We want to give special recognition to Max and Neo, a company out of Arizona that makes high-quality collars, leashes, harnesses, and other dog products. They have an amazing business model that donates one of their products to a non-profit rescue for every product purchased by a customer. They have kindly added JCLDR to their list of beneficiary rescues, and...
A QUICK WORD OF WARNING: It is NOT a good idea to play with your pets with a laser pen beam. It makes your pet jumpy at shadows and other stimuli. Dogs and cats become neurotic as time goes on. While it is funny to watch, and a good game for us humans, it does bad things to our beloved pets....
Let's talk about the opposite of "leash reactivity"...
AGGRESSION: I hate the word. Why? Because we use it too much and we use it wrongly. Dogs are reactive, especially the working breeds or what I refer to as "survival breeds". Why survival breed? Because if they aren't cautious, reactive, and alert, a cow will stomp them into the ground in two seconds flat, or a wild animal will devour...
We get a lot of pleas from people who do not know how to help their dog and ask us to rehab or rehome. A typical sequence of events: The family has been totally unable to manage their Catahoula or Catahoula Mix (or what they at least have been told or think is the breed of their dog). We are happy...
Littermates, when they are young, seem to love playtime, and sometimes littermates do well together all their lives. But often, as they mature, they change. I rarely will adopt littermates out together. They either become too dependent or bonded too tightly, loosening the human bond, or they hate each other at some point and fight and have to be separated....
We all like to give our furry family members "people food" treats from time to time. Leftovers often find their way into dog dishes, and those begging puppy eyes are often hard to resist. However, you should be aware of how some seemingly innocuous foods can affect your dog's health, especially since more mischievous dogs sometimes help themselves to food...
As dogs age, it's very common for them to experience some degree of arthritis, commonly in their elbows or hips. And hip dysplasia can be debilitating even for young dogs. One of my dogs had a total hip replacement at age six for hip dysplasia, and her other hip still gives her trouble. Janeen has had many dogs with hip...
Free feeding--or allowing your dog to "graze" on a full food bowl at will--is simply against nature. It is against how the wolf bonds her cubs to her by providing food and safety, then later taking them out and teaching them when and how to hunt. It is against the canine's wild feast-and-famine food cycle that is hard-wired into their...
...how can we know when it is time to say hello to a new one? I have learned that it is better to grieve full than empty. Grieving goes on no matter what you do or don't do. No dog takes another's spot, you are not being disloyal to the pet, or their memory, that you loved and lost... their spot...