July 18, 2023
Play: The Key to Happy Pets
Hey there!
In this episode, you’ll hear us refer to the show as Starlight Pet Talk—that’s what we called it before we decided to embrace the fur, mess, and mayhem. Don’t worry, you’re in the right place for Muddy Paws and Hairballs—same great content, just with a name that fits! - Amy
Join us as we delve into the vital role of play, toys, and enrichment in your pet's life. Amy's guest, Katherine Kekel, a certified dog trainer and shelter worker, shares invaluable insights into why play is essential for cognitive development, stress relief, and curbing problem behaviors in pets. Discover how to select the perfect toys for your furry friend and learn preventive measures to improve pet behavior and prevent surrenders to shelters. Whether you're a seasoned pet parent or a novice, this episode promises to enrich your understanding and create a happier environment for your beloved pets.
KONG Company - and be sure to check out their "KONG Classroom" with videos and webinars all about providing the best life and care for your pets!
Learn more about Kat and her training services at: https://www.vonkekelcanine.com/about-us
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Thanks for listening to Muddy Paws and Hairballs, your go-to resource for all things pet care. From dog training, behavior, and socialization to cat enrichment, pet adoption, and tackling behavior problems, we provide expert advice and real talk to help you create a happy, healthy life with your pets. Whether you're dealing with dog anxiety, looking for puppy training tips, or exploring enrichment ideas for your cat, we've got you covered. Be sure to check out all our episodes!
Chapters
00:02 - Exploring Pet Needs and Kong Toys
04:27 - Importance of Play in Pet Training
15:40 - Toy Preferences for Dogs and Cats
23:13 - Pet Surrender and Socialization Tips
34:10 - Safety Precautions for Dog Playgroups
37:33 - Play for Senior Pets
Transcript
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Welcome to the Starlight Pet Talk podcast, where we'll talk about and explore ways to help pet parents and future pet parents learn everything they need to know to have a happy and healthy relationship with their pet.
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So sit up and stay for Starlight Pet Talk rescue, adoption and pet parenting done right.
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Just visit our website at wwwstarlightpettalkcom to order your merchandise today.
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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and I was thinking this morning about how many of us perceive our pets as being there for us as opposed to us being there for them, and what I mean is we get a dog because we want a companion, or we get a cat because we want something that's low maintenance.
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But we want a pet, and that's great.
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I think that animals definitely fulfill a lot of needs for human beings, both physical and mental.
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But what about their needs?
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I think that too many times, we think about only their very, very basic physical needs for food, water, shelter and maybe some veterinary care, and we do a pretty good job of taking care of those things.
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But what about their mental need for stimulation, their instinctive need as a species for certain activities.
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That's what we're going to talk about today with our guest expert.
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Catherine Keckle, or Cat the Dog Trainer, is a certified dog trainer who works not only full time with her local county animal shelter, which puts her in a special place in my heart, but she's also a professional dog trainer and a Kong ambassador.
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And Kong is one of my favorite toy companies and I think it might be for her, especially for those of you who are looking at the video and see all her Kong stuff in the background there.
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And what's nice about Cat is that she has had the opportunity to work not only with a variety of animals, but with pet owners through every step of the process, from the time that they meet a pet to going through the adoption process and then working with their families after the fact in training situations.
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So, cat, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with me today.
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Absolutely Thanks for having me Awesome.
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So can you give us just a little bit of an overview about what you do at, you know, between the shelter, the Kong ambassador role and then your own training business?
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Yeah, absolutely so.
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My full time job is I work in my local animal shelter and I get to do all sorts of things there.
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I've helped from the moment they enter the facility to the moment they get adopted and all the fun spots in between.
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That gives me a unique aspect of their life, right?
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So sometimes we get them in as a stray and I don't know any information about this dog.
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I just have to go on what it's giving me as far as its behavior and stuff that is giving me at the shelter, and then sometimes I do get the benefit of the owner telling me it's got problem behaviors or what have you.
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So that's nice.
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I get to get to have all of that, and then I get to see them get adopted.
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Matching people with their forever family member is a pleasure and an honor that I get to have every day, and then I get to work with them as my side business.
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I do do training off the side, but that's just to help them from coming to the shelter.
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A lot of people don't get quality training at a reasonable price, and so that's what I try to do is give people who are in lower income areas who are able to really work with their animal instead of having to turn them into the shelter.
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And then I get to be a Kong ambassador, which means I get to work with Kong and share in the knowledge that they've given me.
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As far as the product and how it works and what it's used for and it's origin story and everything, it's great.
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I use it every day in my house.
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I use it every day at the shelter.
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It's wonderful.
