during the day than their wild counterparts. The longer they live in captivity the more comfortable they will be coming out during the day. Be careful not to let the nocturnal argument be an excuse for why your crabs are never out and active. A healthy crab will have periods of activity even if you miss them. A crab that sits in one spot and never moves has a problem that needs to be addressed. This problem is almost always improper humidity and temperature as well as a limited access to fresh and salt water.

4. Crabs Can’t Have Pools of Water or They Will Drown

This myth never made sense to me but I hear it over and over again. New crabbers are given the solemn, serious advice that they must not, under any circumstances, allow their crab near standing water. In fact, many go so far as to advice you to only offer your crab a damp sponge! This is terrible advice on a number of levels. First, crabs are beach dwellers, they come from the land of big water. They’re more then equipped to handle a 1 inch water bowl. Second, crabs need to get water into their shells. This requires you to provide a pool of water at least deep enough to reach your largest crab’s shell opening. Not only will theny not drown, they love water. Throw that sponge away, you don’t need it. Get them a pool and some natural moss instead!

3. You Should Mist Your Crabs Regularly

There’s no reason for you to squirt your crab with water unless it is suffering a serious health problem and you are concerned for it’s shell water level. If you are trying to raise your humidity, mist the inside walls of your tank. Crabs generally don’t like to be misted. There are some exceptions, I had a crab, Ol’Grandad, who use to run out whenever he realized I was on mist patrol. I would mist the area next to him and he would walk into the spray and stretch out, getting the water all over his armor plate. He’s the only one though. Maintaining proper humidity and providing pools does the job that you are trying to do by misting. Put. the spraybottle. down.

2. Crabs Don’t Live Very Long

This is a lie and it’s one that often ticks me off. Instead of providing proper care instructions, many pet stores hand you your crab and your stuff and when you come back a few months later to ask why your crab died, the answer is . . they don’t live very long, a few months to a year at most. It’s an easy lie for us to believe. Hermit crabs are small. Other small critters have relatively short lifespans, it’s not that far out side the realm of believability. However, hermit crabs have an incredible life span. Easily 30-50 years in the wild. That large crab you brought home last week is probably older than you are! This has been confirmed in the wild and domestically as Carol of Crabworks two crabs, John and Kate, are over 30 years old!

1. Crabs Don’t Need Salt Water

This one is the most common and often the most deadly. Hermit crabs (every species) needs salt water to regulate the salinity of their shell water (this keeps their gills and abdomen moist) as well as to aid in their molting and their metabolism. This must be ocean style salt water, not table salt, commercial sea salt (for cooking with) but salt that is designed to be used to set up a salt water aquarium (it doens’t have to be filtered sea water like in the picture, any sea mix will do). If you don’t have salt water in your tank, go buy some salt and set up a pool, observe their reaction. Most crabs will drink the water and soak in it for several days after the initial offering. It’s an absolute must for all hermit crabs.