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The ‘put to sleep’ statistics for pets with behaviour problems are truly shocking. In the modern world, behaviour problems in pets cause more deaths than cardiac disease, infectious disease and cancer put together (Overall 2010). A study of 2493 dogs in Denmark showed 23.6 % were put to sleep in response to behavioural problems (Mikkelsen […]

As most people know, dogs evolved from wolves.  Whilst wolves and dogs are still the same species and can interbreed, our dogs’ ancestors evolved from the wolf a long time ago, not as hunters, but as scavengers around human settlements.  Scavengers have no need to hunt cooperatively as a pack and therefore dogs have less

https://youtu.be/gC4kvrH4jaw Dog body language – and why we need to understand it! In no way is this video exhaustive more just a series of snap shots.  Hopefully it will help you to think about what dogs are ‘saying;’ and to start to tune your observation skills. Body language is a dog’s main method of communication Dogs

Of course, people and dogs have been living together for at least 30,000 years.  There is no other species like the dog when it comes to domestication.  Dogs and humans effectively domesticated each other and the way we came to cohabit is unique – dogs are now so adapted to living with us that the

Are some puppy socialisation classes making dogs aggressive? One wonders why, with so much emphasis on the importance of socialisation, dogs appear to be becoming increasingly aggressive? It’s really great that many puppy owners are understanding that they need to socialise their new puppies, however, not all know how to do this.  It’s also very

The daily walk is likely to be the high point of your dog’s day, whether it is likely to be the high point of your day will depend upon a number of factors!  Some days nothing goes wrong and your walk is relaxing and perfect, whereas other days everything goes wrong.  You have probably noticed

We tend to neuter most dogs in our society although this policy is starting to come under scutiny.  In Norway it is now illegal to neuter your dog without a proven reason.  The health benefits of spaying female dogs fall in favour of spaying, however, when it comes to male dogs, the health benefits fall

Hormones affect behaviour, both in dogs and humans, therefore it stands to reason that removing hormones by spaying, will affect behaviour too.  Female hormones go up and down naturally, and an unspayed bitch will be subject to the behavioural influences of her hormones around the time of her season.  Whilst the health of dogs benefits

it is common amongst behaviourists and trainers to refer to whatever it is that causes an individual animal (this applies to people too!) to react as ‘triggers’.  Different stimuli can trigger a fearful, frustrated or excited response depending upon the dog and the situation. If a single ‘trigger’ occurs, provided it isn’t too intense (close,

Golden Retrievers can be at risk of developing Hypothyroidism Whilst little has been written on the effects of canine hypothyroidism on behaviour, there is increasing evidence of behaviour change in dogs suffering from an under active thyroid gland. Why a change in behaviour should occur is unclear, although, anything affecting the endocrine system will affect

You may have seen dogs out and about dressed in an array of yellow paraphernalia!  The Yellow Dog Project is an interesting and potentially very useful idea.  Basically, if a dog has a yellow collar, harness, lead or has a yellow ribbon tied to the lead then it may indicate that they need space from

Cats don’t always get along with other cats.  It should be easier to understand why an already resident cat might not automatically get on with a new cat, and vice versa, if one understands what a cat is. In order to provide properly for more than one cat living under the same roof and facilitate

This article follows on from my previous blog article ‘what is a cat’ which attempts to explain cats.  From there one can deduce what a cat needs.  As discussed in the previous article, when introducing a new cat, both the resident and new cat will need their own ‘core territory’. When introducing another cat you

It is increasingly seen as preferable to keep cats exclusively indoors for their safety: accidents, injury, disease, theft, increasing density of cats in the neighbourhood and resultant increase in territorial disputes are all cited as reasons for keeping cats indoors.  Evidence of longer life spans of indoor cats corroborate that physical safety is enhanced in

Many people own both dogs and cats and the age old rivalry can cause problems.  However, setting up both dog and cat to succeed will help friendship blossom. The first priority is to ensure that the cat, as both predator and prey species, has a safe area.  Cats need a ‘core’ territory and shouldn’t have

we were very unfortunate in that our first cat, Mog who we had had from our friends as a tiny kitten was hit by a car and killed on our street – virtually on his first birthday.  Vowing next to get a grown up cat who knew the risks, I went down to the RSPCA

was a Border Terrier cross Jack Russell with a bit of Parson Russell thrown in, giving her lovely long legs.  She’s the only dog we had had who was not a rescue.  She was family bred, eager to please, cooperative and delightful.  We taught each other so much and she was an asset to the

