Fear Free Happy Homes
Reading Time: 3 minutes Back-to-school season can be an exciting time for children, but a stressful time for dogs. After all, our pups love the extra time and attention enjoyed during summer vacation. During the coronavirus pandemic, our pets have been the beneficiaries of stay-at-home orders, as parents are often around more, too. Plus, many families have adopted pets […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes Kids and pets go together like peanut butter and jelly. I should know. Our Pugs were my daughter Reagan’s best friends from the time she was born. Her canine “brothers” were there to greet her when we brought her home from the hospital, and it was no surprise that Reagan’s first word was a bark! […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes The power of music is as old as the first human heartbeat. Music communicates emotions, inspires creativity, and provides healing. From 1697, literature gives us William Congreve’s play, “The Mourning Bride” with the famous opening line: “Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” Scores of studies […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes Dogs find certain encounters so memorable that learning happens via a single experience — especially if it’s novel, intense, startling, or incredibly rewarding. Sometimes it’s hilarious, as this headline from The Onion perfectly describes — “Dog Takes Pilgrimage to Holy Site Where It Once Found Rotisserie Chicken on Side of Road.” Often, though, a single […]
Reading Time: 5 minutes Having us shelter in place at our homes is a dream come true for dogs. What happens, though, when people head back to the office? This is a unique experience so there’s no data to suggest how pets will respond, but I suggest we’ll see a significant uptick in separation distress among the following populations […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes We’ve all been told our dogs need to socialize with other dogs and with people, leaving some of us with the notion that our dogs and puppies should go to the dog park often or greet every dog who pulls toward them on the street. No doubt about it, we humans love dogs and, more […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes Even those of us who love dogs don’t love the sound of constant barking. One effective way to get dogs to bark their heads off is to leave them outside in a yard alone. Maybe you have a neighbor who does this, but maybe you even do it yourself, because you think your dog loves […]
Reading Time: 3 minutes We love our dogs and cats. Mine are as much members of the family as my wife and children and my granddaughter Reagan. But do they love us back? I think so, and I think they show us that love—and we show it to them–in myriad ways individual to each pet and person. Body language […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes Kittens are born with an amazing ability to seek and pounce—but not right out of the womb. That aptitude develops in partnership with physiological changes as they grow. At first, they are helpless, fully dependent on their mother. Their only focus is staying warm, finding their mother’s teats, and sleeping. Their mother’s licking not only […]
Reading Time: 4 minutes Traditionally, little thought was given to enrichment for reptiles, and a pet tortoise can often play a role more like a decorative object than a pet. But times are changing, for good reason. “In pretty much every species it’s been shown that the ability to have choices and make decisions and perform a full range […]