Worried about using food luring during training? by Kelly Ballantyne, DVM, DACVB The science is pretty clear at this point that using positive reinforcement (i.e. giving an animal something s/he likes to increase the chance they’ll repeat a behavior) is the most effective and humane means of training. In...
Dogs and cats are social animals who can learn easily to respond to many of our words, gestures, and body language cues throughout any given day. In some cases, our pets learn our words so well that we end up having to spell them out when communicating with other...
Can Music Make Cats Less Stressed? by Mikel Maria Delgado, PhD Psychology I love music – always have. I listen a lot – while I’m working, while I’m cooking, while I’m driving, running, if I’m not sleeping there might be some music in the background (right now, it’s Bob Mould’s new...
Cats in the Basement: Let’s Help Them Venture Forth! (Part 3) by Cheryl Kolus, DVM, KPA-CTP In Part 2 of this series, we discussed big-picture strategies to help mitigate your cat’s fear and talked about triggers and reinforcers. We also emphasized the importance of ruling out underlying medical problems and...
Cats in the Basement: Let’s Help Them Venture Forth! (Part 2) by Cheryl Kolus, DVM, KPA-CTP In the last article, we looked at why some cats are fearful, the body language of fear, levels of fear and the effects of fear. Now that you have a better understanding of...
Cats in the Basement: Let’s Help Them Venture Forth! by Cheryl Kolus, DVM, KPA-CTP A recent client told me that her petsitter, who stops by a couple times a day when they’re out of town to care for the couple’s two dogs and two cats, has never seen Whisper,...
It’s useful for many reasons to teach your dog to Sit and Stay while the front door opens. In addition to preventing bolting, a reliable Sit/Stay by the front door can be used to prevent crowding, jumping on, or mouthing at visitors when they arrive; to prevent chasing after...
Do food puzzles increase feline frolicking? By Mikel Maria Delgado, PhD Psychology I’m a big fan of food puzzles as an enrichment choice for cats. As natural predators, cats have evolved to work for their food. We brought them inside, handed them a bowl of food, and took their...
Q: I have a 3 1/2-year-old male silky terrier who is very intelligent and lovable. He has a large, fenced-in area in our back yard to run free, which he does during the day. My problem is that when he is in the house and someone opens the front...
Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? Help for the Multi-cat Household By Cheryl Kolus, DVM In many ways, our pet cats today are not that different from their wild ancestor, the African wildcat. They even look similar. According to Wild Cats Magazine, the African wildcat is mostly nocturnal, hides...
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