Author: Jennifer

Many adopted pets settle right in to their new home without even turning around three times to lie down! But others need a little more time and help from us to get adjusted. Highly sensitive dogs and cats can be deeply affected by having been abandoned by their previous owner, and the stresses of living on the street or in a shelter. That kind of anxiety can manifest in some pretty bizarre behaviors! The good news is that there’s a lot you can do to help reassure your new pooch or feline, and get them on track to becoming your happy family pet. As animal shelter and rescue volunteers (and with our professional trainer Katya), we here at Adopt-a-Pet.com staff have a lot of first- and second-hand experience with helping newly adopted and fostered dogs and cats! We’ll be sharing some of our stories here, and what we’ve discovered works. We hope you’ll be inspired and possibly find some solutions if you’re struggling with a new pet’s adjustment. Nothing replaces the hand-on help and experience of a professional behaviorist, who can visit with you and your pet in your home and help you fast track a program to get you chugging off in the right direction. But sometimes you can’t get an appointment immediately, and are searching the internet for some ideas for things you can try right away to help… so that’s what these articles are here for! For this first article, let’s meet Dolly the dog and her adopter Tony.

Hi Jennifer,

I am kind of freaking out and wonder if you have any advice. Today while I was at school, Dolly managed to escape her metal crate. It is very sturdy, but apparently she is capable of bending the frame up. She didn’t tear anything up too bad, and the cat was contained, so mostly it is a positive story, but I am concerned about having an pet who is not yet trained and potentially destructive in the house without a way to contain her. I can see that when I leave for class for a few hours, I will have to be wondering for the foreseeable future whether or not she is doing serious damage.  Do you have any advice? She freaks out pretty bad when we aren’t here (we’ve been “leaving” and then going outside the window and looking in at her, and then returning when she appears agitated to try to get her accustomed to when we are gone). Just do you know, we’re all committed to the process. I would never give up over a few inconveniences!

Thanks Jennifer! I really appreciate it.
Tony

….

Hi Tony,

So sorry you are freaking out, but I hope it helps to hear that it is not unusual! Some shelter dogs have anxiety about being abandoned again. The good news is there is lots you can do to help her get used to your leaving, and this is a very fixable problem!
There are so many variables with each individual dog and home, without actually seeing Dolly in her home, I don’t think it is possible -or a good idea- to say “do X, Y then Z” without that in-home observation.

If you can afford it, I highly recommend hiring a professional behaviorist to come and work with you and Dolly. They will get to know her, watch her in your house, in the crate, outside your house, and will be able to give you a solid plan based on Dolly, you and your environment. In the meantime (or if you can’t afford a behaviorist) try our tips for reducing anxiety in our https://www.adoptapet.com/blog/help-your-dog-stop-crying-when-left-alone/ article and also check out the crate training article mentioned step 8. We’ve had some great feedback from people using those steps!

You might also try running a google search for: “help my dog escapes from his crate” and start reading!!! So many things you can try, I would read through as much as you can and see what fits your situation best, and this “do it yourself” method can be some (or a lot!) of trial and error depending on your dog, until you get it right.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

— One day later, Tony’s reply:

Dear Jennifer,

You know what? Things are much better. She is slowly getting used to the idea of our coming and going. Yesterday we went to the vet and she recommended a Dog Appeasement Pheromone (DAP) collar, which is a pheromone that nursing mother dogs produce to relax the babies. Is seems to be helping. We also got permission from a neighbor to use an enclosed space off both our laundry rooms during the day when we are gone. (Thank goodness for dog-friendly neighbors!) That way the crate can be reserved for sleeping and times in the house when we can’t have her leashed to our belts. 🙂 I was a little concerned being in the enclosed concrete space would remind her of the shelter, but she did great out there! The sun comes in in the afternoon, and it is even well-covered in the event of a little rain. Speaking or which, when the rain started last night at around 12:30, she did get a little vocal. I moved out onto the couch to sleep, and it calmed her right down. She is doing great-making a lot of progress very quickly! She is really going to be a terrific companion. Right now she’s dream-barking in her crate. 🙂

Thanks so much for your help!
Tony
Learn more about Jennifer, our blog author at Google+
Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!

