The really short answer is the sooner, the better. Because of that opportunity for practicing and further ingraining the behavior, the sooner we intervene, the better the chances of getting opportunities to have a positive outcome.

Maybe. I guess it depends on the behavior and what was causing it. In most cases, if problem behavior is developed, there are things going on in their life that frequently trigger that behavior. Unless we do something to change that, the behavior is not likely going to change.

That's a sticky question. On the one hand, we know that dogs have not been able to breed on their own. They've been chosen selectively, specifically by people, to have certain traits. Especially the working breed, your herding dogs, and so on, they will have some consistent behavior patterns. Still, even when we look at them, they're still unique individuals because their life experiences and what they've learned will also play a big role. So it's not hard and fast. The way I like to put it is that we all have those days when we, at some point, say that we're not going to behave like our father. And then, when we're parenting, we say something like, because I told you so. So we're not doomed, though. There are going to be some tendencies that we will always express that are inherited from our ancestors, but we can also learn and grow because we're each our own unique individual. That's the same for our animals as well. The real concern I have is when we start to make overgeneralizations of groups, and this can be a real problem with breed-specific legislation. Having bans on Pitties or Dobermans in apartment complexes or municipalities has been consistently shown not to keep the community safer. Based on their physical appearance, we can't judge how they'll behave. We still have to treat each one of them as unique.

That's a really good question. Think of it this way. Every time your dog has an opportunity to express that behavior, it's kind of like practicing. Even though practicing doesn't make it perfect, it can definitely make it permanent. So the more times they do this behavior, the more difficult it will be for us to create some kind of change and have the outcome we desire.

Yes, there are quite a few. We often start with antihistamines, but sometimes we start out with steroids, depending on the severity. There are also other long-term treatments for cats.

The first thing is to schedule an appointment to come in, so we can rule out any other causes of what's happening to your cat at the time and what is causing their symptoms.

Yes, they can definitely be related to it. They're usually more reacting to smoke or some irritant, but they can have allergies that are worsened by asthma.