Brilliant Dog Tricks

But with...cats:

Kitty Plays Dead @ Yahoo! Video

New York Tails

Photo by Paul Keleher

Just what every New York City pet dog, cat, and impish chinchilla need, New York Tails, a magazine dedicated to them:

“I got my ear to the ground,” said Diane West, the magazine’s founder and publisher, who is also a freelance medical writer. She described how “a small ragtag bunch of pet-loving New Yorkers had a dream, reached out to the best pet writers in their respective fields, and put together an all-volunteer local magazine.”

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“Just because they are animals living in a jungle of concrete and steel does not mean they cannot have a good quality of life,” said Bob Marino, who is on the magazine’s editorial board and is president of the New York Council of Dog Owner Groups, whose Web site is NYCdog.org (“nice dog”).

Another contributor to the magazine is Carole Wilbourn, a cat therapist known as the Kitty Freud, who writes the Cat Chat column. There is even a gossip page, Tails About Town, which is put together by Beth Joy Knutsen and her dog, Bella Starlet, whom she calls a diva and who accompanies her on red carpet events. An image of the pooch is tattooed on Ms. Knutsen’s ankle.

“This year more than ever, I want to sink our teeth into controversial issues,” Ms. West told her staff during their meeting at an apartment on the Upper East Side. They discussed pets and housing, feral cats living near Kennedy International Airport and pet obituaries. The last issue included an obituary of Sinatra, a spirited chocolate standard poodle who was struck by a car in Central Park, and another for Loki, a short-tailed opossum, which stated, “We met in August of 2004 at Marc Morrone’s pet store in Long Island, and it was love at first sight.”

A Dog, a Cat, and a Parakeet Go Into a Psychologist's Office

Photo by FlyNutAA

Do you love dogs, cats, and other pets? Are you worried about the current economic crisis and its effect on your finances? If so, here's a great way to make your love of animals work for you. Consider a career as a pet psychologist, one of six top hot new careers:

Once the local vet has ruled out physical ailments that can contribute to rude pet behavior, people who love their animals may need to call in a trained, certified behaviorist or pet psychologist. As with human patients, pets can be analyzed and taught to act contrary to destructive impulses. There are even certified applied animal behaviorists. To get into the field, you'll need a master's or doctorate degree in psychology, preferably with additional work in zoology and animal behavior. Salaries vary greatly by locale, but can be upwards of $90,000 a year.