It’s been an interesting week.  Last Friday, a local trainer and colleague, Grisha Stewart of Ahimsa Dog Training (www.ahimsadogtraining.com) contacted me to ask if I would discuss Cesar Millan’s techniques with a reporter from KOMO-TV here in Seattle.  Millan was in town for a meet-and-greet and fundraiser for a local pet shelter.  I leaped at… Read More

Cats, like all mammals, are social creatures.  While cats are far less social than dogs, to think of cats as asocial is wrong.  The degree of social behavior and the ability of an individual to adapt to a changing social environment varies with species (certainly cats are less social than dogs), breed (Bengal cats are… Read More

Most pet owners are familiar with the situation: your dog or cat is upset about something, perhaps has been challenged or even attacked.  But rather than an understandable response in which the animal lashes out at the challenger, or turns and runs, it will turn and attack someone, or something, else.  That is, it will… Read More

Cats are a mystery to many of their owners, perhaps more so than dogs.  Dogs are social, like we primates, and so we can often understand their need for attention, the reward of social contact and praise, and even, at a deeper evolutionary level, perhaps a lot of their signals and communication.  But cats –… Read More