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Real Simple magazine's October edition lists eight of the most dangerous foods to feed your dogs. I only knew about two of them, so this was an eye-opening list.

1. Chocolate. Stimulates the nervous system and the heart.
2. Grapes, raisins. Damages the kidneys.
3. Garlic, onions. Damage red blood cells, causing anemia.
4. Xylitol (found in sugarless gum). Causes increased insulin secretion, resulting in lower blood sugar levels.
5. Alcoholic drinks. Depress the nervous system.
6. Ray yeast, bread dough. Forms gas in the digestive track; fermentation of yeast causes alcoholic poisoning.
7. Macadamia nuts. Cause muscle and nervous-system problems.
8. Avocados. Contain persin, which damages the heart muscle.

Once, Greta gulped up a large piece of pizza crust on a walk after trash day and I was nervous that the crust might be moldy. Who knew how long that crust had been in the trash. I called the vet immediately and they said I should induce vomiting in her by using hydrogen peroxide, administered to her through a turkey baster. I didn't have either of these items. After a quick trip to Food Lion, I did as I was told and all systems were cleared out.

So we're ready with our turkey baster in case of another emergency. We'll be sure to keep the garlic and grapes out of reach.

Call your veterinarian if your pet has consumed any of these items and you are concerned.

Name of pet: Kodi

Age: 9 years

Resides in: Greensboro

Breed: Samoyed

Male or Female: Male

Owner: Lisa Crawford

How owner and pet came together: (With the original owners) the kids left for college, the wife left the husband, and (he) moved in with his girlfriend (she did not want the dogs). The two dogs, Kodi and Miss Sammie were left alone for a year at his house. Someone dropped by to feed and water. Finally they were given up to Buckeye Samoyed Rescue in Ohio. My 15-year-old Samoyed had just died and I saw Kodi’s photo on Petfinder.com and applied to rescue him. They had to be rescued together. I only had a Mazda Miata, so I drove to Rice Toyota and bought a Scion for Kodi and Miss Sammi and drove to Ohio to pick them up in May 2005. They are my 6th and 7th Samoyed.

Best trick: Came with a Garfield stuffed toy. Kodi always carries a stuffed toy in his mouth and can catch in the air. Sometimes he even sleeps with the toy in his mouth

Favorite activity: Early morning walk around the park

Is there anything else we should know about this pet? (i.e., likes/dislikes, act of heroism, quirk etc.) They both starred in a TV commercial for Rice Toyota because they love their Rice Toyota Scion, they think it is a moving crate.

If you would like your pet to be considered for the weekly My Pet feature, fill out this form.

Bruce is out of town this weekend, so it's all up to me to take care of the cats. Not that it's a hard job. Anyone who owns a cat knows they are very low maintenance and basically do everything on their own. Also, I took care of Julian alone for over seven years, three of those with Abbey and Apple. So I knew I could handle things.

We make owning our cats harder by controlling their diet. We don't leave food in a bowl for them to graze on; they have set feeding times. This is done for various reasons, which I won't get into here.

Either way, Bruce feeds them before he leaves for work every morning at 7:30 a.m. I'm not even considering getting up at this time, so I was certain they would wake me to feed them. I outsmarted them by feeding them at like 3 a.m. before I went to bed.

Life carried on this weekend as normal, with the exception of my arrival home after work. Before moving in with Bruce, I was greeted each night by my three cats at the door, meowing, rolling on the carpet, just in general happy to see me. Now that they have Bruce to keep them company at night, me getting home wasn't even a blip on their radar. Most nights I would have to call Julian downstairs to see me. I'd hunt down Abbey, only to have her lift her head, yawn at me as if to say, 'Oh, you're home,' and then go back to sleep.

The greetings returned, which I was pleased to see. My sister once told me that dogs were better than cats because hers greeted her at the door, while cats didn't. Mine always did, before the move. I can see why she feels that way.

Happily, nothing strange happened while Bruce was gone, and with him back, they will fall back into their old routine. But the time with just them was nice since I got all of their attention. I'm greedy like that.

