DearDog

Dog breeding secrets are not secrets anymore, if interested; a dog lover can find a lot of information in books, periodicals and all over the net. But question remains as to whether having a lot of information about the process is enough. Answer is a definite a ‘NO’.

If one is not in the trade of breeding dogs a lot of bookish information is not going to help. The best use one can have of the information about dog genetics and dog breeding found all over the place is, using it to:

1. Define own requirement (of course within realistic limits).
2. Find a professional breeder of high caliber.
3. Communicate own ideas and thoughts to the breeder
in a language that the breeder is comfortable with.

Day to day care of dog’s eyes does not require elaborate preparation. Best eye care for a dog is, regular cleaning of dog’s eyes with clean and fresh water.

But any abnormal condition of eyes should be taken seriously and expert vet should be consulted. This is equally applicable for mild eye irritations that do not go away with simple wash.

Conjunctivitis can be most frequently encountered eye problem in dogs. It is a type of inflammation of eyelid membranes. Where only this eye inflammation exit it is known as primary conjunctivitis. And if the eye condition is accompanied by another disease like rabies it is called secondary conjunctivitis. In the initial stages, primary conjunctivitis responds well to medicine. But if left untreated for long, it becomes resistant to treatment.

A dog bites only when she feels threatened. There are various situations when a dog may feel threatened though the threat may not be real, but it is the dog’s perception that really matters.

One can be safe from dog bite by learning about the situations that a dog finds threatening, which includes wrong body language. Like, if you tower over a sitting dog when you are facing the dog it appears very threatening to the dog because due to your height you appear enormous in size to the dog. It is always better to face the dog in a squatting posture. (more…)

Dogs learn about things from their surroundings, they can pretty easily cope with things and stimulants that they are exposed to on a day to day basis.

The types of loud sounds that a dog is exposed to on a daily basis from the younger years do not induce fear reaction in the dog, no matter how loud or severe the sound is. But as dogs do not get exposed to loud sounds like cracker-sound, sound of lightning or such on a daily basis these sounds trigger fear reaction in them which may range from hiding to a corner of the house to continuous shivering.

Getting rid of this problem requires desensitization of the dog to the sounds she is afraid of. This involves exposing the dog to the sounds that she is not comfortable with. And doing this gradually from low intensity level to more and more powerful level will produce desired result.

Use a sound-system to reproduce the sounds that the dog is afraid of. Start with moderately low volume. Initially the dog will react with panic but with passing days, if you’re regular enough the dog will learn to remain composed with low level of sound. When this happens praise the dog, and treat with her favorite tidbit.

With passing time gradually raise the volume level and keep repeating the same routine. In course of time the dog will get sufficiently exposed to her fear triggering sounds and will be desensitized to similar sounds.

A dog is man’s best friend and it always tries to please its master, plus a dog possesses certain abilities which are not available to us humans: –abilities like keen sense of smell, explosive speed etc. These qualities and abilities give a dog a unique position of power.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency among us to use this power of dogs for security or self protection purposes. There is no harm in utilizing a dog’s service for security related purposes. But this tendency can back fire when a dog is solely used as a machine to provide security for the master ignoring the dog’s own needs. And most of the time when someone gets a dog with the sole purpose of personal protection and security, the needs of the dog goes unfulfilled and the dog is never accepted as a member of the family.

A dog is a social animal and it needs to belong to a group. It needs to play, needs patting, exercising: fulfill a dog’s needs you will have a good dog. Chain it to an isolated place, beat it, you have a bad dog.

Also there is inherent danger involved in training a dog to be mean with intruders or strangers. A dog, trained in such manner can make a mistake and attack a stranger and cause serious bodily damage which may attract legal hassles.

So get a dog and make it a part of your family and your life, play with it, walk with it, this way the dog will be a wonderful companion of yours. Never treat your dog as security apparatus. Never teach it to be mean with strangers. Otherwise you will have tough-time controlling your dog instead of fun-filled-hours.

Mercy killing or euthanasia is a medical process applied to seriously sick or very old & ailing dogs (or any other living entity) to kill the sick animal painlessly to relieve it from its sufferings.

