Companion Animal Psychology

Is it better to get one kitten or two? Here are seven reasons why it might be a good idea to get two. Photo: biburcha / 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. Get Companion Animal Psychology in your inbox. This is the time of year when many people get a kitten, and cat rescues are full with  cats and kittens . These days, some shelters and rescues will actually insist that people adopt not one but two kittens at once.  It turns out there are some good reasons to get two kittens instead of just one. Here are 7 reasons why. And okay, maybe the first one is a little facetious, but there are some serious reasons why it works so well to get two kittens. 7 reasons why it's best to get two kittens 1. It’s twice as much cute fluffy fun … if one kitten is adorable, then surely two is even more adorable?  2. So they can play together. Kittens love to play. They have a wide

Research shows dogs and cats that live in the same house usually get along, but if helps if the cat is there first. Photo: Jiri Vaclavek/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. Can cats and dogs ever get along? Isn’t there always a risk that the cat will become a furry snack, or the dog will get a scratch to the nose? Although we often talk about ‘cat people’ and ‘dog people’, in reality many of us are both, and want both as pets. There’s some good news from a study by N. Feuerstein and Joseph Turkel, who looked at cats and dogs that live in the same home. They distributed a questionnaire to pet owners who had both cats and dogs, and also spent time in the house observing how the cat and dog interacted when in the same room. Where people had multiple cats or dogs, they chose the animal to observe at random, so they were just observing the interactions of one dog a

Study shows that dogs will respond to someone in tears, even if they are a stranger. 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 lovely study was just published by Deborah Custance and Jennifer Mayer of Goldsmiths College, London, who wanted to know if dogs show empathy for people. They wondered whether a dog would try to comfort someone who suddenly started to cry, and whether it made a difference if that person was their owner or a complete stranger. Photo: Tatchaphol / Shutterstock.com Eighteen medium-sized dogs took part. They were aged between 8 months and 12 years old, and were tested in their own homes, so that their behaviour wouldn’t be affected by strange surroundings. Interactions were video-taped so that the dogs’ behaviour could be rated later by several observers who did not know about the aims of the study. The stranger and owner chatted in the living room, ignoring t

Dogs kept as breeding stock and then re-homed from puppy mills are more likely to have behaviour problems than other dogs. It's important to choose the source of puppies wisely. 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 puppy mill, or puppy farm, is a commercial breeding establishment that raises puppies for sale. Often the dogs are kept in very small enclosures and have limited interaction with people. Puppies from these sources often have health problems (because the parents haven’t been properly health-checked), and behavioural issues (because they haven’t been socialized to people, other dogs, or a home environment from an early age). In some cases, the conditions are squalid. A recent survey by the Dogs Trust in the UK found that almost 95% of dog-owners said they would not consider getting a dog from a puppy mill. Unfortunately, when asked where they had acquired their dog, 15

There are two factors that explain why some people don't walk their dog. By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. In an  earlier post , I looked at whether people could be encouraged to take more physical exercise by focusing on the benefits to their dog of going for a walk. It seems they can. But it surprises me that some people don’t walk their dog every day. To me, taking a dog for a walk is one of the lovely things about having a dog, but apparently not everyone feels that way. A study by Hayley Cutt looks at the reasons why. Public health officials are always looking for ways of encouraging people to exercise, and as Cutt puts it, “one such under-used resource lies patiently, wagging its tail in eagerness to be physically active.” Participants in this study were a subset of people taking part in a longitudinal survey of a neighbourhood in Perth, Australia. The dog-owners w

This is  National Dog Bite Prevention Week in the US, so I thought I’d look at two recent studies that investigate dog bite prevention in children. Both studies are based on interviews with parents and children, after the children had been admitted to a hospital emergency department. 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 study by Ilana Reisner et al asked children who had been bitten by dogs about the circumstances of the bite. They wanted to know things like whether it happened inside or outside, and what the dog and child were doing immediately prior to the bite. Most indoor dog bites happened in the dog’s home (whether or not it was also the child’s home), and most outdoor dog bites happened near to the dog’s home. They identified two main circumstances for dog bites; younger children tended to be bitten inside the home, often by a dog that they lived with, whereas older chil

A dog-walking intervention helpfully led to increased dog walking behaviour, this study shows. By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. We all know that owning pets is said to be good for you. One of the benefits of owning a dog is taking it for walks. And walking – like any other form of exercise – is good for your health. It surprises me that some people don’t walk their dogs , because having to go out in all weathers is one of the things I like about having dogs. However wet and windy it is outside, it’s (usually) not so bad once you actually get out there. And walking helps prevent canine obesity as well as human obesity. Dogs that are left on their own in a yard to exercise are more likely to be obese than dogs that have an exercise regime, according to a study by I.M. Bland et al in 2009. When dogs are left in a yard, even if that yard is more than an acre in size, they just don’t