Getting adopted is tough for older animals. Would-be owners often overlook these pets for younger companions. The Black Canyon Animal Sanctuary found a perfect solution. Who needs a loyal friend and companion more than a homebound senior citizen? Who needs to be loved and cared for more than an abandoned older dog or cat? Debbie Faulkner, founder of Black Canyon Animal Sanctuary in Crawford, Colorado, recognized the unmet needs of senior people and senior pets, and started a community outreach program to bring them together. She calls it the Silver Whiskers Program.

“At Black Canyon Animal Sanctuary, Debbie takes in dogs and cats who have been abandoned or abused, and gives them the love and care they need to rehabilitate and trust people again. But even when these dogs and cats are ready to be someone’s pet, it’s not so easy to find suitable homes for them. Senior pets just aren’t as easily adopted as younger pets.

But senior pets are often an ideal match for senior citizens. Older pets are generally calmer and are already trained. But the senior adults who most need a furry companion are often unable to afford or properly care for them.

That’s where Silver Whiskers and its generous donors make the connection work. They carefully match up senior people with a senior pet who has rehabilitated at the sanctuary. Silver Whiskers covers all the costs of owning a pet, including food, supplies and veterinary care. They also provide transportation to and from the veterinarian.

A Senior Whiskers volunteer will arrange a sleepover so the pet and person can see how they like each other. Once the match is made, the senior pet has a home for as long as the senior person is able to care for him.

The benefits to the senior pets are obvious. They get a home and someone to love and care for them. They get plenty of attention because their owner is home all day.

But the benefits to senior people are even greater. A dog or cat in the home gives the person a friend to love, care for, and interact with everyday. A pet’s unpredictability breaks up stale routines and creates joyful moments of spontaneity, and provides something delightful to look forward to each day. A pet can dig up satisfying feelings that were buried – feelings of being relevant, needed and useful. A cat, with a unique personality, provides something interesting to talk about. And a dog, who will go on walks, can actually help a senior make new friends, as nothing can break the ice and invite neighborly interaction like a wagging tail.

Take a look at how well this program works in our Snouts in Your Town video. If you want to see the dogs and cats who need adopting, or want to donate to this program, go to BlackCanyonAnimalSanctuary.com.

You can find an older animal to adopt near you by doing a search on Adopt-a-Pet.com and selecting “senior” from the age drop down menu. Senior pets rock!

Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!

Do you have or have you seen a cat that doesn’t want to eat their kibble in their bowl, preferring to pull it out one piece at a time with their paw, then eating it off the counter or floor? Or maybe a cat that only seems to like to eat the top layer of food out of her bowl, acting like she needs to get a refill, even when there is still plenty of morsels left on the bottom of her dish? You may be witnessing Whisker Stress!

Cat’s whiskers are very sensitive. Whiskers are rooted very deep in the cat’s face, in an area rich in nerves and blood vessels. Cats use their whiskers to move around in low or no light without bumping into anything — not like feelers, but they actually are so sensitive that they detect how currents of air move around objects in their path, and use that sensory information to avoid the objects! The tips are also sensitive to pressure, so a cat uses them to judge if their body will fit through an opening. That is why you should never trim a cat’s whiskers!

So imagine what forcing those delicate instruments into a food dish must feel like. Ouch! The good news is that cat-friendly designers have come up with lots of beautiful flat feline feeding dishes to help your cat avoid whisker stress. They look like elegant serving platters, wide and shallow, with plenty of room for your kitty to pick up the food with their mouth, without their whiskers touching anything.

I first learned about Whisker Stress from reading about it on the ModernCat.net blog here back in 2007, and they recently featured a new fancy whisker stress-free feeding bowl here. You can also improvise with human ceramic food dishes to accomplish the same effect, you may just have to search around a little for ones that are the right size and shape to prevent kibble scatter while being flat enough to fit your cat’s whiskers!
Learn more about Jennifer, our blog author at Google+
Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!

