Cynthia K. Pet Care Provider in Liberty Hill, TX 78642

I'm a very reliable 59-year old woman who retired from the Texas Department of Transportation in 2009. I live in the country north of Liberty Hill with my husband and one little dog. For as long as I can remember, I've had at least one pet, and sometimes as many as six at a time. Currently, I have a very old long-haired dachshund who came into our lives as a stray in the neighborhood. We've had her for about 13 years and even though she's partially blind and mostly deaf, she still dashes around like a puppy. I don't have technical training as a pet sitter but I've learned a lot about dog psychology by reading and researching. My focus is positive reinforcement and I try not to raise my voice. I have found that dogs want to do the right thing and please their master, so it's harmful to scold them when it's usually us who have not made it clear what we want from them. I also like to use hand signals to let them know what I want. When my dog went deaf, I found I stopped using my voice and started giving her hand signals. She very quickly learned and responded. I've also had a lot of cats in the past, but currently don't have any. The best thing for them is to make them think it was their idea. Ha ha. They're pretty easy to train with positive reinforcement too, although I never tried to train one extensively. I trained one of my cats, Mimi, to get on top of her scratch post to retrieve a treat as a reward. This was supposed to prevent her from scratching on the furniture. It worked, but she was constantly jumping up there and crying for her treat. It made us laugh every time.