Are Domestic Cats a Significant Cause of Death in Birds?
A new study published in the Journal of Ornithology (http://www.springerlink.com/content/7317118872r23612/) adds more fuel to the debate about the role of cats in diminishing wildlife populations, and if domestic and feral (those living apart from people) cats should be allowed to roam free at all. In the new study, catbirds living in suburban Washington, D.C. were…
Labels Hurt People as Much as They Do Pets
In many of our webinar courses, we’ve discussed the problems with categorizing behavior and behavior problems and dogs. Too often labels are applied to behaviors, to motivations, and to specific animals without a clear or well accepted understanding of what these labels mean. Our most recent favorite label to pick on is “reactive”. It appears…
Who’s Smarter: Cats Or Dogs?
Last November, several stories appeared proclaiming there to be good scientific evidence that dogs are more intelligent than cats. The headline for Fox News was “Dogs Are Smarter Than Cats, Oxford Scientists Say.” The headline for the London Telegraph was “Dogs are 'smarter than cats.' Dogs are cleverer than cats because their friendly character has…
Sleeps With Dogs
By now you’ve probably heard the brouhaha about the reported dangers of sleeping with your pets. In their article, Drs. Bruno Chomel and Ben Sun from the University of California at Davis conclude that public health risks can be associated with this practice. The relatively modest conclusions from this article seem to have…
How Helpful are “Bite Levels”?
We've recently seen several popular "Bite Level" categorization schemes that we assume are supposed to assist users in determining the relative degree of danger dogs that bite present. "Bite Level Hierarchies" are based attempt to relate the dog's biting behavior to the type of injury caused. We question the usefulness of these schemes and believe they can…