Companion Animal Psychology

I have a new post about puppies over on my Psychology Today blog, Fellow Creatures. Photo: Helena Lopes/Pexels By Zazie Todd PhD I think these days, many people know that puppies have a sensitive period for socialization from 3 until about 12-14 weeks. But thanks to canine science, we now know more about puppies than ever before. So my new post looks at three things everyone should know. You can read it here: 3 things everyone should understand about puppies . If you want to be notified every time I have a new post (and get my free guides, Seven Secrets to a Happy Dog and Cat), sign up here . You'll get 1-2 emails a week, can unsubscribe any time, and I won't share your email address with anyone else. 

I've got a new post on my Fellow Creatures blog at Psychology Today. Photo: Meruyert Gonollu/Shutterstock By Zazie Todd, PhD We tend to have a rosy perspective on pets and think of the many benefits they can bring to our lives. But for many people, sooner or later there comes a point where the pet is sick or has a behavior issue. As well as being hard for the pet, this is difficult for the pet guardian too. So I wrote about what this is, and how it can help to talk about it. Read the post here: What is caregiver burden for people with pets?  P. S.   Sign up to get my free guides,  Seven Secrets to a Happy Dog and Cat  and learn how to have a better relationship with your pet.

After the ban, fewer cats were surrendered to shelters, and those that were found a new home faster. Photo: Joey Thebeau/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. Declawing cats was banned in BC in 2018. New research by Dr. Alexandre Ellis (Shelter Outreach Consultation Services) in conjunction with the BC SPCA and UBC looks at shelter statistics for three years before and after the ban. The research is published in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery and shows that the effects on cat surrenders that some people feared did not come to pass; in fact, surrenders went down.  Dr. Emilia Gordon (BC SPCA), one of the co-authors of the study, says,  “We wanted to perform a formal, peer-reviewed analysis so we could answer the question that has been asked so many times: does a declaw ban cause more cats to end up in shelters or be euthanized? And 74,587 cats in BC have sp...

"An incredible journey of joy, discovery, and innovation."--Shari Robertson PhD. By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. This month's choice for the Animal Book Club is the New York Times bestseller, How Stella Learned to Talk: The Groundbreaking Story of the World's First Talking Dog by Christina Hunger. From the back cover, "When speech-language pathologist Christina Hunger first came home with her puppy, Stella, it didn’t take long for her to start drawing connections between her job and her new pet. During the day, she worked with toddlers with significant delays in language development and used Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices to help them communicate. At night, she wondered: If dogs can understand words we say to them, shouldn’t they be able to say words to us? Can dogs use AAC to communicate with humans? "Christina decided to put her...

When times are hard, we can still find joy with our pets.  Carpe sphera? Photo: Violacelous/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. Sometimes when you turn on the news it just feels like everything is… too much.  Like right now when I was browsing the news on Twitter, there was so much bad news from here and everywhere. With the pandemic ploughing on and the climate crisis revving up, it feels like we are stuck with more of this (without a lot of hard work to change it). But then I glanced out of the window, where the trees have grown so tall I can no longer see the sky from this vantage point, and five yellow warblers were flicking from branch to branch, little flashes of yellow amongst the green, hopping and flitting and then flying to the next tree.  They are just going about their day and yet it brings me joy to see them. Which brings me to these lines from a poem...