When ‘Bad Behaviour’ Is Actually a Medical Problem

Your dog growls when you touch his back. Your cat starts weeing outside the litter box. Your older dog paces at night and stops greeting you at the door.

It’s easy to call these things stubbornness, spite, aggression, or just old age. Often, they’re something else entirely, a pet in pain, unwell, or frightened, telling you the only way it can.

Veterinary behaviourist Dr Megan Petroff joins me to untangle one of the hardest questions in pet care: when a behaviour change is medical, when it’s behavioural, and when it’s both, and how to tell the difference before you try to correct it.

In…