Pet First Aid: Pet emergencies can occur any time, anywhere, and having a first-aid reference at your fingertips can save time—or your pet’s life—as you head to the vet. Jive Media’s app is hands-down the most comprehensive and intuitive canine first-aid app on the market. An emergency reference page comes up first (click if your pet is bleeding, choking, etc.) and you can click back to scroll through encyclopedic information on everything from fractures to objects in the eye to how to tell what’s normal and what’s not. We like the elegant interface—and the fact that the content is not dumbed down. $3.99.

Runner up: PetMD Dog First Aid: also good, just not, in our doggie opinion, quite as well presented or comprehensive as the aforementioned Pet First Aid. 99 cents.

Editor’s note: Check out DogTrekker.com’s Vet Buzz pages for seasonal tips from our partner veterinarians.

Petometer: This very cool app from Purina maps your dog walks via GPS (be sure your location services are turned on, or it won’t work). Routes are marked with little pawprints, and time and distance are recorded for each. Set up as many walks as you wish and keep them archived for future reference. Petometer even has recommended exercises—all without any ads. Free.

Runner-up: MapMyDOGWALK, works fine, although it’s not as elegant as Petometer and has lots of ads. Free.

Editor’s note: Once you’ve downloaded the Petometer, head over to DogTrekker.com to locate some of the great trails in Northern California where you can put it to good use.

Dog Tricks & Bark Machine: Staring into a smartphone doesn’t take the place of putting in the time required to make your dog a well mannered companion. But for teaching basic obedience commands (sit, down, stay) and tricks to impress (wave, sit up, shake), this app offers sound advice, ingeniously presented. The trick repertoire covers dozens of behaviors, each with step-by-step training photos, written-out instructions and audio effects. Flip to the “bark machine” page to play sounds—fire truck, door knock and such—you can use to teach your pup to ignore distractions. Ninety-nine cents well spent.

Runners up: Dog Training Basics for Dummies: Mobile version of the book. $1.99. Top Dog: If you’d like to try clicker training, this is your app. Comes with built-in clicker, of course. 99 cents. Best of 101 Dog Tricks: Beautiful interface and good instructions. 99 cents.

 

Dog Sounds & Body Talk: Watch your dog’s ears perk up—or lay down, as the case may be—when you expose her to the primal sound of a howling wolf, the squeaking of a squirrel, the meow of a cat, the din of a pounding thunderstorm and other sounds geared to elicit a reaction. Flip over to the “body talk” pages, learn to read canine body language, then play the sounds again and gauge what your dog is trying to tell you. Free.

Runners up:
Doggie toy: A shake-to-squeak app guaranteed to get your dog all fired up. Maybe more than you want her to be. Free.
Smack Talk: Scroll to the puppy picture, record your voice and the pup repeats it back in a squeaky voice. Save up to 30 seconds of this yappy nonsense and post on YouTube or share on Facebook. Pretty funny. 99 cents.

Good Idea App: Check Back! DogBook, the mobile connection to Facebook’s dog community, is great in theory, but is plagued by widely reported stability problems. Updates are in the works to make it easier for you to share events in your dog’s life and “friend” other pooches. Free.

AKC Dog Breeds: Curious about that fluffed-up pooch you saw on TV or the sleek, racy looking dog you saw at the dog park? This app responds to our curiosity about canines with photos, histories and standards for the 173 AKC-recognized breeds. Whether you’re canine sports competitor or just interested in how breeds came to be and what they look like, you’ll find yourself referring to it quite a lot. $2.99.

Runners up: Dog-a-Log (99 cents), Perfect Dog Ultimate (free), Breedopedia (99 cents). All feature alphabetical listings of breeds, including hybrids such as the Labradoodle and Cockapoo, with photos and descriptions that all seem to be copied from the same source. Perfect Dog also has a “Fetch” function that purports to match you with a breed upon entering your criteria. Our advice: pay 99 cents and avoid the extremely annoying ads on Perfect Dog.

Pet Finder: “Shopping” is a word we’d rather apply to groceries than to the process of selecting a four-legged family member, but that’s pretty much what the mobile version of the worthy website does. PetFinder claims to have assisted with more than 13 million adoptions from shelters and rescue organizations nationwide. Its mobile app lets you search adoptable pets and rescue organizations and helps find the right canine match for your lifestyle. Free.

Editor’s note: Another great rescue/adoption resource is DogTrekker.com/rescue, where you’ll find more than 150 animal welfare organizations listed and many profiled.

Eileen Mitchell's Elvis, celebrated in many columns and blog posts in the years since she brought him home in 2003, may be the most renowned greyhound ever adopted from Golden State Greyhound Adoption, and certainly had hundreds of people who'd never met him shedding tears when he passed on earlier this year. But along the way, he did a great job of focusing attention on the plight of his fellow greyhounds, and the awesome job this group does in getting them to safety and loving homes when their racing careers end. Contrary to what you might expect from dogs who race for a living, once they leave the track, greyhounds are generally quite content to take up the life of couch potatoes and snugglebunnies, and adapt very well to apartment and condo life, enjoying peace and quiet bigtime.

These days the greyhound racing industry is in decline, with many tracks closing due to waning interest. Generally speaking, this is good news for the dogs, but there are still many who need homes. In fact, about 26 of them will be arriving in the Bay Area later this month. Check GSGA's event page for upcoming meet-and-greets in your area.

If you'd like to support GSGA's noble efforts and have some fun as well, there's a Doggy Happy Hour on Saturday, May 5, at Doc's Clock Bar, 2575 Mission St. in SF, with a portion of the bar proceeds and all the proceeds of a silent auction benefiting the rescue. Dogs are welcome, of course!