Meeting the Neighbor Dogs: Part 2

A month or two ago I wrote about how the neighbor’s dog began visiting our yard during the day. I thought maybe interacting with him could help Chihiro calm down about other dogs. Unfortunately, I think the opposite has happened. I really should have known better. Chihiro has been wary of other dogs ever since getting attacked by one (even though she won the fight, because the dog that started it was a little Puggle), so when teaching her to feel comfortable again around other dogs, I should take her to neutral territory with dogs I know and trust. For … Continue reading →

Common Pet Myths: True or Untrue?

Many of the “facts” we grew up hearing about pets are false. For example: who hasn’t seen countless images of a content cat licking cream out of a saucer? When I got a cat in my childhood I remembered that image, and left out a bowl of milk for him. He sniffed it and threw up. This happened nearly every time I tried to give him milk; even if he didn’t spit up, he never touched the stuff. Because it turns out, not all cats can drink milk. Some of them can, but lactose intolerance is as prevalent among cats … Continue reading →

Meeting the Neighbor Dogs

I’ve blogged before about my neighbor’s dogs, the ones she lets roam free through the neighborhood. Sometimes I see them in our yard. Yesterday while I was working, I noticed one of them, the tan one, out the window. I went outside to greet it, as I always do whenever I see any of the neighborhood pets. They all, cats and dogs included, run away from me. This dog did the usual, but I thought of something: I called for it to come here. I didn’t think it was a dangerous dog, because our neighbor said he isn’t. He also … Continue reading →

Jealousy Between Pets

We can coexist, until you’re involved My pets get jealous of one another. Chihiro and Cole, for all that they tolerate and even sometimes enjoy one another’s company, compete for attention. Chihiro is really only competitive for attention when a) there’s food involved, or b) someone new has come over to the house. If someone’s visiting they’re not likely to get much time with the cats, because Chihiro is a bully. Even if she is ignoring the new person, she’ll suddenly come out and muscle the cats away if they try to come out and greet the visitor. She has … Continue reading →

What Your Dog Says About You

I don’t know if this is a new trend or an old one experiencing a revival, but lately I’ve seen a lot of “what does your dog’s breed say about you?” style articles. I’ve even seen a few ones related to romance: what does your boyfriend’s dog say about him, or about his sex life? While I find the latter a bit of a stretch, I think maybe there might be some truth in the former. The breed of one’s dog might say a bit more about one’s living situation than personality, so that two vastly different people might both … Continue reading →

Chasing House Flies

On the surface I had a lovely afternoon yesterday. I returned from a good time volunteering with friends at a local museum and spent a productive afternoon finishing a lot of work. That’s just the surface story. In reality as the hours of the afternoon waned I was driven crazier and crazier, as a headache crept further and further into my skull. And it’s all my pets’ fault. Well, just Chihiro and Cole. What did they do that made me insane? They chased house flies. I don’t know how so many flies got into my house, but there must have … Continue reading →

A People Dog

My dog is a people dog. She loves people. If she can hear someone, her tail wags and butt wiggles until she’s able to see that person. Sometimes her enthusiasm gets a bit out of control; she jumps, she barks, she rolls around, until she’s able to bask in that much-desired attention. All of this is great, right? Definitely. However, Chihiro’s deep love of people – seriously, I know a lot of families with dogs and I go to the dog park and I’ve met few other dogs as desperate for human attention as Chihiro – seems to come at … Continue reading →

Do Your Pets Factor into Your Holiday Plans?

Do you make your holiday plans around your pets? That’s an assertion that the Associated Press recently made in an article: pet owners revolve their late-December events around their pets. Examples given by the AP include taking holiday-themed photos of pets, using these or other pictures with the animal for seasonal cards, buying pets gifts (the article maintains that just over half of pet owners do this), and even creating special menus for the pet so it can have a holiday meal alongside its human family. There are two sides to this: one, in which a little holiday cheer is … Continue reading →

The Dog Park: Take Two

When Chihiro was a puppy I took her to the dog park to socialize her. But my experiences there were disheartening; my little puppy was rushed by several much larger dogs upon her entrance each time, and their owners did nothing to hold their dogs back until she adjusted. Add this on top of the fact that my hound dog would rather wander and sniff than bound and play in the fenced-in dog park, and the trip just didn’t seem worth the effort. Two years later things are different. Over the summer Chihiro learned some negative behaviors from a friend’s … Continue reading →

Yappy Hours

On-leash food and fundraising events are more common, but the trend is changing Dogs and – alcohol? There’s a new trend going around in parties, often fundraising ones, which combines these two unlikely partners. Meet the Yappy Hour. Yappy Hours are times bars hold that allow patrons to bring their dogs along for some socializing fun. Bars realize they’ll get more dog owners (39% of the U.S. population, if the Humane Society’s statistics are to be believed) to come out to their normal happy hours if they allow them to bring their dogs, and the patrons are happy for the … Continue reading →