This is great time of the year to enjoy outdoor activities with your pets. This post is probably most relevant to dog owners and people who enjoy riding their horses. Fall is great time to enjoy the cooler weather and take long walks with your dog or scenic trail rides with your horse.

It is beautiful, the leaves are colorful, it is still nice and not too hot. Perfect! Winter can be a lot of fun, summer is a great time to do outdoor activities, but it is tough to beat the perfect day time temperatures of early fall. I happen to live in Utah and the fall in Utah is great. Probably the best time of the year.

While enjoying the fall walks and jogs with your dog, please be mindful of other people. Unless you are in a safe area where letting your dog run free is legal, keep your dog always on the leash. Naturally, you need to make sure that your dog comes when you call! Pick up after your dog as well. Even if you and your friends love dogs, please remember that not everyone wants to meet your dog. If your dog does not come when called or likes to jump on other people, keep him/her on the leash and consider enrolling into obedience school. many veterinary offices and pet food stores offer obedience training classes that are relatively inexpensive. You can also meet many other pet owners in these classes.

There are also various dog clubs offering fun activities for the fall and year round.

Here is a link to the Mountain West Dog Fanciers Web Pages. You can find a lot of useful information on the site

and connect with other people who enjoy training and doing things with their dogs.

If trail riding is your “thing”, find like minded people through your various horse clubs. One of the clubs that are focused on trail riding is the Back Country Horsemen of Utah.

Now, let’s go and enjoy the gorgeous fall weather!

Storing Pet Foods and Supplements During Warm Weather Months

As we are now in the summer months, the warm weather presents different challenges for storing our pet’s food and supplements. Like most of our “human” foods, pet foods also should be stored in a cool place to maintain the quality and to keep them the fresh. Especially with supplements, be sure to read the instructions regarding how to store them. Since the best dog foods with the least amount of preservatives will not keep as long as foods that have been treated with preservatives. Overall for your pet’s health you want to buy the freshest food with the least amount of preservatives even if it means that you need to plan to buy smaller amounts at a time. The benefits of fresh food without additives is our recommendation.

Like with human supplements, you should keep all pet medications and supplements away from the reach of children no matter what time of the year it is!

Keep in mind that if you mail order supplements, they will get exposed to wide temperature variations during shipping. If your pet’s supplements should be stored in a cool place, try to place your orders before the full heat of the summer sets in. If you have your supply ordered before summer, you will not have to worry about ordering during the hottest months.

Even food that is in cans will store longer if it is in a place away from direct sunlight and in a cooler place.

With little planning, you will have fresh and healthy food for your pets even when the temperatures rise.

We Salute the Good-Doers

It is rewarding and inspirational to find out about organizations that manage to provide a needed service and survive. I happened upon Jack Hanna’s “Into the Wild” TV show episode in which they featured the Rolling Dog Ranch (changed their name to Rolling Dog Farm in 2010).

Rolling Dog Farm is a rescue organization that gives a permanent home to disabled cats, dogs, horses and other animals that have no other place to go. We at Pet Care and Rescue are in awe of Steve and Alayne who left their corporate jobs and started the rescue. Rolling Dog Farm has received numerous awards and has been recognized as an excellent organization. They are non-profit 501(3)(c) organization, so all the donations they receive are tax deductible.

If you are interested in learning more about the work they do, visit their web site http://www.rollingdogfarm.org/.

Learning about an organization like Rolling Dog Farm is very useful to all of us. We can all learn to do some small things to help make the world a better place for ourselves and our pets. They emphasize that the value of the animal is not diminished if they have a disability. These animals deserve to have an opportunity to live their lives with dignity. Steve and Alayne make a point to say that the animals aren’t asking for our pity, but simply for an opportunity to live their lives and enjoy life!