Hagen

Hagen is Rolf C. Hagen, founded in Montreal in 1955 and one of the largest privately owned pet product companies in the world. It sells under a family of brand names rather than its own, so what you will find in this collection is Catit for cats, BIONIC dog toys, Dogit carriers, Living World for small pets and cage birds, and Exo Terra starter kits for reptiles. Fluval and Exo Terra have collections of their own.

Catit: Fountains And Spares

• The Senses 2.0 Flower Fountain is the one most people start with. Three flow settings from one unit, which matters because cats are individual about how they like to drink -- some want a trickle, others only take water that is falling.
• Cats are poor drinkers by descent. The domestic cat comes from a desert animal that took most of its water from prey, and a cat on dry food often does not make the difference up at the bowl.
• Pumps and filter pads are sold separately for the Flower Fountain, the PIXI, the PIXI Smart and the Zeus dog fountains, so a dead fountain is usually a repair rather than a replacement. Check the model before ordering -- the PIXI and the PIXI Smart take different pumps.
• Also here: the Design Senses scratch pad refill, and the carbon air pad for a sifting litter pan.

BIONIC: Dog Toys For Dogs That Destroy Things

• All built on what the maker calls defensive geometry -- thick ribs and curves placed so the bite lands on the strong part of the shape. The material is a rubber-like polymer, harder than a latex toy and more forgiving than nylon.
• Urban Stick and Bone are the two for serious chewers. Toss-N-Tug Ring and Turbo are fetch and tug toys, and Hagen say so plainly -- they are not built for a dog that sits and gnaws.
• Ball, Stuffer and Treat Shaker all take food. Serving a whole meal from one slows a greedy dog down and tires it mentally in a way a walk does not.
• All of them float, which is the real argument for them at the beach, and all go in the top rack of the dishwasher.

Living World: Small Pets

• Hay feeders -- the plastic Hay Spinner and the rubberwood-and-acrylic Hay Rack. Both do one plain thing: keep hay off the cage floor, where it gets sat on, soiled and thrown away rather than eaten.
• Sea grass huts and tunnels for hamsters and guinea pigs. Edible throughout, so the chewing is the design rather than damage, and cheap enough to be replaced when they are stripped.
• Ergonomic ceramic dishes, slanted so a short-necked animal can reach without burying its face, and weighted so they do not get tipped into the bedding.
• Salt and mineral licks. Worth knowing before you buy: a rabbit or guinea pig eating good hay, greens and a measured pellet generally does not need one, and most rabbit welfare guidance treats them as unnecessary. They earn their place as something to gnaw, and in hamsters and gerbils kept on a seed mix.

Living World: Cage Birds

• The Vision cages dropped the pull-out drawer. The wire cage lifts off the base instead, so the base is carried to the bin and tipped out -- and the drawer is the part of a conventional cage that jams and scatters seed down the side.
• Single height is the wide, low shape, which suits budgies, canaries and finches: they fly across a cage, not up it. Double height suits climbers -- cockatiels, lovebirds, small parrots.
• Cuttlebone and mineral blocks for calcium. The part usually left out is that a bird needs vitamin D3 to absorb calcium, and makes D3 from UVB -- which window glass blocks. A bird kept permanently indoors can have cuttlebone in the cage and still run short.

Exo Terra: Reptile Starter Kits

• The Bearded Dragon and Snake kits bundle a glass terrarium with the lighting, heating and furnishings, which saves working out which parts fit each other.
• Neither kit includes a thermostat, and the snake kit's heat mat needs one. An unregulated heat mat simply keeps heating, and contact burns are among the commonest injuries vets see in captive reptiles.
• Check the adult size of your species against the terrarium in the kit. Most current guidance puts an adult bearded dragon at 120 cm of floor length as a minimum, and the kit terrarium is 90 cm -- the equipment transfers to a bigger enclosure, only the terrarium needs replacing.
• Breeding boxes in two sizes: clear, stackable and vented, for vet trips, quarantine, hatchlings and feeder insects. Not permanent housing -- they cannot hold a temperature gradient.

Good To Know

• Check peanut butter for xylitol before stuffing a dog toy with it. Sometimes listed as birch sugar. Harmless to people, and it can kill a dog from a very small amount.
• Avian vets generally advise against covering all of a bird's perches in sand or sandpaper. A bird stands in the same place most of its life, and a constantly abrasive surface can wear the sole of the foot. One perch, not all of them, and never the one it sleeps on.
• Fluorescent UVB bulbs stop producing useful UVB long before they stop lighting. Replace on a schedule, roughly every six to twelve months, and write the date on the bulb.
• A cat fountain is not a treatment for urinary disease. More water intake is genuinely linked to lower risk of crystals and stones, but a cat straining in the tray needs a vet that day, and a male cat that cannot pass urine at all is an emergency.
• Hay should be around eighty per cent of what a rabbit or guinea pig eats, in front of them all day. It is what keeps the gut moving and what actually wears the back teeth down.