Tom, The Cat, and His Very Important Job & More — This Week on Pets Weekly

Pets Weekly is a series that highlights valuable headlines from around the web: From health tips, events, humor and more. We’ve got your tail covered!

In this issue of Pets Weekly:

- Tom, the Cat, and His Very important Job

- Talk to the Animals

- Why Cat Circles Work

Tom, The Cat, and His Very Important Job

Tom has a job that most would consider difficult. Tom just considers it his job. Tom is a comfort animal in the VA Medical Center in Salem, Virginia.

The families with loved ones in the hospital are just grateful that Tom is there to be with their beloved family members. Tom has been known to round up family members and usher them into the room so they would be present for the final moments. He curls up with people that are in their last hours so they won’t be alone. He is always there to comfort a patient with Alzheimer’s or to just be a calming influence to everyone in the hospital. Because of his important job, Tom is loved by everyone alike, the staff, the patients and the families.

Talk To the Animals

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a harness that will allow humans to better understand their dogs and for humans to give the dogs more consistent and appropriate feedback.

The harness, known as the Cyber-Enhanced Working Dog, has sensors that tell the handler if the dog is stressed, distracted, excited, etc. and then the handler can communicate with the dog with a voice command on the vest or by vibrating signals embedded in the vest at different locations.

The vest is being used now as a proto-type by search and rescue dogs. They hope that soon they can be used by Police and in training Seeing Eye Dogs. The harness will have the benefit to the dogs of making their trainer become more consistent with rewards and training which will lower the dogs stress.

Why Cat Circles Work

The latest video trend is to make a circle on the floor and to wait for a cat to get “trapped” in the circle. With so many cats falling for the stunt, the question is, why does it work?

One theory is that cats are territorial animals so they are glad to take possession of a territory that defined. Another theory is that they think they are inside a “box” with invisible walls. Whatever the reason, people are still going to try to “trap” their cat.

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