BARKS Podcast with Leslie McDevitt of Control Unleashed®: February 5, 2021
Join Niki Tudge as she Chats and Chuckles with Leslie McDevitt about the upcoming educational event Reactive to Relaxed: Next Steps in Control Unleashed. Reactive to Relaxed: Next Steps in Control Unleashed will take place virtually on March 8, 10 and 12, 2021 – three webinars with 6 hours of education! 1. Pattern Games – March 8, 2021 / 5 p.m. ET. 2. Look at That – March 10, 2021 / 5 p.m. ET. 3. Cooperative Counter Conditioning – March 12, 2021 / 5 p.m. ET. All webinars will have… Continued
Companion Bird Foster Programs – A Review
I have volunteered at several local brick-and-mortar rescues (private shelters) in my area (north of Boston, Massachusetts) and have seen, over time, companion birds being returned because of the same behavioral issues. Adopters may say that a bird was “not trainable” or “would not bond” with them. Now, the rescue’s policy is to improve the welfare of the companion bird by getting him into a good and knowledgeable home. This strategy may reduce the undesired behavior. However, some rescues avoid placing birds in foster homes because, if returned, the upheaval… Continued
Dominance: The Horse’s Perspective
In reality, dominant behavior in the world of the horse is a way of gaining and maintaining access to valuable resources without breaking the elastic connection between herd members. It is a way of reducing the risk of injury and lowering the stress — and, according to Linklater et al. (1999), the resultant impact on health — of constant aggression. A horse who is very thirsty may use a dominance display to gain preferential access to a water hole. But that’s it. He gains access, he drinks and he leaves.… Continued
The Need for Safety in Learning
It is worth noting that in environments where basic needs cannot easily be met, it is easier to capture feral animals. An animal who is starving or dying of thirst or needs shelter will move into potentially unsafe situations in order to satisfy the basic need(s). By contrast, in a resource rich environment, if the animal has ready access to food, shelter and water, they may consistently avoid any situations that make them feel unsafe, such as a bowl of food placed in a humane trap. we can artificially elevate… Continued
Maintaining a Rewarding Relationship with Your Dog
By Tiff Shao *This post is a selected entry from the Pet Professional Guild Writers’ Competition for Geek Week 2020 * The aquamarine waters looked extra enticing as we approached the river crossing. It was a hot August day and the previous section of the trail offered no shade. My dog Braeburn splashed in the chilly, mountain-fed waters and drank his fill. We had a few miles under our soles, and a total of five days to trek 40 in total. Our locale was the Bob Marshall Wilderness – land of… Continued
BARKS Podcast with Paula Garber and Tabitha Kucera of the PPG Feline Committee: December 4, 2020
Niki Tudge, PPG president, chats with the PPG Feline Committee chair, Paula Garber and vice-chair, Tabitha Kucera about all things feline. Topics range from pet cats and veterinary visits, to what we know we don’t know about cats, and to feral cats and the myths about cat colonies. The trio also spend some time talking about all the great things the Feline Committee is doing, including the popular Cat Lounge! Listen to Podcast here on a choice of platforms. Or simply click ‘Play’ below. Paula Garber is the owner of LIFELINE Cat… Continued
What Makes a Cat a Cat?
