Author: Katya

“Help!  My dog can’t ride in the car without getting sick!”  Does this sound like something you would say? Many animals suffer from motion sickness which can turn a fun and exciting car ride into a messy and unpleasant experience for all.  Whether due to an imbalance in their inner ear, feeling stressed, or a negative association with motion, if your pup continues to throw up or display signs of motion sickness you may want to consultant your veterinarian.  Medication is often possible to help your pooch tolerate the drive better.  Furthermore, a certified dog trainer or behaviorist can help desensitize your dog to the car and provide some training tips designed to prevent an upset tummy.

No one dog breed is more or less prone to motion sickness, and it can develop at any age.  So the next time you hit the road, make sure to pay attention to your canine pal and look for the signs.  Treatment is available and your pup will surely enjoy traveling with you the better he feels along the way.  For more on motion sickness, what it may come from, and what to do about it, click here!

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Time for another, new segment of Dog Park News, segment 2!  Our intrepid reporter Katya brings you the latest (hilarious) news right from the dog park.  If you like Saturday Night Live sketches, you’ll love Dog Park News!  A giant poop discovered?  A Beagle who runs fast?  And as always, a perfect day to check out your local pet adoption event!  Kinda makes you wish our news could be as simple as our dogs’ news, huh?

At Adopt-a-Pet.com, we’ll try anything to promote pet adoption!  We’re hoping these quirky Dog Park News segments will make people laugh, and keep them thinking about adopting their next pet.  Keep your eyes out for more Dog Park News to come!

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You may be surprised to learn that not all dogs know how to play. Some pets were not given exposure to play as puppies and therefore might not know what to do with a ball or toy. Other dogs may not have ever been given proper socialization, and might be overall timid, uncertain, or fearful. This week we got a question posted to our Facebook wall by one of our fans named Sharon, asking our resident dog trainer, Katya, how to help a shy dog learn to play. Sharon recently rescued a puppy mill survivor who is scared and unsure of the world around her. We are so grateful this dog is now safe and loved as part of a family! But we want to help her come out of her shell and be the most well-balanced pup she can be. Check out the response video for tips on how you can help a nervous or scared dog feel more comfortable and learn to let loose with a little play time.

Playing is a great way to bond with your dog, and it’s good for them too! It allows them to enjoy, to interact, and to use many of their natural instincts and ways of communicating. Also, there are tons of tricks and behaviors you can teach your pup through games! Dog training should always be a positive experience and fun for your canines, making them want to learn from and work with you. In our latest video Katya also included some tips that may help your pooch feel safer and less anxious in general.

And please feel free to post your own questions on the Adopt-a-Pet.com Facebook wall or on our Twitter page! Just include the hashtag #AskKatya, and once a week we’ll be choosing a question to feature! We’ll have plenty of other videos to share with you as well in our new series of pet-related training tips, Woof University. We hope we can help set up everyone in your home to succeed so that all the two-legged and four-legged family members stay happy.

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Dogs aren’t the only animals who get excited to see us when we come home.  Cats can give some of the cutest best welcome homes ever, too!  Just check out Fats’ video!  This adorable rescue kitty isn’t afraid to show his family how he feels when they come home.  Is there anything more precious than the offering of a fluffy, white belly waiting for some love?

If you have a hilarious, sweet, or funny video of your own pets welcoming you home, we’d love for you to share it with us!  Just click here and you can easily submit your video, and watch other entertaining video submissions while you’re at it.  Perhaps best of all, we’ll be creating a Public Service Announcement from the submissions we get!  That’s right, it means your pet could be a star!

Thank you for helping us promote pet adoption and for encouraging everyone to adopt a welcoming committee of their own from a local shelter.

There are many reasons I’m in awe of cats.  Number one, they’re so cool, calm and collected!  Number two, they’re confident – brazen even.   Personality wise alone, there is a lot I can learn from a cat!

A third reason I’m amazed by felines is that despite their independence, they have huge emotional capacity.  Cats feel things and express themselves accordingly.  For example, when kitties are stressed or frightened, often they begin to rapidly shed out of anxiety.  Just like us, felines also get stressed when they go to unfamiliar places or meet new beings.  This is a common occurrence in situations such as, say, visiting a veterinarian’s office!

Cats don’t get to write in their journals, or go to therapy, or have a cocktail.  Their psychological response to panic, fear, or strangeness is often just to shed.  So have extra compassion for your feline friend when your clothes are extra full of their hair, and give them plenty of love and kindness to ease their concern. For more information and insight on kitty shedding, click here!

Well, I guess that’s actually another reason to admire cats.  I wish all I did was shed when I got nervous!

We’ve got a new series of pet-related training tips to share with you! Check out our recent video by our resident dog trainer, Katya, showing you how to hold a treat in your hand when you’re working with your pup.  Believe it or not, it matters!  This tip can make it easier for you to teach your dog a new behavior or be used as a safety precaution – whether there is food in your hand or not!  When training your dog, it’s helpful to hold the treat in a fist in your hand.  Hiding the treat in your fist, your dog will learn to target on the fist, and not know whether there is food in there.  That means you won’t be teaching him to follow a command because he sees a biscuit!  Using a fist will allow you to pair down the use of treats as reinforcement so that you can use praise and petting to reward your dog sometimes, too.  It’s kinda like playing the slot machine for us.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t – but it’s always worth playing the game as long as it’s a positive experience!  But we don’t win every time, do we?  Still we learn to play the game!  All dog training should be fun and positive for your pooches, making them want to learn from and work with you.

