Overall Dog Info

Surprising somebody with a puppy can be a very exciting and spontaneous gift. It can also be rewarding, but only if you’ve given the gift a lot of thought. If you buy a puppy on a whim, it’s a dangerous endeavor. You must make sure you have the time, energy, and money necessary to give a puppy a loving home. If you haven’t thought about the purchase beforehand, you run the risk of the recipient losing interest or simply being unable to provide what that young puppy deserves.

With that in mind, before you give anybody a puppy as a surprise, make sure you also consider purchasing the immediately necessary dog products. With the puppy itself, provide the lucky recipient with a supply of dog food, a dog dish, a comfy dog bed, and a couple of dog collars. The most important thing to consider is that the puppy needs love and attention right away. Put the new dog owner in a position to start feeding and walking the puppy right away. Just provide enough to get through the first week or so. This gives them enough time to make all the secondary purchases for their new best friend.

Dog furniture!  Yes, there is luxurious dog sofas, dog chaise lounges, dog chairs and raised designer dog beds that look just like the furniture in our homes, only smaller.  You can have a dog sofa in a predominant place in your living room that blends right in with your color scheme and style of furniture.  It doesn’t matter whether you have Contemporary, Early American, or Colonial, there’s that special dog chair or sofa to blend right in.  I say blend right in, but it may very well add to the overall appearance of your decorating scheme.  In fact, it may be viewed by visitors as an attractive addition to the room.  And we who love and pamper our dogs would do almost anything for them.

In searching for accommodations for our dogs, we take into consideration several factors such as; shape, size, comfort, color, and price.  And when considering these factors sometimes we end up spending a fair amount of money on something that is tossed in a remote corner of the room, out of the way and usually out of sight.  But, with a stylish dog chair or sofa you won’t want it in a remote corner or out of sight.  And the part your dog loves the most is that they can relax and nap on their furniture, be right there in the midst all the action and right there with those they love the most, you and your family.  As a matter a fact, a dog sofa or chair only costs a little more than one of those large round or oval cushy beds that lay on the floor and for the most part wind up being an eyesore.

With dog furniture you can add some decorating flair to your dog’s favorite place in the room with styles and colors that complement  instead of detract.  Not only would you be contributing to the bonding between you and your dog, by having a dog chaise lounge for them in the room where you spend most of your time, but you have gained an attractive piece of furniture.

Our dogs deserve the best, for they love us unconditionally when , even at our best, we are unloveable at times.  Let your “best friend” know how much you love them.

I know from personal experience, how important dog training really is and how it comes into play in every day life.  When your dog has no training and doesn’t know the basic commands you have potential accidents just waiting to happen.  Not only the danger it presents to your dog but it could also mean an expensive trip to the vet.  When your dog is told to “stay” and they don’t, it can lead to a very unfavorable or serious ending depending on the situation.

As an example, you have dropped a pill, a prescribed medication, on the floor and the dog comes running after it, you tell them to “stay” but they don’t and they lap up the pill before you can get to it … what do you do now?  Depending on the medication it probably means a trip the veterinary doctor.  Your dog is now at risk because they were not properly trained in the basic commands.  And you may have a very expensive veterinarian bill waiting for you.

I can personally tell you that I have had to extract, an open safety pin, a sewing needle, a whole chocolate candy bar that was thrown over our fence, and numerous other dangerous items out of my dog’s mouth.  No matter how diligent we are about keeping dangerous items such as sewing needles, safety pins, small parts of children’s toys, cleaning agents, or inappropriate foods out of their reach sometimes they just seem to “zone” in on the things they shouldn’t have.  Even with the dog being trained in the basic commands they can and probably will find something of interest to chew on that they shouldn’t have.  So it is a good idea to get your dog used to having your fingers in his mouth in case you need to extract a potentially dangerous object.

The basic dog training commands such as; sit, stay, and the recall (come to you) commands are at the very least what your dog should know and respond to without question.

When my Schnauzer was just a pup he was familiar with sit and stay and responded to those commands but, he often found dangerous items without me being aware of it at the time.  He also learned the “out” command right away because he was like a mini vacuum cleaner and found everything that was on the floor or in the yard that I had no idea was there.  It was at this time, when he was very young, that I had to fish the open safety pin, the sewing needle and the whole candy bar out of his mouth.  And since that time, he has learned to release his jaws when he is told “out” and he allows me to dig in his mouth to remove the foreign object that he shouldn’t have.  That’s not the most pleasant thing to do, but it is important, that you prevent your dog from swallowing  these types of things.

If your dog knows the sit, stay and recall commands,when something lands on the floor you can have the assurance that when you tell them to sit or stay they respond, you can retrieve the object before they get it in their mouth.  Then life is good because the potential accident was prevented.  Another aspect to consider is pet insurance because you never know when that time will come when you weren’t able to prevent the accident or your dog becomes ill, and treatment can be very expensive.  You can read more about pet insurance in my January 31, 2009 article.

My advice, especially to new dog owners, is to train them immediately in the sit, stay and recall commands as soon as you get them home. Use treats to reinforce the positive responses when they are young and just learning.  And if you don’t know how to train your dog in the basic commands and want advice on good methods of  training, we have two dog training programs that provide you with easy to follow techniques of  teaching your dog these and many other commands.  Having a well trained dog is for their welfare and your peace of mind.

