Companion Animal Psychology

"...an illuminating exploration of the fierce moral conundrums we face every day regarding the creatures with whom we share our world." 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 Companion Animal Psychology Book Club choice for June 2018 is Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals (P.S.) by Hal Herzog. From the back cover, "Does living with a pet really make people happier and healthier? What can we learn from biomedical research with mice? Who enjoys a better quality of life—–the chicken destined for your dinner plate or the rooster in a Saturday night cockfight? Why is it wrong to eat the family dog?  Drawing on more than two decades of research into the emerging field of anthrozoology, the science of human–animal relations, Hal Herzog offers an illuminating exploration of the fierce moral conundrums we face e

A new study shows most people who adopt a dog or cat from a shelter are happy with their choice, and provides information on the most common behaviour problems. A tricolour Kelpie. Photo: K.A. Willis / 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. Wherever you are, there are many dogs and cats in shelters or rescues waiting for new homes. One of the reasons some people give for not wanting to adopt a pet from a shelter is that they are concerned about behaviour problems. A new study by Sophie Scott et al (University of Adelaide) looks at the behaviour problems people report in their newly-adopted dog or cat, and finds out how they feel about their new pet. The results are very positive and show most people are happy with their new dog or cat. Sophie Scott told me in an email, “It's incredibly important we understand the nature of adopter satisfaction after the adoptio

Join the pet blogging community in supporting reward-based training of dogs, cats, and other companion animals. #Train4Rewards By Zazie Todd, PhD Are you a blogger? Do you support reward-based training for dogs and other animals? Would you like to take part in the #Train4Rewards blog party? You are invited to write a blog post about reward-based training of dogs or other companion animals, post it on your own blog on the set date, then come and share a link to it here. Bloggers from anywhere in the world are invited to take part. In the past, posts have covered the training of dogs, cats, horses and pigs. Posts on the training of rats, mice, ferrets, rabbits, and fish are all welcome too. Read on to find out more. If you are not a blogger but still want to take part, you can do so by reading and sharing the posts, and sharing a photo of your own pet on social media on 16th June with the hashtag #Train4Rewards. Here is how bloggers can take part. On Thursday 14th or

A user-friendly guide to understanding negative reinforcement in dog training – and the three alternatives you should know about. Photo: Angyalosi Beata /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. If you are new to dog training, or want to understand some of the language of dog training, this article is for you. It covers the technical definition of negative reinforcement in dog training, examples of how it is used, what research tells us about negative reinforcement, and alternatives that you can use instead (along with some common mistakes people make, so you know how to get it right). This article is part of a series of guides that also covers positive reinforcement and positive punishment in dog training. Let’s start with the technical definition. What is negative reinforcement? Negative reinforcement is one way to tr

The latest in the 'better world' series on dogs and cats. For more information, you can read how to make the world better for dogs and how to make the world better for cats . By Zazie Todd, PhD This page contains affiliate links which means I may earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no cost to you. Zazie Todd, PhD, is the award-winning author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy . She is the creator of the popular blog, Companion Animal Psychology, writes The Pawsitive Post premium newsletter, and also has a column at Psychology Today . Todd lives in Maple Ridge, BC, with her husband, one dog, and two cats.  Useful links: Companion Animal Psychology merch   Companion Animal Psychology's Amazon store As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. As an Etsy affiliate and Marks and Spencer affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

The Companion Animal Psychology privacy policy has been updated effective from 16 May 2018. By Zazie Todd, PhD Specifically, we would like you to know that: Email subscribers can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link that you will find at the bottom of every email from Companion Animal Psychology The only way to subscribe to the email subscription list is to specifically opt in. We will never add you, even if you email us about the blog. Anyone who has added a link (blog post url and/or photo) to a link-up can delete their link/photo at any time Email addresses provided for the purpose of link-ups will not be used for any other purpose. That is, we may communicate with you about the link-up if necessary, but will not add you to the email subscribers list. Google/Blogger have made changes to the way comments are handled, and in particular OpenID is no longer supported. Any comments previously left under OpenID will be anonymized. Comments can still be pos

Research investigates people's preferences for cats with normal, squashed or long head shapes. A Persian cat. Photo: Ewa Studio/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. Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about brachycephalic dogs and the health issues they can have as a result of having a squashed face, which include breathing difficulties and eye issues (read about why people choose brachycephalic dogs ). But what about cats ? Some breeds of cat also have squashed faces. A new study by Dr. Mark Farnworth (Nottingham Trent University) et al set out to investigate people’s preferences by asking them to rate photos of different types of cat. Dr. Farnworth told me in an email, “There has been quite a change in the companion animal population with more and more consumer desire for extreme conformations. Although these extremes are not yet mainstream (shown by the reduced