According to www.post-gazette.com, an animal shelter is giving children in a Chicago hospital the chance to play with kittens and puppies in a way similar to playing video games. Wright-Way Rescue in Morton Grove, Illinois paired a live video feed with Internet-accessible interactivity features to create a virtual experience for kids at downtown Lurie Children’s Hospital.

The kids have been able to watch the live feed from the shelter since the beginning of the year, and the interactive content will be available to anyone until coding issues can be resolved and the program can be set up at the hospital.

The system allows one viewer at a time to “play” with animals in one room of the shelter for two minutes. Using a platform called iPet Companion, which connects children’s hospitals with shelters around the country, the person in control can activate one of three toys by clicking on them, piquing animals’ interest. Currently, Wright-Way is one of 14 shelters using this program.

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When the ASTRO Foundation, an Oakdale, Calif. animal shelter, first opened its doors, it was faced with the need for many volunteers. Board members decided to try something unusual: enlist a volunteer force primarily made up of local teenagers. It turns out, their idea has paid off more than they could have imagined.

When executive director Jaydeen Vicente saw how crowded her city’s animal shelter was, she and several other passionate animal lovers came together to form the ASTRO (Animal Shelter To Riverbank & Oakdale) Foundation, with the ultimate goal of becoming a no-kill shelter.

“The city shelter is over 40 years old and way too small to serve the population that it currently does, so we saw a lot of healthy, adoptable animals being euthanized, often due to lack of space,” Vicente said.

About five years ago, one little dog’s journey started a big project. After searching online, Janet Williams found a Chihuahua she wanted to adopt. There was just one problem: Williams, who lived in Maine at the time, had to figure out how to transport the dog from a shelter in Tennessee before she was scheduled to be euthanized.

“I’m ashamed to admit that, in the 21^st century, I didn’t realize that in this country we still euthanize animals for space in shelters,” Williams said. “I thought we actually sheltered them. So it was a real eye-opener trying to save this dog in Tennessee who was on death row.”

Williams and a network of several friends worked together to get the Chihuahua to her new home, each transporting her part of the distance. The experience inspired Williams to investigate shelters in the U.S., especially in the South, and what she found horrified her. One story about a woman’s challenges running a small rescue in South Carolina struck her especially.

Like humans and many other animals, young kittens’ primary food source comes from nursing. This stage of their development is critical to shaping their development.

Although kittens may appear not to be doing much when they are first born—their eyes don’t open until they are about two weeks old—their bodies are hard at work, processing food rapidly. Kittens don’t have teeth at this point, so they must rely on nursing. Because its only real job in this stage of its life is to process food, a kitten will typically double in weight throughout the first week of its life and will continue to grow quickly, gaining about 10 grams every day, according to http://cats.about.com/cs/kittencare/a/tracksixweek.htm.

Kittens can begin to be weaned and litter box-trained when they are about five weeks old, a week after their baby teeth begin to show. One way to do this is to give them a non-dairy milk replacer in a shallow dish. Small amounts of canned kitten food can then be added. It’s important to use canned food specifically designed for kittens, as it contains a high amount of protein.

Many children have a strong bond with their pet, and research indicates that this may be much more than just a friendship. Studies have shown that owning a pet not only helps children learn skills like responsibility, but can also aid in their development.

According to www.mnn.com, kids who grow up with pets tend to have a higher level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) than their pet-free peers, developing traits such as compassion, self-esteem and cognitive development, among others.

Of course, as in many similar studies of psychological comparisons over an extended period of time, proving that high EQ is caused by owning a pet is difficult; each child who participates in these studies comes from a unique background and could be influenced by any number of other factors that could also have an effect on their emotional development. However, Professor Jay Belsky’s 1984 model describing the variables of child development has provided a standardized measurement tool for researchers. Their studies have all come up with similar findings—regardless of other factors, kids with pets are more likely to have high EQ, which suggests that the pets may be the cause of these developmental advantages.

Read the original story here.

From toys and treats to food and grooming tools, purchasing pet supplies can get pretty expensive.

Luckily, strategically shopping at Petco can help even the most frugal pet owners work within their household budgets. These seven tips will help you get the biggest bang for your buck while shopping at Petco.