Winter Weather

Are your pets bored to death with this nasty horrid cold slushy gray skanky winter? Mine are! What to do? Letting them sit around bored is not such a good plan. Bored pets tend to find ways to amuse themselves, which can lead to shredded furniture, missing shoes, indoor pet plumbing and other delights. 

Use this time to teach them some new tricks! Cats, dogs, birds - I bet even fish can learn some cool stuff.

Train cats, you say? Check this out!

Yup, there are now cat agility competitions cropping up all over. Or you can teach your cat some dog tricks:

If you’re not that ambitious, you could also give your cat a brown paper sack and provide him with hours of entertainment. Or a ping pong ball. Of a fun feathery cat toy.

For the dogs, just 10 minutes of daily training time can lead to some raucous fun. There are all kinds of places on the Web to learn how to teach tricks. One of my favorites is Zak George from Animal Planet. I very much like his methodology, and I highly recommend him over some other TV trainers.

A great friend - and fellow whippet owner - Stef Colman has a featured slot on LA Today. Here’s a cute trick where you can teach your dog to grab your hanky when you sneeze:

View more news videos at: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video.

So, use this down time to entertain yourself and your pets, and before you know it Spring will be here!

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