As my beloved seedlings languished untouched on the display table, I improved my sales pitch: “Would you like a late-flowering thoroughwort to help migrating butterflies refuel? What about an aster that’s the only pollen source for some bee species?” But unlike the animals who would devour these...

Somewhere between childhood and middle age, people’s natural affinity for wildlife often melts away, overtaken by exaggerated fears of marauding armies of deer, insects and raccoons intent on invading our gardens and homes. Scorn for rabbits, the sensitive stars of many a bedtime story, is...

They were like moths to a flame or, more accurately, butterflies to a native plant. No sooner had I unloaded two joe-pye weed perennials from my car last August than three tiger swallowtails dive-bombed the pots, as if to validate my purchase. If only my fellow shoppers knew what they were missing...

It seemed like a good idea at the time: Buy a house with a two-acre property, let our energetic herding dog have the run of the place and spend blissful summer days digging side by side in the dirt with her. And it was blissful, watching Mattie carve out her napping spots behind the ferns and tall...

When the nearly 4,000 beagles we helped transport made headlines across the country in the summer of 2022, our shelter and rescue partners could barely keep up with the applications that came in for them. It seemed everyone who had heard about these dogs was determined to give one (or two!) a better...

A bright, loud fireworks display flashing across the night sky is often considered a fun hallmark of seasonal pastimes like baseball games and barbecues. Yet these blasts of sound and flashing color can easily frighten and even harm animals—and not just our pets. Humans jump at unexpected loud...

To see Teddy and Millie now —playful and friendly, outgoing and affectionate—you’d never guess what they’ve endured in their short lives. As part of an unnecessary test commissioned by Dow AgroSciences (now Corteva Agriscience), the beagles were force-fed a pesticide every day for nearly a year at a...

When your beloved dog is lost, it can be a traumatic experience for both of you. But don't panic—you need to think clearly, act quickly and create a game plan for recovering your pet based on typical lost dog behavior and your dog’s personality. Conduct a search Start with a thorough physical search...

The anticipation of a storm can give many pets and their owners anxiety. We don't always know why some dogs are afraid of thunder, and these types of fears may develop even if your dog has had no traumatic experiences associated with the sound. The good news is that many fear-related problems can be...

Many Marches ago, as I mindlessly contorted myself to pull a deep-rooted weed from the garden patch, my thoughts turned longingly to the smell of fresh basil that would eventually grace what I saw as a still-barren vegetable graveyard. This spot was not so lifeless as it appeared, I would soon learn...

Minnow It makes sense that her best friends are turkeys. Minnow spent the first five months of her life on a dog meat farm in South Korea before she was rescued by Humane Society International in 2015 and adopted by Abbie Hubbard, who worked at a Virginia shelter where the rescued dogs were flown...

“There's another house burning,” Kristen Huston says, steering her white sedan, its trunk loaded with pet supplies, into one of the neighborhoods where her organization, All About Animals Rescue, does outreach. “Do you smell it?” In the back seat, HSUS staffers Jason Schipkowski and Ashley Mutch...

Somewhere toward the end of the last ice age, we formed an alliance with wolves: Maybe the ancestors of dogs got food scraps while our own ancestors gained protection from predators and other humans. These social species eventually collaborated on a vast scale, possibly even hunting woolly mammoths...

Wherever you are in the U.S., a coyote may be taking up residence less than a mile away. If you live in the city, you’re more likely than your rural cousins to encounter raccoons. And regardless of geography, you probably share your home with dozens of species of insects and spiders. These facts...