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Cats Dogs Travel & Safety

Pet Emergency Preparedness: 10 Most Essential Items for Traveling with Your Pet

Article

Reading Time: 2 minutes Pet Emergency Preparedness: 10 Most Essential Items for Traveling with Your Pet Whether it’s a natural disaster, an unexpected event, or just the unpredictability of life, having an emergency kit for your furry friend can be a lifesaver. Here are 10 essential items to include in your pet’s emergency kit: 1. Food and Water: Store […]

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Dogs Fears & Anxieties

How to Recognize Fear, Anxiety, and Stress in Your Dog

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Reading Time: < 1 minutes Do you know how to tell if your dog is fearful, anxious, or stressed? Our handout, using a scale of 0 to 5, shares the signs to look for.

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Dogs New Pets Veterinary Care

Puppy Socialization Risks and Rewards

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Puppy playing

Reading Time: 3 minutes Puppyhood is a crucial time for physical and emotional development. However, the critical socialization window, when puppies form important impressions about their surrounding world, coincides with their vaccination schedule. You may have received conflicting recommendations about keeping unvaccinated or partially vaccinated puppies away from other dogs while their immune systems develop, and providing safe socialization […]

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Cats Dogs Fears & Anxieties Life at Home Veterinary Care

Solving the Mystery: How Pheromones Work to Calm Pets

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Reading Time: 3 minutes Pheromones play a significant role in the social behavior of many species, including dogs, cats, and possibly humans. Although our pets cannot consciously control pheromone secretion, the chemicals can influence how they feel in certain situations and with whom they form social bonds. Dogs and cats rely heavily on pheromone communication, using their refined sense […]

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Cats Dogs Fears & Anxieties Veterinary Care

Sedation for Your Pet is Safer Than You Think

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes Have you ever felt embarrassed or concerned about your pet’s behavior at the veterinary clinic? Many pets feel fear, anxiety, and stress (FAS) at the vet because of past stressful experiences or unfamiliarity with clinic staff and routine veterinary procedures. Although it may seem obvious to you that the veterinary staff is there to help, […]

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Activities & Enrichment Dogs Life at Home

Want to Communicate Better with Your Dog? Understand How They Learn

Article

Reading Time: 5 minutes Pet caretakers often relate to their dogs in a manner that’s most closely akin to a parent-child relationship. However, while we may view our dogs as our “fur kids,” in day-to-day living it’s likely we’ll encounter ongoing reminders of just how much “dog” they actually are. It’s there, in the contrast of who we expect […]

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Dogs Fears & Anxieties

Dog Bite Insurance Claims: Why Are They Rising?

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes Something’s going down with our relationship with “man’s best friend,” and it’s not the number of dog bites. According to an article in the April 12, 2023, Insurance Journal, the number of dog bite claims since 2003 has gone from 7,359 to 17,597: a whopping increase of 139 percent. That number far exceeds the corresponding […]

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Cats Dogs Shelters & Fostering Veterinary Care

Innovative Shelter Program Saves Parvo Puppies and FeLV Cats – and Helps Others Do It, Too

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Reading Time: 3 minutes Innovative Shelter Program Saves Parvo Puppies and FeLV Cats – and Helps Others Do It, Too Jen Reeder A shelter’s groundbreaking initiative to save dogs and cats with dreaded viruses – canine parvovirus and feline leukemia – all started in a veterinarian’s bathroom. Back in 2008, Ellen Jefferson, DVM, president and CEO of the Texas […]

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Cats Dogs Shelters & Fostering Veterinary Care

Help Cats Battle Carsickness

Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes Does your cat hate riding in the car? It might be because they get carsick. I’ve never had a cat who got carsick, so I was surprised when a friend mentioned that her cat had awful carsickness, manifesting in a terrible case of diarrhea every time the cat had to ride in a vehicle. It […]

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Dogs Veterinary Care

Can My Dog Catch a Cold?

Article

Reading Time: < 1 minutes One of the most common questions that we hear here at Fear Free is, “can my dog catch a cold?” This handout courtesy of Elanco will show help you learn the truth about canine colds and how a Bordetella vaccine can help protect your pup.