Companion Animal Psychology

Food puzzles will help satisfy your cat’s hunting instinct. Here's what they are and how to get (and keep) your cat interested in them. Photo: Anna Morgan/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. A new paper on food puzzles for cats has plenty of ideas to get everyone started on these wonderful enrichment items. The research, led by Mikel Delgado (University of California, Berkeley; Feline Minds), combines a review of the scientific literature on food toys as feline enrichment with practical tips gained from the authors’ work as feline behaviour practitioners. Food puzzles are toys that make your cat do some work to get the food out of them. Maybe they have to stick their paw in and pick pieces of food out, or maybe they roll it around with their nose or paw to make food fall out of the holes. There are many different types of food toys, some of which stay in one pla...

The behavioural reasons why guide dogs sometimes end their working lives early, and what it tells us about pet dogs. Photo: LauraVI/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. When guide dogs are withdrawn from service due to a behaviour issue, it's a problem for the person they work with, who now needs a new dog. Understanding more about these issues can help guide dogs stay in work longer - and it turns out it also tells something about the development of pet dogs. A study by Geoffrey Caron-Lormier (University of Nottingham) et al looks at twenty years of data from Guide Dogs (UK) . During this time, 7,770 working guide dogs, who had worked with blind or partially sighted people, were withdrawn from service. By far the most common reason was retirement, which applied to 6,465 dogs (83%). The authors looked at the reasons why other dogs were withdrawn from working. M...

Dog safety education for children works to reduce the risk of dog bites, according to a systematic review of existing research. Photo: Vasil Syniuk/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. The CDC estimates that 4.5 million Americans are bitten by a dog every year . Children are at high risk, and bites to children are often more severe than those to adults. Bites to the head and neck are more common than for adults because children are smaller. The CDC says “Among children, the rate of dog-bite–related injuries is highest for those 5 to 9 years old. Children are more likely than adults to receive medical attention for dog bites.”   When young children are bitten by a dog, it is typically indoors and by a dog they know or live with, often when the child approaches a dog that is lying down or stationary. The best ways to teach children about dogs are investigated in ...

If you’re looking for some summer reading, here are some favourite stories, photos, and even a short film - plus the chance for your pet's photo to appear on Companion Animal Psychology. Photo: Dora Zett/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. “Volunteering to build fences can help deliver dogs (and their owners) from chains.” Freeing dogs with fences by Bronwen Dickey. Julie Hecht on pointing : “this one little gesture, in all its complexity, could be a core feature of the intimate bond we share with dogs.” I was saddened to learn of the imminent demise of the science blogging site scilogs.com. The news led me to revisit one of my favourite posts in which Prof. Malcolm Campbell writes about what the dog really saw . “If ever you need to be reminded that we each have our own way of looking at the world, take a dog for a walk at night.” (If you don’t already, follo...