Browsing Tag

Pets

Gift Guides

Pet Gifts for Animal Lovers and their Cuddly Counterparts

November 7, 2017

If you’re anything like us, your pets are pretty much part of the family. There’s nothing like the wags of joy you receive when you come home to your pup after a long day, or the purr of appreciation your cat gives in return for a simple scratch behind the ear. We can all learn something from the unconditional love our pets give us daily, and the holiday season is the perfect time to start spreading those warm, fuzzy feelings. Impress your fur-babies and your pet-obsessed friends with these irresistibly adorable finds.

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Gift Guides

Gift Lab: Does Our Silicone Suction Pet Set Have Staying Power?

October 16, 2017

Jackie, our very own PR pro, is back—and this time, she’s got pet bowls on the brain.

Product

Silicone Suction Pet Set

Research

About a year ago, I adopted a wonderful rescue cat from the Bronx named Orange Ivy Carter. Her name is inspired by Beyoncé’s daughter, Blue Ivy, but I modified it slightly since my Ivy is orange.

Editor’s Note: It’s worth mentioning that Ivy is something of a local celebrity here at UncommonGoods, where she frequently features in our #uncommonpets Slack channel. After all, who can resist those little paws?

So regal.

Although Ivy is perfect in every way (besides her habit of biting everything that moves and eating laptop chargers), she is a very, very messy eater. Her preferred method includes using her paws to fling food out of her bowl and eat it off wherever it lands, be it the floor or walls. The area around her bowls was a complete disaster, and her paper bag place mat had to be replaced every three days since it got so soggy. When I saw the Silicone Suction Pet Set had been added to our assortment, I knew I had to give it a try.

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Maker Stories

Diagnosis: Talent. Dr. Martin Geller’s Pet Pedigree Poems

August 31, 2017
Dr. Martin Geller, acrostic poem king

Dr. Martin Geller, acrostic poem king

 

We’re proud of offering goods made by artists and makers from around the world. But we have a special, parental pride when a design’s DNA is 100% from the UncommonGoods “family”–like our Pet Pedigree Poem items. Unique from head to tail, these items, which are exclusive to UncommonGoods, feature an acrostic poem celebrating your breed’s special traits.

We have dog pillows, mugs, totes, and art for dogs and cats—including rescue cats.

The idea to mix paintings with acrostic poems came together serendipitously, and blended the skills and talents of the UncommonGoods Product Development team, led by Carolyn Topp (Director of New Business and Product Development), and Dr. Martin Geller, a retired psychiatric physician who is the father of UncommonGoods Senior Purchasing Planner (and not incidentally, organizer of our literary book club), Louise Geller.

Carolyn tells us how pets and poems came together in the creation of these unique items.

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Design

Wash Your Pet without Getting Drenched (Thanks to the Aquapaw)

May 22, 2017

Have you ever given a dog a bath? She probably squirmed around a bit. OK, that might be an understatement. It’s more likely that that she wouldn’t hold still, splashed around a whole lot, and then did one of those full-body doggy shakes that sent a shower your way. Almost everyone who’s owned a dog has had a similar experience. Product designer Daniel Lentz certainly has, and it got him thinking that there had to be a better way to get our furry friends squeaky clean.

The Aquapaw Dog Bathing Glove lets you keep one hand free to hold your dog’s collar or reach for the pet shampoo, while the other hand wets and scrubs. The whole time your dog is getting the spa treatment, he’s also getting a good petting. It took Daniel years of thinking about the product, piles of prototypes, and some time spent scrubbing dirty pups at a local dog shelter, but now his design is ready to make bath time easier for pet parents and their pets. The Aquapaw is coming soon to our assortment, so we asked Daniel to tell us more about his development process and why he thinks every pet owner should have an Aquapaw.

 

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Maker Stories

Christine Schmidt’s Mismatched Earrings & Peculiar Pet Pendants

August 22, 2016

Christine Schmidt in her San Francisco Studio | UncommonGoods

Christine Schmidt is a jewelry artist, printmaker, designer, illustrator, author, and fraternal twin. She says that maybe that last one influenced her decision to veer from convention and create her clever, quirky mismatched earrings: “I am myself different but a part of a unit. I’ll spare you the therapy–but I like to change it up.”

Here at UncommonGoods, we like to change it up too, and that’s why when we saw some of Christine’s mismatched designs, we couldn’t wait to work with her to create more canny combos.

We thought about a few of the interests our customers (and even many of the folks that work here) share, and worked with the artist on a new line celebrating books, space, and pets. Christine captured each of these concepts through her charming illustrations, turned them into brand new mismatched earrings, and even designed adorable cat and dog necklaces exclusively for UncommonGoods.

She took some time out from being a multi-talented super artist to tell us about her road to a creative career, her process, and working with our team.

Christine Schmidt's Mismatched Earrings | Exclusively at UncommonGoods

Books and Eyeglasses, Sun and Moon, and Cat and Dog Mismatched Earrings | Exclusively at UncommonGoods

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Gift Guides

Gift Lab: Can a Fish and a Cat Live in the Same Apartment?

