It is important that the environment in the home is safe for your pet. Just like the precautions we take in a home that has babies it is important to pet-proof your house. Keep the toxic substances and other items like electrical cords, medicines, food, and cleaning supplies away from the reach of the pets as they easily get to them.

Regular checkups help to keep your pet healthy. Although you might have to spend some money for that, it is worthy to spend for a vet. Make sure that you get your doubts clarified during your meeting with the vet. You can also get opinion on getting pet meds like Frontline Plus or Sentinel for your pet’s healthy heart and body. It is important that you feed the right kind of food for your pet as some of them are allergic to certain types of foods. Foods that can be avoided for your pet are garlic, onion, chocolates, alcohol, grapes, trash, and raw yeast. Look for the reactions that your pet has after having foods and have a list that is safe for your pet.

Exercise is very important for your pet to stay healthy. Without exercise they might become bulky. It is necessary that you take them at least for a walk when time permits. You can play with pets like cats in your house itself with laser pointers. Spayed or neutered pets stay healthy and live long. Hence it is necessary that you spay or neuter you pet. It can be done for as low as $10 in programs meant for that.

Yes!!! The long lasting dream of having a separate airways for pets came true last week. Pet Airways, unique company for pets transportation decided to transport pet animals within USA at least 5 times a day.

They declared that they will keep the dogs or other pet animals inside closed cages with seat belts to avoid air holes. They are offering this service at the rate of just 150 USD for economy class and for the first class $300.

Now, we can call our pets as gifted one. Even a dog has its day .

Actually this is a good news for pet owners who travel frequently. I hope pet airways  will fly international routes soon.

To make things easier for you, here is a quick guide to obedience training dog behavior. They apply to all breeds of dogs and whether they will be used in sports, leisure, work, or for competitions. It is necessary to know these principles and put them to work to ensure that their efforts will bear fruit.

The Rule of Consistency

Consistency is an important thing to note the special training throughout the means to correct unwanted behaviors exhibited by your dog. To achieve consistency, be sure to use the same commands to the tasks you want your dog to perform. Do not create confusion in it via an entirely different command the same kind of work you expect from him.

Likewise, to establish house rules that your dog will be fully conscious. Soon you will see that he will do what you say without difficulty.

The need for adequate time

Time is really critical. Determine whether the training will be successful or not. Always give praise whenever he has done something right. Reprimand him for the wrong one. This allows you to understand the behaviors you like and dislike. You have two options for rebuke. First, give the right reason in the place. Second, ignore him when he approaches you. This allows you to realize that their behavior is unacceptable.

To administer the appropriate dose of attention

Like humans, dogs also seek care and love. The only problem is that they are therefore unable to discern that what is good and what is the negative attention. What they understood is that only when they can provoke a reaction and attention from people, they will do the same things several times.

As a homeowner, you should not give your dog when you are exhibiting bad behavior. Do not leave it out of his cage when he cries or running behind him when he picks up his socks. When she does think it’s positive attention and is confident of repeating the same behavior.

Therefore, you need to do is just turn their attention to him when he behaves properly. Give treats as the reward for good behavior.

Being in the mood

It is important that you set your mind on the task. Behavior dog obedience training requires patience too so it is better to have that mood. Never continue the training sessions when you’re stoned, drunk, or angry.

Dog obedience training is that your pet must submit. Therefore, take note of these guidelines?

Top Five Advantages of giving your dog rawhide bones

1. Dogs also suffered from stress like us. Rawhide bones play an important role in removing stress among your pet. They will chew the rawhide bones and get relieved from stress.

2. Puppies feel pain in the gums while tooth erupting process. During this time, they will tend to chew all the objects that is available to them. Provision of rawhide bones to these puppies will prevent them to get rid of destructive chewing habit. And also the teeth pain will subside. This process of providing rawhide bones will help in the growth of the adult teeth in a good manner.

3. The dental benefits of chewing rawhide bones include removal of plaque in their teeth, which in turn help to prevent periodontitis, gingivitis, calculus and finally tooth loss. In nut shell, when you allow your dog to chew rawhide bones, there will be no potential dental problems.

4. Rawhide bone chewing is a perfect substitute for their natural behavior. Chewing is a natural process of dogs of 4-18 months. If there is no perfect thing to chew, the dogs will try to chew shoes, facial tissues or table legs. This destructive behavior will cost more money for you. Yes!!! You need to buy new books, TV remote, new shoes, etc, if you haven’t provided rawhide bones to chew.

5. A study confirms that chewing rawhide bones will stimulate the brain of your dog and they will remain active through out the day. Some of the dogs forget that they are being alone during day time, if they’re being provided with rawhide bones. In other words, provision of this stuff will help to prevent separation anxiety.

