Living with others, especially with pets, can be enriching, rewarding, and stressful if you don’t consider the desires and will of others. This is especially true in pets. We typically forget that pets are willful creatures that are more than mere possessions.
They have desires and things they like and dislike, even if they can’t explain to you what those things are. That said, pets provide some fantastic benefits for you and your family. They provide happiness, help alleviate stress and anxiety, lower the risk of heart attacks, and positively impact mental wellness.
With so many benefits of pet companionship apparent, you owe them the same opportunity to be happy and healthy. How you take care of your pet is critical to their overall wellness and happiness, so let’s discuss the best ways to provide a happy home for a lifetime of companionship.
Providing a Long And Happy Life For Your Pets
You need to provide a safe environment for your pets at the primary level. Ensuring that there aren’t dangerous or toxic elements around the home is the bare minimum that you should do for your four-legged companions.
However, providing the proper amount of nutrition, exercise, and routine veterinary visits are the pillars of wellness. These pillars of wellness, taken together, are defined as a holistic approach to wellness. That is, each component is paired together for total health.
Providing a Safe Environment For Your Pets
The primary factor in providing the safest environment for your pets is to ensure they have adequate room to wander, explore, and express their physical and emotional needs. Animals, like people, have a difficult time confined to small spaces.
In turn, anxiety, stress, poor health, and negative behaviors result. A workaround to small apartments and homes is to be sure that the animals have an opportunity to be outside daily, whether on a leash, unleashed, or other outdoor opportunities.
Cat Lovers
Having a cat companion is considerably different from having a dog or other animal. That’s because cats intuitively are in constant fight and flight mode and need a safe place for them to relax. To keep your cat happy, you need to provide space for the following:
- A safe place to hide, relax and sleep.
- A place to run and chase (otherwise known as predatory traits).
- Separate spaces for food, water, and waste.
- And provide consistent companion play and nurture time.
As your cat ages, expect various changes to its behaviors. They may become more or less dependent on you as a pet parent and have other personality changes. Also, your cat will have varying levels of anxiety as they age.
Some may be due to an underlying disease, while for others, the home environment may have changed some, making your cat anxious for the potential of threats. There are many ways to minimize your cat’s anxiety or underlying health issues, from holistic and CBD oil treatments to more prescribed therapeutics.
Dog Lovers
Raising a happy, healthy dog is different from a happy cat. Dogs are much more social animals than cats and require much more regular socialization as a result. To raise a happy, healthy dog requires four main pillars:
- Exercise
- Nutrition
- Training
- Routine Veterinary Visits
Exercise helps strengthen the skeletal-muscular system, cardiovascular and respiratory function. It also aids with appetite control and waste production, eases anxiety, and improves moods.
Part of mood regulation comes from getting enough exercise to alleviate the stresses your dog may experience, especially if you have to leave it behind at home for long periods. Often dogs will exhibit stress and anxiety in behaviors such as excessive itching.
Of course, any dog owner knows the pain of shedding, but sometimes that may be a byproduct of itching. Therefore, learning about how to stop a dog from shedding requires an understanding of your dog’s psychology and an evaluation from the veterinarian.
Nutrition is a mainstay of optimal health, and your dog’s diet is no different. Of course, dogs need a heavy diet of protein with some carbohydrates and fats mixed in, but overall, protein is the key to their well-being.
Training is a critical part of your dog’s wellness, both physically and especially emotionally. In addition, training reinforces the bonds between the pet and pet parent and serves to teach proper behaviors.
Routine veterinary examinations are vital for your dog’s health in much the same way as a health exam is ideal for your own health. By knowing how to take good care of your pets, you can help ensure a long and happy life for them in your home!
