Socializing Your Pet During Social Distancing

Elsie Hamilton — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 19:24:35 +0000

Socializing your new dog is a very important part of bringing them into your family. Having a properly socialized dog is key to building their own confidence, and it can make your life much easier as well! When dogs know how to act with one another they can build real friendships, which really takes the load off of you. Playing with other dogs is a great way for them to exercise and get their “zoomies” out during the day. When dogs are comfortable around other animals and humans it makes vet visits much easier, allows you to travel without worrying about them 24/7, and leads to overall happier and healthier pets! Now here comes the dilemma, how do we socialize our pets during times of social distancing? We’ve scripted out a quick guide to help tip-toe the lie between staying safe and letting our dogs play!

Step 1: Pick a Trustworthy Walking Partner!

If you have a friend or two who also have a dog, become walking partners! If you and a friend are both confident in your health, bringing your dogs out on a walk together is a great way to socialize your pup! Practicing social distancing is still very important, but your dogs can still interact if you and your friend are 6 feet apart. That’s the beauty of having a long leash!

Step 2: Show Them The World!

Socializing your dog goes further than simply meeting other dogs and people. Getting accustomed to new sights, sounds, and smells is very important as well. Once your dog is comfortable in your neighborhood, take them somewhere new for a walk. Once our quarantine is over, I’m sure many of us will want to be out and about as often as possible. If your dog is not used to new experiences, it can be overwhelming to them to randomly be tossed into a new situation day after day. By showing them the outside world piece by piece, they will be much better prepared for all of their new experiences.

Step 3: Prepare Your Pet For The Vet!

Your pet’s first vet experience can be traumatizing for them. A person they don’t know takes them into a room they’ve never been, and brings out a bunch of scary tools! If your pet is well socialized with other humans and animals, this experience will go much more smoothly. It is also important to get them used to new procedures. By rewarding your dog for new experiences, they will become eager to explore the world even further! Find something metallic, like nail clippers, and touch them to your dog’s paws and nails. It may spook them a little bit at first, until you give them a treat! Once they realize that these metallic tools won’t hurt them, and often lead to snacks, they will stop fearing the process of trimming their nails. Repeat this process for baths, haircuts, and even shots! The more experiences your dog relates positively to, the better off they will be when it’s time to face the real world!

We hope everyone is staying safe and staying sane during these weird and unusual times. It may come as a surprise, but now is a great time to bring a new pet into your family. The amount of time we spend at home will likely never be this high again, allowing you to create an incredibly close bond with your pets. Obviously, socializing your dog is an incredibly important part of that as well. We hope this helps you all find the line between social distancing, and socializing your pets!

Sincerely,

The Lilly Brush Team

Elsie Hamilton

old.lillybrush.com

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Helping Shelters in This Time of Need

Elsie Hamilton — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 19:31:31 +0000

Adopting a pet is always an admirable thing to do. There are thousands of good cats and dogs in shelters seeking a new home every day, and now more than ever they need our help. With the coronavirus having such an impact on daily operations in many cities across the country, these shelter animals are at risk of being euthanized. Shelters in New York, Tennessee, Virginia, and Texas have already begun pleading with locals to consider becoming temporary foster homes; and this is just the beginning. We’ve shared a few ways that you can help!

Fostering Animals

Emergency foster homes are the biggest thing shelters need right now. With so many shelters on the verge of being shut down, the number of animals without homes drastically outweighs the resources available to take care of them. What we can do is sign up with a local shelter and register as an emergency foster home for shelter animals. Every animal that can find a temporary foster home is a life saved if these shelters are eventually forced to shut down entirely.

Donate money

Any amount helps! It doesn’t matter if you can spare $5 or $500, every dollar donated to these shelters goes towards food and supplies to care for these animals in need. Animal shelters are non-profits as it is, and are always relying on donations to help them operate as efficiently as they can. In these trying times, they need the help more than ever. Much of their money comes from fundraising efforts, which are all of course shut down for the time being.

Donate Supplies

If you have extra pet supplies laying around, consider donating them to local shelters! Anything from food, beds, leashes, bowls, or even toys! Whatever you can spare to help care for these animals will go a very long way. Oftentimes an old dog bed or toy can hold sentimental value and are hard to part with. In times like this just try to imagine the joy it could bring to a lonely animal. We encourage you to part with whatever you can to make life better for those in need.

Spread Awareness

Lastly, help spread awareness. Follow your local shelters on Instagram and Facebook, and share their posts with your community! Spreading awareness is a huge part of helping these shelters, the more people willing to help the better!

This is a trying time for everyone, and we know that not everyone has the means to donate to shelters. Simply doing your best to spread awareness can go a very long way, and we encourage everyone to help to the best of their abilities. Together we WILL get through this!