Americans use insurance to medicate pets

With aging, it's become a routine faithfully endured by the Guffords. Each day starts with a blood sugar check and a shot of insulin. Then a couple of pills, maybe mashed into a bowl of tuna and canned carrots. Mixed with dry chow.
All for their 12-year-old dog.
Brownie takes more drugs than his human companions put together. He has been medicated in recent months for diabetes, infections, high blood pressure, and his finicky gut that rebels at red meat. Since 2005, he has taken drugs for everything from anemia to a spider bite.
"He's our baby, he's a family member, I would want somebody to do that for me," explains Ann Gufford.
She estimates spending $5,000 over the last two years on medicine for her baby, a mixed beagle-cocker spaniel.

Dog killer spared petless life

A convicted puppy killer who agreed as part of his punishment never to own pets again didn't wind up with a lifetime ban after all.
A judge Thursday sentenced Kimanie Markeys Carter, 20, to a year in the workhouse and a two-year pet ban for killing 10 puppies last summer in St. Paul.
Ramsey County District Judge William Leary III did not order the lifetime ban because it would be impossible to enforce, prosecutors said.
In addition to the workhouse time and the pet ban, Leary also ordered two years of probation, a stayed 18-month prison sentence, a psychological evaluation and behavioral counseling.
"We would strongly prefer that the defendant in this case never own or possess a pet, but we understand the judge's decision," Ramsey County Attorney Chief of Staff Jack Rhodes said.

Going door-to-door to ensure pets' welfare

A change in the law will toughen up rules about how we care for animals. The News joined the RSPCA as owners were offered advice and practical help with their pets.
RSPCA inspectors know only too well how cruel some pet owners can be.
But as the law stands, they can only intervene and prosecute when they can prove cruelty, which often comes too late for the animals involved.
In April, the new Animal Welfare Act will force pet owners to meet their animals' basic needs, with a proper diet, suitable living space and live with or without animal companions, as appropriate.
It will also compel owners to care for pets in a way which allows them to express normal behaviour and take reasonable steps to protect them from pain, suffering, injury or disease.

Pets may be federally protected tenants

SOLDOTNA, Alaska - Dante is not your typical home health aide, and his presence is causing a scrap with the landlord.
The wrinkly, hairless gray cat helps Miranda Monet feel at home and comforts her when she cries, she says. A nurse practitioner prescribed the cat to help with Monet's treatment for manic depression and a traumatic brain injury that saps short-term memory.
"He calms me down," Monet said, stroking the cat on her sofa in a small living room ringed by posters of wolves. "If I start to get upset, he knows it before I do. He senses it."
Dante is somewhat cold toward visitors, though, casting an icy stare that leads Monet to offer, "He's a one-person cat."
Companion animals like Monet's are an increasingly popular treatment, and advocates for the disabled say too often landlords and store owners don't recognize they have a legal basis.

Pets inspire painter's creativity

Ted Horton lost the sweet-natured golden retriever when she was just 4 years old, and to ease the pain of her untimely passing he painted a likeness of her on canvas.
It was pretty good. Very good, in fact.
Soon one friend, then another, and then complete strangers were calling on him to paint their pets.
And he did, with surprisingly good results, given that he has no training in art and by occupation he's on the crew of the Broome County Department of Public Works. Heavy equipment is more his milieu than dainty paint brushes.
But one after the other, people began singing his praises as an artist.
An acrylic likeness of Shana the Labrador retriever hangs on the living room wall in Mike Cooper's Endwell home.
"I was pretty surprised," says Cooper, who also works for the BCDPW, as does Tim Brink of Binghamton.