With such advantages of rawhide bones for your dog, it is mandatory for a dog owner to get top quality rawhide bones for your dog. ALL THE BEST!!

If the bleeding is not much, don’t be under the impression that the dog need not be given any first aid immediately. Most of the time, there may be internal bleeding or some hair line fracture could be there internally and hence, the dog need to given first aid immediately.  After the treatment keep the dog on some support system and carry it to the nearby veterinary hospital. Don’t ever carry the injured dog in hurry to avoid jerks to dog that in turn will hurt the dog more.

If the bleeding is severe, just lift the dog carefully and try to assess the injured area to find out the point of bleeding. Place some cotton or pure cloth on the bleeding points and immediately try to transfer the dog to a nearby veterinary hospital for further treatment.

Even ice cubes can be placed at the injured area to arrest the bleeding. Be very careful while placing the ice cubes at the injured area as it would be painful to the dog and sometimes the dog will not to allow you to keep the ice cube.

If you suspect any fracture as in, the dog cries due to intense pain and is unable to move its limb or at the bony regions of the body, don’t make any movement of the dog’s body and just keep the limbs in an immobilized state and take it to a nearby hospital dealing with pet animals.

If the animal vomits due to the accident encountered, don’t try to control the vomiting by forceful closure of the mouth region. Allow the animal to vomit and in such cases,lowering of the head region may even facilitate the vomiting. This in turn often helps to avoid the development of aspiratory type of pneumonia in the
concerned dog.

You may also find the temperature of the injured dog by touching the animal. If you feel the body temperature of the dog is not that of normal temperature that is if you feel that the body temperature is too low then cover the body of the injured dog with warm clothes to the dog in warm condition. Effort like this may give some kinds of immediate relief to the dog in keeping up of the hermoregulatory mechanisms in a right manner.

Similarly, when the dog’s body is very hot, try to place the ice cubes in polythene bag and place the bag over the head region which in turn helps to minimize the effects of hyperthermia in the concerned dog.

If the dog is motionless after the accident, try to go for the cardiac massage particularly when you feel the absence of heartbeats in the concerned dog. However, provision of warm temperature to the dog in addition to the proper care by tackling the thermo regulatory mechanisms during the first aid will help the dog to have more chances of survival.

So remember to give proper first aid to the dog met with an accident without any delay for quick recovery of the dog from further deterioration of the injured dog.

Never try to choose the toys that bear the label stating about the avoidance of usage for children below age of three years. This is due to the fact that if such toys are accidentally bitten strongly and the contents inside may not be digestible by stomach. Hence, be careful in avoiding such toys.

About provision of toys made as rawhide chewies, you need to consult your veterinarian and most of the times, the usage of such toys if purchased need to be monitored closely by the owner.

Toys that are lesser in size need to be avoided generally. This is due to the fact that playfully, some times, particularly the puppies swallow such toys and hence, this may ultimately either cause choke in the upper esophagus or problems in the stomach, later.

Generally you need to choose soft texture toys for puppies but you have to watch on how they use the toys, in a constant manner. When the dog grows up, the jaw power gets increased. Hence, you need to change the type of toy that is able to bear up the biting pressure of the dog.

The safety of the toy to be chosen generally depends on the size of the swallowed material. If the swallowed material is of bigger sized one, then, this may cause an emergency problem for your dog.

The toy should not be made up of known toxic materials. If so, the dog may reveal vomiting etc. after it swallows such toys.

Hence, more care is to be taken up before the purchase of the toys. Better to have some sort of consultation with the nearby dog owners or the pet specialist with regard to this, if you have any doubt. Frisbees and dumbbells are the safe toys for your dogs when compared to the sticks.

Whenever you go for the purchase of toys used for the kids as the case with the usage of stuffed bear, always have it as a point that you need to remove the eyes, ribbon etc. so that the accidental swallowing based hazards may be prevented to a greater extent.

King kong toys are available in the pet product selling market and you can even stuff these kong toys with peanut butter or butter spread and can then be used as retreat based toys for your dogs. Use appropriate sized kong toys for this purpose. This assures the safety of usage of these toys by these dogs.

Toys with pointed ends should be avoided because this will often cause injuries to the oral region and may result in ulcerations in the buccal mucosa and stomatitis may occur ultimately.

Avoid any squeaker containing toys and many times, the squeaker may be found buried in the center of the toy and often, the dog may be very particular in finding out the squeaker and swallowing also frequently will follow this. Hence, health problem may occur many times. I hope you now have some ideas on safety of dog toys.

