Tips For Owners

Petvideo.com, created by the founders of Petfinder.com and Petsincredible, provides free online training clips. We encourage you to visit petvideo.com to view the same positive, reward-based training advice featured on the award winning PetsIncredible DVDs – TRAINING YOUR ADOPTED DOG and YOUR ADOPTED CAT. Loads of behavior content (such as the Introducing Pets) video can be found at www.petvideo.com.

Two Are Better Than One

By having two or more cats, you are able to enjoy the true social nature of cats and their relationship with each other.

Cats that have a playmate tend to be more socially well-adjusted and avoid behavior problems like shyness, biting, hissing, being frightened and hiding in the company of people they don’t know.

Cats need stimulations during the day just like humans. Studies have shown that some animals left alone most of the day in the house, have brains that weight up to 25% less than those who have playmates.

In Switzerland an anti-cruelty law was passed that requires people who are adopting dogs and cats get two instead of one since it is the nature of animals to want the company of their own kind. If they have a companion, cats are much less likely to gain weight due to the lack of movement, and to suffer related illnesses.

They are less likely to ruin furniture out of boredom.

If you must work long hours or travel for a couple of days, two or more cats keep each other company and are more tranquil during your absence. It’s more likely that people return an adopted cat due to behavior problems when only one has been adopted rather than two.

Your cat will remain more playful and youthful into his or her later years with a companion. The workload to care for two cats remains relatively the same You don’t need more space for a second cat. Because…Two Are Better Than One

Spay / Neuter Facts

Spaying and neutering are safe, simple surgeries that prevent animals from breeding.

Females are spayed and males are neutered

One un-neutered male can impregnate dozens of females. Therefore, it is just as important to neuter males as it is to spay females.

Spaying and neutering reduces or eliminates the risk of certain types of cancers.

Spaying and neutering often eliminates undesirable behaviors such as fighting, spraying and roaming

Animals do not become less protective of their guardians as a result of being spayed or neutered

Spaying and neutering is as vital to your pet’s overall well-being as routine physical examinations, good nutrition, grooming, playtime, and love.

Spay/Neuter benefits you by making your pet a better companion and saving you money. Neutered males are less likely to spray your house with urine, escape out of you fenced back yard, and get in fights with other animals or be hit by cars. Spayed females won’t howl in heat, bleed all over you house, or attract the neighborhood’s stray males to your doorstep. Spay/neuter also reduce or completely eliminates the incidence of a number of serious health problems that can be difficult and/or costly to treat.

Spay/Neuter benefits your pet by helping her or him live a longer, healthier life. Altered animals are less likely to contract certain kinds of cancers, and they are less likely to be given up at the local animal shelter (where they may not find another adoptive home) due to behavioral problems.

Keep your cats safely confined on your property. If you’d like you cats to experience the great outdoors, enclose a porch or install a cat fence.

Train your pet. Animals who know what’s expected of them are happier and make better companions.

Make time to play with your pets. Animals get bored, and bored animals often find destructive or annoying ways to entertain themselves.

When you adopt an animal, understand that you are making a lifelong commitment to that animal. When you go on vacation, you’ll need to someone to care for your pets be it family or a boarding facility. When you move, YOUR PET MOVES WITH YOU.

Maintain you pet’s good health with proper nutrition, exercise, and routine veterinary visits.

Don’t Let the Cat Out

It’s a fact that an inside cat lives a longer, healthier life than the puss that puts paws on the pawement. An indoor cat never faces the dozens of dangers waiting outside your front door like cars, other cats ready to fight for love or territory, exposure to diseases and parasites, and sickness or death from eating spoiled food or poison.

A cat let outdoors will need to see the veterinarian a lot more often than an indoor cat, and that means higher vet bills. Fleas, tocks, worms, abscesses, cuts, diarrhea, a dull coat, or weight loss are all signs of trouble and are most often seen in outdoor cats.

Outdoor cats are more prone to get lost too. Searching for a lost cat without an identification tag is a time-consuming and often disappointing effort, and there’s nothing more heartbreaking than wondering for years if your missing kitty is alive and well, or suffering, or dead.

Cats raised indoors are perfectly content with their world. Cats who have experienced the outdoors will need some time to get used to an upgraded indoor status, but eventually they will learn to relax and enjoy the comforts of home.

The Backyard Dog

You see one in every community, a dog tied day after day to a back porch or fence, lying lonely on a pad of bare, packed dirt. The water bowl, if there is one, is usually empty or just out of reach. Abandoned, but chained up, backyard dogs cannot move to comfort, shelter, or companionship. In winter, they shiver, in summer, they languish year round, they suffer.

Of course, dogs can be forced to live outside, alone and away from their human pack, but to force this kind of life on a dog is one of the worst things you can do. Being alone goes against the dog’s most basic instinct. If you doubt this, think of all the whining, barking, clawing dogs you have seen tied alone outside. These dogs are trying desperately to get the attention of their human families.

People who keep their dogs constantly tied outside rationalize it, saying that they do spend time with them. But even the most well meaning among them do not spend significant time with their animal companions. Under the best of circum- stances, the backyard dog gets a bowl of food and water, a quick pat on the head and maybe a few minutes of contact with another living being each day.

Dogs can offer people the gifts of steadfast devotion, abiding love and joyful companionship. Unless people accept these offerings and take the time to return them in kind, it would be best for not to get a dog. A sad, lonely, bewildered dog tied out back only suffers, and what sort of person wants to maintain suffering?

– Author Unknown