Fear Free Happy Homes
Reading Time: 3 minutes If we share a home with a beloved cat, we’ll likely have the opportunity to engage in cat-care interactions that may be a challenge, a perceived challenge, or unfamiliar. If we are giving our cat a pill for the first time, we may have preconceptions about how the pill-giving event is going to transpire. We […]
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 We’ve all heard that exercise lowers stress, but working as a dog trainer I also observed that the combination of physical and mental exercise does the job even better. Play is the answer, engaging your dog’s mind along with his muscles. Try to avoid over the top play. Getting a dog overly excited is hardly […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Good planning is absolutely necessary when you are traveling with a service dog. Having the proper paperwork, your dog’s regular food, some toys and an extra leash, plus a clear idea about how to divide your time between human-centered and dog-centered activities, will help make the trip as stress free as possible for human and […]
Reading Time: 5 minutes Anyone who spends much time on Instagram has seen them: cats in backpacks, cats hiking up trails, cats on leashes enjoying the wild outdoors with their people. There’s even a dedicated hashtag for these kitties: #adventurecat. In fact, a whole book was written about these intrepid felines. Adventure Cats: Living 9 Lives to the Fullest […]
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: < 1 minutes Noodles gets the “crazies,” the zooms-at-three-a.m. stuff. Dusk and dawn are favorite times, when the predator is on alert. She thunders up and down stairs, races down halls, or gnaws on your head, on your nose, on toes. She’s after prey, whether imaginary or just you. Cattens also knock things over, for the fun of […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes When thunderstorms strike, does your cat run and hide under the bed or in the closet? Maybe you notice that she just disappears and you don’t think much about it? Dogs earn the greatest amount of recognition when it comes to fear of thunderstorms because their reactions are more visible: they tremble, pace, hide, try […]
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Fourth of July is one of the busiest days of the year for animal control officers. Lost and terrified pets fill shelters. Booming fireworks cause frightened dogs to jump fences they’ve never jumped before; others leap from their owners’ arms and disappear across a busy street. An anxious dog may show subtle or dramatic […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Storm phobia is a problem not just because dogs are afraid. The physiological reaction to fear is bad enough—the racing heart, the rush of stress hormones—but fear also causes dogs to react in dangerous or destructive ways. They may destroy doors or jump through windows in an attempt to escape the frightening situation. By the […]