Earth Day comes around every April 22 and it’s a great time to remind ourselves of all the things we can do to help the Earth. Every year more and more events are held on Earth Day worldwide to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth’s natural environment. So what can you do if you’re a pet lover to enjoy Earth Day and reduce your pet’s pawprint? Your pets can have a huge impact on the environment, and aside from buying natural and recycled products for them, and shopping at a shelter or rescue’s thrift store, there are easy ways you can help lessen the negative impact your pets can have on our planet. You can use the four tips below to reduce your pet’s carbon pawprint –not just on Earth Day, but every day!

1. Pick up after your dog
Dog poop pollutes if it is not picked up & properly processed.
Make sure to use biodegradable pick-up bags.
Take it up a notch: Install a dog-waste mini septic tank.

2. Pick up after your cat
Scoop into paper lunch bags or biodegradable dog pick up bags.
Use a recycled, biodegradable cat litter.

3. Protect wildlife from your pet
Keep your cat indoors, on a harness, or in a catio.
If you hike with your dog off-leash, train him to come when called, even if he sees a rabbit or squirrel.

4. Adopt a “recycled” pet!
Pets at shelters and rescues can become your recycled pet! Someone careless may have thrown away their pet, but that doesn’t make them any less valuable or wonderful as your “new” family friend.

Do you have other ways you and your pet “go green”? We’d love for you to share them on the Adopt-a-Pet.com Facebook page.

Some, well, most cat trees look like something leftover from a 1970s party gone wrong. Lots of beige shag carpeting and funky platforms! Thank goodness, there is an alternative! If you haven’t already discovered the fabulous ModernCat.net blog, lovers of sleek modern and mid-century design will be overjoyed at their online and DIY finds. Our latest favorite post? A semi-do-it-yourself cat stand designed to give a cat a place to eat and perch away from a dog, with high views out of a window as a bonus. Here’s what the creator says:   “After lots of searching, Ashii couldn’t find exactly what she was looking for so she took matters into her own hands. She designed this very unique and modern cat stand and found a local craftsman to build it for her. The stand is made of poplar wood stained espresso with brushed stainless steel bars. The pad on top is covered with sisal weave fabric and is attached with 3M Command Strips so it can be easily changed with the seasons or when it becomes worn. The stand measures just over 4 feet tall, 13 inches deep, and 2 feet long. The total cost was $300, not bad for a custom design. It meets the family’s needs perfectly and Sasha (who might be the cutest thing ever!) absolutely loves it.”

You can see more photos and find out more about the design and creation process at ModernCat.net here.
Learn more about Jennifer, our blog author at Google+
Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!

“Hi! I’ve got a question that I can’t seem to get answered. WHEN is a good time to get a pet spay/neutered? Speaking of an 8 month old female Boxer. Although she is too young to breed at this point, I don’t want her to have any puppies – EVER. So when (or how soon) should I look to get her fixed? Thanks for your help. Tim” This is a real email exactly as we received it last week, and Tim ask a very valid question! The answer is…

For Tim and his 8 month old female Boxer, the answer is RIGHT AWAY! She is not too young to breed. Puppies and kittens can go into heat and get pregnant at 5 months of age.  Over the past decade shelters and vets are seeing younger and younger pets coming in pregnant, most owners don’t realize their baby can have babies if they are not careful!

Spaying before a pet’s first heat is the most effective way of reducing hormone-related cancers later in life (like mammary cancer). Though Tim’s dog is more than likely past her first heat, she can still benefit from the many health and behavioral bonuses, which SpayUSA does a great job of describing on their Spay/Neuter Benefits page here.

SpayUSA also has a lot of helpful Q&A in their FAQ, including these two about the best age to get a pet fixed:

How old does my pet need to be in order to be spayed or neutered?
For many years, veterinarians were taught that cats and dogs had to be a year old to be spayed or neutered. Later, they were taught that six months was appropriate. Today we know that kittens and pups can be spayed or neutered at the age of two months (or two pounds). The American Veterinary Medical Association has endorsed this practice called Early Age Neutering; the animals recover more quickly from surgery when they are young. Today some vets will spay/neuter at eight weeks of age, while other adhere to the old practice of six months of age. The average age at which pets are spayed or neutered is four months.

How young can a female cat/dog get pregnant?
“Adolescent” cats and dogs as young as five months can get pregnant. For many reasons, it is important to spay or neuter BEFORE the first litter is born – before six months.

