As the owner of two German Shepherds, affectionately known as German Shedders, I have become a bit of a fanatic about vacuuming. During the last big shed, it occurred to me that maybe I was attacking the problem from the wrong end. Instead of vacuuming the floors and furniture so often, maybe I should be vacuuming the dogs! After a week of intensive training, my dog Chloe went from avoiding the vacuum cleaner to loving it! In fact, if she doesn’t need a vacuum I have to put her in another room. Otherwise I have a dog nose bumping my hand while I try to clean.
Holiday Hints for Keeping Pets Safe
Holidays are a fun time to meet up with friends and family. It’s also a great time for your important to think of your pet during this time. Here are some simple tips and ideas to make the holidays enjoyable for everyone.
Happy Howl-o-Ween! Halloween Pet Safety

This pooch looks quite comfortable in his hot dog outfit. Remember that dressing up is not for everyone
When I was young, Halloween was one of my favorite celebrations. Not so much because of the candy (although it was definitely a bonus) but because of the chance to be someone (or something) completely different from my usual everyday self. It’s a great time to play with costume make-up, wear funky clothing, and put on things that rattle and clink.
Try to imagine this from your dog or cat’s perspective though. All of a sudden their family members all look, sound, and smell different! So do all the visitors coming to the door! You can imagine that Halloween, while fun for us humans, may be somewhat stressful for our pets.
Continue reading “Happy Howl-o-Ween! Halloween Pet Safety” »
And so it begins…
Welcome to Synergy Behavior and Beyond.
As we enter the blogosphere, we are excited to share with you a wide variety of subjects about behavior and training and about having a pet in the Portland area.
Since all of our staff are going to participate, the postings are bound to be interesting and vary quite a bit from writer to writer. We plan to review toys and training products, discuss issues related to living with a pet in Portland, talk about how to solve pet behavior problems and hopefully get to share some neat ideas with you.
We hope you enjoy it!
- Scott
