Blog

Teenagers must text, and cats must scratch. To a cat, scratching is as just like eating, drinking, peeing, and pooping; it’s something they must do to stay both physically and emotionally healthy. And if you don’t provide him a surface to sink his claws into and pull, he’ll pull a fast-one on you and create […]

A reader wrote asking me what to do about her cat, who has been hissing and twitching her tail when strangers come into the home. I asked my daughter, trainer Mikkel Becker, to share her thoughts. Q: My cat is aggressive to people who come into our home, whether it’s workers or guests. She crouches, […]

I remember being in veterinary school and being amazed at what I learned in a reproduction class about developmental milestones in kittens. I’d been around kittens my whole life (you saw many litters when you lived on a family farm in the 1950s-1970s when spay/neuter wasn’t common), but knew very few specifics. Here’s what I […]

While some breeders remove them from puppies, for most dogs, dewclaws — those thumb-like “toes” on the sides of your dog’s front legs — actually do serve a purpose. This is what I told a reader who asked about them. Q: Why do dogs have dewclaws? I’m talking to a breeder about a puppy, and […]

Thunderstorm season is almost here, and hundreds of thousands of dog owners are facing it with dread. What can be done about a dog’s fear of thunder and lightning? I asked my trainer daughter, Mikkel Becker, to respond. Q: It’s thunderstorm season, and my 3-year-old Australian shepherd has become so afraid of the noise that […]