Archive for October, 2007
Dogs need exercise. The younger and/or larger the dog, generally speaking the more exercise they need, and the more energy their owner is going to need! If you are considering adding a dog to your family then you need to assess how much spare energy you have and choose a breed of dog that matches!
If you are someone who loves being outdoors and have an abundance of energy, then you’ll be fine with a larger breed dog. Even those that are high maintenance in the grooming department shouldn’t be too stressful for you – although you need to take into account how much grooming time you have available as even though you’ve got plenty of energy, you may be short on the amount of time you have for brushing your dog and keeping his coat healthy. You also need to think about how you would lift a full size dog of this breed if you needed to – if he were sick for example.
For someone who hasn’t much energy, a smaller dog is a much better choice – better still, a smaller older dog that is already past its puppy exuberance stage and is now settled into a more sedate middle age! This kind of dog will allow you to get out and exercise, but won’t turn each walk into a cardiovascular workout! A short haired dog needs to be brushed, but nowhere near as vigorously as a longer haired breed and so again is easier on your physical energy. Smaller, shorter haired dogs are usually a better choice for anyone with a busy schedule also, as they are much lower maintenance all round – shorter walks, less grooming, etc – although they do need as much affection as their higher maintenance larger friends!
When considering which breed you want to buy, don’t be lured by a pair of sad brown eyes, or a cute fluffy fur-ball – check out what size the breed usually grows to, and what kind of coat it has as an adult (fur-balls don’t always stay that way!), and then seriously consider if he’s going to fit into your lifestyle, and just as importantly, if you are fit enough for his!
This entry was submitted by Alex Thomson. Alex also regularly contributes to the Webmasters Desk and has started to become a authority on the topic of horse liability.
Having a dog with bad breath is no laughing matter – especially if your dog is one for panting lovingly in your face when you go anywhere near it! There are things you can do however that can improve the situation and as they are more about changing habits of various kinds, they don’t take a lot of additional maintenance.
The main cause of smelly dog breath is because to poor dental hygiene. Fragments of food from your dog’s meal get lodged in his teeth and decay creating the smell. Soft dog meat such as canned foods are the biggest culprits for this and so changing your dog’s diet to dry dog meal instead of canned is an easy step towards improving his breath. Many of these dry dog foods are enriched with supplementary vitamins so it’s also good for his overall well being. When using dry dog food however make sure that you always leave a good supply of fresh water for him to drink as dry food tends to make a dog thirstier than tinned dog food.
Things that your dog can chew on will also work on any remaining plaque on his teeth. Dogs usually love to gnaw on rawhide type snacks and so giving him one of these will not only keep him busy for a while, it’ll also help him improve his dental hygiene! If you usually give him dog biscuits as a treat instead of raw hide ones, then try to ensure that you give him a black one every day (just one though, too many could cause other problems) as these contain charcoal which helps with the digestive system and therefore diminishes any bad odours that are around that area.
Of course what you should also do is to incorporate a regular tooth brushing session into your dog’s grooming schedule. This isn’t easy to start, especially with a dog who is a little older and hasn’t experienced this before, but if you start very slowly to first introduce the toothbrush to your dog, and then get it close to his mouth – do this for a few times over the course of a couple of weeks, and then try to insert it into his mouth. When he’s comfortable with this, try putting some water on it and see if he’s going to accept you rubbing the water on his teeth. Once he is, try a tiny bit of dog toothpaste – NOT your toothpaste, special dog toothpaste – and see how he reacts to it. You could even try introducing the toothpaste on your finger first, and then combine toothbrush and toothpaste together. If you can’t seem to get him to accept it, talk to your veterinary at your dog’s next schedule check-up and see if he can suggest something that will work.
Once you fix your dog’s mouth hygiene, you’ll find that while his breath may not be as “minty fresh” as you’d like, it’s still a vast improvement on how it used to be.
This entry was written by Hannah Panayiotes, she's also a author on Metro Male and Harry-nomics. Hannah is a noted specialist on the topic of botox injection.
Your cat having fleas is no great surprise if she goes outside, but what you need to know if that she doesn’t need to keep them! Nor does she need to keep getting them because although you can’t stop fleas from jumping onto your cat when she’s outside, what you can do is to take appropriate measures to stop any fleas that do get into her from reproducing and making her life a misery.
Fleas feed on blood, and just as we get irritated with a place where a mosquito has bitten us, so cats scratch when a flea has bitten them. Not only is it uncomfortable for them, but it can also create other health conditions – for example, some cats are actually allergic to fleas and this can reveal itself by your cat showing signs of skin problems.
So what can you do? Well the first thing is to ensure that your cat is flea free. Make time every day if possible, but at least every few days especially during the summer when you spend 5 minutes combing her with a flea comb. This will alert you to any flea problem she may have, and also remove any fleas that have jumped onto her that day. Next she needs to have some form of protection, such as a flea collar. This will help deter the fleas from hopping on in the first place. Once they are on, one of the best things you can do is to have your cat protected with some form of medication that can be applied once every month or so into the back of her neck, and this produces a chemical which will kill any flea that then takes her blood. It doesn’t stop that flea from making the bite, but it stops it biting and producing any offspring!
Further action you can take is to try to bath your cat. This isn’t a fun job – in fact it’s rather a thankless one for most cat owners, but if you’re up to it, then bathing your cat using a specially formulated shampoo will not only kill any fleas still on her, but will also leave a scent that the fleas outside will avoid for a short while at least.
Lastly, make sure that you keep her bedding clean. Launder this every week or so, and also every time that you apply a flea treatment on your cat. If you are using a flea spray to de-flea an infested cat, use the same spray on her bedding to ensure that any flea that jumps off her into the bedding doesn’t live to jump back on!
Fleas can make summer a miserable time for your cat so get onto it as the Spring ends, and find out what treatment will work best for your cat, fix a schedule for ensuring that she’s flea-free and you should all have an itch-less summer!
This entry has been submitted by Si Wilkinson. Si is also one of the three orginal writer on A.B.B.4 and has started to become a authority concerning mole removal UK .