This Vet Can Help Your Pet Behave Well

A dog who whines all day when he’s home alone or growls when you get too close to his plate of food.

A cat who keeps crushing your new kitten or is terrified of the vet.

We are all obsessed with our pets and want them to be healthy and happy. But where do you turn when it’s your pet’s behavior, not their physiology, that’s pulling on your last leash?

No, it’s not César Milan. But Bridgewater-based animal behaviorist Dr. Jennifer Feeney can help.

Feeney, who owns 11 cats, has been a veterinarian for 30 years and works at Bridgewater Veterinary Hospital on Route 202-206. She also volunteers at the Somerset Regional Animal Shelter in Bridgewater, Animal Alliance in Lambertville and St. Hubert Animal Welfare Center in Madison.

With a certification in applied animal behavior, she also owns her own business, Build a Better Bond Pet Behavior Management. She helps pet owners diagnose and create a behavior modification plan to address separation anxiety, aggression, house soiling, excessive barking, fears of things like the vet or fireworks, difficulty settling in at night, and more.

She was inspired to get certified after COVID-19 when she witnessed the “nightmare of animals suffering from separation anxiety,” she said, as people with pets returned to the office and the animals just couldn’t cope with it.

“My clients were asking me questions I didn’t know how to answer,” Feeney said. “I have always been interested in pet behavior, so I realized I needed to do a lot more to help these animals and their parents.”

Finding help for an animal’s upsetting behavior is difficult. There are only 72 certified pet behaviorists in the country and two in New Jersey. Although Feeney has certification and is not a certified pet behaviorist, she has crossed state lines to help pet families in need.

The $425 process begins with a family filling out a nine-page questionnaire detailing everything from how much exercise the pet gets to what the first weeks of its life were like. “This is all crucial information,” Feeney said.

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Then, she goes to the family home to observe the animal’s behavior.

“There are some things you can’t see in an exam room,” Feeney said. “For example, one of my cases was where a dog became aggressive when other dogs tried to eat. If I hadn’t been to their house, I wouldn’t have realized that the food was near the entrance and that this dog was very possessive of space, so we moved the food away from the doors.

After the visit, Feeney sends pet parents a behavior report with suggested next steps. “For most problems, there are 10 solutions,” she said. One of these actions is often to hire a pet trainer.

“Most people don’t know about training a dog other than teaching them to ‘sit,’ and they give them a treat and they’re lucky,” Feeney said. “But if we do something like reactivity, where a dog can’t walk because it reacts too strongly to other dogs or strangers, no owner can train their dog on their own.”

Another one of these steps often involves prescribing temporary anti-anxiety medications to the pet. It’s not a favorite of homeowners — something Feeney sees as indicative of how Americans view mental health as a whole — but it can make a world of difference.

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“By the time people come to me, we need to decrease the anxiety of these animals so they can learn their new situation,” Feeney said. “Most people don’t want to give their pet medication, but if your pet had diabetes, you would give them insulin, right? If your pet suffers from severe anxiety that makes it difficult to concentrate, why wouldn’t you want to give him medication to make him healthy? »

The process includes three months of follow-up via email and phone calls. In the two years that Feeney has been a pet behaviorist, no animal has required a second home visit from Feeney for the same problem.

However, Feeney said, 75 percent of the dogs she sees probably wouldn’t even need the help of an animal behaviorist if they got enough exercise and mental enrichment — especially if he These are working dog breeds.

“We have spent centuries breeding dogs to work, hunt and herd, then we buy them, put them alone in our homes for eight hours, walk them for 20 minutes twice a day and expect them to be happy,” Feeney said. “And they can’t – they weren’t created for that.” We did not create them.

Feeney said dogs, especially working dog breeds, need several hours of exercise a day, which doesn’t include just going out in the yard alone. This includes running, chasing a ball, playing, or even using the dog treadmill.

If dog owners can’t do that, Feeney said, they should take their dogs to daycare or hire a dog walker to walk them several times a day.

Dog owners have many enrichment options. Classes in agility, scent work and even herding are available for dogs. They may also spend half an hour throwing bits of food in the hallway, so even one meal can be mentally stimulating for a pet. There are also toys for dogs and cats to extend and enrich the delivery of pet meals.