Watch video to learn more about Heartworms from the AVMA

Where there are mosquitoes there is a chance that your dog may end up with the Heartworm disease. Yes, mosquitoes are the carrier of this disease. The way it is transmitted is by a mosquito biting an infected animal and then biting your dog, we know ourselves how hard it is to keep from being bit by these pesky parasites and the same holds true for our dogs.

With that said, that is a great reason to share the awareness of Heartworm disease in the month of April, and prevent this disease from infecting your dog and those of others. 

Another way to celebrate National Heartworm Awareness Month is scheduling that annual Heartworm test with your vet and make sure your dog is on preventatives for the disease. There are lots of different preventatives out there so make sure to talk to your vet and get the one that is right for you and your dog.

Why Celebrate – Greyhounds are bred for racing, but what happens to these wonderful creatures after they are retired? There are many organizations that work to place these dogs in loving homes somewhere between the ages of three and five when they are no longer required to race.

The Greyhound Project works year-round to help educate people on the nature of these dogs and helps prospective owners learn more about these sight-hounds and the breed to help determine if a retired Greyhound might be right for your family.

Now to understand if a Greyhound is merely a couch potato the answer is yes. The Greyhound is a rather laid back gentle dog that works well with positive training tactics.

Greyhounds normally like a good 15-20 minute walk a few times a day for exercise and if space allows will run around a few minutes to burn off any pent up energy they may have.

I believe all dogs should be indoor dogs but for the Greyhound, it is an important factor when deciding to adopt as they have a very light coat and do not tolerate the cold and heat well. The good thing is most Greyhounds do not have that doggie odor and are very easy to maintain with light brushing a couple of times a week.

If you are not ready to provide a home to one of these retired Greyhounds then making a donation of time, money or both is a way to show support of these retirees while waiting on their furever homes. Get Involved and contact one of the organizations and share on social media.

Greyhounds love to run so it is advised to never let them run off-leash unless they are in a fenced area. They are fast and because they are sighthounds they may not find there way back home.

Dogs are notorious for eating things that are not edible. They have to sniff and taste everything to see what it is all about. Even though we try to be cautious dog parents there are times a dog might get ahold of something that could cause them to choke or is poisonous to there systems.

Do you know what to do if a dog is injured or in an accident? Dogs do not understand the dangers that might lead to sniffing out that favorite scent and what trauma might lay ahead.

Being prepared and understanding what you can do as a pet parent could be a matter of life and death to our fur babies that mean so much to us. Are you prepared to react to an emergency situation? Let’s find out how we can celebrate and share awareness throughout the month of April.

How to celebrate – Many of us have first aid kits for ourselves; however, do you have one for your dog? Putting together a first aid kit and keeping it up-to-date is vital when you have pet children. April is a great month to pull it out and check the contents each year.

Do you know where all your dog’s health records are? Here at The Wood Hound, we have a notebook that is readily available with all the health records for each of our dogs right at our fingertips. If you do not have something like this now is a great time to get it all together in one place. I put together a free Disaster/Crisis/Emergency Ebook that also includes a checklist to put together a First Aid Kit, just for the celebration this month and to help you celebrate. You can get access by clicking the button below.

Have you seen the infographic over at 1800petmeds it is a great resource for awareness facts and tips to share with other pet parents so they can help share the awareness of National Pet First Aid?

What Is It – According to the AVMA, two organizations joined forces, The Lyme disease Foundation, and Merial LTD and named April as the official Prevent Lyme Disease In Dogs Month. They are on a mission to educate dog parents on how Lyme disease can affect your dog and what you can do to prevent it.

Lyme Disease can be controlled by using preventatives. One of the best preventatives is checking your dog for ticks daily and removing any that have latched on to your furry friend. Normally it takes 24 to 48 hours to transmit the disease so time plays a big factor in prevention.

If your dog has had a tick, some of the signs to watch out for are lameness, fever, lethargy, loss of appetite and stiff and swollen joints, it can also affect the heart, kidneys and nervous system. If you think your dog might have Lyme disease it is vital to get your dog to the vet for treatment.

Check your dog at least daily to make sure these parasites have not made your dog a host. This is a great preventive measure that can make a difference between finding them early and contracting Lyme disease.

Make sure to share about Lyme Disease during the month of April and help through sharing educational and information through Facebook or other social media.

How to celebrate – There are many ways to get involved and help to share the awareness to help prevention of cruelty to animals and the ASPCA has a full outline of the ways to help, from Birthday Campaigns to Rock Star Dog Campaigns.

Social Media is another way to help people become aware of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month. By posting on your social media more and more people become aware of the issues that our dogs face on a daily basis and have a chance to reach out and make a difference in their lives. 

