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Activities & Enrichment Dogs Fears & Anxieties Life at Home Training & Grooming

Puppy Primer: Start Your New Dog Off Right

Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes Is a puppy in your near future? Here’s how to make his transition from rescue organization or breeder to your home as easy as possible. Bringing a puppy home is a joyous time for the people in a family, and it should be for the puppy as well. Planning, play, training, and timing are all […]

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Activities & Enrichment Dogs Life at Home Training & Grooming

Does Your Dog Want to be a Therapy Dog?

Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes Making therapy visits can be great enrichment for the right dog and make you feel good about giving back to the community. But it’s important that therapy pets love their work, and for some dogs it may be too stressful. If you’re considering getting into this, make sure your dog will be an enthusiastic partner. […]

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Cats Dogs Fears & Anxieties Other Veterinary Care

When Vets Take Pets “To the Back”

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes When I worked as a vet tech many years ago, we didn’t routinely “take pets to the back” for treatment. Emergency visits, or pets not easily handled, were the exceptions. But more often than not, dogs and cats had their temperatures taken, vaccines administered, routine blood and stool samples procured, all while in the presence […]

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Cats Dogs Fears & Anxieties Other Veterinary Care

How to Overcome Fear, Anxiety & Stress About Your Pets’ Dental Care

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes Even though periodontal disease is the most common disease in both cats and dogs1, many pets don’t get the dental care they need due to the fear, anxiety, and stress (FAS) they experience when going to the veterinarian. And that stress affects not only the cat or dog, but the owner, too. Two things need […]

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Cats Life at Home

Is This New Cat “The One”?

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes When we lose a beloved cat, sometimes our inclination is to “find” him or her again. This desire may be driven by personal spiritual beliefs (reincarnation, or some kind of belief that our cat’s soul will want to find us again), or this desire might more simply be based on a belief that somewhere out […]

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Cats Dogs Life at Home Other

How to Be the Perfect Pet Sitting Client

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes What information does your pet sitter need to efficiently care for your home and pets? After 25 years as a pet sitter, I find it falls into two categories: pet care and “all that other stuff.” Here’s how to ensure that your pet sitter knows the most important details about your animal’s care. Meals, Meds, […]

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Cats Dogs Fears & Anxieties Life at Home Other Senior Pets Veterinary Care

Anxiety Often Accompanies Cognitive Dysfunction

Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes If your pet has cognitive dysfunction—canine or feline dementia—you may have noticed that he seems to be more anxious than in the past. That’s a common side effect of the condition, but there are ways to manage it. Aging dogs and cats have problems similar to those of elderly humans, and not just physical ones: […]

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Activities & Enrichment Cats Life at Home

Cat Play the Right Way: 7 Mistakes to Avoid

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Reading Time: 5 minutes Nature designed cats to be efficient little predators and to hunt even when they’re not hungry (because who knows when the next meal will scamper by?). Play is the indoor cat’s version of hunting. It’s an expression of a host of hardwired feline behaviors. Cats who do not use their minds and bodies in natural […]

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Cats Dogs Fears & Anxieties Other Training & Grooming

What Martinis and Chocolate can Teach You About Overcoming Your Pet’s Fears

Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes Fear is a powerful emotion. It takes a lot to overcome it, in dogs and cats as well as humans, but there are some techniques that can help. I am afraid of spiders. Granted, there are species of spiders than can pose some danger in certain situations, but I live in a big city with […]

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Cats Dogs Life at Home New Pets Other Shelters & Fostering

Save a Life at any Cost? When Rescue Isn’t

Article

Reading Time: 3 minutes At what cost do you save a life? Or is that not even the right question to ask? What motivates this story is local dog trainer, near where I live, who was recently “outed” for alleged use of aversive methods to save lives. That in itself sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? When animal control […]