How to Stimulate Your Puppy's Growing Brain

Puppies continue to explore and learn all their lives. Though we may think of our dogs as being mostly instinctual, their brains react to stimuli whether it's a cool Spring breeze or obedience training. Because they're so aware of their environments, their actions, even to a stimulus they've experienced before, can change. A puppy raised in isolation will wind up with an atrophied brain while a puppy raised with hyperstimulation is not overwhelmed but instead develops more than average.

An understimulated puppy will appear apathetic. He will overreact to small changes and his instincts start to get screwed up. For instance, an understimulated puppy when faced with something fearful, only reacts with fear or fear-aggression - he does not seem to know that flight is also an option. It is during this time of your puppy's life that his cognitive system is rapidly developing so it's a good time to make sure he has enough stimulation in his life.

Ways to Provide Stimulation for Your Puppy

1. Take Him to New Places - This doesn't mean you have to attend an opera with your puppy or find something exciting like a carnival. Every new place you go is a myriad of new smells and sounds, a variable cornucopia of stimuli.
2. Take Him to Old Places - Places change constantly. The park at 6:00 a.m. is nothing like the park at 10:00 a.m. to a puppy. People and dogs have come and gone and the wind blows from a different direction.
3. Introduce Him to New People - This is a great time to socialize your puppy further and throw some new faces in the mix. This can be done as easily as walking him and allowing folks to meet him. You're bound to come across at least one dog person on your walk.
4. Play Mind Stimulating Games with Him - From simple games such as hide and seek to mental twisters such as which cup is the treat under, there are many games you can play with your puppy. You can also make training a game.
5. Hook Him on Brain Teasers - There are many mental exercise toys now available such as the Doggy Brain Train, Dog Activity Chess and Dog Activity Kicker. These games really challenge your puppy once you have shown him how to play with enthusiasm. You can also give your dog simpler toys such as a Kong filled with peanut butter or a treat toy by Busy Buddy.
6. Teach Him Well - Continue adding commands to your obedience training and teach him new tricks as we covered in a recent tip.

Any time spent with your puppy can be stimulating. Just chasing him around the yard or petting him offers stimulation. You can increase the mental stimulation in any activity by engaging your dog, from a simple "Watch me!" command to teaching him to track smells while hiking. Problem solving abilities are more than possible with dogs and they're something that can be nurtured and increased. You can see the possibilities at the growing number of Canine Cognitive Facilities around the U.S.

The more we stimulate our dogs' brains, the more we learn about them. They also learn more about their environment and gain confidence in handling new situations. Who knows, you might find that after a while, your puppy can even beat you at Scrabble.

Originally posted at Dogster.

Can owning a pet help you live longer?

People love their pets. More than 60 percent of U.S. households include pets, and those pet owners pour $41 billion a year into pet care [source: APPMA]. This may seem like a lot of money. But when you consider the fact that owning a pet could very likely add years to your life, a pet can quickly seem like a wise investment.

According to a study by the Minnesota Stroke Institute that followed more than 4,000 cat owners over 10 years, owning a cat can dramatically reduce a person's chance of dying from heart disease [source: Mundell]. Specifically, people who owned cats were 30 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack. Although those researchers cannot make the same conclusions about dogs based on the data they gathered, they suspect a dog study would provide similar results.
That study merely adds to the existing evidence that shows how animals can benefit human health. For example, psychologists have found reason to believe that owning a dog helps lower your blood pressure and your cholesterol [source: BVA]. And other research shows that pets help us feel better overall and help us to deal with stress, which can be a source of illness [sources: Laino, BBC News].

And let's not forget the benefits for the elderly. For example, one study observed neural activity in seniors while they walked or interacted with a dog [source: Motooka]. It turned out that walking with a dog gave seniors a boost in parasympathetic nervous system activity, which is good because the parasympathetic nervous system helps calm and rest the body.

For whatever reason, pets certainly can have a special effect on their owners. On the next page, find out more about pets' amazing ability to improve our health. Is it really possible for a dog to foresee its owner's seizures and even detect cancer?

Other Health Benefits of Pets

Stories abound about the healing abilities of pets. For instance, one boy who did not talk for six years finally chose to start talking after a therapy dog visited his school [CBS News]. Organizations, such as the Delta Society, train dogs to help disabled people perform tasks. The Delta Society feels so strongly about the health benefits of animals to humans that it is dedicated to spreading knowledge about the issue as well as services.

