If your dog has a medical condition that requires a prescription diet, sure. But in general, I would say no.

In some situations, it can be more beneficial. I think that's more so in cats than dogs, which we can talk about in another video. Wet food just has more moisture and, in some situations, can be more easily digested. But in general, if you're using a balanced, commercially available dog diet, dry versus canned food over the long-term is probably not going to make a huge difference.

No vaccine is one hundred percent guaranteed. And so, I would always recommend that you limit contact to hanging with pets that you know are healthy and are protected in all ways, whether that's with vaccinations or good heartworm and flea and tick prevention. We want to minimize the risk to our pets to keep them as healthy as possible for as long as possible. So, I would do that in their associates and playdates as well.

There is some leeway there. If we're off by a few months even, it's not likely to be a big issue. But once you realize your cat's overdue, just give us a call, and we'll get them in to get them up to date.

Yes. So, immunity doesn't last forever. In most individuals, we sometimes need to jumpstart the immune system in the form of a booster to remind us how to keep us safe from a particular disease. And so, with most cats, we recommend seeing them every three years. We like to see them every year, but we will do them every three years for rabies and the distemper combination for boosters. And then, for those cats that need the leukemia vaccine, we typically do that every two years after kittenhood.

If your cat has always tolerated vaccinations well, it's absolutely safe to go ahead and get multiple boosters simultaneously. Just like as kids, we got two or three shots at a time to keep us safe from measles or chickenpox or things like that; the same goes with cats. We are competent in the safety of our vaccines, and it's actually safer to do multiple vaccines at once than run the risk of a kitty not getting back into the vet at the appropriate time to get the boosters they need.

So food is love with our pets. Most kittens are pretty food motivated. And so doing some hand feeding when they're young so that they see you as a source of food, and therefore affection can go a long way to build that relationship. Not many people think about this, but training can also be an excellent way to bond with your cat. It's fun—who doesn't want a cat that gives you a high five? But it also builds that bond and communication so that when you want your cat to get off the counter, or you need your cat to be safe, or you need to give your cat medication, these are all things that we can train them to be comfortable with, and that can improve our relationship over time.

So give your kittens a lot of delicious food within reason, as we don't want super chubby kitties with health problems. But using food as reinforcement and food to build bonds is essential. But youth training can also be a lot of fun. Check out YouTube. There are a million great videos of cats doing pretty amazing things.

I would say 99% of the time, the answer is yes. Scratching is normal behavior for cats, and we need to give them an outlet for it because if we don't, they will scratch things we don't want them to. And so things to think about are the surfaces. Cats have different preferences. Some cats like to scratch on carpet, some cats like cardboard, and some cats like that sisal rope that you'll see. So you need to find the substance or substances that your cats enjoy. And then locations also important. Cats oftentimes want to scratch where they are sleeping or eating. So oftentimes they'll wake up, do a good stretch and do some scratching. And so you need to have locations throughout the house where they have that opportunity and they need to have opportunities to do it on substances that they enjoy.