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Yeah, I'm a big fan of Kong.
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We've got a lot of Kong toys here, not only, and I think sometimes when people think about Kong they think about just the.
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You know the traditional Kong.
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You know the red rubber bouncy Kong that you fill with peanut butter.
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But they have so many more toys, and especially for cats.
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A lot of people don't realize they have all kinds of cat toys too.
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So definitely check those things out.
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So you know, you mentioned working with people from a training perspective in the hopes to help them avoid returning a pet or giving up a pet.
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But why is play so important to that process as well?
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You know why is play so important to our pets?
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So play as it relates to dogs, right, it's something we don't really think about a lot because we don't give our animals a lot of choice, we don't give them that autonomy.
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You know, every day we decide for them what they're going to eat, where they're going to sleep, what they're.
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They are and aren't allowed to do what we deem as a appropriate behavior, that, as a dog, they don't see any problem pooping in the house or sitting on top of your counters because they're a dog.
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Those, for us, are problem behaviors.
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So play is really important because not only does it help us with those problem behaviors, but it also helps them be mentally stable, relieve stress and just really give them a more mental, stimulated environment, right?
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So different types of things that we could do for them to make them a more well-rounded, healthy, physically and emotional dog.
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Right, that's something we don't really think about because for dogs, when they're a year of age, they have the mental capacity of a three-year-old child, so they can think, feel and make decisions.
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As such, and that's something people don't really know.
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And the fact that dogs originally, as they became, evolved, if you will, they learned a lot of things from us.
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They are no longer that wolf that we talk about a lot, they still continue to play, even to their adulthood.
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So, like a cheetah in their cubs, they play in order to learn to hunt and then they no longer play as adults.
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Dogs continue to play.
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So those life stages that we talk about from puppyhood we think, oh, they're just done after they're a year of age.
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Not necessarily.
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They continue to play and chew and do those types of behaviors just like humans do, if that makes any sense.
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No, it does, and I think we think a lot about that, like you said, through that puppy phase.
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And same thing with kittens you know we play with them, you're playing with the string, you're playing with the feather toy, whatever it is.
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And the same thing with the dogs.
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You know you're throwing the ball, you're using the tug rope, whatever it might be.
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But then once they get into adulthood, it's almost like with the potty training or with the.
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Now that you're an adult, we stop playing.
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We might provide a certain level of exercise for our dogs, like taking them for a walk, but there's a lot of people that just consider letting the dog out in the backyard to potty and they run around as being enough stimulation, and it's definitely not.
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And so what happens when they're not getting that?
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Whether it's the mental enrichment or just the burning off steam with play, what happens to that animal over time?
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So you get a dog who can be doing those problem behaviors we talked about, right, so they can start doing the digging and the chewing and the jumping up and from puppy biting to now they're an adult dog and it's real biting.
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They don't learn how to have appropriate behavior as well as they don't continue to develop cognitively, and that's something that is really important for them is that mental stimulation, stress is also a really big factor.
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So if you think about it, if you were only given one book a day to read or one television show to watch, you wouldn't really be relieving your stress.
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You would know exactly the same route over and over and over again, just like your backyard.
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Right, you put the dog out in the backyard, like you said, and they know the same smell, they know that squirrel was there, they know that.
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You know I've already peed on this thing and they don't get anything new.
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So when we talk about exercise and play and enrichment, it has to be varied and it has to be lots of different things.
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So even as simple as the type of texture of toy, not all toys are the same and they all have different purposes, and that's something that people don't think about a lot they think, oh, I gave my dog a tennis ball or I gave my dog a rope toy and that's great.
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Those are options.
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I have a dog who loves the tennis ball.
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However, that's not all she needs, right?
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She needs other things to scavenger hunt or do the stuffed Kong, which can be all sorts of different things that you put in it.
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It doesn't have to just be peanut butter, it can be anything dog safe.
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My dog particularly likes sweet potatoes, so she gets sweet potatoes and applesauce and sometimes a little bit of canned dog food on top to really get her into it.
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And then she gets that and I'll hide it somewhere in the yard.
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So that makes the backyard that was normally something that she's like oh, I've been out here a million times new and exciting.
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It really branches them out and gets them to do other things.
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So thinking about it that way, it's not just developmentally wise, it's also stress relieving too.
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Yeah, that's such a good point, is that?
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Yeah, I remember back in the day when I was, when I was thin and I used to run.
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Yeah, I used to run a lot when I was going to school in Washington DC, because every day, even if, even if I took the same route, there was going to be different people there, there was different activities going on.
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You know, it's a big, it's a big city, so it's exciting.
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Move to the suburbs and you know, a friend says why don't we go walking every day?