Choice of mercy killing in an effort to relieve a very old or seriously ill dog from pain is very agonizing decision for a dog lover. Often the memories of beautiful fun-filled days of being happily together disturb the owner and mind rejects letting-the-old-pal-go as an option.

But certain health conditions are never to be receded and with all our well wishes and sincere efforts of veterinary experts effectively we can only extend the number of pain filled days of the hapless dog’s life.

When it becomes clear that there is no chance for the dog, living life without enormous and never-to-be-relieved pain and discomfort, it is time to ask a simple question to ourselves: are we in our desire to keep our memories alive and in our effort to avoid taking a not-so-pleasant decision doing disservice to our dear old fellow.

If the inner self says ‘yes’ it is time to seriously think of applying euthanasia no matter how hard you find keeping your tears in check.

In some dogs there is strong tendency to chase running cars. Experts in dog psychology believe that this is an effort on the part of the dog to attract attention.

What ever it is, no doubt it is a very dangerous habit for the dog’s well being: –as the instances of dog being run over in a busy street while chasing car are not uncommon.

First and foremost thing a dog owner can do is keeping the dog leashed and within control whenever they venture out in a busy road. But breaking the dangerous habit with the help of proper training is a better and long-term solution.

Success of the training for breaking car chasing habit will depend on the patience of the trainer, because this training will be based on pleasure and no-pleasure method and dog will take some time to associate pleasure with the desired behavior.

To start with let one of your friend or family member drive a car along a not-so-busy road: –when the dog starts chasing say ‘NO’ firmly. Chance is very high the dog will not be able to control its habit the first time. But after some time when it will obey your command and won’t chase give some treat with its favorite tidbit.

With repetition of this practice sooner or later the dog will associate pleasure with being quiet and will not pose problem for the owner by chasing cars.

One word of caution though: always treat this training as an extra layer of protection, i.e. never take your dog to heavy traffic area without leash.

There are many questions dog owners ask when it’s time for training their dog. The most commonly asked questions are:

At what age training should start?
How to get the dog to its most receptive state?
What time of the day is best for training the dog?
How often to train the dog in a week and for what duration?
What precautionary measures are required to be taken before sending the dog for training?

Answer to these questions depends on various factors like breed, temperament of the dog etc. But there are certain things that apply to almost every situation:

Your dog should be immunized before you send him to dog trainer. Never feed your dog heavy meal just before training session. Give light food and small amount of water.

Training produces best result when the dog takes training sessions playfully instead of treating it like something to be afraid of. Here the effectiveness of the techniques applied by the trainer comes into play. So select your trainer carefully or if you train the dog yourself use proper training methodology.

It is best to start training in such a manner that training does not put any pressure on the dog: –keeping that in mind initial training sessions should not extend beyond thirty minutes. Later as the dog’s power of concentration increases this period can stretch.

Normally if you are the owner of the dog you will always know the approximate age of your dog. But if you are going to get an older dog you may need to ascertain the age of the dog.

In other animals age can be determined fairly accurately by examining teeth of the animal. But this procedure of dental examination is not very reliable for determining a dog’s age and can only give you a rough estimate.

Another method is checking dog’s eye. Actually in this method the color of the pupil is checked.

Young dog’s pupil is shiny and deep colored. With passing years the color of the pupil keeps changing and becomes lighter. It is more reliable method than teeth checking but require some experience on the part of the examiner.

But this procedure is not very effective if the dog very old because often there may be some health conditions which influence color of the pupil.

Car motion sickness is quite common among dogs. This is basically a sense of uneasiness that the dog feels when a car (or any other vehicle like bus etc.) carrying the dog sets into motion. Effect of it can be as mild as slight uneasiness or as extreme as nausea and vomiting

If your dog suffers from this trouble there are certain simple precautionary steps you can take to alleviate this problem.

1. Do not give your dog heavy meal just before travel.

2. Keep patting your dog while you are inside the moving vehicle, this keeps the level of dog’s nervous tension low.

3. If the above steps fail to work against your dog’s car sickness. consult your vet –there are certain drugs (mostly mild tranquilizers) which can help in this type of situations.