A friend of mine has beautiful cats. She has recently adopted two new cats from her veterinarian --- a young mother cat and her kitten. The other day when I was at her house, adoring her new family members, I noticed that the very tip of the mother cat's right ear was missing. My friend told me that it was on purpose. The mother cat was originally a "stray" , and had been taken care of by an organization called "Alley Cat Advocates." This group is dedicated to helping reduce cat overpopulation in the United States in a unique way. They capture stray cats, neuter/spay them, do health check-ups, and release them back to the original spots where they were found. To avoid picking up the same cat twice, they crop the very tip of cats' right ears after they are neutered/spayed.

This is a very proactive way of dealing with cats' overpopulation, considering the fact that many cats and kittens who are brought into humane societies and shelters may end up being euthanized -- somtimes in as little as five days or so. Organizations like "Alley Cat Advocates" try to stop this from happening by "nipping unwanted stray cat pregnancies in the bud".

This approach helps us look at the present cats' overpopulation from a new angle --- "how does this cat overpopulation start in the first place?" Otherwise, we would end up focusing only on dealing with the consequences, which is on-going euthanasia of cats. We'd like to put this to an end.

Some time ago when we visited our holistic veterinarian's office for an annual check-up for our pets, our veterinarian -- just in casual conversation -- told us an interesting story. It was the kind of story you may not necessarily hear from conventional veterinarians...

One day the veterinarian had a client who brought in her cat. The cat had been a bit under the weather, and the cat owner didn't know what was wrong. The holistic vet checked the cat thoroughly, but couldn't find the cause of the cat's problems.

Eventually, the vet suggested her client to seek guidance from an animal communicator. What they found out, through the help of the animal communicator, was intriguing and came out of nowhere. It turned out that the "candles" this cat owner used regularly at home had been bothering the cat for a while. The cat owner stopped using all the candles, and the cat didn't seem to have any noticeable problems after that.

Sometimes, it amazes us when we find that things we don't even think about or question on our daily basis can become the culprits of various problems.

Organic foods have being gaining popularity recently. The holistic pet food industry is also moving in the direction of using more organic ingredients. HealthyPetNet, the holistic pet food manufacturer, is no exception. For example, they use organic chicken for their canned cat food, and organic herbs for their shampoo.

Speaking of organic food, I can't help being impressed by the efforts organic farmers make to keep insects away from the produce in their farms -- without depending on heavy usage of pesticides. Every time I shop at health food stores, I can't walk by vegetable and fruit sections without admiring their quality.

When I was a child, my relatives used to grow vegetables and bring them to our family. Since they never used pesticides, the first thing we had to do was to remove bugs from the vegetables. Even if we cleaned them carefully, some bugs always ended up in our meals. I remember scooping away dead (cooked!) bugs floating on the surface of my soup as I ate. Every time I see organically-grown vegetables, I somehow remember bugs in my soup many years ago. Considering organic farmers' efforts to grow their vegetables in a natural way and at the same time to keep bugs away,I'm not surprised by the relatively high price of their produce.

I hope more and more people and pets will enjoy healthy foods made with the minimum use of chemicals.

I bought a reflective collar and leash for my dog. I have always been vaguely aware that I needed reflective materials for the protection of my dog and myself when we walk in the evening, but for some reason I didn't bother myself to look around and purchase them for a while.

Finally, I decided to get a reflective collar and leash after a few near misses with cars, one of which was a real close call. The driver apologized to me (he tried to turn at the corner at high speed without a turn signal), but I felt it was also important for me to make myself and my dog more visible in the dark to drivers.

If you often go out to walk your dogs in the evening after sunset, wearing reflective tape on your person or getting reflective collars, harnesses or leashes for your dogs is an important way to protect yourself and your furry loved ones from being hurt. Reflective collars might be also good for cats who are allowed to roam around outside at night.

As I became more familiar with my pets, I came to realize that dogs (and cats, and other animals) are very sensitive to the subtlety of their human owners' voices and body languages. I believe that our pets are observing us more than we can imagine in our daily life.

One evening, my husband and I were sitting on the sofa, relaxed and chatting. As our conversation went on, our dog (who was sleeping on the sofa next to us at first) got up and walked toward the corner of the living room, looking scared and intimidated. At first I was perplexed by my dog's sudden strange behavior, but it didn't take me long to realize that it was our changed tone of voice that caused the dog to cower. When our discussion heated up (we were just discussing renting DVDs! It was a fun conversation to us), our dog must've thought we were arguing. We were too carried away in our conversation. We decided to change the tone of voice deliberately to more high-pitched and lilting voice to see how the dog would react this time. And there she was! Wagging her tail, trotting back on the sofa happily!

Since then, every time my dog looks a little worried, I try to change my voice to a slightly high-pitched tone, basically talking to my dog as if singing, "Lalala...lala... everything will be okay, so don't worry...Lalala!"