Extend Your Dog's Life Using These Simple Grooming Tips

If your dog is an important part of your life, you will want to provide the best of care for her so she can enjoy a long and rewarding life. A trip or two each year to your veterinary clinic does not guarantee that your loyal canine will maintain her healthy appearance and youthful spirit. It is you, the dog's owner, who can make the difference between your dog living a long, full life or one of physical disease and health problems.

Many dogs are treated like they are immune from common heath problems - they are NOT! They suffer many of the same health issues that afflict humans; teeth and gum disease, ear infections, toe nail problems, and hair issues, just to name a few.

Well, don't get discouraged, because a few simple and easy grooming practices can help you prevent the premature aging of your pet. Basic personal dog grooming is the key to early recognition of skin and tumor issues, dental problems, and mobility difficulties.

To help you establish a regular dog grooming regimen, the following tips are provided covering five key areas; brushing, bathing, nail trimming, ear cleaning, and dental hygiene.

Brushing Your dog

Brushing, or grooming, your dog is a great time for bonding with her and providing the physical contact that all dogs desire. This practice promotes a lustrous shine on the dog's coat, whiling eliminating dirt, debris, and dead fur.

This is also the perfect opportunity to examine your dog's skin for fleas and ticks, lumps, cuts, or contusions. And while you're at it, take a moment and examine her ears, eyes, teeth and nails.

Bathing Your dog

Here is the good news - most dogs only need bathing once a month, unless she likes to play in the rain and mud. If she does get dirty on a regular basis, adjust your bathing schedule accordingly.

A prerequisite to bathing is a good brushing. This loosens up any dead hair or dirt and makes the bathing process much more productive. A good practice is to start bathing your dog as young as possible. Generally start when she is about 14-15 weeks old, or earlier, if they tend to get into messy situations.

Find a good location to bathe your dog, preferably one that is contained and has good drainage. Undoubtedly, water will be spilled or shaken near and far. An enclosed shower or tub is an ideal location, or if your dog is a smaller breed, the kitchen sink can also work.

Wet your dog thoroughly, avoiding her head to keep water out of her eyes and ears. Plug your dog's ears with cotton balls if there is a risk of flooding the ears. Use a dog shampoo and lather up the dog. Be sure to rinse thoroughly and squeeze off the excess water. The face should be washed with a soft, damp cloth. Towel dry your dog, and blow dry if desired, but it is best to keep her confined until dry.

Trimming Nails

Nail trimming can be a traumatic experience for some dogs. So , it is best to start the nail trimming experience as early as 2-3 months old to let your dog become accustomed to the practice. For puppies, you can often use finger nail clippers to tip the ends of the nails.

If this is just too much for your dog or puppy to handle all in one sitting, you may start with trimming only one paw at a time, giving your dog an extended break between sessions. The key to successful nail trimming is providing your dog lots of praise when she lets you cut a nail. Kind, soothing words of praise will let her know that she is loved and this experience is nothing to fear. Of course , a few dog treats after the session is over can't hurt either.

Cleaning Ears

Inspect your dog's ears often , but only clean them when there is evidence of dirt in the opening or canal. Use a cotton ball, never a cotton swab, to clean the dirt out of the ear. Soaking the cotton ball with a good ear cleaning solution provides the best results. Hydrogen peroxide can be substituted for the cleaning solution, if necessary.

If you notice that the dog's ears are red, swollen, or emit a foul smell, the problem might be more serious and demand veterinary attention. Yeast infections, ear mites, and other ear problems are more easily treated by medications only available from your vet.

Keeping a Bright Smile

As a dog's life span has been extended over the years, it is even more imperative that your dog maintain healthy teeth and gum tissue. You can assist her by brushing her teeth regularly. Start as early in life as possible, to get your dog accustomed to the feel of your finger or brush in her mouth.

Starting with your finger, or a special dog toothbrush fitted for your fingertip, begin massaging your dog's gums and gently rubbing her teeth. Once she has become accustomed to the practice, try using a dog toothbrush, or small soft bristled human toothbrush, with dog-specific toothpaste. Never use toothpaste designed for humans on your dog.

Continuing this practice throughout your dog's life will ensure that she will avoid gum disease, loose teeth, and related eating problems.

These easy-to-follow grooming tips take very little time compared to the years of enjoyment your dog will provide you and your family. Take care of your loving "best friend" and she will certainly return the favor many times over!

