A springtime riot — for you and Fido June is great pretty much everywhere, but it’s especially wonderful about 200 miles west of Las Vegas in the surprisingly little-visited Kern Plateau. Verdant meadows, blooming wildflowers and bubbling brooks full of trout — it’s a springtime riot.

Long before big cats were the lifestyle prop of the exuberantly mulleted duo Siegfried & Roy, a tiger was a part of actress Marilyn Maxwell’s Vegas nightclub act. Or it was supposed to be.

Went over to my brother’s house recently to say hi and drink his beer and, whoa, there’s this dog there — a happy floundering mass of jaunty angles and puppy skittishness, warping the entire familial energy field with waves of unconditional trust and love. He’s this sharp-snouted, doe-eyed monster of undiluted cute; looks like an albino bear freshly stepped out of a children’s book.

The pet wellness biz is booming. Are doggie treadmills and yoga more bark than bite? A girl (and her dog) investigate Mark my words: The day is coming when “dog trainer” will mean “personal trainer for a dog,” as in: “I’ll be there at 8:30, right after I drop off Fifi at the gym for her trainer appointment.

With everything from obedience courses to dog parks to pet hotels, here's a guide that will make you howl with delight Sit. Blue Ribbon K9 Las Vegas Dog Training Center Blue Ribbon K9 specializes in puppy training, dog obedience training and behavior modification, offering private, in-home training lessons.

When local theaters need to set a mood, they’ve got Arles Estes on speed dial. (Cue intro music) Mozart did it.

Four-legged freedom When Jennifer Arnold founded Canine Assistants in Milton, Ga. 20 years ago, she did so with people like Kelly McMahon in mind.

High steaks First impressions of British chef (and notorious perfectionist) Gordon Ramsay’s splashy debut “What’s a triffle?” my dinner date asked as he perused the dessert selections at the new Gordon Ramsay Steak inside Paris Las Vegas. Knowing his unfamiliarity with British cuisine, I laughed and corrected his botched pronunciation of the traditional English dish.

Imagine patting your trusty canine companion on the head — and then sending him into a situation from which he may not return. “We had a subject who was in the attic with a fully automatic MAC-10, and he told everybody that he was going to kill himself, but he was going to kill the cops first,” says Officer Duwayne Layton, a 16-year member of the Las Vegas Metro Police K9 unit, recalling just such an incident.

McCarran's new Terminal 3: Easy by design Cabbie, concierge, tour guide, host — as Las Vegans, we play these roles often for friends and relatives freshly arrived at McCarran. And it all begins with that first ritual: the airport pickup.