By Dr. Liz Bales What is the essence of a cat? When we understand what motivates a cat’s behavior, we understand what to expect from a cat — as a human companion and a companion to other cats in our homes. With this information, we can rethink the criteria for a minimally satisfactory physical living space in the confinement of our homes. Well-being for all living things begins with basic survival. How do cats survive and stay safe? How do they eat, drink, and sustain themselves? What are the threats… Continued
Feline Litter Box Problems: The Needs of the Many
By Andrea Carne The Star Trek character Spock once said: “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.” (Meyer, 1982). This movie quote popped into my mind upon reading the findings of a new study into stress levels of multicat households experiencing toileting issues. Stay with me on this – it will all become clear! I’m sure most cat behavior consultants would agree that the number one behavior problem reported by cat guardians is inappropriate toileting – both urine spraying… Continued
The Fearful Rescue Dog Who Changed My Life
By Gloria Schmidt *This post is the Pet Professional Guild runner up entry in our Geek Week 2020 Writers’ Competition* Back in 2011, I had accepted a job at St. Jude Children’s Research hospital that required moving to a new state, 13 hours away from home, to a place where I initially knew nobody within a five hour radius of Memphis. As an anxious and quieter type of person, I was frequently asked if this life change was the best idea for me. My constant answer was, “It will be… Continued
Cats: In Crisis
By Dr. Liz Bales America loves cats! In fact, we have more cats than dogs living in our homes. We currently live with more than 94 million cats, compared to 90 million dogs (Daily Dog Stuff, n.d.). Nearly half of all millennials have cats: 57% consider their feline friends as important as the humans in their lives and 86% consider their cats to be loyal companions (Purina, 2015). But even the most passionate cat lovers among us are not always aware that our cats are facing something of a crisis… Continued
Phoenix Blog Competition: A Rough Start
By Kim Jukes Zeus had a rough start to his days at Fuzzy Friends Rescue in Waco, Texas two years ago. Early one morning, the staff came in to find that someone had thrown a young German shepherd puppy over the fence. When they did, he had cut his underside on the fence. Fence Jumper The staff at Fuzzy Friends Rescue, being compassionate as they are, took him in, neutered him and doctored his wounds. Then, they found out how high spirited he was. As a young pup, they couldn’t… Continued
Phoenix Blog Competition: Blake’s Story – Adopting a Prison Program Dog
By Rhonda York One of the many things I get to do as a dog trainer is train inmates at the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas in tandem with the Leavenworth County Humane Society. It helps both the residents and dogs and we work together to train the dogs in the program to have good manners and basic skills. Last November, one of the dogs, Blake, had finished his training but hadn’t been adopted yet. I didn’t want him to go back to the shelter, so knowing he should be… Continued
Young Dogs Might Be More Similar to Human Teenagers Than We Think: New Research
By Naomi D. Harvey and Lucy Asher Speak to many dog owners and they will tell you that their once perfectly behaved puppy started to become “difficult” at around six to 12 months of age. There are articles all over the internet that advise owners on how to cope with teenage dogs. But until now there has been no scientifically documented evidence of behaviour changes in dogs during puberty. Our new study, published in Biology Letters, confirms what many dog owners and dog professionals have long suspected: that dogs have… Continued
Preventing Resource Guarding in Dogs
Resource guarding is a dog’s natural tendency to protect valued possessions such as food, toys or resting locations. From a dog’s perspective, the approach of a person or animal is a potential threat to losing the valued possession. The behavior reflects a lack of trust and a fear of loss. Dogs in the wild must guard their food, water and shelter or they cannot survive. Domestic dogs will of course survive if someone takes their chew bone away, but their behavior is influenced by 32,000 years of evolution. If a… Continued
Phoenix Blog Competition: Choices Matter
By Maria Zarate As a veteran shelter professional, I’ve always sought outside the box to find effective and efficient methods to help residents skill build. Here are three “go to” methods we use regularly in the shelter environment and I hope you find them helpful too. Pillow Case Feeds What to do with all those donated pillow cases? Don’t toss them, use them instead to feed the residents who eat quickly or who enjoy a good game of “find it”. Pillow case feedings make meal times fun and help slow… Continued
The Importance of Ethograms
