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Coexisting With Wildlife When it Comes to Our Furry Friends-Part 2: Indirect Impacts
For me, pets were a staple part of my childhood. My parents liked animals but it also helped teach us the responsibility of taking care of another living being. I knew my first year living off campus in college I was going to have a pet. As much as I wanted a dog, I knew starting off with a cat would be best (not to mention I like cats a little more than dogs, but truly love them both). Maxwell is my cat, I adopted him from my local shelter and he has been with me for four years now. For the first year, I lived in an above garage…
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I Found a Chip(munk) on my Living Room Floor
I was going to try and write a beauty and cosmetics or food article for this week’s post since it’s been a while, but something happened this weekend that I couldn’t not write about, and since the purpose of this blog is sharing my personal journey towards sustainability, I figured I’d roll with it. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we built a catio for our four cats to be able to enjoy the outdoors safely and prevent them from harming wildlife. That said, on the rare occasion, an unfortunate northern short-tailed shrew or black capped chickadee makes its way into the catio (which I’ve learned recently is…
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Coexisting With Wildlife When It Comes To Our Furry Friends
Part 1-Direct Impacts One of my favorite things to do with my dogs is find a local trail and take them out for a hike. My dogs are trained with off leash e-collar system, so I often let them run if there are no other people and/or dogs around. I pretty much make them stick to the trail, and always keep them within eyesight. Luckily we have never run into a wild animal while on the trail, however, the mere presence of dogs can have direct and indirect impacts on local wildlife populations1. In this post I will explore the different ways our pets, primarily cats and dogs, can impact…
