Fear Free Happy Homes
Reading Time: 3 minutes As soon as I sit down, my cat Natasha becomes my yoga partner. She helps me stay focused when she swishes her tail under my nose while I’m in Half Moon pose or swats my ponytail while in Downward Facing Dog. She’s a master at shavasana, the relaxation pose at the end of practice. Cat-loving […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes Lily may never earn a Master Agility Champion title, but the little Chinese Crested already has attained her championship in agility fun. The 2-year-old has always been uncertain, says owner Michelle Atkinson of Anaheim, California. “At home in her environment she’s the boss, but outside her comfort zone she’s fearful and shy.” She proved that […]
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 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: 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 […]