Orchard Park will soon be home to a pet hotel, when the retailer PetSmart opens its first local hotel at its location on Amelia Drive. And in Amherst, a town resident wants the Town Board to allow him to rezone a parcel on Main Street on which he hopes to build a luxury cat hotel. PetSmart, which opened its first hotel in 2001, gives its furry guests “poochy cots and hypoallergenic lambskin blankets and supervised play and parklike relief areas. Manno, who did not return telephone calls seeking comment, noted in his letter that this type of service is common in other nations and is growing in popularity in the United States. She started a hotel service for pets in her parents’ Wheatfield home more than 30 years ago when she was a teenager. read more

And - one more thing - we wanted to build a building that fit in with the beautiful area where we live. Now this building has over 12,000 square feet of retail space and an additional 12,000 feet of warehouse space. We have polo [nearby], we have horse shows, we have the Piedmont Vet Hospital right behind us, and we have the Livestock Exchange right next to us, so we think that we have a great location for horse people. Jackson said that individuals can go into the media center and watch DVDs on horse related or club related activities. read more

Lots of health studies have shown that pets offer health benefits such as lowering blood pressure and keeping people active longer. Now, a national study by Purina shows benefits for Americans 60 and older who own pets. For qualifying seniors age 60 years or older, Purina and Tony La Russa’s Senior Adoption Program is paying $50 toward the adoption fee to make it financially easier for them to adopt. There will be a display on processing the alpaca fiber, weaving and spinning demonstrations and examples of finished products made with alpaca fiber. The Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association estimates there are more than 100,000 registered alpacas in the country, kept for their fleece. The fiber is as soft as cashmere, as warm as wool, one-third lighter than wool and has no lanolin, making it naturally hypoallergenic. read more

A couple of weeks ago, the British government gave tentative approval to Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to review scientific licenses to create “cybrids,” or hybridized human-animal embryos, for stem cell research. Cybrids, also known as cytoplastic hybrids, are created by injecting a human nucleus into an animal egg emptied of its own nucleus. Scientists say this interspecies somatic cell nuclear transfer technique, and the cybrids that result, would dramatically increase the dwindling supply of stem cells needed to study degenerative disease. But there is absolutely no evidence that scientists are interested in creating “true hybrids,” those made by fusing a human sperm and an animal egg, or “human chimeras,” in which human cells are injected into animal embryos. The HFEA has not yet made a decision on these techniques, and there is no cause to assume researchers are interested in anything other than regular old stem cell research, the sort of research that holds such promise in finding cures to excruciating diseases. I realize, of course, that it is the human component of cybrids that is the greatest cause for concern, the fact we’re talking not about mixing dog breeds to come up with something fluffy and hypoallergenic, but about mixing species, our own among them. read more