The psychological benefits of pets can make a big difference in someone's life. This seems to be especially true for kids who are struggling to deal with death or illness in the family. Certain studies have concluded that children with dogs cope better with these serious situations [source: Howie]. Researchers believe this probably has to do with the obvious fact that pets provide love and with the fact that the structured routine required for taking care of a pet is a positive for the child. Kids aren't the only ones who benefit from pets during these difficult times; the spouses of cancer patients said they believed pets helped them cope as well.

The health benefits of dogs go beyond psychological factors. As it turns out, dogs might be useful in the field of medicine to detect and predict medical problems. In one study, trained dogs were able to identify patients with bladder cancer by smelling their urine [source: Willis]. Although the dogs were not accurate all the time, they identified the right patients at a rate much better than chance. This revealed surprising evidence for the use of dogs as well as further knowledge about the effects and detection of bladder cancer.

What's perhaps more amazing, however, is that certain dogs can predict when their owner is about to suffer an epileptic seizure. Trainers can teach some dogs to help a person in various ways during a seizure. In addition, some of these dogs end up developing the mysterious ability to actually warn the owner before he or she suffers a seizure [source: CBS News]. The group that trains these dogs, Canine Assistants, claims that most dogs develop the prediction abilities within merely a year of being with their owner. Researchers are at a loss to explain how exactly dogs can do this.


Originally published by Animal Planet.

Beating Boredom - What Indoor Cat Owners Need to Know

Cats are predators, made for a life of action. As more and more cat owners opt for keeping their cats securely indoors, cat behaviorists are seeing a new cause for behavior problems: boredom. Many cats simply do not get enough stimulation in their secure indoor environments. That can lead to a myriad of behavior problems or simply to a bored, sleepy, and often overweight feline.

The right amount of stimulation is essential for our cat's physical and mental well-being. There are many ways in which we can enrich our cats' lives, so let's review our ten ideas for fighting kitty boredom:

1. A cat enclosure is a great way to let your cat enjoy the atmosphere of the great outdoors while keeping her safe. You can read more about cat enclosures here, and get some inspiration for building your own here.

2. A window sill shelf is probably a more viable option if you live in an apartment. Even if you have no access to a backyard, and thus can't build an enclosure, you can still place a cat shelf right next to a properly screened and secured window, allowing your cat a safe place from which to look out and check out the street.

3. Speaking of shelves, the more cat furniture you can put up for your cat, the better. Whether you call them cat trees, cat gyms or cat condos, providing your cat with solid and stable places to climb and perch on, will add more space to her territory and more places to explore. You can find more information about cat furniture here, and a list of quality cat furniture online shops here.

4. Cat toys are a great weapon in your fight against kitty boredom! Try a variety of toys, to see which ones your cat prefers. Keep the toy collection out of reach, and provide your cat with only 2-3 toys at a time, rotating them every few days. Read more about cat play and cat toys here. Don't just think about cat balls and fake mice here, try interactive toys such as the SmartCat Peek-A-Prize Cat Toy Box.

5. Catnip can be a great way to spice up kitty's day. Try it with your cat to see if he or she reacts to catnip, as not all cats do. If catnip works for your cat, you can use it in toys or just sprinkled around in a nice little heap, once in a while. If catnip doesn't work for your cat, you may want to try honeysuckle instead.

6. Interactive play is a great way to relieve kitty boredom while strengthening that special bond between you and your cat. Try fishing rod type toys, where you can simulate a hunting scene, by moving the object around as if it were a mouse or a bird. Make sure your hands do not come into contact with the cat during those games, as cats will naturally be aggressive towards prey.

7. Work-For-Treats type toys can be a great option for some cats. Instead of just giving out treats to your cat, leave them in a toy such as the Play-N-Treat Cat Ball, with some dry kibble treats inside. The extra play and work will keep Kitty entertained and happy while you're away.

8. Send your cat to the movies. Or rather, try letting Kitty watch nature-show DVD's produced especially for cats, such as the popular Kitty Movie DVD. Not every cat responds to recorded shows, but some do find them fascinating, so it could be worth a try.

9. Depending on your cat's character and your neighborhood, you may consider training your cat to walk on a leash for some joint outdoors excursion. This solution is not for every cat, and the training process can take a while, but some owners and cats find it a good arrangements and there's nothing quite like a supervised walk outside.

10. Lastly, if you're worried about leaving your cat alone for long hours, consider getting him or her a feline playmate. Obviously, there are more aspects to be considered when it comes to the decision of whether or not to adopt a second cat. Not all cats benefit from having another cat introduced into their lives, and you could be looking at a long and demanding introduction process. Usually, this is a better solution with kittens or younger cats, but it could also enhance the life quality of some older, more sociable cats.


Originally published at The Cat Site.