Sitting there quietly mourning the passing of our family cat, who'd been put to sleep by a visiting vet an hour before, I knew that the hard part was not yet over. In a few minutes, my husband would pull up with our car full of happy kids, and we'd have to gently break the news to them that we'd lost a cherished pet. It was the first time either of them had lost someone they loved, and I definitely wasn't confident in how to handle what came next.

There is a lot of good information out there on the web (believe me, I've read them all in the last week) for parents who are dealing with the death of a family pet. In general, they advise the parents be as honest with their kids as possible and, even though it's terribly difficult, let their child go the natural process of grief. What this means is that trying to lessen their grief by telling them Fido "went to sleep" or "went away," will only confuse them and cause them more alarm. It also means, as tempting as it may be to take everyone's mind of things, it's usually not appropriate to run out and get a replacement pet right away.

Usually the stories we hear of children being attacked by animals do not end well. This is not one of those.

An 11-year-old Brazilian boy named Gabriel Almeida has become of bit of a local celebrity not just for surviving a dog attack, but for the way he did it. He was playing in his uncle's back yard in the city of Belo Horizonte when a pit bull named Tita lunged at him and bit his arm. Almeida fought back with his only weapon: his teeth. He bit that dog right back, clamping down on its neck so hard he broke his own canine tooth.

"I grabbed him by the neck and bit," he says. "It's no big deal. It's better to lose a tooth than to lose your life."

After some nearby workers chased the dog away, Almeida went to the hospital for a couple of stitches. He's doing fine, but Tita, not so much. He was captured and is now living in the pound facing a possible death sentence.

I envy those of you with a backyard. Really, I do. Some of you have cookouts, some of you have pools. Some of you engage in a random game of horse shoe or lawn bowling. For those of you with kids, though, have you thought about just how safe your backyard really is?

This list provides not only a list of things that are potential disasters waiting to happen right in the back of your house, but also quick fixes to make life easier, and safer, for everyone. Things as simple as knowing where to properly place your grill can make all the difference between safety and accident, not to mention charcoal that isn't fully extinguished.

And, did you know that more than 68,000 people are poisoned by plants every year? Some plants, if ingested, can be fatal to pets and small children. For a quick scan of the inventory in your backyard, and whether or not it poses any sort of health hazard, visit prevention.com/links. Then there is perhaps my biggest fear of all: The pool. Unfenced pools have led to so much sorrow over the years it's a wonder people still have them. According to the Home Safety Council, a quarter of the drownings in the United States each year occur near home. Pools can be a lot of fun, but only if taken care of and managed properly.

For more information on these and other helpful tips, including how to deal with pesticides, ladders and decks, check out the article. Then, check out your backyard and see if any of these tips apply to you!

It's the time of year when, walking along wooded trails in New England you can often spot the bright orange of the Red Spotted Newt or Red Eft. Kids call them salamanders (you can learn the difference between the two here) and the whimsical book The Salamander Room definitely captures the wonder and affection many kids feel towards these small creatures.

In the story a little boy named Brian carries home a small red salamander. He makes it a bed of leaves in his room with crickets and bullfrogs to sing it to sleep... and with each turn of the page his room becomes more and more magical as it is transformed into a forest habitat as the boy imagines how he will care for his small new pet.

It's the kind of story I remember imagining as a kid, lying in bed when I couldn't fall asleep: what if the ceiling were removed so that I could see the sky? What if I could sleep among the trees? Written by Anne Mazer, this gentle story is a lovely bedtime book. It's also a great story to read if your child happens to find a newt and wants to bring it home. Which my three year old son happened to do just yesterday.

Clutching it carefully in his palm, eyes wide, Bean begged to be allowed to keep the little Red Spotted newt as a pet. After some quick research, I found that these critters are actually easy pets to keep for a while. If he's going to have a pet, this one seems almost ideal. Better, at least than the earth worms he's always trying to put in his pockets. Although hand washing is a must. Here's why.

It's my opinion that three year olds aren't really able to keep any any kind of pet that requires actual, but the newt only requires a few small earth worms every so often, and a little terrarium to live in. So after a quick trip to the pet store, and a scamper through the woods to gather moss and bark for the newt's new habitat, Bean spent almost an hour tonight narrating a wonderfully elaborate story about what his new friend Leafy was doing in it's little home. (Other names he contemplated: Violet, Speckles, Louie and Spot.)

Does your child have a favorite nature book or a pet from the woods?