124. Fourth of July Pet Safety, Understanding Dog Behavior & Caring for Giant Breeds

Sure, I will kick us off.

And I've got a nice little roundup article here from the Dodo on some precautions you could take to keep your cat safe on the 4th of July.

I think we often think about... dogs because all i would say all but i would say a huge majority of dogs are indoors and outdoors uh but people forget about cats because a lot of cats nowadays are indoor cats and they think oh you know i don't really have to do anything special the cat's gonna be scared but they'll be fine the thing is uh a lot of cats get lost on fourth of july they'll find a way that you know they'll beam straight through that screen door they'll jump out of the window They'll do things that are uncharacteristic of their usual behavior because they're scared.

I'm going to talk about some products later, and I've always talked about things like having a safe space for your cat.

We're going to blow through those, and we're going to go into some more specific things that you really should be doing.

The first is having your cat microchipped.

This is the biggest thing because a scaredy cat who runs away is going to want to be found.

Once things calm down and it's the morning of July 5th, they're going to be wandering neighborhoods wanting to be found.

And if your cat is microchipped, if somebody brings them in to a vet, they're going to be able to get your contact information.

If you do use a physical collar and tags on your cat, If you haven't looked at them recently, check.

Even if you have like a stainless steel or silicone tag that's high quality, they're going to wear over time.

And if you can't read your contact information on that tag, guess what? Somebody else isn't going to be able to either.

And make sure you have a recent picture of your pets at all times.

It's great if you're going to make your own lost photo, but we've talked to a few different platforms that help reconnect pet parents with their lost pets.

And oftentimes what we hear is recent photo, good photo, clear photo, high resolution photo.

Those things are all incredibly helpful with locating your pets.

So keep your cat Inside, if they're an outdoor cat, bring them back inside for 4th of July.

Keep them nice and calm.

Get them all set up in their safe space.

I'm going to be going over a nice little product that you could use, but there's all sorts of things that we'll talk about.

And of course, head on over to Kristen's lovely Pet Anxiety Awareness website where there's all sorts of resources where you could read more.

Awesome.

I'm so glad that you brought that up about cats because the 4th of July, all of the attention around pet safety is focused on dogs.

And for good reason, because about half of dogs have some degree of noise phobia.

But I'm really glad that you addressed that cats actually can be afraid of noises as well.