How to Teach Your Dog to Skateboard
Why skateboarding? Learning any new trick is fun for both you and your dog and increases your bond. Plus, skateboarding teaches balance and confidence, and whose dog couldn’t use more of that? Skateboarding is also a great training example of splitting behaviors and then chaining them all together. Think of splitting like all the ingredients in a recipe. Chaining is then like combining the ingredients together sequentially to create a finished outcome of ability that cannot only be repeated, but is something your dog chooses to repeat...
Care for Cushing’s Disease
To be honest, he’s become a lot like my husband.” Danny the Dachshund was 10 years old, had put on an extra 5 pounds, was losing his hair, slept all day and had to get up to pee during the night. Stealing a glance at the drowsy gentleman holding Danny in his ample lap, I got it. “So he’s just an ‘old dog,’ right, Dr. Ward?” For a second I didn’t know if she was referring to the spouse or the sausage dog. I went with the latter. What is Cushing’s Disease? As we say in medicine: “Age...
Dogs in the Classroom Program
Jackie Brown Pet expert Jackie Brown has spent 20 years following her passion for animals as a writer and editor in the pet publishing industry. She is contributing writer for National Geographic’s Complete Guide to Pet Health, Behavior, and Happiness: The Veterinarian’s Approach to At-Home Animal Care (April 2019) and author of the book It’s Raining Cats and Dogs: Making Sense of Animal Phrases (Lumina Press, 2006). Jackie is a regular contributor to pet and veterinary industry media and is the former editor of numerous pet...
Most Unusual Pet Insurance Claim
Jackie Brown Pet expert Jackie Brown has spent 20 years following her passion for animals as a writer and editor in the pet publishing industry. She is contributing writer for National Geographic’s Complete Guide to Pet Health, Behavior, and Happiness: The Veterinarian’s Approach to At-Home Animal Care (April 2019) and author of the book It’s Raining Cats and Dogs: Making Sense of Animal Phrases (Lumina Press, 2006). Jackie is a regular contributor to pet and veterinary industry media and is the former editor of numerous pet...
If Dogs Celebrated April Fool’s Day
Sweaters, birthday parties, fake throws, dog shaming, pranks involving blankets and disappearing … the rigmarole we put our canine companions through is never ending. What if the tables could be turned and they could prank us? What if dogs could celebrate April Fool’s Day? I shudder at the thought. The payback would be harsh. ©Julia August | Getty Images “I’ll trick my human into thinking I haven’t already been fed once.” We certainly would be fools if we didn’t think that every single dog on...
#TrendingInTraining: Giving Choices = Better Behavior
Dine in or carry out? Go to the gym or out for a run? We make lots of daily decisions without much thought. But what about our dogs? We decide what they eat, where they sleep, whether they have a yard and when they get walks. We decide when they play (and usually who with) and even where and when they do their business. All these restrictions can make for unhappy dogs. But by giving our dogs more choices we improve how they feel, and better behavior often follows. Dogs are faced with the daily challenges of living in a human-centered world,...
So Devoted
Get ready to be impressed by passionate pet entrepreneurs Beau Singer and Branden Waltz. Their mission to create pet products that help dog shelters is something we at Dogster can fully get behind. The duo have been friends since high school and have always felt the entrepreneurial mindset. Thus, Devoted Dog Bowl was born in Charleston, South Carolina, where they both attend college studying business. “We sell customizable products based around mainly dogs and cats as well,” Branden explains. “We donate 10% of all sales and...
Picture Perfect Dogs of Peru
Since retiring from veterinary medicine in 2017, I’ve had more time to pursue my favorite pastimes: travel and photography. The pandemic has made travel more challenging but not impossible. In October of 2021, I finally checked off a major item on my bucket list: a trip to Peru. My visit took me to Lima, Ollantaytambo, Cusco, Paracas and Machu Picchu. I expected the mountainous vistas, colorful clothing, fabulous food and cultural history. What I didn’t expect was so many dogs! In every city, on nearly every street, I saw dogs...
Remembering Fido
Every dog owner will someday experience a time of sorrow that, hopefully, occurs after years of joy with our beloved dogs. While nothing can speed up the healing process — which, indeed, is a process, not something one magically “gets over” after a certain amount of time — many have found memorializing their dog to be comforting. There is absolutely no single, right way to do this, reminds Reverend Kaleel Sakakeeny, an animal chaplain and credentialed pet loss and grief counselor in Boston. “Each of us mourns and...
How to Ease the Burn
For most of us, our dogs are usually involved in every aspect of our lives. As a result, injuries can occur. Burns are uncommon in dogs, but they do happen. It’s important to know how to manage them should they occur. What you should do If your dog has been burned, immediately take these three steps: First, douse the area in tepid or cool water for five to 10 minutes. Next, cover the area with a clean, dry dressing. Finally, seek veterinary care. The extent of burns is not always immediately obvious, especially in dogs, as they are...
