Pets Magazine UK

Marie Carter-Robb is a British journalist, editor, author and conservation campaigner based in County Durham, in the North Pennines. With nearly three decades of experience in journalism, publishing and public relations, her work spans independent media, animal welfare, countryside and conservation reporting, and campaigning for Britain’s native wildlife. She is the founder and editor of Pets Magazine, founder of the national Save Our Reds campaign and creator of Pet Remembrance Day.

The Bank of England may have left the red squirrel off its wildlife banknote shortlist, but the British public appears to have other ideas. Pencils have been sharpened, cameras pointed and even modelling clay pressed into service for The People’s Red Squirrel Banknote Collection, a good-humoured public response to the omission of one of Britain’s best-loved native mammals from the shortlist for the next generation of Bank of England notes.

Most dogs live far from history’s spotlight, remembered fondly by the people who knew them and scarcely known beyond. A handful have found themselves at the centre of events far larger than a single household, becoming the dogs that changed history in ways nobody could have imagined.Their stories are worth telling accurately, because the accurate versions are usually better than the myths that have grown up around them.

When Lynne’s husband Graham passed away, she was not the only one grieving. Their dog, Doug, stopped acting like himself, began losing weight and became increasingly reactive. As everyday life grew harder, Lynne faced the heartbreaking possibility of rehoming Graham’s best friend. At Woodgreen, we believe that rescue begins at the point of intervention, not just at rehoming. Wherever it is possible, keeping pets and the people who love them together is what we set out to do.

Whiskers are one of those things we see without really thinking about them. When I look at Tristan and Izzy, they are simply part of the familiar faces I know and love. But those beautiful cat’s whiskers are doing far more than making a cat look adorable – they are highly sensitive tools that help them understand what is happening around them. Known technically as vibrissae, whiskers sit much deeper in the skin than ordinary hairs and are connected to sensitive nerves.

First featured in the August edition of Pets Magazine, CUTE AT WHAT COST? examines a deceptively simple question: could a ten-point visual test help Britain breed healthier dogs? APGAW director Marisa Heath explains why the Innate Health Assessment asks us to look beyond breed and consider how a dog is built, why reports that it could ban certain breeds are wrong, and how modest changes in breeding could make a profound difference to canine health and welfare. The full article follows below.

Picture the dogs of the ancient world at war and you probably imagine armoured hounds hurling themselves at enemy lines on a general’s command. It is a stirring image, and popular history has repeated it for centuries. The trouble is that the surviving evidence supports something rather different, and arguably more interesting: not massed canine soldiers, but dogs quietly doing the unglamorous, indispensable work of guarding, patrolling, tracking and carrying messages.

This article was first featured in the August 2026 edition of Pets Magazine. By Alec Pue, Site Manager at the Woodland Trust’s Snaizeholme Estate Hidden high above Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales National Park lies a place where nature is quietly writing a new chapter. Snaizeholme is not simply a woodland creation project. It is a 561-hectare landscape where native woodland, peatland, rivers and wildlife are being restored together, creating one of the UK’s most ambitious examples of nature recovery.

Peers call for off-the-shelf sales to be banned amid fears that chemicals used on pets are polluting waterways and damaging wildlife Millions of doses of flea and tick treatments may be applied unnecessarily to Britain’s pets each year, polluting waterways and threatening wildlife, a House of Lords committee has warned. The cross-party Environment and Climate Change Committee is calling for a ban on the general sale of off-the-shelf and unchecked online pet parasite medications.

In her latest column for Pets Magazine, Carole Malone voices her anger and despair at the cruelty inflicted on defenceless animals, and asks why those responsible so often escape meaningful punishment. This piece is going to be hard to read and it’s even harder to write but I just can’t contain my anger about animal cruelty and the fact we don’t take it anywhere near seriously enough in this country.