077 Increase Indoor Cat’s Happiness & The 2020 Way to Figure A Dog’s Age in Human Years.

Raising Your Paws- Your resource for dog & cat pet parents

You and your cats share some of the same core emotions. One of them is called SEEKING which is “the basic impulse to search, investigate and make sense of the environment” A combination of positive emotions – enthusiasm, wanting something really good, looking forward to getting something really good, and curiosity are all involved in this emotional system in the brain.

SEEKING emotions feel good and make us and other animals feel happy. A key to your cat’s overall mental well-being is to activate this positive emotion in them as much as possible. I’ll explain three of the best ways to do this for a cat.

Then, a tip from a dog trainer, Emily Stoddard, owner and founder of the Canine Sports Dog Training Company in Chicago, Illinois. The answer to the question, what to do when walking your dog and you come upon another dog you don’t know. Should the dogs meet or not?

Plus, how old is your dog in human years?

This July, 2020, a study of Labrador Retrievers that revealed a brand new more accurate way to figure out your dog’s age compared to human years was published. It blows the old linear comparison of the 1-7 years ratio out of the water for good. It even updates some of the more realistic thinking of the past years that placed a one-year old dog as being closer to a 15-year-old than a seven-year-old.

But now, there is an actual formula based on scientific research that gives us a graph that can be used to match up the age of your dog with the comparable human age. You’ll be surprised to hear how old a one-year old dog is in human years.

You’ll find the graph on the companion blog (#77) for this episode at www.raisingyourpaws.com.

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Additional Resources for this show.

Source for the story on SEEKING –“Animals Make Us Human” by Temple Grandin.

Emily Stoddard’s website - Canine Sports Dog Training.

Source for the story about figuring dogs ages in human years “How Old is Your Dog In Human Years? By Heather Buschman, Phd.