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I don't want to walk around the block every day.
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It's boring, it's the same houses, the same landscaping, we're having the same conversation.
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We've run out of things to talk about.
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But if I had an exciting place to do that, you know, and I think that kind of goes back to what I was saying in the beginning is that we realize that for ourselves, for ourselves and for our human children, but yet we're going to our dog's, going to spend its entire life outdoors, just going in our own backyard, and then you wonder why they?
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You know and we'll talk more about some of the other behaviors in just a minute but makes me think about the fact because I've kind of been guilty of this with my dogs is that when you do put them in the car to take them someplace else, they act like the fool.
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And it's not because they're bad, or even because they're not trained, it's because they're so darn excited to be doing something different.
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Exactly.
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Yeah, as simple as putting them in the car is complete.
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Whoa, you know, you get the dog that's jumping all over the place and scratching people to get on top of them because they're like, oh my gosh, I haven't seen a new person in you know three weeks.
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We don't think about that.
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You know how often especially after everything you know as health wise and whatnot how often people really come over to our houses.
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You know I'm a homebody.
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Nobody really ever comes over.
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So when my dogs do go with me somewhere, they go oh my gosh, I haven't seen a human in like three years.
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What are we doing here?
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And that's exciting for them.
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So that's something to think about too.
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Just giving them new experiences, new things.
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And it doesn't have to be, you know, you don't have to go out and buy you know 70 different dog toys, right, it just needs to be something as simple as okay, here's two or three new dog toys and we'll rotate them through your week.
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You know, here's your this week's, and then we pick them up and then here's the next week's and making it a very throughout, or something as simple as dog water bowls.
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A lot of people don't think about.
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What do we give our dogs to drink out of.
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So I personally have more than the average pet owner, because I have a dog who guards water bowls.
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He is a resource gardener, so we have to manage our environment a little bit.
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So we have about 15 different types of water bowls.
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Basically.
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I have one dog who likes the fountain because he is a shizu and he is a prince, and then I have a cattle dog who purses.
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She likes her metal water bowl.
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And I have an Australian shepherd puppy who is in her wackadoo face and she likes to be inside the water bowl.
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So it needs to be big enough for her to put her front paws in.
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And that's just how it is right now and that gives them different variety, right, because some of them are not going to want to drink out of the one that the puppy had her paws in.
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You know, we just don't think about those things, right?
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Yeah, I kind of discovered that with my cats too, because, like I said, we're talking a lot about dogs but cats need that same level of variety as well.
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And I had always kind of taken this approach and I keep my.
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I do clean my water bowl quite frequently, but when we I just had one big water bowl for everybody, thinking that everybody passes by the kitchen and there's plenty of water in it and it gets changed out frequently.
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But I kind of noticed that when I got my bulldog Gwenevere, she tended to slobber up the water bowl more than previous dogs that we'd had and the cats just kind of seemed like they maybe didn't like it quite as much.
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And so I went ahead and got one of those cat fountains and I actually put it well, at first I had it out in the main area and then everybody was using the fountain, so that wasn't working too well because it was making a huge mess.
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So I moved the cat fountain to my master bathroom and they love that thing and they are constantly like they tell.
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In the morning when I, when I wake up, I can hear the cats outside the door and the first thing when I open the door, they run in and go straight to that fountain.
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And it's not that they don't have access to water other types of water they just really like the fountain.
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Apparently, cats like moving water.
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I didn't know that before.
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Yeah, people don't think about favorites.
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You know my dogs have their favorite for bones or toys or spots to lay.
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I, my cattle dog, will.
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I have a lot of toys, probably more than the average pet parent, just with my career and she will go in and she will go in her toy bins and she will find the specific toy that she wants, because my dogs have such variety.
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There are certain textures that she likes that are more unusual, that people don't really think of, right?
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So bamboo she loves a bamboo too.
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Kong actually does make one or one that is made out of wood.
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It's wood put back together, sawdust kind of like.
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You know, real wood put back together in them.
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Oh, I have one of those, digestible and safe for them to eat.
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So instead of them chewing your drywall right, they're chewing the wood.
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That gives them the same texture and the same flavor as as what they would be chewing.
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That's not what we don't want, but that's her one of her favorites because it's got a little bit more give to it.
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So she'll go in there.
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She'll find it in that big toy bin she digs to the bottom.
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Yes, it's funny.
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Two things.
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Number one it's interesting how dogs have different needs and what they do with their toys.
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So I had a dog named Bonnie one time and we had her for nine years before we lost her and she had a stuffed.
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It was like a white woolly looking.
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It was almost shaped like a gingerbread man had no face, no, nothing.
