Fear Free Happy Homes
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s long been a kind of running joke in the popular media that cats don’t much care about their humans, and that as long as we feed them, they’re just fine. A spate of studies that came out a few years ago, most of which were not well designed and were even less well understood […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes Research tells us that play is a stress-buster in cats, because it enables them to express their natural hunting behaviors. More playtime has been found to correlate with fewer behavior problems, too. We also know that cats are more likely to play with novel toys. That’s because play is pretend hunting, and once you’ve killed […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes If you’ve ever seen a litter of kittens zooming around in play, you know they bite and wrestle, jump on each other’s backs, and throw each other on the ground. They play rough. Flinging humans around is not an option, but young cats may nibble or bite our fingers, feet, or other body parts. They […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes When I was in college, several members of the football team lived in my dorm. I’m five feet tall, and whenever I walked down their hallway, one of those huge guys would pick me up, give me a big hug, and tell me how cute and tiny I was. I know they didn’t intend to […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Feeling a little more tired as you age? A little out of breath? The same is likely true for your aging dog or cat. The fact is that organs change with age, and those changes can affect not only day-to-day activities, but also the way our pets respond to anesthesia. Changes related to aging can […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes When cat litter was invented in 1947, it was made of grains of absorbent clay called Fuller’s earth. There was just one brand, called Kitty Litter, and cat owners had a choice between that or natural sand or sawdust. Today cat litter is a $2 billion industry in the United Sates. Much of that is […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes I just got a new kitten, and she jumps all over the kitchen countertops and the dinner table. This is dangerous for her and annoying for me, so she has to learn some boundaries. Friends keep telling me to squirt her with a water bottle, but I know that doesn’t work. Why does everyone else […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes If you’ve known more than one cat in your lifetime, you know that each cat is unique, with her own personality. Behaviorists have been working on ways to categorize feline personalities, usually with the goal of matching up cats with families (both human and feline) where they will best fit in. But a group of […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes I hope you aren’t in pain as you read this. But if you are, you probably know that pain is one of the most common reasons we go to our doctors. Pain in humans is such a major problem that in the U.S. alone, billions of dollars are spent treating pain and compensating for lost […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Do cats really feel pain? Probably many readers think that just isn’t true. But in fact pain is a common malady shared by all mammals. If something is painful to a human, it is likely painful to a cat. But the feline mystique pervades pain and pain management just like it pervades which food our […]