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Activities & Enrichment Dogs Training & Grooming Travel & Safety

How to Teach Your Dog to Love Swimming

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes Before our litter of Labrador retriever puppies went to their new homes, they learned to swim. Some would live at lake homes, others on the beach, and one went to canoe enthusiasts, so it was important to teach them not to be afraid of water. Even if your dog is an adult or senior or […]

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Cats Dogs Life at Home Other

Mindfulness Tools Help With Grief

Article

Cat and Christmas lights

Reading Time: 4 minutes Losing beloved cats, whether death is sudden or gradual, is a big deal. Even though I’ve been through at least 15 of these passings, my human mind can’t wrap my head around my companion’s absence. How can a being who means so much be gone? How can that bond be suddenly severed? How can we […]

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Activities & Enrichment Cats Life at Home

Scents and Scentsability: Feline Senses of Smell and Taste

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes The way our cats experience the world is different from the way we experience it, because their senses are tuned differently. We know a lot about feline senses, but all that knowledge gives only tantalizing clues to how they perceive their world. We can’t know what it feels like to be a cat. Still, these […]

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Dogs Fears & Anxieties Life at Home

Canine Separation Anxiety: Home Alone! An Anxious and Fearful Time for Some Dogs

Article

Puppy dog who chewed up sofa cushion

Reading Time: 4 minutes What is Canine Separation Anxiety? Have you ever come home to find your dog has redecorated your house, chewed on the windowsill, or urinated/defecated on the floor? Or perhaps your neighbor runs out to greet you and tells you your dog has been barking incessantly ever since you left. If so, your dog could have […]

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Activities & Enrichment Dogs Life at Home

Quash Quarantine Qualms: Brain Games to the Rescue

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes Are you and your dogs stuck at home hiding out from the coronavirus? They’re probably wondering why they’re not getting as many walks or car rides to different places. Changes in their routine can be stressful. You can help to reduce their stress—and yours—with some mental activities that are perfect not just when a pandemic […]

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Cats Life at Home Veterinary Care

Declawing Changes Are Good for Cats

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes After fits and starts, the momentum to ban declawing of cats is building, supported by veterinary hospitals and associations, and legislation that has been passed in cities and states. Most recently, Banfield, VCA, and BluePearl veterinary hospitals, a chain of nearly 2,000 clinics owned by Mars Inc., will no longer declaw cats as elective surgery. […]

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Dogs Training & Grooming

Learning Theory 101: Modern Training Techniques

Article

Reading Time: 5 minutes If you’re a fan of Animal Planet, National Geographic, or other cable and or streaming networks, you’ve probably seen one of the many animal training programs these stations broadcast. Methods used by the featured trainers range from positive reinforcement, such as using food and treats to strengthen a behavior, to aversive techniques such as positive […]

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Dogs Life at Home Veterinary Care

Second Dog Tests Positive for COVID-19. Should You Worry?

Article

Reading Time: 2 minutes With so much unknown about the novel coronavirus, are assurances about our pets’ safety reliable? And are they a risk to us? Here’s what we know today. A second dog in Hong Kong has tested positive for the novel coronavirus. His owner was diagnosed with the disease, and the German Shepherd is in quarantine along […]

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Cats Dogs Life at Home Other Veterinary Care

COVID-19 and Pets: What to Know

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes So far, with more than 446,000 identified cases worldwide of COVID-19 (a figure that’s rapidly rising)– and an unknown number who have been infected but have not had any symptoms or minimal symptoms – only one companion animal has been found to have the virus, and even that incident is unclear. On February 28 a […]

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Dogs Life at Home Veterinary Care

Coronavirus and Pets: It’s Safe to Keep Your Dog

Article

Reading Time: 2 minutes There’s a lot of fear swirling around the novel coronavirus – what it might do to us, and what it might do to our pets. My heart broke when I heard about dogs being abandoned or killed in parts of China. Then panicked friends started texting me about a dog testing “weak positive” for COVID-19 […]