and Maya are you stressed out are you stressed out
no you just beautiful that's all you are what is up everybody this is Chris from
the rewired soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and
that was my beautiful little kitty named Maya and I know a lot of you out there
are pet owners just like me and you love your pets just like I do and something I
try to teach all of you on my channel is that our mental health is just as
important as our physical health and some of you caught my last guest video
from dr. Alex Avery who is a vet and if you can come over to my channel and talk
about mental health and animals so I know that I've with my mom's dog and
stress for cats is kind of a big deal so for all of you pet owners out there i
asked dr. alice to come on over to my channel talk about some of the triggers
for anxiety as well as some solutions because you know how we do here on the
rewired soul so without further ado this is dr. Alex Avery from the channel our
pets health I will put links to his channel in the info card as well as in
the description down below make sure you go check out his channel but take it
away dr. alex hi so i'm dr. alex from the youtube channel our pets health and
also from our pets health calm and I've really like to thank Chris for inviting
me to come onto his channel to talk to you today about the mental health and
stress in cats and dogs my catch phrase is helping you and your pet to live a
healthier happier life and I strongly believe that if you have pets then their
health has a strong impact on your health as their owner I mean time again
has proven that having a pet is really beneficial for our sense of well-being
but having a sick pet can be you know very detrimental it can be very
stressful and actually if you've got a sick pet and you want to learn more
about this then I've invited Chris to come on to my channel to talk about some
of the strategies that that you can use to help cope with and deal with having a
sick pet and having to look after them and
medicate them and all that goes with that so that's a side I wanted to talk
to you today about stress and specifically stress in our cats and dogs
so stress regardless of species has a detrimental effect to the body
it's delays wound healing it causes increased risk of infection and you know
our cats and dogs that are stressed they're just miserable they also suffer
from a lot of stress-related conditions so cats will start urine spraying
they'll start scratching everywhere they might stop over grooming so they'll
actually lick themselves bold and cause real damage in some cases just
completely because of stress they'll also maybe develop cystitis and a male
cat sisters Titus can actually cause blocks bladder which in itself can be
fatal and that is entirely stress-related problem although there
are other things that can cause that as well so dogs to experience problems they
can become really aggressive they can be destructive they can just freak out when
you you know and leave them for just a really short period of time they can
inappropriately urinate defecate so there are lots of different causes of
stress in our cats they're generally solitary animals so just having lots of
other cats in the house is stressful in itself even if you think they're getting
on chances are that they're under a degree of stress and that can be due to
availability of food water toilets it can be stressed with territory just the
other cat in the neighborhood kind of walking through the back garden could be
really stressful or building work I might be out in the road it might be
building work in the house a new baby arriving maybe another pet another dog
having strangers in the house certainly for those cats that are more prone to
stress actually it can be very subtle things that just set them off and it can
sometimes be really hard to identify exactly what the stressful problem is
and in some cases it's just impossible dogs too can be affected by the same
thing and in dogs I guess socialization is a really big
one so the need to socialize our dogs when they're puppies and cats as well
really benefit from socialization but yes we think of it more in dogs so
socializing them when they're young so help them come across different noises
different people just all kinds of different experiences if they do that
then they're gonna be much better well-rounded individuals I'm unable to
cope and a lot of the behavioral problems we see in our dogs especially
it's due to a poor socialization and that's really kind of a period up to
about 16 18 weeks of age so it's you know their first few months of life
thankfully there's a lot that we can do about it and today I want to give you 10
tips to reduce stress in your cat or dog so my first tip is that much like our
mental health it won't get better by itself so if your cat or dog is super
stressed about something even if they're only mildly stressed about something you
really need to recognize that and do something about it it's only going to
get worse with time and we see this time and again that an owner will mention you
know a small behavior change one year at their vaccinations and health check
appointment you'll give some recommendations and they'll come back
the next year and say you know things have got worse you say well have you
done next whines heads you know and the answer is no and there's many reasons
for that you know life is busy and it may not take priority but really any
behavioral problems any stress problems are not going to get better by
themselves so getting them checked out getting advice and implementing some
strategies is really important so one thing that will often give either as
temporary measure if we're then putting in other changes or if we're expecting
kind of short periods of stress is using pheromone therapy so pheromones are
chemicals that are released in different situations by different species but can
only be detected by that species so in cats we've got something called feline
facial pheromone so if you haven't noticed a cat they're kind of like
brushing their cheek up along something they're releasing this this pheromone
against that object into their environment and that helps them feel at
home it helps gonna mark their territory mark
their safe space and dogs have a kind of similar effect with a pheromone called
dog appeasing pheromone so these things they're like little plug-in air
fresheners although they also come in collars for dogs and sprays for using in
say cat carriers or or something like that and they just
help our dog and our cat to relax help them feel more at home and can really go
a long way to helping reduce stress hopefully what other measures are taken
to reduce that stress long term although you know these pheromones can be used
long term it gets quite expensive if you're doing it that way I mentioned
before cats and resources that's a big stress for cats
and you know only having food in one place in a multi-cat household it's
really an nono it's bound to be stressful as a general rule for food and
for water and for litter trays we should be having one more of each of those than