What better way to celebrate our dogs having a month-long celebration to brag about our dogs,  meet other pet parents, and share the love for our dogs with the world.

Let’s get started and find out how we can start celebrating National Pet Month and have some fun with our furry friends.

Get on board with social media by posting lots of pictures of your furry pals and the fun they are having over the next couple of months.

Pack your pal up and go to that fun day organized by local charities, if you have any local, if not organize something to get pet parents together and socialize for a day. This can be a lot of fun for you and your furry friend.

This is a great time to get involved and thank our pet professionals for all they do and how they help us become better pet parents for our dogs. 

This week was actually created by The Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists (aPaws) to help educate people on why it is important to scoop poop.  

As you might see this is to promote a week of awareness to help people understand the importance of keeping your dog’s poop out of our communities, environment, and water tables and help to combat the health problems that this might bring to both humans and our furry friends.

Awareness of how dog poop spreads disease in our dogs and humans is an important factor for this week, it is never fun to step in that pile of poo. The problem is when you walk in other locations and you can actually spread whatever disease an animal might have with the rest of the population, in some cases even to humans. 

Let’s celebrate this week by taking the time to scoop the poop!

My vet even warned me of parvovirus and that just walking in a contaminated area has the potential to bring these disease home to your own furry friend. We take more precautions now by disinfecting the soles of our shoes with sanitizing wipes. I don’t feel we can ever be too careful with our dogs.

According to the AMVA, 56.7% of dog bites happen to children. Dogs can become irritated by noises or even children that do not give them their space when they want to be left alone. This can cause even the best dog to get irritated and cause the potential for them to get snappy or even bite. 

The best way to prevent this is to make sure your dog has its own space where children are not allowed to antagonize your dog.

Any dog may have the potential to bite if they are scared by noises or in cases that the dog is under stress due to illness, protecting a litter of puppies or even during a thunderstorm. 

If your dog is stressed in any way make sure you watch their body language to understand the potential and prevent a dog bite, just like humans a dog has a flight or fight response to due stress and may lash out. 

The AVMA promotes pet professionals to offer classes to educate the public. If you know of one of these classes, attend and find out how to prevent dogs from biting, this would be a great education for our children as well.

Education is a great start to prevent the possible dog bite and to make sure everyone is safe, so share your knowledge with others on social media or in your community.

What is it – National Pet ID Week is an annual dog holiday to celebrate the importance and awareness reminding pet parents of the need to make sure your dog is identifiable in case they are separated from you.

This is where National Pet ID Week education might have an impact on us learning the importance of providing ID’s for all our dogs. A collar with identifying tags is a great place to start and fairly inexpensive, this allows someone that finds your dog to call you or get in touch with your vet. 

Another option is having an up-to-date chip inserted in your dog so when scanned your information is readily available and provides a better chance you will find your dog again. These work without the collar and tags or in addition as tags and collars can always be forgotten or come off during your dog’s excursion.  

This is also a good time to have that micro-chip done for your pet or if your dog is already microchipped, make sure your information is up-to-date.

Start a campaign in your community or help out with an event that is already up and running to make sure all dogs are identifiable. 

Share information with friends and family and make sure to post on social media the importance of National Pet ID Week.

With the new law signed by the president on November 25, 2019, Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture, or the PACT Act makes animal cruelty now a federal offense.

This is a good time to celebrate this holiday as cruelty to animals may now bring a jail sentence up to 7 years, so another step in the right direction to protect our fur babies from abuse.

Reporting may not only save the life of the animal but also the children and spouses that live with the offender.

The Animal Service League of Boston understands that mistreating animals is a big problem and has put together seven signs of animal cruelty. Check it out to learn more.

Not all people understand cruelty to animals, due to the way they were raised or just not knowing or understanding what is cruel. Spreading the word on social media exposes more people to the reality and education is critical to help stop animal abuse. 

Get on board and help stop the abuse of animals.

According to Animal Humane, only 15% of dogs and 2% of cats that end up in shelters without some type of identification are reunited with their loving families. Those odds alone are reason to get your dogs tagged and microchipped and why celebrating tag day is so important for our furry friends.

As always help spread the word through your community and social media to have a greater impact on those that do not realize the statistics of getting your dog returned safely to you.

If you have a dog that loves hugs there are great benefits to hugging your dog, as it produces oxytocin for you and your dog, which is known as a love hormone helping both of you to create that human-dog bond and unconditional love.

The one problem with this holiday celebration is not all dogs like hugs, just like people not all dogs are alike and have different personalities. So what do you do if your dog does not like hugs on this day? Do something they really like.

Another way to celebrate is to snap a selfie of you hugging your dog and post it on social media, this is a great way to show the world what your fur baby means to you. 

If you have ever wondered where the term “Don’t Shop! Adopt!” came from? This is the holiday that made the term popular.

