Your relationship with your pet may be one of the most important bonds in your life. They have an incredible influence on our health and wellbeing. Pets are family, and we can’t say that enough. Mine inspire my work daily, and keep me grounded.
But what about the relationships our pets have with people or other pets outside of our home? Here are 5 stars in your pets’ relationship constellation.
The cat that must hunt for his food typically catches small game like mice, rats, or rabbits, crouches over the kill, and swallows small prey headfirst, fur, feathers and all. If the cat is able to rarely nab a bird, it may be plucked first to remove obnoxious tail feathers. Rabbit-size prey are eaten more slowly…
Is your kitty a “mighty hunter?” How does your cat hunt and what kind of big game does s/he capture? I’ve written about gift-bearing cats before to explain the whole idea behind why Sheba leaves mousy offerings just for you, URK!
According to many who know, a cat is always on the wrong side of the door. They drive us crazy with meow-demands to open the door, let them in, let them out, with rarely any rhyme or reason to their requests. So pet doors, baby gates for pets, puppy gates, and other pet barriers can offer the best options for your cats and dogs.
Why Use Pet Gates?
People use pet doors and puppy gates for convenience, but also for safety reasons. While dog doors typically give access to the backyard doggy potty area, there are multiple ways a pet door benefits Kitty. Think outside the cat box and a pet door helps you manage your multi-pet household, as well as potential behavior issues.
There are too many risks involved to allow cats or dogs to roam outside unsupervised. Coyotes come right up on my back patio and would love to munch my Karma-Kat. But if partnered with a safe area, a pet door offers lots of convenience for a cat, especially when you aren’t home to do door duty.
Install pet doors in the interior or exterior walls, doors, windows, or even sliding panels to give access to an inside room, or safe outdoor area. Cats love window watching, so this can be a great option when the pet door unit simply fits into the existing opening.
Our cats are sensory creatures, but we often overlook their acute sense of smell. Dr. Mikel Maria Delgado reports that studies indicate cats can even sniff out their human’s stress–detecting fear, happy smells, and more. Scent enrichment for cats in their environment offers inexpensive, effective, and fun ways to keep your cats happy, stress-free, and healthy. It often reduces, eliminates, or prevents cat behavior problems.
Pets car ride safe travel provides vital protection for dogs and cats. With Magical-Dawg, we used a pet gate to keep him safely in the back seat, and later a halter that buckled into the seatbelt. Bravo suffered from car sickness, so we added seat covers to protect the car seat. These days, Shadow-Pup thinks he owns the car and demands a ride every morning. That means we make car rides pet safe with harnesses.
Do your pets gobble food? Are they pushy around the food bowl? Food aggression in cats (rare) and dogs (more common) can be a problem. But food obsessed pets happen for a variety of reasons…
I was contacted by HempMy Pet about their hemp pet treats and CBD oil for dogs. Now, I’ve heard about hemp oil for dogs, and the Internet has a wide variety of hemp products and organic pet treats available. Since a veterinarian endorsed the products on the website, I...
Anyone who has ever lived with a cat or dog knows they increase our happiness quotient. But did you know that they actually improve our health? Multiple studies have proven what pet lovers intuitively have known forever. Pets are good for what ails you!
Dogs often appear to have selective hearing, just as humans do. Put yourself in your dog’s paws, and it makes sense that they ignore human chatter. Most of the “mouth noise” that people spout doesn’t matter to dogs, and to get King’s attention, it must trump whatever else has his attention. …
I’ve written about dogs pawing your arm in the past, but what about–just waving that paw in the air? What does offering a paw mean? Here’s an ASK AMY video with the deets.
Baby cats almost always enjoy some snuggles and lap time. But as cats mature, their c’attitude often changes. So how can you “make” your cat more friendly? Here’s my take…
When the phone rings, does your cat come running? At our house, until recently we still have a land line with a long cord, in addition to our cell phones. My Karma-Kat tried to bite through the long red spiral cord whenever I’m in a conversation. Some cat lovers report that their kitties become aggressive around the telephone. Here’s what’s going on…
Here’s an excerpt from my book DOG LIFE (including a video and song!) featuring favorite dog myths and superstitions, just in time for Halloween. Enjoy!
With Halloween right around the corner, what a good time to share this round up of 8 Halloween myths.
Halloween pet safety is needed every year. Halloween at its best is a night of mystery, fun, and thrills for human children and many adults. It’s important to keep your human kiddoes safe with these tips, but no less important for the pets. I write about Halloween pets safety every year because it can be a nightmare for your furry kids.
Here’s an excerpt from my book CAT LIFE (including a video and song!) featuring favorite black cat myths and legends. Enjoy!
October 16 is National Feral Cat Day. North Texas is home to quite a large population of ferals–wild felines–that would benefit from a formal TNR program.
This is very close to my heart because Seren-Kitty was dumped on the streets at age seven weeks, and Karma met the same fate at eight months old. Had I not found and adopted them, their lives would have been much different.
Feral cats live life on the fringes. They breed, give birth, and raise kittens with little to no human contact. These are not pet cats gone wild (strays)–they are wild animals that really cannot be tamed unless caught as kittens. Even then, they may never be a typical pet cat, but face behavior challenges all their life.
Why should we care? Because if not managed properly, feral cats become a nuisance and health risk to owned cats, and even humans. Felines squabbling outside your window wind up your owned indoor cats and can result in cat fights. Caring for ferals is also the ethical, humane thing for caring people to do. Here’s what you need to know.
Do you enjoy dressing up the house—and yourself—for the holidays? If you want to include Halloween pet costumes, start now to get them used to the notion. Most of the costumes don’t fit Bravo-Dawg, and I’ve not yet tried Shadow-Pup. I’ll share pictures if/when that happens.
Meanwhile, be sure to keep pets safe over Halloween, though. Dogs and cats aren’t always fans of wearing Halloween costumes, but with these tips, you can help pets accept the notion.
Halloween Pet Costumes
Some pets enjoy dressing up, particularly the small dogs already used to wearing coats and sweaters in cool weather. There are many pet costumes available from pet products stores, from fancy to plain. If your outgoing, confident pet is willing, you can have great fun with costumes. But if your pets don’t care for dress up, don’t press it. Many pets may bite over Halloween out of fear of change.
Even reluctant pets may be persuaded to wear a fancy collar or bandana or painted toenails.
Amy Shojai CACB is an award winning author. You can find all her publications and book her to speak via her website.
AmyShojai.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com http://amazon.com/.
Awards
Memberships