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It was just this woolly person shaped baby and she called her baby and she carried that thing around for nine years and would take it wherever she was laying down, but never, never, chewed on it, never put a hole in it, nothing.
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And then we get jack, our doberman.
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You couldn't give him anything stuffed, for in two seconds he would have eviscerated, the squeaker, would be gone, he would have eaten the stuffing and you know, many times got himself in some digestive issues.
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So we had to kind of stop giving him those kind of toys because of what he was doing.
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But it's interesting how the same Type of toy, one dog treats it one way and one dog treats another, and again, the light bulb still never went off.
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It's also funny you said something about chewing drywall, because that literally happened.
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I was sitting in my living room the other day and my daughter's puppy, gigi, who I think Gigi needs to keep moving on she's.
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She came in as a rescue and somehow she's not managed to go on the adoption market yet.
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And Gigi I had a scraping sound and Gigi is standing over in my dining room literally chewing on the wall, like trying to scrape on the wall, and I'm thinking, okay, why is this dog doing this?
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And then I started thinking about our pre recording conversation when we were planning for this episode.
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And you know, gigi has this area that she's normally stays in and it's the same toys have been sitting there since the time we've got her.
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So for the last let's say, three months she's had the same it's a lot of toys, there's probably seven or eight toys but it's the same toys that have been laying on the floor in that area for the entire time and obviously she's Needed something else to do absolutely.
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And types of toys matter, right?
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So I mean, you were saying the stuff he was good for one but wasn't good for the other and it depends on what we're doing with them, right?
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So we've got the harder, more textured toys, like the bamboo one or the wood composite, and then you've got the rubber right, like the classic Kong rubber.
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Well, those come in different types for different life stages of your dog, right?
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So you've got the classic Kong, which is the one that most dogs are on.
00:16:48.317 --> 00:16:51.039
You've got the puppy, when they're little puppies and they got their needle teeth.
00:16:51.039 --> 00:17:01.753
And then you've got the black, which is the hardest one for dogs who do through the drywall, and you need something that they are going to be able to not get through.
00:17:01.753 --> 00:17:13.327
And then you have the senior right, when your dog is older in their teeth and gums and jaw strength are no longer there, you've got something that's going to be Good for them to still continue to play in those senior golden years, if you will.
00:17:13.327 --> 00:17:17.154
And, thinking about it that way, you know what's going to be for that type of player.
00:17:17.255 --> 00:17:18.576
What is that dog like to do?
00:17:18.576 --> 00:17:18.836
So?
00:17:18.836 --> 00:17:20.319
My dog is a cattle dog.
00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:27.048
She is a Cattle dog through and through and she loves to do lure, coursing and chasing and that's something that she just is really good on.
00:17:27.048 --> 00:17:37.779
So we get those types of toys a toy that I can play with her like a giant cat it's got a really fun fluffy animal on the end and I can wave it like a wand and she can play in that manner.
00:17:37.779 --> 00:17:42.065
Or Her favorite one is a.
00:17:42.065 --> 00:17:49.071
It looks like a bear and it's called the cong knots toys and it's got rope inside of a fluffy toy.
00:17:49.071 --> 00:17:52.296
So there's not a lot of stuffing to it, it's mostly that rope and then the plush.
00:17:52.296 --> 00:18:02.669
On the outside it feels like bones when they're crushing on bones and so that's something that she loves to take and shake and pull doesn't destroy it, but she enjoys that feeling in her mouth.
00:18:02.709 --> 00:18:07.614
So the toys have different meaning for different types of dogs.
00:18:07.614 --> 00:18:10.196
You know there's a predatory sequence in all dogs.
00:18:10.196 --> 00:18:14.046
It depends on your dog where that predatory sequence stops.
00:18:14.046 --> 00:18:20.182
So that goes from alerts to point like the pointers, go and grab like the lab.
00:18:20.182 --> 00:18:32.276
You know the labs with the duck, my dog, which is the run, chase and bite the heel of the cattle, and then the ones that are go all the way, which is the, kill the plush toy and get the phone out and then consume, eat the plush toy.
00:18:32.276 --> 00:18:36.570
So you have to think of where does my dog's predatory sequence?
00:18:36.570 --> 00:18:39.480
And then what toys would maybe be better for them versus others?
00:18:40.161 --> 00:18:41.061
Yeah, that's a good point.
00:18:41.061 --> 00:18:49.412
I think you know whether it's knowing the breed if you've got, you know purebred dogs and you know what they've been basically bred to do and then meeting that need for them.
00:18:49.412 --> 00:18:55.363
But for those of us who have my, you know, might have mixed breed dogs, it's.
