Fear Free Happy Homes
Reading Time: 3 minutes “Don’t worry!” you call out. “He’s friendly!” Your dog is barreling down the wooded trail ahead of you, aiming his greeting at another hiker with a dog on leash. Your canine buddy just loves everyone, and you can tell he’s excited to make some new friends. You soon realize this is not going to happen, […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Old dogs are the best dogs. They know the rules, they’re not full of crazy energy, and they love nothing better than a good nap. The downside, though, is that all that makes it easy to slip into the habit of not spending as much time with them. Your dog may no longer need long […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Last year my husband and I did something incredibly rewarding: adopted a senior pet. We wondered if Peach, a little 8-year-old Poodle rescued as a stray, would find it challenging to adapt to life in a new home with us and our Labrador Retriever mix, Rio. But the adoption coordinator suggested I feed Peach canned […]
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: 2 minutes If you’re happy, there’s a good chance your dog is happy, too. So says a recent study led by Mexican researcher M.T. González-Ramírez and published in the November-December 2018 Journal of Veterinary Behavior. According to the study, dog owners who are less stressed have dogs who are better behaved. Conversely, stressed dog owners reported more […]
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 […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes When Robert Hampton recently moved into the Brookdale Memory Care Center in Dallas, his wife, Marilyn, knew exactly what he needed to boost his spirits and to encourage him to be social with other residents. She brought in four friendly cats from a local pet rescue group into her husband’s room and said, “Pick one.” […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes I couldn’t wait to take Oscar, my new Dalmatian puppy, outside for his first walk around our block. Clipping the leash onto his collar went well but taking a step out the front door to enjoy nature was another story. I never knew that paws had brakes, but he sure applied them in a flash […]
Reading Time: 2 minutes “Social referencing” is a fancy term for a familiar phenomenon: when uncertain about a new situation, you check to see how everyone else is reacting. Are they scared, happy, calm, anxious? We look to others for clues in case they have previous experience that we don’t. Other social animals do this as well, and it’s […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Many pets never received the memo that Halloween is supposed to be fun. They truly are spooked by all those creatures that smell like humans but resemble zombies or superheroes. And for many pets the constant ringing of the doorbell and all the commotion is disturbing. For two reasons, ensconcing those animals in a room […]