When the dog becomes adult, the marking behavior becomes highly significant and hence, the carpets etc. may get spoiled due to these activities. Hence, the pet owner may be compelled to go for the decision of neutering or spaying of their dog.

If you just review the occurrence of tumors in case of male dogs, you may get astonished on the existence of prostate or testicular tumors in them. When you take a decision about the neutering of the male dogs, then the incidences of such occurrences of tumors might get often reduced. Because of this fact due to the hormonal changes due to the neutering activity, many pet owners may often attempt to go with the decision of neutering their male dogs.

Among the female dogs, many a times, there is occurrence of mammary tumors and one or more mammary glands get involved. If such dogs are earlier subjected to the spaying operation wherein the uterus and the both ovaries of the dog are removed by systematic surgical measures, then such tumor occurrence rarely affects those dogs.

Hence, before taking decision, all these features are to be taken care of by the pet owners. Perhaps, pet animal specialist may be consulted on when to spay or neuter their pet dogs.

The decision on spaying gets more support when the pet animal owner encounters more incidences of soiling of their carpet or very valuable materials in the house by the bloody vaginal discharge when their female dog gets into heat cycle.

Bleeding like activity from the vaginal cavity may happen for few days when the female dog is in the heat period. Hence, the owner is sometimes forced to take a decision on spaying of their pet dogs to avoid such problems in future.

Many a time, the males that get neutered become less problematical in terms of aggression. Hence, the decision about the neutering of the dogs often depends on whether the wants their dog to have a lesser degree of aggression of their dogs towards other dogs or nearby persons.

Your male dog may be engaged in roaming or the female dog becomes more receptive to the male dogs of any breeds when the female dogs are in the heat period.

Hence, the decision on neutering of male dog or the spaying of female dog gets more significance if you don’t want such problems to be encountered at your end.

Though you can decide on the need of spaying or neutering of your dog at your side, the period at which these operations are to be carried out is to be decided by the pet animal veterinarian. Generally, a decision is taken when the pet animal is less than six months old.

]]> http://doghelp4u.com/blog/2009/09/13/spay-or-neuter-dogs/feed/ 0 http://doghelp4u.com/blog/2009/09/09/preventive-dog-dental-care-for-dummies/ http://doghelp4u.com/blog/2009/09/09/preventive-dog-dental-care-for-dummies/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:22:38 +0000 Kadir http://doghelp4u.com/blog/?p=219

Prophylaxis is one of the vital components in the maintenance of health status of oral structures, particularly the teeth. Dog dental care is most important thing in general dog care. Brushing away of your worries on dog’s health needs a basic maintenance of good teeth structures in your dog. Lets have some information with regard to the dog dental care. Yes!!1 Preventive care pertaining to dental structures of dog is important.

Dog dental care comprises the regular brushing of your dog’s teeth with a suitable brush. Hence, the building up of tartar may be highly avoided. Similarly, the brushing activity helps to remove the plaque that gets formed over a period.

However, some pet owners may not be able to brush the teeth of their dogs due to various reasons. They might think that they are failed in dog dental care.

In such cases, the veterinarian needs to be approached. The pet specialist or the veterinarian will undertake the cleaning procedures using an ultrasonic scalar and this helps to avoid the secondary bacterial infections at the oral regions. Hence, Stomatitis or development of ulcerations at gum may be totally avoided to a greater extent.

Alcohol free preparations containing zinc and chlorhexidine compounds are frequently used in many commercial types of oral rinses meant for the dogs. Such rinses may be procured and used daily. The oral rinses help to a greater extent to prevent the building up of tartar and plaque between the brushings.

Some times, prescription diets may be purchased to keep the teeth structures of your dog in a healthy status.

Simple Tips For Dog Dental Care

Select good toothpastes for your dogs. Most of the times, the toothpastes used for dogs have hydrogen per oxide in them. However, to make it more acceptable, many commercial firms have added beef or poultry flavors.

Hence, you need to select such products. This helps the dog to have a routine application of the paste. You can also use the baking soda with water mixed as a paste and use it once or twice in a week. This also helps to prevent the dental problems. Finger toothbrush and dual ended toothbrush are available in the commercial fields.

Periodical checking of the oral structures is one of the vital steps required for perfect dog dental care, which in turn help in the prevention of the dental diseases in your dog.

If there is any broken teeth or any reddish areas noticed in the mouth, immediately take a note of it and consult your pet animal specialist. Most of the times, the gingivitis may be encountered along with dental diseases in your dog. Hence, by proper checking up of these, one can avoid the dental problems.

Similarly, if you encounter the bad breath and excessive salivation, then also you need to consult the veterinarian who in turn can rule out the dental problems. Thorough examination of the tooth structures in many dogs may be possible as a preventive measures after the immobilization of the dog by using drugs.

