May 15–21st is National Dog Bite Prevention Week so it’s a perfect week for a reminder. Over 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs every year and about 800,000 of those bites are severe enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. Based on my experience as a veterinarian focused on behavior, I feel safe in saying that the majority of people who are bitten think that the bite comes out of the blue or that the dog is just mean or unpredictable. The truth is that the majority of bites are actually due to fear and they occur because

With all the stories of dog bites in the news plus any personal experience you may have had of being lunged at or chased when walking or jogging by a house, have you ever wondered what you should do in case you ARE ever attacked by a dog? As a veterinarian and animal behaviorist, I deal with aggressive dogs on a daily basis and have rarely been bitten. Here are some tips that can help you: First, if a dog charges you, stay calm and stand still! That can be easier said than done, but here’s why it’s important: Most

Trainers often debate about the use of electronic shock collars. Some trainers find these collars unethical and unsafe. The pro-collar camp takes a different stance. Some say it just distracts the dog, calling it “tap technology” and others say it may be painful at the instant but then the dog learns to behave and there are no lasting negative effects. In 2003, researchers from the Netherlands, Matthijs Schilder and Joanne van der Borg assessed the short and long-term behavioral effects of dog training with the help of shock collars. They wanted to know three things: Do shock collars cause pain

It’s a multi-cat household where all get along, then one day a change and now everything’s wrong. Before they were buddies or at least sort of friends, but now one chases the other to no happy end. While disputes among human family members are often status quo, a sudden feud among felines can leave everyone frazzled. It seems strange that amicable individuals could erupt in a friendship-ending fight. Anyone who watches soap operas though sees it happen all the time with humans. Two college buddies are closer than a sock and a shoe. Then add a big party, alcohol, and

While a dog’s or cat’s breath will never smell like a bed of roses, if it carries a stench that could wilt a dandelion, something’s amiss. That means it’s time for a visit to the vet. The most common cause of bad doggy or kitty breath is a losing battle with the bacteria or tartar in the mouth. In mild cases, the teeth are slightly speckled with tartar, the gums are inconspicuously inflamed and the odor is only faintly foul. In really bad cases, the gums are screaming for help and the teeth, blanketed under a calcified, yellow brown crust

In the last blog I summarized a research study (A comparative approach to dogs’ (Canis familiaris) and human infants’ comprehension of various forms of pointing gestures by Gabriella Lakatos, et. al.) that found dogs can use human pointing cues to infer the location of food. The dogs in the study chose the correct location 80% of the time if the human pointed with a straight arm. In fact, according to the study, dogs could even infer location if the pointing was with the leg or elbow but only somewhat (about 65% of the time). To see whether this could possibly be true,