Fear Free Happy Homes
Reading Time: 4 minutes The holiday season is a fun time full of family and friends, good food, and festivities. It can also be stressful with too many activities, family feuds, and failed expectations. Either way, your cats feed off your energy and, like you, experience holidays with either excitement or dread. So how do you make holidays less […]
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 There’s probably nothing a cat owner dreads more than a trip to the vet–even if the cat isn’t sick. Most dogs will happily jump into the car, but for cats the ordeal starts with a struggle to get into a carrier that’s stressful for both of you. It doesn’t have to be this way. A […]
Reading Time: < 1 minutes When veterinarians and technicians go to conferences, it’s not all lectures and luncheons. In Orlando, Florida, last week, the Cat Nap Cafe offered VMX (Veterinary Meeting and Expo) conference attendees a chance to get their feline fix away from home, playing with cats and kittens in the exhibit hall. All the cats were available for […]
Reading Time: 2 minutes Margaret Slaby loves animals, so for a time she worked in animal care at a shelter in Monterey County, California. But after two and a half years, she had to call it quits. “I saw a lot of older cats didn’t make it out of the shelter simply because they were older, and it just […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Dangling ornaments. Rich food. Brightly blooming plants. Parties. No matter what your species—human, canine or feline—there’s a lot to love about the holidays. But in the wrong hands, er, paws, those same things can cause everything from a bellyache to a bite to a trip to the emergency room. Here are three ways to avoid […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes A few months ago, my cat and I endured a stressful experience at a pet emergency hospital. Those of us who love our cats have been through this. Something comes up. It may be end- of-life, it may be an emergency followed by recovery. But whenever this happens for me, I feel a familiar kind […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes You’re contemplating adding a kitten to your multi-cat household, and the holidays are fast approaching. There’s plenty to think about with this scenario. How will your stable, tried-and-true household kitties adjust to the newcomer? Will the kitten get into trouble, especially with decorations, food, and unknown people thrown into the mix? Will you be able […]
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: 3 minutes When I volunteered on a domestic violence hotline, I was horrified to learn that abusers will threaten to hurt or kill their partner as well as their partner’s loved ones – including pets. In fact, research shows 48 percent of domestic violence survivors have stayed in abusive situations out of fear of what would happen […]