Lara’s Blog

Calming Supplements for Dogs and Cats: What Pet Owners Need to Know As more pet parents seek out natural calming supplements for dogs and cats, there are some important safety considerations—particularly when a pet is already taking veterinary-prescribed anxiety medication. Some supplements may help pets with mild or situational anxiety, while others can support a broader treatment plan involving medication, environmental management and behaviour modification....

Adopting a Dog changes lives There’s no better feeling than adopting a dog but it’s important to remember it can take a few weeks, or even months, for them to fully adjust to their new surroundings and family members. Adopting a dog is a lifelong commitment and you will need to dedicate time to help them settle in and train them. It can be quite...

Independence training is important at all stages of a dog’s life to help build their confidence and comfort in being left alone. As a dog behaviourist, I am seeing many owners that are having problems with their puppies and even older dogs due to anxiety and a lack of proper socialisation, or even too much and inappropriate socialisation. Unfortunately, many puppies missed out on puppy...

New Year’s Eve is a time of celebration with millions of people across the country enjoying the many fireworks displays that will light up our skies. Unfortunately for the hundreds and thousands of pets that are exposed to fireworks during the Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations,  and again over Australia Day, this is the most terrorising time of the year that results in a...

With many friends and families preparing to get together over the festive season, here's my top tips for keeping pets safe at Christmas. With some people finding this time stressful, which our pets pick up, along with more people gathering in the home, noisy events, thunderstorms and extreme heat, the festive season really can be a time that we see frustration and even aggression emerge...

Having your pet go missing is a very traumatic experience, and it can be hard to know what to do if you have a lost dog or cat. The importance of microchipping your dog and cat Even though the microchipping of dogs and cats is compulsory across most of Australia, far too many of them end up lost and in shelters due to contact details...

Thunderstorm anxiety is common in many dogs, causing them to be come extremely stressed and fearful long before us humans can even hear a rumble thunder. Dogs have much an acute sense of sound and can hear far better than we do. They hear nearly twice as many frequencies than we do, so they can hear sounds much farther away and higher than we do....

Keeping dogs safe in the heat is the responsibility of all pet owners. The risk of heatstroke Heatstroke is a major threat to our pets when hot weather hits and can lead to multiple organ dysfunction. Unlike us humans, dogs can't sweat to cool themselves so they can heat up very quickly if left inside a car in warm weather, taken out on long walks...

Winter can be tough on our dogs and is a time of the year when some owners can become complacent on providing the level of care their dogs need, so Winter safety for dogs should be a top priority as the temperature drops. Having evolved over millions of years to become our closest companion animal, dogs rely solely on us to provide them with the...

With the Easter long weekend coming up, many families are coming together and bringing along their pets.  To help keep your pets safe over this holiday period, Petstock vet Dr Tara Morris and I have compiled some of our top Easter safety tips for pets. Keep the hot cross buns, chocolates and lollies away While you might be serving hot cross buns, chips, dips, other...