Search Results for: blog the things we do for our cats

4 Reasons to Helicopter Parent Your Pet

It has been said that helicopter parenting might not be the most ideal parenting style. Kids need some room to make mistakes and learn from them. That being said, there are a lot of great reasons why you should helicopter parent your pet. Reasons Why You Should Helicopter Parent Your Pets Pets Don’t “Grow Out of It” Babies and toddlers go through a stage where they put everything they can grab into their mouths. They will grow out of this stage eventually. Pets, however, will always have a tendency to try and eat things that may or may not be … Continue reading →

Why Cats Do Weird Things: Pawing Around Water

We know why cats play with their water: they paw it and lick it from their paws, to try to make their water ripple and thus seem fresher.  Cats love fresh water.  But I’ve noticed Cole sometimes do something a bit stranger than that: he paws around his water bowl.  He doesn’t actually dip his paws in, but he scratches at the floor around the water bowl.  Why is he doing that? There isn’t a clear answer as to why; a lot of cat behavior is mysterious to us.  But there are a few educated guesses out there.  The first is … Continue reading →

What To Do about Neighbor Cats

I keep going back and forth on whether or not to let my cats outside.  Cole doesn’t have much interest, but Chrestomanci certainly does.  I know he’d be happiest as an indoor-outdoor cat, but I don’t know that I’d be happiest with him as one, and I don’t know that it’s worth the stress.  One day in the summer when we let him out with us, he wandered off.  He came back a few hours later, just as my husband said he would, but by then it was dark and I was very upset until he showed up again. Another … Continue reading →

Keep Your Pets Safe on Halloween

Halloween is fun for humans, especially children. Keep in mind, though, that Halloween can be stressful, or dangerous, for your pet. Banfield Pet Hospital has a guide to Halloween safety that pet owner should read over. It can help you avoid tragedy and a pet insurance claim. It is understandable that pet owners will want to share the fun of the holiday with their pets. After all, pets are part of the family! Pet owners need to keep in mind that there are many things associated with Halloween that can lead to a dangerous situation for your dog or cat. … Continue reading →

Toddlers Are Awesome

I recently realized that my toddler will not be a toddler much longer. Apparently, the age range during which a child is a toddler is from eighteen months until three years. Dylan will turn three on November 21. At that point, he will belong to the “preschoolers” age group regardless of whether or not he is actually enrolled in preschool at the time. As with anything kid – related, it seems as though passing through the toddler stage did not take as long as I thought that it might. There sure have been a lot of things packed in to … Continue reading →

Why Pets Do Weird Things: Licking

Why do our pets lick us? We think we know some of the reasons: affection, we have something tasty on our skin. But there are additional reasons why they might lick us. Let’s look at them. One of the first things a mother dog does for her puppies is to lick them: it helps stimulate their senses. Doing so means comfort for dogs, so when they lick you they might be trying to pass those feelings onto you. It’s basically social bonding. Licking can also symbolize submission. In the wild subordinate dogs lick their alphas, so if a dog is … Continue reading →

Doing Laundry With Frugal Style

Do you like doing laundry? There is something wonderful about making things clean again. Then again, there is something rather icky about that cat-vomited, kid-messy, sticky mass you shove into the washing machine. I am of two minds about laundry. Laundry can be a time suck if you let it. We only have three people (and three cats) in our family, and it takes up a bit of time. It used to take up more time, though. These days, I’m in a frugal and time-friendly laundry groove. Yeah. How can you reduce the time you spend doing laundry? Get proactive. … Continue reading →

Cats Eating People Food

Yesterday a good friend of mine posted on her Facebook that she caught her two cats eating coleslaw. It’s not the first time her cats have gone after people food; one ate a strawberry last week, and when they were kittens she had to lock them in a room when I’d have lunch at her house. Otherwise they’d jump up on the table, put their paws in our water glasses, and otherwise view our plates as their personal buffet. When I think about it, I can recall many incidents of cats I knew eating people food. My old roommate’s cat … Continue reading →

Living with Dogs Might Improve Baby Health

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a real reason to keep our dogs around our babies? Some people are terrified of the idea, thinking that it’s dangerous to let dogs around small children. At first it’s best never to leave dogs alone with babies, to make sure the animals know to be gentle around them. However, we pet owners know that some dogs are great with babies. There have already been some studies about how being around dogs in the first year of infancy can help reduce the chances of a child later developing allergies to dogs, but what about … Continue reading →

Cat People vs. Dog People

I’ve already debunked the whole cats and dogs can never get along theory. What about whether you’re a cat person or a dog person, and what that says about your personality? I recently caught part of a NOVA documentary exploring that very thing, and I wish I’d seen more of it. The opening was full of cat people and dog people talking about the respective attributes of their favorite mammals, before examining what life is like at home for each of them. Although the concept was fascinating, I felt a little put out. What about me? I love dogs and … Continue reading →