In light of the stories related to Angelina Jolie's brave willingness to allow her own health story to become public, I honestly cannot decide whether the timing here is fortunate or hideous. But that said, May is Animal Cancer Awareness Month and I've been asked by several readers to talk...

"The principle of confinement in so-called animal science is derived from the industrial version of efficiency. The designers of animal factories appear to have had in mind the example of concentration camps or prisons, the aim of which is to house and feed the greatest numbers in the smallest space...

I first moved to San Francisco for grad school back in the summer of 1975. Ancient history, I know, but then as now this was not an easy place to find rentals when your family included pets (especially big dogs, the hardest to hide from potential landlords). In fact, I...

A fascinating article in this month's Science magazine ("Self-Medication in Animals" by Jacobus Roode, Thierry Lefevre and Mark Hunter) points to a surprising list of animals who, whether knowingly or instinctively, make use of what is found in their environment to treat what ails 'em. Pointing out that...

We're not supposed to have favorites but of course we do, and it was my favorite sweet little guy Tsimmes who died this past weekend. It's the one thing our cats and dogs don't do well: They do not live long enough.

Tsimmes came to us almost 16 years...

Here's a fact about running a humane society which you might not know: Some people hate us (and I do mean hate) because we adopt out pit bulls, and some people hate us because we don't adopt out every pit bull brought to us. Quite often I get complaints from...

Readers of my posts know I'm drawn to discoveries which shorten that perceived distance between Homo sapiens and the rest of the animals on Mother Earth. It's not that I don't think we're special; rather, it's that I think all of life is special.

Back those many decades ago...

It can be hard to not get cynical, and the following won't help. Nathan Weaver, a student at South Carolina's Clemson University, placed a realistic looking rubber box turtle in the middle of a lane on a multi-lane road near the campus and then stepped into the shadows to watch....

A recent news item caught my eye, and just in case you missed it: In the effort to win a prize (which happened to be a live python), a Florida man choked to death attempting to swallow dozens of live roaches. The Broward County coroner's report noted cause...

The phrase "It takes a village to raise a child" is now in common usage. Despite how often one hears it, the wisdom of those few words helps the phrase from getting tagged as overly sentimental in all but the most jaded quarters.

Most of us know the phrase...

We lost a lot of interesting and some important people in 2012, and the media made much of that. The story I found the most touching, the death I feel the most worthy our attention (and the loss I will mourn for a long time) was that of Lawrence Anthony....

For as long as I've been working in animal shelters there's always been one or another breed of dog which has disproportionally filled up our kennel spaces. Back for awhile in the late 1970s it was Irish Setters and other sight-hounds. I honestly don't know why they were so popular...

All of us who live with and love animals have, at one time (or many), wished we could more clearly understand them. Cynics will of course argue against, but readers of this column are among those who would likely agree that we are by no means the only species capable...

Just about a week ago, I attended the first (and hopefully not the last) graduation ceremony for the people and dog participants of WOOF, the new program out of the San Francisco Department of Animal Care and Control. The ceremony, like the program itself, received a good amount of attention...

A recent study out of UC-Davis documents behavior which might be described as "mourning" by a species of local birds. When Western Scrub Jays come upon a dead member of their own species, they call out to each other in a distinctive, cacophonous way and quite often fly to their...

Despite the fact that you spent massive sums of money to hang that giant flat screen on your wall and that you're finally adjusting to those 3-D glasses without feeling nauseous, there really is nothing to watch on TV.

So as a public service, we are offering you something...

Before returning to the SF Bay Area in 2002 to work for the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA, I spent almost a decade at the Arizona Humane Society. There I wrote a weekly column for the state's largest newspaper, The Arizona Republic. Quite a surprise then when just this past...

The first people I see when I come to work are a group of professionals we call our animal care technicians. I am embarrassed to say that I've never before used this space to talk about this team; that I have contributed to them remaining among the "unsung heroes." I'd...

A special photo hangs in a plastic frame in a corner of my office, intentionally fixed in a spot within my line of sight but not necessarily obvious to visitors. I spend time with it virtually every day and have done so for many years. A fuzzy snapshot rather than...

In the past two weeks, the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA (PHS/SPCA) has taken in more than 30 emaciated and hypothermic Brown Pelicans in need of urgent care. The pelicans have become grounded in San Mateo County and along the entire California coast this month.