(This went longer and longer than I expected. At about 12500 words this will be at least a 10 minute read. The images shared on our socials, and here, provide a slimmed down summary.) While I’ve written a lot about this and adjacent topics a lot, I talk with other guardians about it more and more. Off-leash, out-of-control dogs have become a scourge in public places and while this issue was relevant pre-pandemic, during and since COVID-19, it’s really exploded as a very serious and dangerous trend. Read more: No, your dog is not just being “friendly” – the problems with off-leash dogs and app ..read more

Join Anne from AniEd for an Instagram Live with Kilian from Ruby Reese, an Irish luxury dog-care brand. Kilian hosts regular Tuesday Talks on the Ruby Reese Instagram channel (@rubyreeseoffical). And this Tuesday, I will be joining him to talk about what enrichment really is. If you’re here, you probably already know about our enrichment program, 100 Days of Enrichment. And that will form the basis for our discussions, along with the frameworks behind enrichment for companion dogs (and other species too). While it’s great that “enrichment” has become widely known, as a buzzword its meaning if ..read more

There seems to be great entertainment sought from shared pictures of cats sleeping anywhere…anywhere except the bed their humans got them. Chuckle at the examples here and here. I too laugh and these are witty, but also illustrative of our anthropocentric attitude to non-human animal behaviour. The animal’s behaviour is appropriate to them. It might not make sense to us…that’s a bed, isn’t it?! We have decided that this seemingly arbitrary shaped cushioned item is where cats should sleep. And dammit, they should like it! But what happens when we ask cats? See those links above for the answers ..read more

There are many features of aging that guardians of an older dogs expect and find unsurprising. But there a few aspects of aging that are cause for pause, that guardians are often not expecting… (Wallis et al, 2023) Age-related cognitive decline is normal as we, and dogs, age, and because it affects executive functioning, impulsivity increases (Szabo et al, 2016). Increases in impulsivity is associated with aging in humans too (Morales-Vives & Vigil-Colet, 2011) (Sakurai et al, 2020). In dogs, impulsivity may be pretty consistent over life (Riemer et al, 2014), but the individual’s abilitie ..read more

Regret is a pretty human experience, or so we believe so far. Those woulda-coulda-shouldas tend to replay in our big ol’ primate brains, torturing us over things we can’t ever control. Lucky for dogs, they don’t seem to experience regret, or certainly in the tortuous way that we do. But certainly, they continue to experience the outcomes of interactions with their environments, often times over long periods. Recently, my dog had a big vocal response to another dog right at the doorway in the vet’s. I knew I shouldn’t have put him in that situation, I had the option to slow things down that I d ..read more

The main focus of toilet training is to establish appropriate substrate preference and understanding these processes, and realigning expectations with reality, help to reduce the considerable distress often experienced by guardians. New dogs, regardless of age, and dogs in new or exciting places may have toileting lapses. And obviously when dogs are ill, they may have accidents. So much so, toileting accidents in dogs who have been pretty reliable, indicate that a vet visit is needed. Dogs for adoption, advertised as ‘toilet trained’ may raise unrealistic expectations. Instead, new dogs who ma ..read more

It’s that time of year again when I often see many dogs apparently reluctant participants in their human’s fitness resolutions… Getting healthy is great and including your dog can be a winner for them as well but we need to consider their physical and behavioural health too… But we do have funny notions about “walking dogs” and generally approach it from an anthropocentric point of view. As in, we look at how walking our dogs affects humans, rather than having a whole lot of consideration for the experiences of our dogs. We study dog walking from a human health perspective (e.g., Chr ..read more

2023 has come to a close and we have moved into a New Year. And rather than this be a time for resolutions, it’s a time for reflection. It was a year of ups and downs for me, and AniEd, with some serious downs around the middle and some temporary and unofficial suspensions of services for mental health breaks. It ended in a whirl wind, and on the up, that I think I’m still processing. And not just last year, but the last few years. We, as a global society, emerged from the strangest of times…from a Pandemic that I certainly don’t think we’ve taken the space or time to process. And that’s affec ..read more

With NYE ’24 just days away, we can prepare our pets for yet another onslaught of fireworks. For a full run-down and more links to more supports, check out our Halloween prep-post…which only seems a couple of weeks ago. Once we get through this, and Chinese/Lunar New Year in February, we have a relatively clear few months and that’s when we can really get stuck into fireworks work ..read more

Join us for a brilliant and FREE webinar on Monday evening! This is such a relevant topic given the time of year. This paper will just be the jumping off point for us discussing pet purchasing behaviours, particularly pre-, during and post- Pandemic. And that allows us to examine the effects of acute increases in demand…similar to what can happen for all pet species around Christmas and the Season. If you work with pets and their people, please come along. This is a truly an interactive event and we want to hear from you so that we can all collaborate on learning and ultimately improving the ..read more