The most common ailment in dogs? Ear infection, coming in at nearly 68,000 claims and an average cost of $100 per visit. And in cats? Lower urinary tract disease, with a total of 3,700 claims at an average cost of $260 per visit. Here's the complete list:

Top conditions in dogs
1. Ear infection
2. Skin allergy
3. Skin infection, or hot spots
4. Gastritis, or vomiting
5. Enteritis, or diarrhea
6. Bladder infection
7. Arthritis
8. Soft tissue trauma
9. Noncancerous tumor
10. Eye infection

Top conditions in cats
1. Lower urinary tract disease
2. Gastritis, or vomiting
3. Chronic renal failure
4. Hyperthyroidism
5. Diabetes
6. Enteritis, or diarrhea
7. Skin allergy
8. Periodontitis, or dental disease
9. Ear infection
10. Eye infection

Who would have thought? My cat book It's a Cat's World... You Just Live In It got translated in German! Check it out! :)

I recently evaluated the Doggieshield®, which is designed to prevent dog damage to your door (from scratching, pawing, and all other terrible, destructive behaviors). The Doggieshield® is basically a durable, synthetic piece of plastic that is designed to easily adhere to your door, and was invented to be easy to install without the use of screws or adhesive tape.

Upon opening the package, I found the instructions pretty difficult to follow (this coming from someone who only owns IKEA furniture). It would have been helpful to have a picture of assembly instructions; rather, I had to go to the website to look for a visual aid. Despite that, I still couldn’t find instructions on the website, and limited information was available. Feeling like an idiot (I swear, I have 13 years of education), I couldn’t get my straps to adhere around my door. I found the instructions hard to understand, and found the product to have an overall home-made field [parts of the product (straps) were protected in Saran-wrap, while the instructions were printed from a poor quality home printer]. That said, kudos to the company for inventing it… I’m sure for those with more technical prowess, it may be easier for them to install. This product might be ideal if you have a bad dog and are going to visit your family members (who love their doors more than your dog), then yes, this would be a good travel gadget to bring along. As for me, perhaps I’ll have my boyfriend assemble it instead.

Finally, while this is a relatively cost-effective way of preventing major damage to your door, it doesn’t fix the underlying problem – inappropriate dog behavior. I’d honestly focus more on using appropriate positive and negative feedback to get a dog to stop scratching at the door. In other words, a classic mistake that pet owners make is to “reward” the dog when he’s scratching at the door, destroying your nice property in the process, or forcing you to buy gadgets like the Doggieshield to begin with. When you reward your dog by opening the door, you’re basically training him to scratch to be let in. Instead, you should only open the door when he’s not scratching, teaching him that this action doesn’t result in the reward of being let in or out. But I digress.

I pride myself on being an earth-loving, green, crunchy, granola-type of person, and admit it – I eat humus and granola. That said, I never feed my dog certain types of table food – especially granola or trail mix, since it contains poisonous raisins (which cause kidney failure!). That said, guess what just came out – doggy granola!

I was pleasantly surprised to try Granola Barks, a granola dog treat specifically designed for dogs, based out of Nashville, TN. This is the first meat-based granola (which sounds initially pretty gross, when you think about it), and is pretty natural and pure. In other words, you read the ingredients, and know everything that’s in there: chicken, rolled oats, and some natural preservatives to prevent spoiling.

Granola Barks are approximately 1”X1” small, thin, bite-sized snacks, and are handmade with all natural, all American, human-grade white meat chicken (no chicken by-product), and old-fashioned rolled oats. So, the true test – is it palatable? These little bites actually look edible to humans. JP, my 11 year old, rescue pit bull, is a very picky eater (he even turns his nose up to pig ears), and even he seemed to enjoy them! He ate them within 15 seconds, which is a pretty good sign of palatability! Definitely 2 paws up!