October 1, 2014

Valerie

Product: No Clean Aquarium

Research:
My roommate has been talking about getting a fish for months, but we haven’t had great luck with fish in the past. The first obstacle is our cat, Jack, known to eat a fish or two – and we all have hectic schedules that are not conducive to anything that requires a lot of maintenance (like a traditional aquarium).

Hypothesis:
Described as “Fish Without Fuss” I think the No Clean Aquarium will be a great fit for our apartment. The aquarium is supposed to self-clean, all without batteries or electricity, and most importantly, without a huge time commitment or a need to remove the fish from his environment. We’ll enjoy a new fish addition, Jack will keep out, and maintaining the little guy will be stress free (for the humans and the fish).

Experiment:
I obtained the aquarium and got some rocks for the bottom. My roommate was in charge of getting the fish and a plant. It’s important to note that the No Clean Aquarium is approved only for betta fish. We made plans to set it all up on a night when we’d both get home around the same time. The betta fish was double-bagged from the pet store, and the first thing we did was float the fish bag in a pitcher of water to get the fish acclimated to the temperature. While he hung out in there, we followed the instructions to set up his new environment.

No Clean Aquarium

Setting it all up couldn’t be simpler! The aquarium came with instructions and a diagram, but without any pumps or cords it was really easy. First, we had to rinse all the pieces with water – no soap! The pieces can fit together only one way, keeping confusion to a minimum.

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The instructions recommend using twisty ties to anchor your plants to the mesh piece that sits in the bottom of the aquarium.

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By now the fish had enough time to get used to the temperature of the water, so we poured the water from the pitcher into the aquarium and then added the fish. He looked great inside! We gave him some fish food and watched him explore his new home. We also decided on a fitting fish name – Leonard.

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Jack became immediately jealous and tried to push the aquarium off the counter, so we had to reconsider its location. We moved Leonard to a safer table and surrounded him with objects. There is a cover on top of the aquarium, and we were pretty confident Jack would not be able to stick his paws inside! He spent the rest of the evening sulking.

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A week went by, and it was time to change the water. We made sure the temperature was just right and poured the clean water in slowly. Sure enough water from the bottom came up through the tube, and emptied into the pitcher. It was definitely filthy water.

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Conclusion:
So far, everything is working out as we expected it to – changing Leonard’s water is easy, and he doesn’t seem to mind. We came up with a system to keep track of when Leonard’s been fed – blue card means he ate at night, and yellow card means he ate in the morning. If one of us gets home at night and sees the yellow card, it’s time to feed the fish!

And Jack, well he can’t get into the aquarium. But he did manage to knock it over once. Fortunately, my roommate heard the commotion and was able to rescue Leonard and get everything assembled again in no time. Nothing broke! So, while it’s not completely cat proof, it is still about the most successful aquarium we’ve ever had.

Design

Creative Design to the Rescue! (Of Homeless Cats)

March 7, 2014

eddie

My cat Eddie thinking about cats who lack a nice warm bed like his

If you love cats–as we do–it’s painful to think of them having to brave the elements on their own during a freezing northern winter, especially this year. But here in New York City, tens if not hundreds of thousands of cats have no shelter. So, if you also love creative design, and believe in its potential as a force for good–as we do–it’s nice to learn about Architects for Animals’ “Giving Shelter,” a yearly funds-and awareness-raising initiative founded by animal lover Leslie Farrell.

CatHaus

“CatHaus” by Francis Cauffman Architects was voted the favorite of the 2014 attendees

Since 2010, every year, Farrell, Director of Client Development at architecture firm Francis Cauffman, has convinced a handful of top-notch architectural design firms to design, build and donate innovative outdoor winter shelters for homeless cats. Their creations are put on public display as a one-night benefit event for the Mayor’s Alliance for NewYork City’s Animals. Attendees vote for their favorite, then all the shelters are donated to caregivers who work with needy animals.

CatHive

“Cat Hive” by Incorporated Architecture & Design

Carlton

by Carlton Architecture PC

timemachine

“Time Machine for Kittens,” by Two One Two Design

Hairball

“Hairball,” by M Moser Associates

The creative designs of these shelters help the cause architecturally (they generate good ideas for future shelters) and in other ways, too, as Michael Phillips, Community Outreach Coordinator of the New York City Feral Cat Initiative, a program of the Mayor’s Alliance, points out. “The media coverage with pictures of the flashy shelters is an eye-catcher that many people examine with interest, whereas they will skip over an article about the plight of cats abandoned to the streets through no fault of their own.”

petunia

Homeless cat in Brooklyn (rescued and adopted a few days after this photo was taken)

Nobody knows how many homeless cats there are in NYC, but estimates range from tens of thousands up to a million. Most of them are scared of us, so they keep out of sight, which makes counting them difficult. While people often think of cats as natural loners, they actually tend to form colonies near food sources such as garbage bins near apartment buildings. Some feral moms could very well be teaching their kittens to scrounge your leftovers as you sleep. (I’ve witnessed this, a sight both adorable and sad.)

wildcat

African Wild Cat at the Johannesburg Zoo, South Africa. Photo: Sonelle

These felines are all trying to survive in what, for them, is an unnatural habitat. It’s not just that it’s so urban and industrial, but also that they’re not native to this part of the world. All of the world’s domestic cats are descended from a type of wildcat that lives in the deserts of the Near East. These cats are not designed to live in the NYC climate; those pretty fur coats are not enough protection during the winter, no matter how thick they get.