Remi is a handsome schnauzer mix that would love another dog to play with. He is about 2 years old and loves the company of people and other animals. He is neutered, weighs 36 pounds and is up to date on his vaccinations. To find out more about Remi, call the Animal Rescue & Foster Program at 574-9600 or go to www.arfpnc.com.  

For more available pets, see the Records each Sunday and Wednesday in the News & Record.

After my recent blog post about Julian's trials and tribulations about getting old, the response has been heartwarming. Then, the post ran in the print edition of the News & Record and the response swelled.

For those of you who responded, I wanted to share a story.

As I mentioned, I put a stool near the bed, so he could use that to jump on the bed. And he does use it ... about half the time.

As if he knows I told everyone he was old, thus embarrassing him, he's proving me a liar. He now jumps on the bed like normal if he's coming from the other side of the bed. And I caught him chasing Apple the other day. Admittedly, she easily cleared both set of steps before he made it to the top of the first. But he's not letting anyone call him old.

Typical of my stubborn, and not that old, cat.

ALSO: Some people have been e-mailing me, asking how Joe, the boxer mix from the SPCA, is doing. Seems eating grass can be a sign of being sick, or it's just a sign they like the taste. Joe must be the latter. I saw him Tuesday, and he's just as rambunctious as before. Again, thanks for the concern.

Name of Pet: Jenni-Wren

Age: 3

Resides in: Winston-Salem

Breed: Pomeranian

Male or Female: Female

Owner: Kathleen and Mari Pat McKee

How owner and pet came together: Jenni-Wren was found by her owners floating down the river in a basket wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Best trick: Locating chicken bones in urban areas

Favorite activity: Eating and/or thinking about bacon

Is there anything else we should know about this pet? Jenni-Wren has her own Facebook page, with more than 60 friends and 70 pictures. She also enjoys long walks on the beach, where she tends to eat sand until she throws up. When she had her picture taken with Santa Claus this year, her No. 1 wish: thumbs.

Credit for photograph? Kathleen McKee

If you would like your pet to be considered for the weekly My Pet feature, fill out this form.

Yesterday I received an email from a reader, Karen, who had read my story in Tuesday's News & Record about remembering my first dog Cassie. Karen wrote a beautiful story about her sister's recent loss of her beagle and the other wonderful dogs that have come into their lives.

Please take a few moments to read Karen's story below.

Look At My Dog
By Karen B. Ingram

My sister is a 42-year-old academician who, until recently, was the single mom of an aged beagle. This is a tribute to Royster D. Brown, an old dog for whom our whole family mourned at his passing this summer.

Ours has always been a family of long-lived dogs. Tippy was a terrier mix that my father brought home in his coat pocket 4 months before I was born in 1961. She died just as I graduated from high school in 1979. Two years later, my mother brought Rags home from the pound. We thought Rags would grow up to be a 12-pound lap dog, but she turned out to be a 35-pounder who still thought she was a lap dog. Rags died just after my daughter’s arrival in 1995. My husband and I got Mac, who can best be described as a cartoon dog, given his very questionable parentage, in New York right after we got married in 1986. We brought him back to North Carolina and raised him as a Southern dog. Mac died in 2001, at the ripe old age of 15. We currently have Licorice, a Border Collie/Dachshund mix, if you can imagine. He came from a shelter in 2006.

My sister got Royster from a shelter in Virginia, where he’d gone after he’d been left on the side of the road, presumably because he would not hunt. He was hunkered down in his cage, cowering, afraid, and clearly not happy at his situation. When she brought him home to her apartment, he howled. He howled at the doorbell, at visitors, at anyone moving about the room. He did not like men, and he howled at any movement that our father or my husband made. Our mother had a career in special education, and we classified poor Royster as a BEH beagle (behaviorally and emotionally handicapped). Then, slowly but surely, due to my sister’s love and devotion to this crazy dog, he became a wonderful part of our extended family. He learned that we all loved him and would not hurt him, so he gave up howling at the men.After he had flown the coop a couple of times, my sister learned that, in true beagle fashion, he wanted to explore. When he was young, even in a fenced yard, he had to be walked on a leash, or he’d make a break for the open road, scaling the fence. He learned to get along with other dogs. Other than Tippy, he knew all the other family dogs, and one year, before Rags left us to chase tennis balls in the great beyond, we had a three-dog Christmas with Royster, Rags and Mac.

