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...
Getting used to things (or not): Habituation vs. Sensitization by Jennifer Summerfiled, DVM Not too long ago, one of my training clients told me about an unexpected problem she was having with her dog. She had recently moved from a rural area to a more suburban neighborhood, and had...
When Cats and Crates Clash Cat owners Chris and Jess called me in to help them with their beloved 6-year-old cat Minnie. Chris and Jess had adopted Minnie from a foster program when she was a year old. She had been virtually feral, with very little socialization prior to...
I received the call late on a Friday and the woman’s voice on the other end of the line sounded frantic. “I need you to come out as soon as possible! I adopted a dog three days ago and he’s being really aggressive – he bites me so much...
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