Many people are going to shelters and pet rescue organizations to adopt a new family member. This can be a great way to add a pet to your home. Many of the pets are screened for health problems and have had vaccinations, heartworm testing and other wellness care. What can be difficult to know ahead of the adoption is how easily this pet will adjust to your home. There are steps you can take to help your new rescued pet adjust to your home. 
 
Dogs and cats like to be able to predict or know when good things are going to happen. So feeding, walking, play, and greetings (when you come home from work) should be on a regular schedule. When walks or playtime are haphazard, or your times of coming and going vary frequently this can add anxiety to the pet adjusting to your home. If there are many different people coming and going at all hours or different days without much pattern, this too will make it hard for the pet to adjust. So, if your life is very unpredictable, make it more regular. 
 
Have your pet's own bed, food bowls, leash and crate or area of happy confinement set up before they come to you. When they arrive show them these areas and reward them verbally or with a food item whenever they go there for the first few weeks. Do not assume they will figure it all out. They have had a lot of change and do not know what the rules are for this home. Also if you have another pet, make sure you follow the recommendations for introductions. You can find out how to introduce new cats to cats, and dogs to dogs on my website. Meetings at the shelter may have been fine, but in the new home things may be a little different.
 
If your new pet is not eating, hiding, or having trouble toileting in the right areas, they are very anxious about the transition. Contact  the rescue to find out if there is anything in particular that this pet likes or needs to be happy. If that does not help, then seek the help of your veterinarian to find out ways to reduce this pet's anxiety. Often calming pheromones such as DAP or Feliway are recommended for the adjustment period. 
 
Sadly, many dogs end up in rescues due to unruly or other undesired behaviors that only show up in a home setting. This can be very frustrating for the new owners. We do not know if there has been outright abuse, or escalating anxieties due to so much change for the pet. The good thing is that these pets can often times still be helped even if we do not know their whole history. When your new rescue is causing some kind of distress in your new home  such as biting or housetraining problems, call a veterinarian. A complete examination may reveal a health problem that was not addressed or recognized at the rescue. These problems often worsen behavior. If there needs to be more complete behavioral  management, your veterinarian is the best person to recommend a training or therapy plan through their office or referral to a veterinary behaviorist. Force, or traditional training techniques often worsen the fear based problems. These problems need to handled in the right way with the correct diagnosis. There are medications to help these pets learn, which only your veterinarian can prescribe and recommend for safe use.
 
Opening your home to a rescue pet can be a rewarding way to add to your family. Sometimes it can also be a challenge. 

 
It amazes many pet owners how their dog or cat can get into things on the counters, especially in the kitchen. Sometimes the foods or medications a pet can knock off the counter and chew up can be harmful. Even non harmful items (say a loaf of bread) can be very frustrating to lose to your pet. There are ways to keep your pets off the counter that do work without resorting to punishment. A little understanding about why our pets get up there, even when we tell them no, may help us humans to keep the pets off the counters.

For the toy breed dogs, they really can't get much off the counter.  This is where they may wait for the cat to get up there and knock something down or if you have a bigger dog, the big dog knocks something over and the little dog eats it up before the big dog gets much. They may be working like partners in crime. The little dog may be calling attention by pawing at the cabinets or barking at the counter when you are gone, thereby alerting the other pet to get up on the counter. So be ware when you have small dogs that the little one is not always innocent. 

Any dog who's nose can come within inches of the edge of any counter is in smell heaven. Not only the food presently on the counter, but past foods, hands touching the counter and the sight of bowls, cereal boxes, and plates tells them food is near. Certain foods such as chocolate, cinnamon, cheese, or anything with meat in it is very enticing.  If it smells good to you, it smells fantastic to your pet. No matter how far back you push the item on the counter, it is so rich in smells it is too much for many pets resist. If you could watch a video on how a dog or cat will stretch it's paws while standing on the hind legs to get at the corner of the saran wrap around leftover pizza you would not believe it. I have even seen dogs that pull out a lower drawer and stand on it to get more height to get at wrapped food on the counter. Certain foods are toxic to pets. The big concern near Halloween is chocolate. This is very rich in smells and will entice even the most uninterested dog. Keep all your chocolate up on a wall shelf or in a cabinet. This includes chocolate baked goods.

Cats are usually more picky than dogs, but will still get up on the counter for certain things. Any meat, fish or cheesy smell will usually get them up there. Cats are very agile and can climb into the most unusual areas, including the top of the refrigerator. Chocolate is a problem for cats too, but a big problem is medicine left out on a plate, or bottles that caps come off easily. The cat may not be going after the medication but will knock it down on the way to the tuna salad left on the plate in the sink. Now the dropped pill is interesting, and the cat may go over and mouth or eat the medication. Cats can not metabolize many medications so keep all meds up in a cabinet with tops secure.

How do you keep your  pets off the counter without resorting to punishment? First of all keep all food off the counter when it is not being prepared or eaten by family. Have snap tight containers on shelves or ones that lock so if they get knocked over they do not open. I found a retro cake safe by Mirro made out of metal. It not only snaps close, it locks completely shut! See it on our face book and website page. This is great because the smells do not leak out and it cannot be chewed like plastic. So try to find metal holders for baked goods. Store the baked goods in the refrigerator if possible or on a high cabinet shelf.   

While you are eating enforce that the pets stay off the counters by baby gating them out of the room, praise them for not getting on the counter, and offer them something good on the floor (they eat when you eat) so there is not much fun or point on going to the counter.  You can also tie your dog to a leash at the table to enforce no counter cruising. Motion activated air spray cans that work for cats and dogs that do not depend on you to shoot at them so the negative (which is mild) is not associated with you. If your pet can not get into eating the food at all, there is not reward for getting on the counter so they will learn to stay off.

Screaming, yelling, hitting the counter, and jerking the collar does  not teach them anything but to avoid counters while you are there. It can also increase anxiety and other problems such as swallowing the evidence which leads to bigger health problems such as a poisoning. It is better to find the chewed up chocolate wrappers than nothing and not knowing they ate the chocolate.

You can find videos and articles about pet care and behavior at our website or see our facebook page.

For more information about Tapeworms visit Companion Animal Parasite Council's website. For more information about Human Tapeworm infections visit the