Here is our Adopt-a-Pet.com page about the benefits of spay/neuter too!

Need help finding a low-cost spay or neuter vet or clinic? First, ask you current vet, they may provide discounted low-cost days. If not, for a local referral, call (800) 248-SPAY (7729) or email SpayUSA@AnimalLeague.org

Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!

We love infographics about pets and animals! This great one has lots of fun cartoon drawings of dogs combined with a bunch of facts in easy-to-digest little blurbs about the health benefits, companionship, home securtity, how they teach responsibility, increase social interaction, help with day to day tasks, and provide humans with entertainment! It was created by the website TheDogTrainingSecret.com and you can view the full-size infographic in all its glory by visiting their website here.

Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!

April 27  is National Hairball Awareness Day for 2012! (Really!) The holiday (hairiday?) always falls on the last Friday in April. The first time I ever heard my cat hacking up a hairball, I thought he was choking to death. I was frantically digging the carrier out of the depths of my closet to rush him to the vet when he hurled up the offending mass in the middle of the hallway rug. Ewwwwww. For newbie cat owners, like me at the time, the gross wet ball of hair was not anything I’d understood from my crash-course in new cat ownership. To me, the word “hairball” conjured up a dry, fluffy thing – not a sticky smelly mess. I knew that almost all cats would regurgitate the hair they’d groomed off themselves (or their feline friends), some more frequently than others. That hairballs in cats are more likely to appear in long-haired breeds, such as Persians and Maine Coons. But even shorthair cats that shed a lot or who groom themselves compulsively can have frequent hairballs, because they swallow a lot of fur. My new cat apparently fell into the latter category. Aside from the gross factor to us humans, hairballs can actually be dangerous to a cat’s life if they form a blockage that the cat can’t safely cough up. So I quickly learned what I could do to help reduce hairballs in his system – and on my carpet! Here’s what I found suggested in books, by my vet, other cat owners, and online.

Disclaimer: I am not a vet. The tips below are not intended as a suggested course of treatment. Hairballs can be a serious problem, so please talk to your vet first before trying these possible solutions:

• Brush your cat daily. Hair in the brush is better than in their belly! For my shorthair cats, a “Furminator” style steel blade grooming comb seems to be the most effective.
• Longhair cats can have professional groomer clip them down into an adorable “lion” cut.
• Switch to feeding all canned food. Many cat owners find this one step is all it takes to eliminate hairballs.
• If your cat won’t eat canned, try  a “hairball remedy” specific food. Like Nutro’s Wholesome Essentials Hairball Control Chicken & Brown Rice Recipe Adult Dry Cat Food or  Royal Canin’s Hairball Care Dry Cat Food. Like any change in diet, gradually transition to a new food over 7-10 days.
• Give your cat hairball control treats, like Temptations Hairball Control Chicken Flavor Cat Treats.
• If your cat will eat fresh live cat grass (some cats love it, some won’t touch it) always keep out a pot for them to nibble on. I don’t know the scientific reason, but my theory is just like fiber, the grass helps move the fur through them safely.
• Feed canned pumpkin as a treat. Make sure it is 100% pure (no spices or sugars). It’s high in fiber which helps pass hairballs, and many cats love it! Feed a teaspoon (or less if your cat just takes a few licks each time, like mine) every other day or 3 times a week.

WebMD says: If you notice the following hairball symptoms, be sure to contact your veterinarian right away, as they could indicate that a hairball has caused a potentially life-threatening blockage:

• Ongoing vomiting, gagging, retching, or hacking without producing a hairball
• Lack of appetite
• Lethargy
• Constipation
• Diarrhea

We can’t imagine a more perfect combination – modern design for cats and a website that supports cat adoption! That’s our friends over at Moderncat who post something new almost every day that has us mentally rearranging the furniture in our foster cat house (and our finances) to see how we could fit one more fabulous cat tree, litter box that looks like sculpture, or pod bed in! Not all their posts are uber-high-end and expensive feline furniture items. There are plenty of adorable and affordable cat toys for example, and this recent post Cats & Guitars: Jackson Galaxy’s Place Gets a Moderncat Makeover. Moderncat helped Cat Daddy Jackson Galaxy (the famous cat behaviorist) “catify” his new bungalow. Not only is it super fun to see what ideas the two came up with to create highways through the space, but we loved reading how the accessorizing took some adjusting as the cats showed them what elements worked, and what (like the window shelves) needed some tweaking to accommodate how the cats used them. You can click the link above to see all the great photos and read the full story. Thanks Moderncat!