Just imagine if you were to use a treat in your fist when you teach your dog to come to you.  If you practice “here, Rover!” with a treat in your fist and Rover learns to run to you and get a treat from your fist, you will then be able to start phasing out the treats.  You would still be able to use your fist for him to target on and he’d continue to run to it every time!  As you continue to practice calling him you can praise and pet him when he runs over to you, but once in a while surprise him by reintroducing the treat in your fist.  This new “here!” command is good for his safety as well because though we hope Rover never runs out your front door, if he did and you’ve practiced this drill enough times, you can shout “here, Rover!” with that trusted fist and he will run back to you even if you didnt have enough time to grab a treat before chasing him out the door!

Learning how to hold a treat can surely be your best friend when working with your real best friend!  Did you like this article? Click an icon below to share it on Facebook, Twitter, and more!

Now this is excitement!  This is love!  Thank you to Dolly the Doxie for submitting her Best Welcome Home Ever!  (You can watch Dolly the Doxie’s video on YouTube here.) There’s nothing quite like being welcomed home by your furry family member.  Do your pets do something silly, funny or endearing when you come home?  Share it with us by uploading your video to www.bestwelcomehomever.com before May 28th, 2012!  Our hope is that thousands of people will watch these videos and want to adopt a welcome home committee of their own from their local shelter or rescue.  You just can’t be lonely when you’ve got a loving pet there to welcome you home!  We looking forward to watching your pets in action, and we thank you for helping promote pet adoption!

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If your heart could talk, what would it say?  As animal lovers, our hearts would no doubt scream from the mountain tops, calling for greater compassion for all animals!  Our hearts would talk about how filled up they get from the joy our own furry kids bring us.  Our hearts would also speak about the breaking – the pain we carry for homeless pets, knowing so many still languish in shelters.  This kind of immense love we hold in our hearts for animals allows us to help them in many ways.

HeARTs Speak is an organization comprised of animal lovers who use their creative talents to help homeless pets.  By connecting artists with animal shelters and rescues groups, HeARTs Speak focuses on promoting pet adoption.  They encourage artists to use their skills to help animals in need by taking compelling photographs which often result in lives being saved!  Through beautiful, heartfelt photography and artwork, HeARTs artists and photographers are assisting shelters so that they can better market their pets to potential adopters.  These artistic efforts can lead to increased adoptions and reduced euthanasia, making HeARTs Speak artists true life-changers!  We at Adopt-a-Pet.com see it all the time: a good snapshot of a pet can better reach a potential adopter and help a furry friend go from shelter to home.

HeARTs Speak members believe in the power of collaboration.  They also believe in the power of education and communication, as they strive to inspire people to adopt their next pet and treat all animals with kindness.  Their beautiful art helps dispel the notion that shelter animals are inferior or damaged, and HeARTs Speak also advocates for a more positive and accurate image of Pitbulls!  This year they partnered up with The Unexpected Pitbull to create a gorgeous 2012 calendar full of incredible Pittie photos depicting them as the loving, loyal and wonderful dogs they are.

By providing an online community for its artist members and by giving them resources to develop their skills and businesses, HeARTs Speak makes it possible for artists to give back to their communities.  They even help find grants for artists who spend time in shelters using their gifts to feature adoptable pets in a more flattering light.  They offer financial support and programs to support these artists, keeping them able to help pets in need.

Home. Some cats and dogs never have one to call their own. PeoplePets.com wants to help change that by introducing their readers to an extraordinary homeless pet every week. Today, they’d like you to meet Ziggy, a 2-year-old American Pit Bull terrier who is deaf. When you point to the ground, Ziggy lays down. If you hold out your hand, he’ll give you a high five. This extremely intelligent dog has learned sign language to compensate for not being able to hear. Besides having an impressive resume of skills – he’s earned a Canine Good Citizen Certification from the AKC and has been trained in dog agility – Ziggy is polite, house-trained and loving. He’s an active, large dog that would be best in a home without children or other pets. Looking for a walking partner? Ziggy has plenty of energy for long walks and fetch, and is a great co-pilot on car rides.

You can find out more about Ziggy and see a video of him performing tricks in his article on PeoplePets.com and find out more about him on his Adopt-a-Pet.com profile page here.

If you like “The Onion”,  you’ll love our first Dog Park News segment!  Brought to you by one of our zany staff members here at Adopt-a-Pet.com (who fancies herself a reporter!), this funny video will bring you all the latest, breaking news going on at the dog park.  A tennis ball stolen?  A Mastiff causing a traffic jam?  Perfect weather to check out your local pet adoption event?  Get your news!

This just goes to show you that we will try anything to help homeless pets!  We’re hoping this funny video will make you laugh and promote pet adoption at the same time.  Keep your eyes out for more Dog Park News to come!

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