DEAR DR. FOX: My husband and I live in a house that gets an annual invasion of crickets and spiders when the weather turns cold. We relocate them outside as we find them, alive and unharmed. Spiders do good work in bug control, after all.

This year we adopted two young adult cats from a local rescue group, and they are very feisty! Among other things, they hone their hunting skills on any insect they can find -- they are strictly indoor cats. I never knew we had so many bugs even before the weather turned. Anyhow, I am worried about the coming spider invasion.

What arachnids in the Washington metro area could hurt our boisterous boys, how can we identify them and how do you suggest we protect them? -- C.C., Washington, D.C.

DEAR C.C.: I wish more people would show the kind of respect that you do by putting spiders and other insects you find in the house safely back outdoors. Collectively, insects contribute so much more to the greater good on planet Earth than does the human infestation!

Our always-indoor cats serve as in-home sentinels, alerting us to any insect they find by their obvious focus, pawing and, if we are not quick to intervene, chewing. Some cats are expert fly and moth catchers. In the wild, insects can be part of a cat's diet, and because of their high protein and fat content, some bug species are being developed as an alternative food source for humans, which is probably more sustainable and humane than raising warm-blooded animals for food.

The area around where you live is home to an impressive array of spiders, and only two are poisonous: The black widow has a shiny black body with red spots on the underside and is poisonous, but rarely bites. The other poisonous spider is the brown recluse; it is more often found in other areas of the country, but has become more common in Maryland and Virginia in recent years. The brown recluse is unusual because it has only six eyes (most spiders have eight) and wears a violin-shaped marking on its back.

I would advise being on the alert and keeping a close eye on your cats so you can intervene to rescue any insects they find. I would worry most about wasps in early fall, which can sting cats and dogs and cause an acute reaction that could require emergency veterinary attention.

DEAR DR. FOX: My 2-year-old male cat has developed a pattern of attempting copulation behavior with pillows or with my leg. He has been neutered, so he cannot receive satisfaction, and he is frustrated. After such attempts, he comes over and bites me and acts angry. What can I do for him? -- S.W. Silver Spring, Maryland

DEAR S.W.: Sex play is an activity that is quite common in neutered cats and dogs, which can be redirected into contact play-fighting or prey-chasing using a fluffy toy or feather tied to a string on the end of a cane.

Your cat is not sexually frustrated so much as play-frustrated; many play-deprived cats will give "love bites" and ambush their human companions and scratch and bite. These are aspects of play-fighting and prey-catching behavior that should be modified appropriately by the caregiver learning how to play with the cat or introducing a healthy, compatible cat companion. Two cats living together are generally happier and healthier than one living alone with only human company. See the steps needed to introduce a second cat on my website, DrFoxVet.net.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.net.)

DEAR DR. FOX: My two 3 1/2-year-old neutered male cats, Spunky and Binky, are littermates, and they are practically physically identical. Both are tabbies and can be distinguished only by the color of their collars. This complicates their relationships with the humans in the household.

Spunky is loving. He cuddles, kneads, purrs and always head-butts -- with me, mostly. Binky is aloof, and he does none of the same socializing with any of his human family. I learned head-butting from Spunky. From Binky, I have learned not to initiate head-butting, because he hisses, violently attacks my face with claws and dashes off. He tolerates being patted on his head and body, but I have learned not to bend over him as he then strikes out. If I pat with one hand and raise the other a little to protect my face, he strikes out. I obviously quickly learned to not initiate such behaviors, and I have now copied his aloofness. In the dark or if I can't see their collars, I cannot tell them apart except by behavior. I have learned caution. I simply reach one hand toward the cat in question -- Spunky will immediately head-butt, even leaning over to do so, and Binky only sometimes allows me to pat him.

Both came to my household as 2-month-old kittens. Then Binky moved in with my daughter, husband and their three young girls when the kittens were about 9 months old. Binky became the favorite of my son-in-law, and Spunky really bonded with me. A year later, Spunky and I moved into my daughter's apartment. Spunky and Binky were immediately happy to be back together. They play roughly and happily, and they eat and sleep together. I became the only one to care for the cats. Everyone else ignored Binky, but I, the true cat mom, loved them both.

A new baby (now 15 months old) has become Binky's best friend -- though I worry about him striking out at her if she gets too close. At night, Spunky sleeps on my bed and Binky ignores me and sleeps on a chair near my bed or somewhere else in the apartment.

Is Binky jealous? Does he feel rejected? Is it fear? How should I behave to help him socialize with his human family better? Should I try to be cuddly? Will he ever head-butt me or anyone else? Is he a danger to the 15-month-old? Or maybe I should stop including head-butting in my relationship with cats? Cats and people are certainly complex! -- N.C., Hyattsville, Maryland

DEAR N.C.: First, I would say the early separation affected the socialization and human bonding of the two cats. There is an interactive process between innate temperament, early experience and later personality that can account for differences in your look-alike littermates, including one liking close human contact and the other not.

I would get a reflector collar or put a luminescent strip on one of the cat's collars so you know who is who at night, or only engage in the head-butting show of affection during daylight hours.