(photo of Jackson Galaxy used with permission of Moderncat)

Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!

Welcome to my foster cat house & catios! Have you ever dreamed of moving to the country where you could have lots of animals? Or wished you had more room so you could foster more pets? I found out that I didn’t have to wait till I lived on my fantasy 100-acre animal sanctuary to make my wish come true. I just had to re-imagine, reconfigure and renovate the small suburban space I already had available, on the side and back of my home. For a long time I’d saved bookmarks when I saw a really amazing cat enclosure or cat sanctuary online. But when I saw the photos in the New York Times article on catio enclosures in the summer of 2010, I knew it was time to turn my mini cat sanctuary dreams into drawings, plans and reality! Here’s how I did it, along with a photo gallery at the end, including of lots of photos of my foster cats who’ve been enjoying the results until they find loving adoptive homes!

First I did lots of research. I printed out dozens of photos from online (many from Catio Showcase), and made notes on them about what I liked, and put them all into an idea book. Gradually it became clear what design would work well for the space I had, and the style of my 1930’s home.

Several years prior, I constructed my original catio by enclosing one side of my house, like you’d do for a porch. It was 5′ wide and 25′ long.  I covered the porch wood framing with chicken wire, boarded up one end, and made a cat ‘air-lock’ style double-door entry on the other end. My foster cats had access to an interior bedroom through a window, where I kept their litter, food and it was warm & dry. But it turned out not to be such a great setup. Because of my house’s layout, the bedroom door could not easily be made into a “cat air-lock” style of entry, so getting in and out without cats escaping into the dog zone was a bit too much of a challenge!

I needed another warm & dry space where the cats could sleep and eat, and I could spend time with them even if it was cold or raining. So I bought a pre-made barn-style shed from Lowes (inspired by the Cat Cottage Senior Sanctuary), and had it installed in the back of my house. Then I hired a contractor to extend the porch catio enclosure, connecting it to a new hallway and catio/porch in front of the shed. They also ran electricity into the shed for a light and an outlet. I debated about trying to do it myself, but I was worried I didn’t have enough knowledge to build a strong enough structure to provide a safe sanctuary for many years.

I used hardware cloth on the “walls” of the new catio, to keep the cats safe from the dogs in the yard, and vice versa. I buried it 6″ in to the ground, to keep cats from digging out. The catio is inside of my 6′ 6″ walled-in backyard, so I didn’t have to worry to much about critters digging in, or I might have gone deeper or used a “skirt” style. I used chicken wire on the roof, stapled down ever 3 inches, to keep the kitties safe from hawks as well as keeping them in should they happen to turn into kitty houdinis and climb the walls.

I also installed a hardware-cloth screen door between the old catio & new catio & shed. With a deluxe wood insulated kitty cabin (a converted dog house) with a heated cat bed inside as a temporary sleeping spot, as long as it’s not raining, the old catio can be used as the “introduction” room when bringing in new fosters too.

Inside the shed, I lined the ceiling with reflective insulation, and setup a twin bed. The cats love all the shelves inside the shed that are filled with beds and hiding spots all the way up to the roof line. With a thermostat controlled electric heater, it stays the perfect temperature at all times.

Lastly I installed a cat door into the shed, so the cats could come and go into the catios as they pleased. Unfortunately the style I bought was so wind proof, even with the magnet removed, the cats have had difficultly pushing it open. So its been propped open, but on my list of improvements to come are a larger vinyl-flap style door, and some ramps and platforms so the cats can have even more places to run, perch and play.

So far the “cat house” has been a huge hit. The first foster resident was adopted in less than a week! The space gives my foster kittens and cats to have plenty of room (and litter boxes!) to live peacefully and happily until they find their new forever homes.

Learn more about Jennifer, our blog author at Google+
Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!