It’s Spring time, the time of the year when it’s raining quite a bit and many of our dogs just don’t like going out in the rain to go potty.   If your dog is like mine, he doesn’t mind his bath at all so I don’t understand why he won’t go outside to do his business when it’s raining.

When it’s raining, I have a large golf umbrella that I use and as long as I can keep the umbrella over him, he’s ok with it, but if he wanders out from underneath the umbrella and gets rained on, he wants to go back inside, even if he hasn’t finished taking care of what he is supposed to.  So, this leads me to talk about some things we can do to remedy this, because I know that many of you have the same situation with your dog.  A quick remedy for this is a dog raincoat and this is a good solution unless your dog doesn’t like wearing clothes.

I’m going to veer off the subject just a little bit and tell you that my Schnauzer is ok with wearing his winter dog coat but he wouldn’t hike his leg or squat for a BM because the coat hung down around his hind legs and I guess he felt his movement was being hindered.  One winter day, I arrived home from work, and would usually let him out right away.  But on this day, I dressed him up with his dog coat and dog boots, which took a little time, then we went for a walk.  He had to go potty so bad that the binding of the clothing didn’t prevent him from taking care of what he needed to do.  He realized that the clothing didn’t have any hindrance on his movement so from that time on he was fine with the dog coat.  Dogs need to be gently introduced to new things and sometimes you may need to get creative or find the right situation to solve a problem, just as above.

If your dog won’t wear dog clothing he probably won’t wear a raincoat but there is a wonderful alternative to the problem, if your dog is small.  And that is the dog umbrella, pictured here.  The umbrella has a clear, see-through vinyl so you can see if they have completed the business at hand.  I think this is a wonderful invention.  You have your umbrella and your dog has their umbrella, so you both stay nice and dry.  Besides, the umbrellas are quite fashionable.

Now, with the umbrella, there’s no reason they can’t go outside when it’s raining.  Although, if our dogs could talk, I’m sure they would still have several reasons for not wanting to go out in the rain?!  What do you think?

For people who don’t have the security and peace of mind offered by insurance, it can be pretty scary. If something serious were to happen, it could very likely result in serious fees or even bankruptcy. And while many people give this kind of insurance serious thought and consideration, not as many people acknowledge the need for pet insurance.  But your pet is just as likely to need surgery or emergency care.  And vet bills are never small. If you don’t want to be paying out of pocket, consider looking into pet insurance.

The kind of insurance you need depends on the kind of animal you have. If you have a dog, for example, you can purchase dog health insurance, which offers coverage specifically tailored to dogs. There is also horse, cat, and other types of animal insurance. No matter what you need, there’s something available to offer you increased peace of mind. Sadly, some people are forced to put an animal down because they simply can’t afford a necessary surgery or medication. Make sure you furry family friend can live the long life he deserves by having his more costly procedures covered.

I love this time of year when everything is sprouting, growing and blooming.  Unfortunately, the fleas and ticks are doing the same!  They are just waiting for the right time to emerge, grow and invade every unsuspecting animal that comes their way.  And everyone of those fleas and ticks is looking for food.  Don’t let your dog be their next meal!  These nasty critters not only feed on our pets and leave sores they also deposit diseases as they feed.  The infected ticks can transfer Lyme Disease to our dogs when they attach and feed on them.

To protect your dog there are a variety of  products on the market such as: dog flea and tick collars, flea and tick shampoos, flea and tick powders and probably the most popular is the dog flea and tick drops that are placed between the shoulders of the dog.  This is a personal preference of mine because of the ease of application, the lasting protection it provides and it is waterproof.  The dog flea collars and powders are good, but I would consider another method if you have children.  Especially, if you have very young children, with the flea collar and the powders the chemical that kills the fleas can transfer to their hands when handling the dog.  And they don’t know not to rub their faces, eyes, nose or mouth before washing their hands.  The flea and tick shampoo also works good, but it lacks the long term protection.  If your dog is infested with these pests your dog has already been bitten many times over before they are bathed with the shampoo to kill them.  So, unless you shampoo them all the time the flea infestation can occur again and your dog is at risk of being bitten by infected ticks.

The flea drops is very easy to use, a once a month application will protect against flea and tick infestation for the month and  the product is waterproof, so no need to re-apply after grooming.   With this method your dog is protected before the pests can begin to feed, and thus it prevents the transfer of  Lyme Disease and prevents the infestation of fleas on your dog and in your home.

When I travel with my dog the one thing I do is to make sure my dog is either restrained or contained in a safe area.  If I  am traveling in our SUV, I make sure that I have our dog car barrier in place.  That way she has plenty of room to freely move around the back storage area of the car.  The car barrier keeps her from jumping around in the car, distracting me when I should be paying attention to my driving and keeping my eyes on the road and not on what she is doing.  I really love the car barrier, it is easy to install and it doesn’t interfere with my vision when looking in the rear view mirror.

It is comforting to know that my dog is safe and it makes traveling with her a real treat.  There are many styles to choose from and they come in all sizes to fit every car.  It’s a great investment in safe traveling for both you and your dog.