The Pet Parent Hotline

Cats are incredibly good at hiding pain, and sometimes the first clue that something is wrong doesn't look like pain at all. It looks like a change in behavior.

Maybe your cat suddenly stops hanging out with you. They're less tolerant of another cat. Their eating or litter-box habits change. They start biting when touched somewhere they never minded before. Or they're simply acting a little... off.

In this episode, Amy talks with Cer...

Would you dump somebody because your pet didn’t like them?

A new survey found that nearly one in four pet parents say a pet’s negative reaction to someone they’re dating would be an immediate deal breaker. Which sounds pretty reasonable... until you meet Nash, the Golden Retriever who recently greeted a burglar inside his house by bringing him toys.

So how much should we really trust our pets’ reactions to peo...

Getting a dog to take a pill can turn into a ridiculous battle of wills, especially when they somehow eat everything except the medication.

In this episode, Amy shares 10 tricks she’s learned from years of owning, fostering, rescuing, and medicating dogs of all shapes, sizes, and ages. The key isn’t finding one magical food that works for every dog. It’s figuring out how your dog approaches food and choosing a stra...

You see your pet every day, which means you’re in the best position to notice when something starts to change. The problem? Seeing them every day can also make gradual changes surprisingly easy to miss.

In this episode of The Pet Parent Hotline, Amy walks through eight simple at-home pet health checks you can do about once a month to get more familiar with what’s normal for your pet and spot changes that may be worth men...

This month’s Pet Parent Power Up is a little different: no intro music, minimal editing, and recorded on the fly to follow up on an important question from Sunday’s episode.

What should you do when you notice your pet doing something differently? Maybe your dog suddenly hesitates before jumping into the car, your cat starts sleeping somewhere new, or a pet who used to love a certain activity seems less interested.

Before ...

Treating your pets fairly doesn’t mean treating them all the same.

In this episode, Amy looks at how age, health, mobility, personality, behavior, and even personal preferences can mean very different needs for pets living under the same roof. From secret extra meals for a skinny senior cat to different exercise, rules, accommodations, and attention, the goal isn’t perfect equality. It’s paying attention to the ind...

What happens when the person who usually answers the Pet Parent Hotline needs help from the listeners?

Amy is finally in her new house (new to her, but built in 1957), but "moved in" might be a generous description. Most of the furniture and pet gear are still in storage, the floors and painting aren't done, she needs a new roof, and she's currently recording from an echoey bedroom furnished with a semi-deflated air mattress.

More im...

Summer has a way of knocking routines loose and pushing pet care tasks to “later.” Before fall gets busy, this is a good time for dog, cat, and other pet parents to catch up on the things that have quietly slipped down the list.

In this solo episode, Amy covers the pet care tasks worth handling now, from vet appointments and grooming to pet boarding, pet sitting, holiday travel, and changing routines. The goal isn’...

Pet food labels are packed with reassuring words like real chicken, high protein, complete and balanced, and superfoods. But what do those words actually tell you about the food inside the bag?

Dr. Angie Boyer, founder of Grain & Grace Consulting and a trained multi-species nutritionist, returns to help us work through a pet food label from front to back to identify what's really in our pet food.

In this episode, we cover:

• &nb...

Sensitive stomach. Weight management. Hairball control. Urinary care. Pet food labels make these diets sound highly specific, but not every claim on the package means the same thing.

In this Pet Parent Power Up, Dr. Angie Boyer explains the difference between formulas built around certain ingredient choices and claims that require more testing and scientific support.

You’ll learn:

• What makes sensitive skin and stomach foods ...

Doggy daycare can give dogs exercise, enrichment, social time, and a much-needed outlet for their energy. But a dog coming home exhausted does not automatically mean they had a great day, and not every dog enjoys or benefits from a group daycare environment.

In this episode, Amy talks with pet care professional Rich Schlatter, CPACP, about how to tell whether your dog truly likes daycare, what a proper evaluation should look like, a...

I thought buying a house with pets meant finding enough space, a decent yard, and hopefully a fence. Then I started walking through houses with three dogs and three cats in mind.

Now I’m looking at how close the road is, whether Gunny can manage the stairs as she gets older, whether my blind cat could fall through an open staircase, and how much it would cost to make a beautiful property truly safe and manageable for all of us...

What Really Happened Moving 2,200 Miles With Six Pets

Moving six pets from Texas to Massachusetts in an RV sounded manageable on paper. Then came the delayed departure, Houston rush-hour traffic, tire-pressure warnings, a check-engine light, a crying cat, an unexpected campground wedding and a bulldog who created two separate crime scenes.

In this follow-up to the lessons-from-the-road episode, Amy sits down with her friend Bev Brook...

Moving cross-country with pets is not the same as taking your dog for a quick ride around town.

In this episode of The Pet Parent Hotline, Amy shares the practical lessons she learned from a 2,200-mile move with one other adult and six pets. This is not a perfect travel checklist or a generic pet travel episode. It is the real-life stuff that matters when you’re on the road for days, juggling multiple animals, an RV, a car, ov...

Behavioral euthanasia is one of the hardest and most misunderstood decisions a pet parent may ever face. While most people think of euthanasia as something reserved for pets who are elderly, sick, or physically suffering, serious behavior problems can also become quality-of-life and safety issues.

In this episode of The Pet Parent Hotline, board-certified veterinary behaviorist Dr. Lore Haug explains what behavioral euthanasia actua...

If you’ve ever said, “We tried training, and it didn’t work,” this episode is for you.

This week, Amy talks with Em Breslin, host of the podcast The Dog Who Asked for More, about why dog training sometimes fails and what pet parents may be missing when they feel stuck. Em is a dog trainer, Certified Professional Canine Nutritionist, and retired veterinary technician with more than 20 years of experience in ve...

What do you do when the life you built around your pets, your purpose, and your plans no longer fits the life you're actually living?

In this raw, personal episode, Amy talks about leaving the seven-acre Texas property she bought with her husband less than two years before he died of COVID. What once felt like a dream built around rescue, animals, space, and a future together eventually became more than she could keep carrying on he...

Most pet parents see veterinarians during some of the most stressful moments of pet ownership: when a pet is sick, injured, aging, or facing an expensive medical decision. But what many people never see is the pressure veterinarians themselves are carrying into those conversations.

In this episode, Amy sits down with equine veterinarian, stand-up comedian, and author Dr. Matt Evans to talk about the human side of veterinary medicine...

Most people who find tiny kittens think the shelter is the safest place to take them. But when kittens are newborns or bottle babies, the shelter may not have the staff, fosters, supplies, or overnight care needed to keep them alive.

In this episode of The Pet Parent Hotline, Amy talks with Deborah Felin-Magaldi of Helen Sanders CatPAWS about what really happens during kitten season when neonatal kittens enter an already overwhelmed...