Rover came to us from a local rescue centre in 2011 when he was somewhere between 8 and 10 months old.  He had come in as a stray and he was still serving his first 7 days waiting to be claimed when we spotted him.  Luckily for us, his old owner never came.  The rescue

was a proper 1930’s comic book mongrel, there aren’t many dogs like him anymore, a proper Heinz 57!  We found him at a local rescue centre where he had been a regular visitor.  We were never very sure of Fowler’s breeding but it seems likely that he was a Foxhound cross.  He was definitely a

We brought Spot home when she was 8 weeks old.  After Daisy died, Tim, my husband said, “if we are to get another dog (and I’m not sure that we should) we must get a small dog, a puppy of the ‘right’ age”.  By this, he meant 8 weeks so that we could socialise her/him

In the first covid lockdown in 2020 I was returning from a walk on a lovely sunny evening with Rover and Spot.  We were just about to turn into our road when two women and a small dog coming from the other way crossed onto my side of the pavement.  There wasn’t sufficient room for

Prince came from a Siamese cat breeder back in September 2019, when he was 12 weeks old.  Prince is the first pedigree pet we have owned.  We chose the breeder carefully and Prince is an ‘old fashioned’ type Siamese.  This should mean he comes from a larger gene pool than the more modern-look Siamese resulting

Most cats come when they want to or when they think you might feed them.  We want and need Prince to come when he is called for safety’s sake.  I started by using his name to get his attention – “prrriiinnnccce” and reward with something tasty.  He is very responsive to this and responds to

Dogs are more ‘in the moment’ than us and I can’t help but be reminded of this when I’m walking our dogs on a hot day and Rover chooses to simply stop in the shade rather than rushing home.  He doesn’t have to get home to get ready to go to work.  Dogs are perfectly

Apart from starting to meditate and learning to come back to the present and noticing the moment many, many times a day, if you would like your dog to be more relaxed it helps to start small.  Exercise: Many people get their dog to stop and sit at every curb.  Why not use this opportunity to

Ok.  Feeding pets is a very complex and emotive area with many passionate opinions, for example, to feed raw or cooked, home prepared, carbohydrates, no carbohydrates, vegetarian or vegan!  Cats are more manipulative and the chances are you feed your cat what they will eat not what you would choose to feed them.  I feel

By ‘pet waste’ I mean excrement and bedding, here I talk mainly about dog and cat waste but there is also rabbit and guineapig bedding.  In areas where there has already been some success in reducing domestic waste, pet waste can be as much as 11% cat litter/bedding and 4% pet excrement of the waste

People assume cats are destroying wildlife.  With approx. 10.8 million owned cats in the UK in 2021 there are certainly a lot of cats and there is also not much wildlife left.  Correlation or causation? Cats undoubtedly decimate populations of wildlife and are cited as having contributed to the decline and extinction of 367 and

The majority of dogs and cats routinely receive flea and worm treatments containing toxic chemicals – the ‘active ingredients’.  Many worm and flea treatments now come together in a single treatment either as a (easy to administer and ever growing in popularity) ‘spot-on’ or as orally administered treatments.  Spot-on treatments are finding their way into

Petfood packaging has a quick turnover and almost immediately ends up in the bin.  These fast-moving consumer goods, known in the trade as consumer packaged goods (or CPG’s), account for much of a household’s waste. Cat food pouches are the worst if you ask me – the unrecyclable, eternal, pouch packet is the epitome of

It has to be said that quite a bit has changed in the way we feed our dogs since writing the sustainable petfood article.  Apart from anything else, Rover died in the summer of 2021.  He had cancer and he was only 10.  There has been increasing evidence that that vegan/vegetarian complete diets (1) promote

We made a dog poo-composter for the garden!  We do regular ‘worm counts’ https://www.wormcount.com/ and so we are reasonably sure that their poo hasn’t too many nastys in.  However, the worm count will only really look at round worms, tape worms and hook worms and these are easily dealt with once you know that they

Rather than worm our pets periodically and unscientifically like we did before, we now do regular worm counts through wormcount.com.  This requires putting a bit of fresh poo in a bag in an envelope and sending it off.  A basic ‘worm egg count’ costs £18 (October 2022) and looks for gastrointestinal nematodes (gut roundworms) and

We have had two cats and a dog killed on the roads. The pain is indescribable as I know I don’t need to tell you. We joke that our Russian Blue, Olga, is perfectly camouflaged for the road but its gallows humour, designed to help us cope with the possibility that it might happen to