One safer way of initiating contact is to extend one finger toward the cat's nose to mimic the friendly nose-nose touch that cats make with each other. With shy cats, I use a long-handled brush and a feather tied to a cane that I stroke over the cat and around its face. This way, they get used to being touched and learn to trust and enjoy you, plus you won't get a clawed on the hand -- or face!

Some cats respond well with human infants because they are not afraid and seem to fully understand that the infant means no harm. But other cats become fearful, so you must keep alert and basically protect the cat from the infant, who may try to grab and hug the cat.

DEAR DR. FOX: Thank you for your helpful advice. What a pleasure to correspond with someone who understands our companion animals are not "property" or surrogate children or toys, but are complex beings who are friends with gifts and needs and wonderful and sometimes difficult histories. -- N.C.

PRAISE BEATS TREATS FOR DOG REWARD

A study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience found that dogs respond more intensely to verbal or physical praise than to a food treat. The study evaluated functional MRI scans of dogs being praised and compared those to brain scans when the dogs were offered a treat and found the same or greater brain activity in the reward and decision-making centers in response to praise, information that could be used to help direct service dogs into assignments they're best suited for.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.net.)

DEAR READERS: I grew up with health-food-conscious parents, and our daily table talk usually included some inquiry as to the quality and regularity of my bowel movements. White bread was banned from our home. Now, 70 years later, the health connections between what is eaten and stool quality in terms of beneficial bacterial content is being recognized by more and more human and animal doctors. Improving the diet and the bacterial microbiome, or "garden of the guts," via infusion of good bacteria have become key elements in the One Health approach to improving animals' health as well as our own. In many animal species, coprophagia and pica (stool- and soil-eating) may help improve animals' gut gardens, but not without some inherent risk.

DEAR DR. FOX: With all the glyphosate and other herbicide residues in the diet and all the plastic, chemicals and pesticides that our pets get, how can they have functioning microbiomes? We need to feed only GMO-free food and (eat) animals that have been raised GMO-free as well. We have done over 4,400 fecal transplants from my dogs, who are fourth-generation raw-organic fed. They were never on antibiotics, and we use no herbicides or pesticides. We have given the Micro Biome Restorative Therapy (MBRT) to aggressive dogs, and they became sweet. One dog acted as if he suddenly had been given the feel-good bonding hormone oxytocin, as he was licking and grooming his sister, with whom he was normally aggressive. I just read an article that said some gut bacteria produce this hormone.

I treat GI issues like clostridium, campylobacter, giardia, inflammatory bowel disease, acute hemorrhagic diarrhea, kidney failure, liver failure, autoimmune issues, cancer, behavioral issues, hepatic lipidosis, pancreatitis and anorexia; it helps so many problems to help the gut reboot. Our website, mashvet.com, has videos on other supportive procedures. We have started the first fecal bank for dogs and cats, and we are able to work with each animal's vet and ship microbiome from our donors next day air. For more information, contact info@mashvet.com. -- Dr. Margo Roman, Hopkinton, Massachusetts

DEAR DR. FOX: Regarding your recent column on stopping tail docking and ear cropping by placing all the blame on the American Kennel Club, I think you are making a big mistake.

In the United States, the breed standards are owned and controlled by each parent club. Only the parent club can make changes to the standard. In the United Kingdom, things are totally different: The Kennel Club owns all of the standards and may change them at its will.

Parent clubs may make changes to their standards at the most every five years. Some of the clubs in the U.S. have made cropping and docking an option rather than a requirement. -- D.E., Fenton, Missouri

DEAR D.E.: I appreciate your emphasis that it is up to the various breed clubs to change their standards concerning this important animal welfare and rights issue. But the resistance is all part of the cultish power of thoughtless manipulation and control of animals' lives, which is a pervasive problem in other arenas of animal exploitation and abuse.

Certainly, the AKC and its judges should be more proactive and facilitate a more humane and enlightened breeder constituency. It should at least begin to openly discuss changing those breed standards that involve medically unwarranted surgeries, which amount to mutilation, along with extreme physical traits of hereditary origin that can compromise dogs' quality of life.

DEAR DR. FOX: I read your suggestions regarding a matted cat whose human is concerned about dropping her off at a salon.

I am a house call cat groomer in New York. There aren't many house call cat groomers, or cat groomers in general, but most of my clients are people who don't feel comfortable leaving their pets at a salon. House call is a great choice for concerned owners.

A "perk" of house call cat grooming is that some owners learn enough during the grooming session to be able to groom their own cats! Educating owners is part of being a house call cat groomer. -- L.S., New York City

DEAR L.S.: Many cat owners will appreciate your letter and the need for in-home cat grooming services. This may be an incentive for other experienced groomers to offer house visits rather than having cats come to them, which can be very stressful for some cats, while others cannot even be put into a carrier without prior habituation.

Either way, there is no excuse for cats becoming so matted from lack of regular grooming that they must be sedated and carefully clipped at a veterinary hospital. This causes extreme stress and expenses that could be avoided by routine, effective grooming by the owners or professionals such as yourself.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox's website at DrFoxVet.net.)