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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FREE Dog Training Tips: Easy Steps to YOU Becoming Leader of the Pack

This article is the second in a 3-part series about changing dog behavior using positive dog training methods.

Be a leader, a dog will follow.

From the last article, remember King and his dominant dog behavior? King was the leader of his pack -- Mom, Dad, 2 kids. King set the rules in the house and didn’t hesitate to enforce them, with growling, posturing, biting and other scary dog behaviors.

In that article, I introduced 3 simple dog training steps to help you begin to take the leadership role back from your dominant and furry leader-of-the-pack.

Let’s look at another family, where Mom is the leader and Queenie is at the bottom of the pack hierarchy (where dogs should be) and her obedient dog behavior was praised and applauded by the whole family.

One day, Billy brought a dog home. The family decided to take her in and make her part of the family. They named her Queenie. Queenie was a terrier mix, feisty and pushy, with an inquisitive mind. Mom Jackie quickly began helping Queenie fit in with the family with positive dog training techniques. She taught Queenie where her sleeping places/beds were, how to make requests with a polite sit, how to communicate in a positive way, how good manners result in good things. Jackie patiently reinforced each good dog behavior until Queenie got it, and then she would review and reward to keep the good behaviors in place. Queenie quickly became a wonderful member of the family. Yes, she pushed and sought out trouble wherever she could, but Jackie was there to help redirect her and teach her new ways of using her curiosity in fun games and activities with her family. There was no concern about biting or bad dog behavior. Queenie and the rest of her pack were calm and happy.

If you want your household to be more like Queenie’s, here are a few more simple dog training suggestions to help you take back your leadership position and create an orderly and calm household. (Review article #1 for the first set of suggestions).

1. First, get their attention!

Begin all communication with your dog’s name first. "Blah, blah, blah Benji" gets their attention at Benji. "Benji! Come! " sets Benji up for success.

2. Leader first!

You, the leader, always go first through doorways, gateways, car doors, etc . The leader goes first and the dog follows. Praise, praise, praise for honoring the leader.

3. Be kind!

This is so, so important. Use a gentle voice for most things. When you need to use a more stern approach, that’s fine. Just remember, your dog is looking to you for direction and guidance. Give it calmly and lovingly and you will see the difference. Your dog will love you and want to be with you and please you.

4. Let’s play! -- on MY terms.

Games and toys are great fun for dogs -- and you. Begin and end games as a leader does. YOU are in control, not Skipper. End the game before he gets bored and leaves. Keep him wanting more.

5. Let’s EAT!

Being a leader means eating first at mealtime. If you typically eat at about the same time your dog eats, you eat first and then feed your dog. (This suggestions points to another strong recommendation – no running buffet! )

Don’t let Fifi run your household. No matter how large or small the dog, or how cute and cuddly, if you do not step into the leadership role, your dog will. Take leadership of your pack back and begin to change that bad dog behavior. You CAN have Queenie in your household. Just start putting these dog training suggestions in place and you’ll notice the difference right away.

Be the leader--your dog will love you for it and work hard to please you!

Useful Dog Tricks performed by Jesse

Dogs Need Good Food Too � Your Guide To Your Dog�s Diet

Dogs’ nutritional needs may differ from ours. What we deem as healthy for us might not sufficient or appropriate for them. To give your dog the best nutrition available you will have to understand their specific needs and how to address them. After all, taking care of man’s best friend does take a little preparation and know-how.

Your dog needs the essential nutrients to grow, go, and glow. If your dog does not receive proper nutrients it may result in poor health, stunted growth, lethargy and shortened lifespan.

Dogs like most animal life forms need the six basic nutrients for survival: carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins, and minerals. These nutrients serve different functions in sustaining the health and well-being of your dog. This guide will elaborate on dogs’ need of these nutrients.

1. Proteins: the building blocks of your dog’s health

Proteins are chemicals made of amino acids. Your dog can produce some of these chemicals in their own bodies. The rest has to be supplied through food. The best sources of these amino acids are meat and its byproducts. Dogs can extract proteins from these sources a lot easier than it would with plant sources.

Choose feeds that have an adequate amount of protein in them to help your puppies and working dogs grow. Too much of this, however , may cause kidney problems and has been known to cause temperament problems.

2. Fats: delivering other nutrients to the body

Fat sound like a bad word – everyone tries to avoid it because it causes tons of health problems. Dogs, however , just like man, also have a need for these nutrients – albeit in a moderate amount.