the number of cats in the household and that's set in separate places as well so
if you've got three cats really you need for food bowls and that is food bowls in
different locations not right next to each other for water bowls they could be
next to the food bowls and for litter trays and little trays need to be
separate from the food and water stations you know that's fairly
self-explanatory we don't want to eat in the toilet and nor do our cats so the
next thing that we can do is we can provide a safe space for our pets to go
so cats they like getting up high they like going into enclosed spaces so maybe
the top of a cupboard the top of a Wardrobe something like that you know
somewhere that your cat likes to go you just leave you know all that always
leave the door open so they have access to that you know provide a nice soft bed
a blanket down there just so that if they're feeling anxious they're feeling
stressed that's their safe place that they can go with dogs we could have that
crate if you've got a crate for them or that spot behind the sofa it's just out
of the way it's quiet it's maybe a little bit darker but it's their safe
space that they can go if they are feeling a bit stressed and they will
often take themselves away to that spot if things are just getting a little bit
too much okay so my fifth tip to reduce stress in our cats and dogs is to
recognize stressful events and act appropriately so if you know that your
dog always gets really stressed around fireworks or around storms and thunder
then recognizing that at certain times of year that that might be a problem or
you know watching the weather forecast and anticipating when storms are coming
and acting accordingly so there are strategies that we can use for for
phobias like that and that's too much to get into today but find out what works
and anticipate those so it might be a thunder shirt it might be playing music
closing the curtains might be actually trying to desensitize them to that fear
so recognizing the fear and acting accordingly it's not going to get better
by itself like I said before exercise is my next tip it's good for us it's good
for our dogs and it's good for our cats so it's been shown that regular walking
of our dogs can help just reduce their stress levels I haven't read anything
about cats but I can't see why they'd be any different so playing with them you
know getting a laser getting a mouse toy out and playing with them but just
getting out and about getting them to exercise raise their heart rate burn off
a few calories has been shown to significantly reduce stress in dogs and
I imagine the same is true for cats okay my next two tips more for cats one is to
secure their environment there's nothing more stressful than having other cats
come into the house and eating your pets food using their litter tray it's just a
nightmare and as you can imagine they really don't cope with that very well
so securing the house now that might involve actually not using a cat flap
letting them in and out through the door or in might involve using a microchip
cat flap so it actually just reads the microchip that hopefully is already
inside your cat just under their skin it reads that microchip and will only let
them in or out obviously it can be programmed to several different chips if
you've got a number of cats but they work really well I certainly had the
problem with my cats where other cats were coming into the garage they were
eating the food and yeah my cats were getting stressed microchip cat flap
reader net just sorted that out completely the next tip is to allow your
cat to come and go as they please so our cats you know they're very territorial
but they will share territories with other cats and they are very well aware
of who's where and when they will pass through each other's territory so they
develop a strategy to avoid confrontation and and avoid fighting
if you though are kicking your cats out or only letting them in at certain
periods of time then you know when they want to be in certain places and isn't
going to coincide with when they're actually there so
again will lead to stress and my final tip is just to seek professional advice
so that might be from your vet it might be from an animal behaviorist or a
trainer so just approaching these people just having a chat about what problems
you're experiencing and recognizing that there will be solutions so there's
seldom a quick fix but with a little bit of effort especially if you're
recognizing it soon and acting as soon a little bit of effort upfront will make
all the difference to your cat or your dog stress levels and if you don't have
a stress cat or a dog then you won't be quite so stressed as well I'd really
like to thank Chris again for inviting me to talk to you guys remember head
over to my channel our pets health or our pets health com where Chris is going
to have a video up for me all about helping you guys cope with the stress of
looking after a dog or a cat with long-term illness that can in itself
cause depression and anxiety and all kinds of problems in us so if that's
something that interests you or if you just want to know how to help your dog
or your cat have a healthier happier life be sure to head over to my channel
thanks again to Chris for inviting me to come and speak to you and until next
time take care alright thank you so much dr. Alice for coming over here to do
this guest video and Mike honestly I learned a lot from watching his video
like I'm kind of a new pet owner I've had Maya for a little over a year I've
now I've never really owned pets but I just kind of wanted a little kitty so
this this video was very helpful to me and knowing what my my cat's triggers
are as well as some solutions for is very helpful and as a pet owner it helps
calm me down quite a bit now I'll be honest I know you're gonna watch this
Alex oh I forgot that I needed to do a video for your channel so this is an IOU
and I promise you that I will have it up over on his channel very soon so if
you're a pet owner here's another plug make sure you go
over to dr. Alex's Channel our pets health again it will be linked up there
and down there and I'll also put it in the info card make sure that you go
subscribe to his channel because really soon I'm gonna be doing a guest video
about how to deal with the stress that and the emotions of taking care of a
sick pet alright so make sure you go subscribe to his channel okay but
anyways if you like this video make sure you give it a thumbs up and please go
ahead and leave comments down below let me know about your little critters and
how you help calm them down when they're feeling stressed or anxious make sure
you leave with some comments okay but anyways as always if you are new here
make sure you hit the subscribe button on my channel because I'm always making
videos to help you out with your mental and emotional well-being and as promised
if you check it out right there there is a link to dr. Alex's Channel go over
there show him some love hit that subscribe button he has a ton a
ton of videos about how to take care of your pets better alright but you're all
amazing thanks for watching and I'll see you next time