Royster was already reaching his AARP years when Licorice joined the family, so he had very little interest in playing with a young dog. But once in a while, during his last couple of years, we saw him leap and bark just a little in play. In his last year or two, he had developed a shuffling, old-man gait, and he looked like Tim Conway’s old character from the Carol Burnett Show. My sister, the great dog mother, nursed Royster through many health issues, including cancer and seizures. He had veterinary relationships from Charlottesville, Va. to eastern North Carolina, including the vet schools at NC State and Virginia Tech. He finally suffered a stroke this summer, and she had to let him go. He was her immediate family for 16 years, and I called him my neph-dog. All who know my sister knew this sweet, crazy beagle, who was her child and knew of their devotion to one another. When, in his dotage, Royster would do something silly and cute, she would say, “Look at my dog.” And we always did.

Royster’s last great act of dog-ness was at my house this past Christmas. I heard him in the laundry room and found that he had stealthily tracked, stalked and taken down a bag of Purina Dog Chow and had ripped open the belly of the bag. He was standing with one paw holding down the great beast and was woofing down chow for all he was worth. He was finally a victorious hunter.

I suspect that there will be another beagle in our family’s foreseeable future. My daughter observed that Mac was a pest to Rags, Royster was a pest to Mac, Licorice was a pest to Royster, and a new dog will be a pest to Licorice, who is approaching middle-age in dog-years. The canine circle of life continues in our family. I think very soon, my sister will be saying to us again, “Look at my dog.” And we will.

 A friend of mine sent me this link today, recalling that I fell in love with a guy with a cat.

The four reasons listed on PetMD’s Web site claim that “owning a pet makes men much more attractive in a girl’s eyes.”

I never really thought much about that until I read this list. I started thinking back to my husband who had two cats when I met him – Bunny and Buckley, the latter which I inherited when we bought our first house together.

Now, I don’t know if this is a universal truth among women, but all I know is when I first started dating my husband, seeing him show love and affection for his cats was like seeing him interact with a baby or a child. You ladies know what I’m talking about – or at least those of you with your biological clocks ticking - when you see your husband holding a baby or playing with your nieces and nephews and you just start beaming watching him smile and play with these children as you sit there imagining one day him holding your own baby. Women’s minds do crazy things. I’m guilty of it. Believe me.

I still light up when I see my husband pet our cat on the head or ask him how his day was while he feeds him his dinner. It’s just really sweet.

None of my ex-boyfriends had cats or dogs. And maybe that’s why those relationships didn’t last -- not to mention the myriad of other reasons. So maybe there is some truth to this top four list. Cat owners make good husbands, or at least mine does anyway.

Read the full list here.

We've been competing for two weeks now with Fox 8 to see which staffer has the cutest dog, News & Record page designer Andrea Martin (that's me!) or Fox 8 reporter Roxanna Haynes. The competing dogs are my boxer mix, Greta, and Roxanna's miniature schnauzer, Layla.

The online, national competition is All American Pet Brands' Cutest Dog Competition. Between now and Oct. 24, a weekly winner is chosen by you, the public. Votes are reset to zero on Sunday. A new winner is chosen each week and is eligible for $500. You'll have to register your e-mail address if you've never voted before. You may vote once a day (and please do!)

Neither Greta nor Layla won last week's $500 prize. If either dog were to win the cash prize in any week of the competition, we will donate the money to the Guilford County Animal Shelter. So we really need your votes to help us pull out a win. This week's contest closes Saturday night.

To vote for Greta, click here.

 To vote for Layla, click here.

Any questions, let us know.