By Dr. Sheryl L. Walker With a background in behavior analysis and animal behavior, I am easily captured by behavior in the wild. I was driving to work a couple of weeks ago and stopped to watch a family of geese walk across the street. One adult was in the front, one adult was at the back, and they were separated by four juveniles. The adult at the back was moving his head back and forth with his beak open, I’m assuming making some type of noise. Those 30 seconds… Continued
Phoenix Blog Competition: Traumatized Dog
By Rhonda York Claire, an Aussie/cattle dog mix, came to live with us in May 2016. When I brought her home to foster her, I had no idea how to help her. She was completely unsocialized to humans and utterly terrified of everyone and everything—except for my two Labs, Angel and Buddy. I read many books, but nothing addressed how traumatized she really was. I regularly volunteer at PAWS for Life animal shelter in Pueblo, Colorado and am used to hyper dogs, big dogs, slightly OCD dogs and nervous dogs.… Continued
Phoenix Blog Competition: Understanding Behavior
By Kimm Hunt In my second week as an animal control officer, a few heartbeats away from my 21st birthday, I had a rude awakening about the realities of working in animal welfare. The incident set the course for my professional career, including my current work in animal behavior and training almost 30 years later. A 14-week-old pit bull-type puppy I picked up had just completed his seven-day stray holding period at our shelter and I was crushing on him. He was sociable, wiggly and adorable. The sympathetic woman who found… Continued
Stumbling through Puppy Socialization
In 1983 my wife and I moved into our first home on a ¾ acre lot in a small city and could finally have a puppy. She was a black Labrador Retriever whose AKC registration name was Monona Midnight Melody, but we called her Samantha. We knew nothing about raising a puppy and there were not abundant dog trainers to work with, nor could we have afforded them at the time. I bought the best-selling dog training book available and tried to teach Samantha according to the instructions of the… Continued
Examining Anxiety Traits and Breed Specifics
By Dr. Sheryl L. Walker A review of a recent paper on the prevalence, comorbidity, and breed differences in canine anxiety in Finnish pet dogs Review Introduction With a background in behavior analysis and animal sheltering, and currently working toward my Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB) certification, I personally found the research in Prevalence, comorbidity, and breed differences in canine anxiety in 13,700 Finnish pet dogs by Salonen et al. (2020) intriguing. Right off the bat, the first sentence in the Abstract packs a punch, especially if you have spent any… Continued
Phoenix Blog Competition: Learning Compassion
By Charleen Cordo For 15 years, I worked at an established training and adoption facility for shelter dogs at a facility for mentally ill youths. The dogs, who mostly came from a rural community, I felt that, judging by their behavior, had not always been treated very well. Many of them had worms or were prone to eating anything they could, some had mange, and most were just not very healthy. Among the behaviors they exhibited were jumping up, shyness around the approach of hands, lack of leash manners, and… Continued
Phoenix Blog Competition: Working to Address Stress
By Jerri Colonna I am a shelter volunteer on the behavior and enrichment team at Indianapolis Animal Care Services (IACS) and we have worked very hard as volunteers to develop some great enrichment for our dogs. We are a very large inner city, open intake shelter and many of our dogs only get to go outdoors once every 24 hours, so it can be a stressful environment for them – especially if they are there long-term. Because of this, we have an enrichment group that focuses on things we can… Continued
A Foot in the Door
By Tabitha Davies Shelter is defined as a place to rest, a place for comfort and a place for safety. But with 3.9 million dogs entering shelters and an average of 1.2 million of them being euthanized each year (Source: ASPCA), this is sadly not the case for many dogs in US shelters. Life in the shelters in Coachella, CA, where I am based, means a concrete floor with drains, full access to food, water, and, only if you are without behavior problems, a blanket, bed and toy. It also… Continued
Lessons from the COVID-19 Crisis
By Veronica Boutelle I have loved and served this industry for 20 years, but I have never been prouder to be part of it than I am in this moment. I’m writing this from my home office in late April while sheltered in place. You’re probably reading it sometime in July. I’ve no way of knowing, as I write now, what things will be looking like when you read my words. I feel fairly certain, though, that whatever the specific circumstances, we’ll still be dealing individually, as a nation, and… Continued