This holiday celebrated first in the US has managed to go international with many different countries joining in to celebrate National Pet Day. Even many celebrities have jumped on board to celebrate this day with their own pets.

As you can see all great reasons to celebrate whether with that pet that is special in your heart or adopting a new pet and changing its life forever.

You might want to take your dog for a special walk or find that perfect treat in order to thank them for making our lives truly amazing.

If you are planning to adopt a new furry family member April 11th is a great time to offer your home to that best bud for years to come.

We all love pictures of our pets and what better way to celebrate than posting pictures of our loyal furry family and tell everyone how important they are to have in our lives.

A service dog has a job to do by taking care of just one person and provides the help that is needed by that specific person they do service for.

Therapy dogs have to have a people-friendly demeanor, well behaved and predictable. These are the traits that people look for when trying to get the role of a therapy dog. Therapy dogs meet many different people from day to day and need to enjoy mingling and getting petted by a variety of people in different settings.

The work that they do is given freely and normally on a volunteering basis, never asking for anything in return. This is why it is so important to recognize Dog Therapy Day and what they do for the community. Let’s do our part and thank these dogs and their handlers for the great job they do to provide therapy to all ages from young to old.

If you are the therapy dog parent, show some extra special attention to your dog on April 11th and thank them for everything they do. Don’t forget to take some credit for yourself as if it was not for you the therapy dog could not do their job.

As always put a big THANK YOU out on social medial thanking both the therapy dog and their handlers for the great service they provide. 

If you are not a Bulldog parent you might now understand, but you might understand how much we love our dogs and they are all beautiful in their own way. This is exactly the message that is construed from Bulldogs are Beautiful Day.

Make sure on April 21st if you have a Bulldog to post their best picture on social media so everyone can share and support Bulldogs everywhere.

It is a sad moment when your dog comes up missing. We do everything we can think possible to find them and get that family member back safe at home. Many times after searching day in and day out we finally give up and realize we may never see our beloved dog again. Do you know what to do if your dog comes up missing?

Help spread the word through social media and your state to let people know there is help out there if a dog has gone missing. Lost Dogs of America has a great start and is on a mission to provide a comprehensive database that everyone uses to locate and get these dogs home to their family. 

Our Veterinarian is there from the time we bring our furry friend home into our families until the day our loved ones leave us. They give our fur babies their first shots and diagnose any illness our pets may endure throughout their lifetime. They do their best to keep our pets healthy, happy and well-adjusted so we can spend as many great days as possible enjoying our special furry family members.  

Give a shout out to your vet on social media and let everyone know how they have helped you raise and maintain your furry family members throughout the years.

Other ways to celebrate are taking a mini-vacation with your pet or going to that special place you and your pet adores. Relax and enjoy that special time to celebrate just for you and your pet.

How it originated – This is one of those many holidays created by Colleen Paige, Pet Lifestyle expert, in 2005 this holiday was created to celebrate the bond between a child and pet and to help parents understand safety issues that need they need to be aware of for the sake of their children and their pets.

Why Celebrate – Children and pets are a match made in heaven as long as parents teach their children to love and respect their pets. Growing up I have always had a dog and into adulthood, the love of a dog has always been a priority. I have also given this gift to my children, and feel that the love and compassion my family have given and received from our furry friends is more than life can ever teach us and a bond with pets that will last a lifetime.

Take time out of your busy schedule to take some pictures of your children and your pets to cherish for years to come. Your pet holds a special piece of your child’s heart and they will have a chance to look back and know the love of that special pet. Post to social media to show that child’s special friends and the love they share together.

Always make sure when getting a pet to understand the best pet for your whole family and one that your child can love and spend many years with. Don’t leave pets alone with small children and give children a chance to learn, grow and love their family pet. 

Guide dogs not only help with the independence for their handlers but provide a trusted companion as well as boosting their esteem. Let’s celebrate and let these dogs know that the service they provide is unmatched and appreciated and don’t forget the trainers that help make this all possible.

On April 30th every year many of the different shelters offer special incentives for people to adopt these loveable souls that so desperately want and need furever homes.

We understand that not everyone has the ability to run down to their local shelter an adopt but those that are thinking of getting a dog or a companion for a dog they already have, now is a perfect time.

When deciding on adoption make sure you get the right dog the first time as you see in the data below the 805,664 of these intakes were relinquished by their owner, due to many different reasons for not able to keep the pet any longer. This is why it is so important when adopting to make sure it is for life of the animal. 

Find a Shelter Near You

If you find that right now is not the time to adopt then you can jump aboard and help these shelter pets in other ways by volunteering your time to visit with these pets at the shelter or list them on social media to help them get adopted. There are many different ways you can help your local shelter so get involved and ask your local shelter how you can help.