Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT Not to put too fine a point on it, but dogs bite because they’re dogs. It’s what dogs are biologically programmed to do. Every dog has the potential to bite, no matter how well socialized or friendly. I thought it might be useful to explore the different reasons why a dog… [Read More]
Dog Training & Behavior
Flyball Is Not a Ball Game
Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC If you’d like to hear Cindy Lewis-Bruckart from Regarding Rover interview me (Greta Kaplan) about the sport of flyball, head over to blogtalkradio to listen. Now, on with the rest of the post… I teach and coach flyball, a fun dog sport that is not often shown on TV, so most… [Read More]
The Art of Dog Training
Greta Kaplan, CPDT, CDBC Most animal training is a mechanical skill. We can take some basic scientific knowledge about learning, about operant and classical conditioning, as well as about the relevant instinctive behaviors and motor patterns of the species we are working with, and we can accomplish most of our training goals with good timing,… [Read More]
The Genetics of Behavior: What Color is Your Dog?
Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB Behavior has many causes: this is a general statement that many people believe is true, and it often causes people to extend the conclusion to one that suggests that we can never understand behavior, that it will always remain a black-box mystery. But of course, as professional animal behaviorists, academic or… [Read More]
Cat Behavior & Training
Indoor Cat? Outdoor Cat? Why Choose?
Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT-KA, Katherine Ayres, PhD We know that outdoor cats live shorter lives subject to disease and injury, yet many cat owners believe that their cats cannot be happy unless they go outside. I think one of the reasons people believe this is that many cats suffer from environmentally deprived environments without their… [Read More]
Cat Litter Box Problem Solved: Texture Aversion
Katherine Ayres, PhD Eva came to us at 3 months after being a “stray at large” in Lynnwood, WA. She was sweet, extremely social, fun to play with and of course had a healthy obsession of watching birds out the window making that amusing chatter noise. Her litter box habits for the most part were… [Read More]
Kitten Socialization
Jim Ha, PhD, CAAB Cats, like all mammals, are social creatures. While cats are far less social than dogs, to think of cats as asocial is wrong. The degree of social behavior and the ability of an individual to adapt to a changing social environment varies with species (certainly cats are less social than dogs),… [Read More]
Adopting a New Cat
Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT-KA National Adopt a Cat Month means that many of us will either be introducing a new cat to our home or at least contemplating whether adopting a cat is a good idea. Cats are very different from dogs in that regardless of whether you’ve socialized your cat well as a kitten… [Read More]
Pet Health
Rehabilitation Therapy for Dogs
Christine Hibbard, CTC, CPDT-KA Many of the medical treatments that have been available to human patients are more commonly becoming available for our pets. In fact, some research being done at veterinary schools like Purdue and research centers in veterinary oncology are furthering human research and treatments. When I got curious about water therapy and… [Read More]
Do You Dread Going to the Veterinarian?
Christine Hibbard, CPDT-KA and Anna Baxter, LVT Do you dread trips to the veterinarian with your dog or cat? Do you wonder if the veterinarians and vet techs dread your visit as much as you do? The veterinary staff needs to be able to perform thorough examinations, provide treatments and perform procedures. How can they… [Read More]
Western Veterinary Conference 2011
Guest Blogger: Anna Baxter, BA, LVT Recently I attended the Western Veterinary Conference, one of the largest gatherings of veterinary practitioners in the world, for some continuing education. My focus was Behavior, where I went to all 20 hours of scientific programming by some of the best in the industry. Some of the speakers (DVMs)… [Read More]
Don’t Touch Me There!
Louisa Beal, DVM Mario, a West Highland White Terrier had snapped at a two year old girl. If Mario couldn’t be trusted around children, his owners would have to get rid of him. The knee jerk response to this would be to try to modify the behavior of the dog. Mario’s behavior is definitely unacceptable. … [Read More]