They need our help, especially as it’s humans’ fault that they’re out there in the first place. This population is made up of of strays, who are lost or abandoned tame pet cats (some of whom have regressed to a not-so-tame state), and ferals, the essentially wild (that is, not socialized to humans) offspring and descendants of non-neutered strays and pets who were allowed to roam. They have neither a consistent and healthy food source, nor shelter from the elements, nor protection from urban dangers such as cars, rat and other poisons, and cruel humans.

NYFeralCatInitiative

New York Feral Cat Initiative logo

Fortunately, there are many (though never enough) animal-lovers all over NYC who work hard to rescue tame, adoptable cats and kittens, and feed and protect the ferals. The New York City Feral Cat Initiative is a coalition of more than 150 animal rescue groups and shelters whose joint mission is “to raise awareness about the thousands of… community cats living outdoors throughout NYC’s five boroughs, to offer solutions to prevent the number of homeless cats from increasing, and to successfully manage existing colonies.”

outdoorshelter

Standard outdoor cat winter shelter design by Ashot Karamian

Building shelters that enable these critters to avoid freezing misery or death during inclement weather is part of the last part, managing colonies. (To read about solutions to prevent increases in the number of homeless cats, start here.) Of course, it’s not really necessary to build shelters that are more than just functional. As far as we know, cats aren’t offended by a styrofoam-and-duct-tape aesthetic. Phillips described the minimal structural guidelines as follows: “No heavier than two people can lift easily. Inner space should be no higher than 16 inches to retain the body heat of the cats with room for straw bedding.Waterproof. Constructed with weatherproof construction materials.” He added, “Water is the most destructive force. Snow does not normally damage shelters or enter shelters in comparison to driving rain or flooding.”

rubbershelter

Rubbermaid container cat shelter by by Ashot Karamian (photo by Ashot Karmanian used with permission)

“You could use a basic Rubbermaid container for a cat shelter, which is quite common and perfectly fine because it works,” says architect Sofia Zimmerman, who, along with her husband and business partner, Adam, has participated in Architects for Animals: Giving Shelter three years in a row. “But as designers,”she continues, “we love the idea of someone walking down the street and coming across something that is artful, unusual, or even beautiful. Cat shelters are often found in alleyways, parking lots, and other places where finding something delightful is rare. But here’s a chance to do something nice looking–for the cats, their caregivers, and the people that might catch a glimpse.”

zimmerman

by Zimmerman Workshop Architecture + Design

“This third one, that we did this year, is perhaps the simplest, but in many ways our favorite. It was all about upcycling. We re-used a cardboard box and sealed it with duct tape. Inside, we lined it with styrofoam that came as packaging material for a lamp. And then we had to add another layer of insulation. This was the chance to do something delightful! We collected nine pairs of old jeans, cut them into long strips, and created a very very long braid. We wrapped it around and around the box, using as inspiration braided rag rugs–the ones you see in storybooks all the time with cats curled up on them!”

She adds that “During that process, we actually learned about the environmental impact associated with creating a pair of jeans….don’t get us started!”

fiberglasspod

“Fiberglass Pod,” by Elham Valipay and Haleh Atabaki, co-founders of MishMish, an example of a structure built with camouflage in mind

Different situations may call for specific architectural strategies. Phillips describes varying and “colony needs,” such as “camouflage; difficult specific dimensions to fit an exact spot; or fitting in visually with the design of a building nearby to please a particular property owner willing but not thrilled to have shelters placed on his property.”

If you want to help feral cats where you live, Phillips says, “Offering of your time to assist a local caretaker in your neighborhood is the best way to contribute to the long-term welfare of a community cat colony. The more widespread the support in a neighborhood the more likely the cats will accepted. Volunteering to feed the colony one or more days a week is a great help, when so often only one or two people shoulder the care for an entire colony.“

Or, if you’re crafty and love the idea of experimenting with small-scale architectural design that will actually be used, here’s your chance to do it, fur real! (sorry…)

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Above three photos: “Feral Vernacular” by deSoto studio architecture + design

All photos copyright Marisa Bowe, unless otherwise indicated.

The Uncommon Life

Enter the Picture Your Pet Photo Contest on Facebook

August 14, 2013

Picture Your Pet Photo Contest | UncommonGoodsDoes the family poodle have dreams of sailing the open seas, chasing seagulls and splashing around? Is your cat the queen of the castle? Share your pet’s personality for a chance to win a custom art piece celebrating their unique spirit.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Upload a photo on our Facebook contest page or submit via Twitter or Instagram with #PictureYourPet. (If you submit with the hashtag, you will need to come back here and claim your photo.)

Share with your friends and family to get them to vote for your photo.

THE PRIZE
The top 3 photos with the most votes will win a custom Picture Your Pet portrait.

Contest deadline: Friday, August 23, 2013 11:59pm EST