Videos
Bringing out the best in a cat or dog is a hands-on task. Seeing it in a video is often better than reading it. My goal with these videos is to make behavior management easier to understand and implement.
Destruction & Panic when Alone So what can you do if the dog who’s stolen your heart damages your house while you’re away-often? If you have a dog like this you can feel desperate. Dogs with separation anxiety can actually look forward to their alone time because that will be their chance to engage their innate survival instincts.
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Pets who eat nonfood items can pay a big price for their curiosity. Swallowed linear foreign material, like yarn, ribbon, or dental floss, can saw holes in the intestinal wall leading to septic peritonitis. We can protect these little guys by cat–proofing the house.
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Worried about Your Cat? – At Home Exam There are important reasons to keep a close eye on our cats. They tend to hide their illnesses and injuries. It’s just who they are. Their genetically programmed reality puts the responsibility for their well-being on their people. In this 8 minute video I will show you how to do a physical exam on your cat. Do it once a month whether you feel concerned or not. It’s not in her nature to complain.
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Scratching stuff is normal for cats. Forget punishing your kitty for scratching your good things. Our job is to set them up to scratch right.
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Our dogs are special to us. None of us wants there to be any problem. They need to stay well and enjoy a great long life with us. If you learn to examine your own dog at home and you’ll be able to uncover concerns early so they can be checked out by your veterinarian. You’ll also find what’s working just fine. You can feel good about that. It’s easy and we’ll make it fun. Chewy treats like jerky are great reinforcers for good behavior. Start at the front end and work your way back. Use a light to check…
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Puppies and dogs of any age can be unrelenting chewers and destroyers of all things we may hold sacred. We can love man’s and woman’s best friend like a little person in a furry suit but they are actually members of a different species. Chewing from a carcass for survival is hard-wired into their brains. Rather than trying to put an end to a natural behavior, give your pupsters a productive, canine-specific job: survival by extraction of sustenance from food-dispensing toys and/or puzzles. Mick, the Nichol family Border collie, is working hard at being a real dog. And having…
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Last in a series For many dogs, separation anxiety has a hereditary basis but changes in their environment often worsen the problem. It turned out that Newt had been adopted from a shelter, followed by a few moves with his new family. Videos of him home alone showed him not barking or vandalizing but quietly pacing, nonstop – except for the occasional indoor restroom break. There was no changing Newt’s genome or his life story but we could reduce his anxiety triggers. That confident visiting cat, who routinely scared the daylights out of this nervous little dog, needed to…
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Third in a series Newt did well on his antianxiety medication. He was alert, happier, and playing with a new puppy but there was no home run. He continued to douse the house when his people were out of sight, although somewhat less often. He certainly suffered from separation anxiety but I was still missing something. We needed to gather intelligence on Newt’s activities when his people were away from him. Drones? They’d only cause paranoia. So I advised Anna and Tom to purchase a home surveillance system like a Nest Cam. Of course, this was an invasion of Newt’s…
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Second in a series Our dogs are not little people in furry suits. We love them that way but their upstairs wiring is somewhat different. With his significant anxiety disorder, Newt the Bichon Frise, struggled mightily with life in a human world. He was strongly bonded to his people, Anna and Tom, but his mind overflowed with angst. Contrary to what they had come to assume, urine marking was not his favorite pastime. Newt was often on the edge of losing impulse control; almost anything could set him off. If Anna reached for him while they sat on the couch…
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Pets who age gracefully bring comfort to their doting pet parents. But not all of them do well in their golden years. Some get dementia that their families mistake for normal aging. Alzheimer’s disease is pretty common in older people. The symptoms of dementia and the unhealthy brain changes seen in some older dogs are similar. In dogs it’s called cognitive dysfunction syndrome (CDS). Like nearly all physical and behavioral problems we can make a bigger difference with early diagnosis and treatment.
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