40 Dog Tricks

Dog Training Hand Signals-Teaching Hand Signals to Your Dog

Besides using verbal commands while obedience training your dog, you should also learn the dog training hand signals. If your dog has been trained with the hand signals, he can still do as you command, even when he is not able to hear you. If you teach your dog his hand signals, you can still make your dog come on command from quite a long distance. This is how hunting dogs or agility dogs are controlled in the field by their handlers. Whatever the handlers need their dog to do can be done through the hand signals even without using verbal commands.

You can teach your dog the hand signals right along with the regular obedience training lessons. Any good dog training program will explain the different standard hand signals and how they are used for training your dog at home. You can even use hand signals of your own invention as long as your are consistent in using the same movement each time.

dogs learn the hand signal concept very quickly because they naturally tune in very closely to another dog's body language as part of the way they communicate with each other. So , if you are just starting with your dog's obedience training, introduce the dog training hand signals right now. Of course , even if your dog is already trained to follow verbal commands, it is not too late to introduce the hand signals to him now. Get started by using the hand signals to teach the basic steps-sit, down and stay. These basic exercises are easy to teach and is a good place to starting the hand signal training. After your dog learns these first 3 signals, he is ready to keep going when taught the remainder of his dog obedience lessons.

* To teach the hand signal for sit, bend your arm upwards from the elbow to head level in a quick movement while at the same time saying sit. By repeating the hand signal each time you command your dog to sit, he will soon learn to associate the hand signal with the vocal command.

* For teaching the down hand signal hold your arm out level with the floor and then lower it down towards the floor. At the same time you give your dog the down command use this hand signal. The hand signal gets him to follow your hand down to the floor.

* Teaching the hand signal for stay is done by using the policeman's hand sign to stay-holding your arm outstretched towards your dog with the palm facing him. Hold your hand out like this at the same moment you command your dog to stay.

If you haven't already started using dog training hand signals when obedience training your dog, you can get started now. It is a good feeling to know you can control your dog even if he cannot hear you for some reason.

Teach a Puppy to Sit | Teacher\'s Pet With Victoria Stilwell

Tips and Tricks To Successful Puppy Potty Training

How To Potty Train A Puppy

People are always looking to learn how to train puppies for obvious reasons. We all want a well behaved puppy that is house trained. Potty training your puppy is a major part of your training but it is not near as difficult as many make it out to be. Follow along as we plan to help you understand some tips and techniques you can use to help make this a simple process.

It is important that you take the responsibility to train your dog. Make certain that you prepair yourself to train your puppy as it is not fair to them if you do not. They want to be trained and are at the perfect stage of their life to accept the training you will provide them. You will have much higher odds of successfully house training your dog if you dedicate yourself to the task. You will learn that training your puppy is not near as hard as you may think.

The age of your puppy helps make a decision in your training. This does make a difference in the training process of your puppy. You should start focusing on your training once your puppy is two months or older as you will have a much better chance of successful potty training. While you puppy is under two months old they still do not have any form of proper bladder control and trying to house train them at this age is a very difficult task.

Make sure you have dedicated the necessary time to properly potty training your puppy. Remaining consistent with potty training will allow you to successfully accomplish it only in a few weeks time. By following a proper schedule on when to take your puppy out you will have a much better success rate when training them.

You must have patience when training your puppy to use the potty properly. If you do not have the patience and lose your cool quickly you will be better off having somebody else potty train your puppy. You have to still expect for your puppy to have accidents on occasions when you are training them. Obviously this will test your patience but keep in mind your puppy is at a stage of learning right now and they will quickly adapt to this method of training. You will want to learn about potty training prior to getting your puppy as this will increase your rate of success with training. Properly educating yourself on how to train your puppy and spending the necessary amount of time with your puppy will be productive for both of you.

How To Potty Train A Puppy - Tips and Tricks

Again, don't let people make you believe that potty training your puppy is an impossible task. In reality it is a simple process if you remain dedicated and patient during the task. Below you will find some tips and tricks to help get you started with your training:

Be Consistent and on Schedule With Your Training:

- It is important that you take them out when they first wake up

- After they have had breakfast take them outside to use the bathroom.

- At this point in their life you should take them out once every two to three hours.

- After dinner you should take them out to use the bathroom.

- Finally they should be taken outside prior to bedtime

As you can see learning how to train your puppy is not that difficult. Potty training is a great first step in training your puppy.

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