Miles traveled 550 miles last week, through Southwest New Mexico, Eastern Arizona and Southern Utah. He's on his way to Pinedale Wyoming for a backpacking trip with my friend Rick and I. Rick lives in Pinedale during the summer and he winters in Southwest New Mexico not far from us. 

This is the first leg of Mile's summer vacation. We're pretty much along for the ride. We'll spend a week and a half in Wyoming and then it's off to Montana. Miles and I will hike into the Wind River Range and fish for Golden Trout while Chris, my wife, is in Jackson selling her wares at the Jackson Hole Art Fair.

I have a small savings account. It just got smaller because we had a minor issue here and I had to tap into the savings account to pay for it. I could have charged the problem to my credit card - and paid the 15% interest over ... however many months it would take to pay it off. In addition to the new charges. There are always new charges, small as they may be sometimes. Weddings, babies being born, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations; they all require gifts and gifts cost money.

I'm lucky enough to say I usually pay off my credit card balances every month. But, if I had put this emergency cost on my credit card, the amount would have put me in debt for several months.

If you are a fan of "The Biggest Loser" I've got something for you. The pet version is out and it's really cool. Called "Project Pet Slim Down" it's part of a bigger weight loss program from Purina. Project Pet Slim Down is a support program for people with pets that need to lose weight. One big difference between this program and Biggest Loser is that no one gets kicked off Project Pet Slim Down.

Project Slim Down will follow the exploits of eight pets over the course of their weight loss journey. Each pet will be filmed in the home environment and at his or her Vet's office. You can go to the Project Slim Down web site and see video of all eight participants.

Did you know that women Veterinarians outnumbered men in the profession for the first time ever last year?

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association there were 44,802 women Vets and 43,196 men. It was only a matter of time. Women have outnumbered men in Vet Schools around the country for a number of years. Fully 78% of Veterinary students are women according to the Association of American Veterinary Colleges.

I'm reading a book about social media right now and the focus of it is on people. Not tools, but people. The book is aimed at businesses that would like to use social media tools like Facebook, blogs, twitter and the like, more effectively. The main message is: connect with the people and worry about the tools later.

That is so true in the world of pets online. We pet bloggers are a unique bunch. We are the passionate ones - we write about pets, pet health, pet parties, dating, walking the dog, feeding the cat...whathaveyou. We do it because we find our pets interesting and we think other people will, too.

I read a really interesting article in the NY Times the other day about a big development in the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease. Researchers have discovered markers in the spinal fluid of people that are predictive or diagnostic of Alzheimer's. Previous to this development, and accurate diagnosis of this dreaded disease was only done by autopsy.  

Apparently Alzheimer's takes years to develop and once it reaches a certain stage it is irreversible. The hope is that through early diagnosis, steps can be taken to stop or delay the changes in the brain that are responsible the signs of Alzheimer's. The authors noted that they don't have any silver bullets right now, but they are busy researching and developing alternatives.

I was walking with Miles up on Boston Hill yesterday and, as so often happens, I ran into another dog walker. I noticed this fellow when he was about fifty yards away and he was trying to get one of his dogs on the leash. Miles was off his leash and my assumption was that his dog might be aggressive with other dogs, so I put Miles on his leash and moved off the trail to let the other fellow and his brace of large mixed breed critters pass.

As I waited I noticed how he was jerking up on his dog's choke collar enough to actually lift his front end off the ground trying to make him sit and pay attention.

Want an iPad? Me,too. But, I can't enter this sweepstakes...you can.

Here's how it works: PurinaCare® is giving away an Apple® iPad a month, for the rest of this year. W00t!

Dr Bill, of our very own podcasts on some interesting case studies, says, "The Apple iPad is cutting edge technology. PurinaCare is dedicated to making sure pets and their owners can have access to leading edge advancements in veterinary technology, just as Apple is committed to providing customers with the latest in mobile technology."

Take the dog or the cat with you! Seriously. I just read an article in my wife's alumni magazine about just such a program at her alma mater. She got a fine arts degree at Stephens College in Columbia Missouri which, luckily for me, was just down the street from The College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Missouri.

We met when she stopped to talk to my dog, Fritz. Fritz could really draw in the women and I hit the jackpot when he lured Chris in.

The Stephens president, Dianne Lynch feels that having a pet can help ease the transition to college life. She should know, as an owner of two dogs and two cats and she instituted this policy, in part, because she understands the positive effect pets have on people. She has data showing that the kids with pets are better organized and perform better academically than the average pet less student.

So, we love our dogs and cats, right? Well, we apparently love them so much we're guilty of using "treats" as rewards, which leads to overfeeding and weight gain. As this article in the San Jose Mercury News says, "The popularity of cats and dogs isn't the only thing that has grown in the last 20 years. So have their bellies."

The article goes on to cite a new program from Purina being run by our own Dr. Grace Long, director of veterinary technical marketing. The program, which she shared in a podcast on Scratchings & Sniffings, is called "Project Pet Slim Down" created by Veterinary Diets. It includesa website, a Facebook page, and soon-to-be showcased webisodes.

Here's how it works: