Fellow Creatures: Two Recent Posts

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I have two recent posts at my Psychology Today blog Fellow Creatures.

By Zazie Todd, PhD

The first post looks at links between a cat owner's personality and their cat's health and behaviour. In particular, when owners have a neurotic personality, this is associated with negative outcomes for their cat. Read more in cat owners,  personality, and pet parenting style.

The relationship between owner personality and cat behaviour. Photo shows person stroking cat under chin
Photo: Yerlin Matu/Unsplash

The second post looks at a recent study of the relationship between military veterans with PTSD and their psychiatric service dog. The results show just close the human-animal bond is, even for veterans with severe symptoms. At the same time, the bond is closer in those who use more positive reinforcement to train their dog. Training methods affect the service dog--veteran relationship.

Training methods affect the bond between veterans and their service dogs. Most of the dogs are Labradors, pictured
Photo: danielle828/Pixabay

Zazie Todd, PhD, is the author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy. She is the founder of the popular blog Companion Animal Psychology, where she writes about everything from training methods to the human-canine relationship. She also writes a column for Psychology Today and has received the prestigious Captain Haggerty Award for Best Training Article in 2017. Todd lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband and two cats.

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