Dog owners need to take an extra care towards the dog dental care, if you have small sized breeds like Pekingese and Shihtzu. The building up of tartar and plague may occur in a faster manner in these breeds because of the crowding of many teeth inside the small sized oral structures.

Always try to give some mineral based bone toys especially for the puppies. Hence, the teeth structures get strengthened during the biting activities. However, you need to see the label about the contents. Hope you have some ideas on dog dental care. Have a happy brushing!!!

Most of the times, the preventives like ivermectin helps to control the problem caused by other parasites also, including the external parasites like ticks and roundworms and hookworms. Oral forms are available in the market.

Topical applications are also available with this product for use in dogs. Pyrantel may be found as an additional ingreditent with this product and this product helps in the prevention of hookworms and roundworms also.

Similarly many monthly given preventives are available in the market and however, giving same drug every time may per haps lead to the development of drug resistance in the dogs. Hence, the preventives may be changed in the course of time. Only at the age of six weeks, this drug may be given to the dogs.

Also, one has to be aware of any side effects due to the preventives given to avoid the heartworms in dogs. Take cautions in giving these drugs in case of anemic dogs. The circulatory status needs to be improved before providing the preventive care in case of dogs.

Drugs like selamectin helps to reduce the infestations with external parasites like American dog ticks, fleas and mites. However, this drug may be given in the form of injections in dogs and has to be administered in dogs that have attained age of six weeks. for provision of protection against the heartworms.

Reducing exposure to the mosquitoes help in the proper prevention of the problems with the Dirofilaria immitis – the heartworms. Mosquito proof may be provided if it becomes possible at least in seasons wherein many mosquitoes may be seen in the premises of the kennel. Water stagnation may be avoided especially near the kennel or the doghouse.

Through the compounding pharmacies, the drugs like diethylcarbamazine may be given to the dogs to avoid the heartworms in them.

However this drug needs to be given daily but when the administration is not done for few days, then the concerned dog looses its protection against the heartworms. Diethyl carbamazine further protects the dogs against the round worms also, as an additional protection.

Drugs like moxidectin is available in an injectable form for dogs. However, this can be given in dogs that have attained the age of six months. The drug like moxidectin further helps in reducing the hookworm problem in case of dogs. Once in six months, this drug may be given to the dogs.
Milbermycin oxime is another preventive used for avoidance of heartworm problems in dogs. This is available in oral form and can be given to the dogs that have attained the age of four weeks or more.

However, it may be better to check up the body weight of the puppy and the puppy should have a minimum body weight of two to three pounds.

If you miss some months in not providing the preventive to the dog, you can still continue the therapy with the preventive later. This will surely give a good level of protection against the occurrence of heartworms.

Hence, such activities make much diversion for the dog and finally, the dog engages in some other activities without causing damage to your garden.

Small thorn varieties like barberry may be grown in the garden to protect the plants or flowers from the dogs. However, though some pleasant smell is coming from various herbs or bushes, most of the times, the dog may not be afraid of approaching many plants in the garden.

Battery operated electric fences are now a day available and such fences may not harm the animal but gives a mild shock. Hence, the dog has distractions while trying to enter the garden, which you like to a greater extent for multiple reasons.

Though prickly bush is the nice idea to have in your garden, see that the thorns should not harm your dog.

Try to have a fence with door facility for the garden and open it only when you need. Also you can keep the dog under your direct watch during allowing of your dog into the garden.

Hence, if at all the dog tries to engage in an unwanted activity damaging your garden, you can be able to control it immediately.

Also to avoid damage to certain selected species of the plants in your garden from the dogs, spray some repellents like neem oil nearby those plants.

Hence, when the dog approaches the site, this helps to drive away the dogs due to the effective smell that is not liked by many dogs. Try to adapt some measures that are more practical to adapt for driving away of the dogs from the garden.

Sometimes, you need to express your dissatisfaction by some specific commands to the dog. But, you need to use the same syllable in a high pitch, every time.

For example, when you say no, every time, you need to tell the same thing in same pitch and hence, the dog may understand that it is doing something that is not really liked by the owner. Whatever measure you are taking to protect the dog, this should not lead to any health related problem for your dogs.

To prevent the damage of your garden in your absence, it is better to educate the house keeper on what to do when the animal tries to enter the garden or when the dog attempts to damage the precious plantations available in the garden liked by many of your family members in the house. It is better to give clear-cut instructions in such occasions.

Remember that the dog thinks that you are doing something that is not liked by it, while you many think that the dog is doing something in the garden, which is not liked by you.