ArcaMax

Dear Cathy,

My son adopted a rescue cat about four months ago. He’s an eight-year-old male who has suffered some unknown trauma. They kept him in his own room at the rescue where my son was volunteering and they bonded.

When my son brought him home, though, he crawled under a dresser and has lived there ever since other than to come out and ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- For decades scientists and researchers have been vexed by a sound emanating from cats. Not a call of the wild, a roar or a hiss. No, multiple academics have attempted to decipher the meaning behind the mightily adorable meow of the domestic house cat.

Cats, it turns out, are conversationalists. And good news for cat parents: ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Dating is hard. And complicating matters, was it possible my cat could be seen as, if not an outright red flag, a deterrent?

Cats come with stigmas. Everyone knows the outdated and offensive characterization of a cat lady — a stereotype conjuring images of solitude, eccentricities and probably cartons of ice cream.

But cat ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Gnocchi sits attentively on a Beverly Grove sidewalk with his owner, Julia Luke. Gnocchi wears a pink collar with his name on it, an air tag and a red harness with a leash. He observes the neighbors. He sniffs the grass. He watches bugs crawl in the dirt.

"People know Gnocchi's name before they know mine," Luke said.

But seeing...Read more

Dear Cathy,

A few years ago, we had to make the heartbreaking decision to rehome our dog, Dolly. We adopted her at three and had her for nearly four years. After several incidents where she bit or made contact with adults and children, we realized we could no longer safely manage her around visitors. We tried training, but it didn't work. She ...Read more

Dear Cathy,

Pup Pup is five years old, and has been with me since mid-March. She is a great dog and excellent companion, but she doesn’t accept commands like sit or stay, and walking is a holy train wreck. She’ll walk a few steps, then go behind me or just stop. She was dumped by her former owners.

She loves me, and I feel the same about ...Read more

Dear Cathy,

I have a six-year-old lap cat who follows me from room to room and is very much my constant companion. I am going out of town for six nights, the longest I have ever left her. A teenager will come by twice a day to feed her, but I worry that may not be enough. My son could take her to his house, but would she be more comfortable ...Read more

Dear Cathy,

I am desperate for help with my adopted, six-year-old mixed terrier. My dog is extremely reactive to people and dogs, so I cannot trust him except in our house where he is loving and obedient. I have been to a behaviorist, three weeks of daily training as well as one on one with a reputable trainer. Lastly, he got suspended from day...Read more

Dear Cathy,

I am seeking your advice on taking a trip with our two cats who are about 15 months old. My husband is in the beginning stages of dementia, and they have become a support for him. The drive is about 12 hours on the first day and six hours on the second. In addition, we are trying to get them used to a harness to be able to walk ...Read more

Cats have a reputation for contributing very little to household management.

They sleep on freshly folded laundry, knock pens off desks, sit directly on whatever you are trying to read and occasionally announce at 3 a.m. that a closed door represents an intolerable violation of their civil rights.

Yet your cat may be doing more around the ...Read more

Dogs share our homes, our routines and often our beds, but the world they experience is remarkably different from the one humans know. Their eyes process color differently, their vision favors movement over fine detail, and their noses provide information so rich that sight may not even be their most important sense.

Understanding how dogs ...Read more

There are few sights more impressive than a dog standing proudly beside a hole large enough to qualify for its own ZIP code.

You left the yard for 10 minutes. The dog apparently hired a backhoe.

Digging is one of those canine habits that can range from mildly annoying to full-scale landscape destruction. A determined dog can uproot flowers, ...Read more

A 2-year-old red panda named Ruby died at the Santa Barbara Zoo this week, weeks after the deaths of her two newborn cubs.

Director of Animal Care Kristen Wieners said Ruby had shown signs of distress last weekend. She was brought to the zoo's animal hospital and underwent extensive testing, but her condition declined rapidly. She died ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — Pinellas County, Florida, has a serious pig problem.

“We’ve got too many people taking in pigs,” Judge Kathleen Hessinger told a courtroom packed with animal lovers last week. “They get too big. People can’t take care of them.”

Maybe, she said, the county should just ban pig sales.

She was hearing the case of a 350...Read more

Dear Cathy,

I have a four-year-old female black lab. She is very social and loves to play with other dogs. We meet up with the same group of dogs every morning and they all get along great.

The problem is my dog has started humping one of the other dogs instead of playing with her. This dog is also a female black lab and is two years old. They...Read more

“The Exorcist” actress Linda Blair is reflecting on the recent raid on her property in Southern California, where she runs a large-scale kennel operation for rescue dogs.

Blair took to Instagram Tuesday just days after her property was searched as part of a joint operation between the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control...Read more

Dear Annie: My husband and I recently welcomed our first baby, and we are exhausted but overjoyed. We live in an apartment building, and after weeks of trial and error, we finally started getting our daughter onto a somewhat predictable sleep schedule.

The problem is our next-door neighbor's dog. It barks at everything: people in the hallway, ...Read more