2014 Holiday Gift Guide for Pets and Pet Lovers

Welcome to the 2014 Stale Cheerios Holiday Gift Guide!

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In this post you’ll find lots of great gift ideas for your dogs, cats, horses, rats, and other pets, as well as for yourself and for your pet loving friends! This includes many products that I use and love, as well as a handful of things that are on my own wish list or that some of my animal training friends have recommended to me recently.

Given the nature of my site, you’ll find lots of great treats, toys, enrichment items, animal training books, and other products related to animal training and animal behavior in this guide. I hope some of these ideas can help keep you and your pet happy in 2015, while keeping your minds engaged.

Gift Ideas for Pets and Pet Lovers

Treat your pet to some yummy stocking stuffers

Dog treats, horse treats, rat treats, and more. What animal doesn’t love some yummy treats? Treats make great stocking stuffers for all of your favorite pets. One of my current favorites is the Wellness WellBites, although a new favorite is the think!dog Alligator treats, which a client shared with me recently. The dogs went crazy over these stinky treats! Of course, the horses always love some peppermints and the rats wouldn’t know what to do if we ran out of Yogies.

Beat off winter boredom and blues with these fun dog toys

Winter can be boring for a lot of dogs. The cold weather means fewer walks and less time outside. And boredom often leads to dogs getting themselves into trouble! Ginger loves her IQ Treat Ball, antler chews, and Nylabones and these three are all also products I recommend to clients with active dogs or dogs that like to chew. Two items on my personal wish list are the KONG Easy Freeze Kit (to go with my classic KONG toys) and the FitPAWS Paw Pods.

Interactive, enrichment toys for the super smart pet

If you’re new to the idea of “enrichment,” buy yourself a copy of Beyond Squeaky Toys to get started. Several enrichment toys on my personal wish list include the KONG Satellite, Toppl, and Pipolino. There are many wonderful food puzzle toys and interactive toys that are designed specifically for dogs, but some can be used as well with cats or even horses, depending on how the toy is designed. I blogged earlier this year about the Cat Activity Center, which I think cats would love! Two fun horse toys are the Amazing Graze and Nose-it! Ball for horses.

Animal training and behavior books

Are you interested in learning more about animal training or do you have friends who are? I almost always recommend starting with Karen Pryor’s excellent book, Don’t Shoot the Dog, but here are a few other favorites. I’ve recently started reading a book called Beyond Squeaky Toys, I would recommend it to anyone with a dog or cat!

Books to deepen your understanding of animal training and behavior

Looking to deepen your understanding of animal behavior and training in 2015? One of my favorite books for training ideas is Kay Laurence’s Learning Games book. If you’d really like an in-depth resource for learning more about training methods and techniques, check out Ken Ramirez’s awesome book or Bob Bailey’s DVD set. Several books on my own wish list that I hope to read in 2015 include Claudia Fugazza’s book about using social learning to train dogs and Denise Fenzi’s Dog sports book.

A few more interesting reads to curl up with this winter

Who doesn’t love a good animal story? How about the story of a dog that knows a thousand words or a smart parrot that also knows quite a few words? I also love Temple Grandin’s books and often recommend Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human to my friends. There’s two books on this list, one about play and one about talent, that aren’t really about animals, but I’m including them anyways! We discussed both these books at the recent Alexandra Kurland clinic and I think you’ll like them too.

Other fun gift ideas for your pets and pet loving friends

Two products that I started using this year that I just love are the Gulpy and the Rubit. The Rubit makes it really easy to move your dog’s tags to a different collar or harness. I’m considering buying myself a Fifth Paw poop bag holder or a tiny swimmer’s lap counter (to use to count behaviors during training). I also love, love, love the Melissa and Doug life-sized stuffed dogs and often use them in my training classes when working with reactive dogs or practicing dog-dog greetings. The dogs in class almost always think the stuffed dogs are real!

Enter to win a $50 Amazon gift card!

Steps for entering:

This giveaway is now closed. Thank you to all who entered!

1) Visit amazon.

2) Leave a comment on my blog telling me what pet-related toys, books, treats, or other products you and your pet would buy if you win the gift card.

3) Fill out the Rafflecopter form to submit your entry by December 1, 2014.

4) Use the Rafflecopter form to earn more entries

Terms and Conditions
One lucky reader will win a $50 Amazon gift card
Open to US residents Only
Winner will be chosen at random
Sweepstakes ends December 1 at 11:59pm CT
Winner will be notified via email
Winner will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen
Must be 18 years or older to enter
Only one entrant per household
Void where prohibited
Entering the giveaway form means you agree to the terms listed above
Note: If you attempt to cheat, your entries will be deleted!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Final Thoughts…

Last year, I bought yummy treats and toys and some new hammocks for the rats, but I think their favorite “gifts” were the empty cardboard boxes and tissue paper that we saved for them! Silly rats! Do you have any creative or unusual gifts that your pets just love?