00:18:55.363 --> 00:18:57.749
It's basically experimentation, wouldn't you say?
00:18:57.749 --> 00:18:59.594
And I think we don't do enough of that.
00:18:59.594 --> 00:19:01.880
We go, and I know I've been guilty of this.
00:19:02.682 --> 00:19:05.189
We used to have this dog that used to just wander down the street from us.
00:19:05.189 --> 00:19:06.070
His name's fish.
00:19:06.070 --> 00:19:09.279
He's a black lab, and that dog love to play.
00:19:09.279 --> 00:19:13.007
It didn't matter if you, if you, threw a toothpick, he would chase it.
00:19:13.007 --> 00:19:20.160
I mean, he just didn't care what it was, he just wanted to go and get it and bring it back to you, and so it was kind of fun, because none of my dogs like to play ball.
00:19:20.881 --> 00:19:31.279
Well, I've got a chihuahua no, she's not going to chase a tennis ball and bring it back to me and I've got a two third, a two thirds of no, two thirds English bulldog, one third American bulldog.
00:19:31.279 --> 00:19:39.329
So she's a lot like an English bulldog that she's not much of a runner and you probably don't want her running too much because we've already replaced one ACL.
00:19:39.329 --> 00:19:40.611
We don't want to replace another one.
00:19:40.611 --> 00:19:47.559
So if I threw a ball she might run halfway to it and then she's going to abandon it and then we say, okay, well, our dogs don't want to play.
00:19:47.559 --> 00:19:53.424
Well, no, you just haven't found the right play or the right activity for that, for that animal.
00:19:53.424 --> 00:19:56.027
So, you know, tried different, and I think that's great.
00:19:56.027 --> 00:19:57.807
You brought up a variety of things.
00:19:57.807 --> 00:20:09.998
You know the prey drive that they have, and so giving them something to chase or hunt down, or whether it's just something to love on, or whether it's the retrieving that they like to do, you've got to try different activities.
00:20:09.998 --> 00:20:13.603
The same goes for cats, wouldn't you say, oh, absolutely.
00:20:13.722 --> 00:20:15.506
I mean with cats, especially you've got.
00:20:15.506 --> 00:20:16.567
Are they bush dwellers?
00:20:16.567 --> 00:20:19.652
Do they like to be hello to the ground and hunting down there?
00:20:19.652 --> 00:20:24.700
Or they treat well as do they like to be up high and catching the butterfly or the bird that goes by.
00:20:24.700 --> 00:20:28.003
I have my own cat version of that.
00:20:28.003 --> 00:20:29.786
They watch the squirrels.
00:20:29.786 --> 00:20:34.813
I have a squirrel feeder and they sit there and they watch and that's that's their enrichment, right?
00:20:34.813 --> 00:20:37.135
But one of my cats is more into that than the other one.
00:20:37.135 --> 00:20:39.920
The other one likes to go play with the feather toy in the house.
00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:42.041
That's her jam.
00:20:42.041 --> 00:20:44.805
So it really just depends on your type of cat, right?
00:20:44.805 --> 00:20:46.046
Or your type of dog.
00:20:46.105 --> 00:20:49.749
I have a senior dog as well, the one who has resource guarding, and he is a mutt.
00:20:49.749 --> 00:20:53.972
I don't know what he is, but he's an 80 pound mutt and he is a kill consume.
00:20:53.972 --> 00:20:56.496
He wants to destroy and take out.
00:20:56.496 --> 00:21:02.126
But it depends on the toy and it depends on the stress level he is at.
00:21:02.126 --> 00:21:14.500
He's a very anxious, stressful dog and when he is in a more stressful time he will destroy more of the toys because he needs to get that out of the system when he is not as stressed and he's had a better day or he's more relaxed again.
00:21:14.500 --> 00:21:26.344
He is a senior, so he's got some senior decline in cognitive ability and stuff and you know sundown or syndrome I'm not sure if you're familiar with, where they just kind of get a little wonky at night time sometimes and they just don't know where they are.
00:21:26.344 --> 00:21:27.765
So he can be a little bit more anxious.
00:21:27.765 --> 00:21:33.348
In those times he will destroy things more, versus other times where he'll just hold it like a baby and walk around with it in his mouth.
00:21:34.292 --> 00:21:41.785
A lot of people want to take things away when they start to do those behaviors, because oh, you're destroying the thing that I spent money on and they should not do that.
00:21:41.785 --> 00:21:47.807
Right, we have this idea in our head that that's, they're only there to play with it and then not not destroy it.
00:21:47.807 --> 00:21:49.833
And dogs are dogs.
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