The right amount of fat is needed to promote good skin health, and to transport fat-soluble vitamins. Fats are also essential to kidney function and reproductive health. They make food tastier too. Too much fat will result in obesity and lethargy.

3. Carbohydrates: doggie fuel

Fifty percent of your dog’s diet should consist of carbohydrates since they need it for their energy. Corn is one of the more popular sources of this nutrient, along with soybeans. If this source is clean and of good nutritional quality then that should be fine as well.

4. Vitamins and Minerals: keeping your dog healthy

It would have been easier if your dog only had to splurge on vitamins and minerals to get optimal health. However , the opposite is true. Your dog needs an exact amount of vitamins and minerals to be healthy. Although, your dog may receive these nutrients from food, vitamin supplements for your dogs could be helpful. Specially formulated commercial feeds also make it easier for dog owners to give their dogs good nutrition.

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How to build a dog house for your puppy

So you'd like to know how to build a dog house? Well, that means we're talking to less than 50% of all dog owners. Why? Because current survey information at OpinionTrone says most dog owners (over 50%) allow their pets on the family couch. Furthermore, if you allow your pet on the couch, chances are that you do not HAVE a dog house!

But for those of you who do, there are really good things to remember about how to build a dog house:

1. Any good how to build a dog house plan should begin by making sure the house is big enough to accommodate your dog's ultimate grown-up size. You would not like to live in a house whose ceiling was below your head height--neither would your dog. Most humans like about 2 feet of air above themselves in a room in order to live without feelings of claustrophobia! That comfort zone is about 1/3 of their standing height. Allow your pet the same airiness. Figure out how tall it will stand as a mature pet and make sure the ceiling of the dog house is 1/3 again taller!

2. Raise the house a few inches off the ground to allow air and water to flow beneath. Ventilation is important for the health of your dog and to dissuade pests from invading its home. A few nickel-sized holes in the walls under the eaves should be sufficient. Install a wind block inside the house so the dog can use the heat of its own body to warm up the area if it is really cold and windy outside. Any good plan for how to build a dog house will have a house big enough so that a partial wall will allow the dog to escape the elements. The dog can choose whether to just sleep in the entry room or go around the inner archway maze wall into the inner sanctum. Both areas could have bedding or a pillow, such as one filled with cedar chips to discourage fleas.

3. Make the floor just the littlest bit slanted toward the doorway. Any good "how to build a dog house" plan will make certain that any rain that does enter via the ventilation holes or doorway automatically drains out. Make sure that the roof is built at a slant, as well, for obvious run-off reasons. Do not paint the inside of the house, but do make sure that the house is well insulated.

4. Make sure the dog house faces away from the major storm direction. In the U. S., most storms come from the south and west. Not all, mind you, but most! So most how to build a dog house plans will suggest that the ideal placement of a dog house door is to the east. That way, even in the wintertime, the cold north wind will not whip inclement weather into the dog's entryway.

5. Finally, almost all how to build a dog house plans will have you put hinges on the roof of the house for easy cleaning. When you clean the dog, you should clean its house and bedding--just as faithfully as you would wish your pet to be to you!

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Training Your Dog - Best Tips And Tricks Revealed

As soon as you first bring home your new puppy or dog the most crucial thing that you must do is to train your dog to be well behaved. The primary thing you should have when training your dog is the correct information, it will be irritating if you have been attempting really hard to train your dog only to discover that you have been doing things incorrectly! The greatest mistake you could make as a dog owner is not training your dog. Numerous people do not even try training their dogs because they don't know how to do it correctly or because they merely can't be bothered or are too slack. If you do not train your dog then your dog will probably be likely to develop bad habits and destructive behaviors when it's an older dog.

It is highly advisable that you should prepare your self and have an idea of what is to be expected when training your dog. Different breeds of dogs have different wants so it will be helpful to do some research about your dogs breed a little bit before you start training. After some research and you're feeling that you are ready, then you can start training your dog.

There are 2 primary categories of dog training - behavior training and obedience training.

Behavior training - Teaching your dog the rights and wrongs and preventing or stopping unwanted habits which could vary from chewing on your furniture, stopping disgusting behaviors such as poop eating (coprophagy), jumping on people to digging holes or barking excessively.

Obedience training - Basically teaches your dog to grow to be an obedient dog that will always comply with your household rules and do as you want such as to sit, come when called, lay down on command and much more. Potty training and lots of other types of training are involved in obedience training your dog.

The first most important rule when training your dog is to teach your dog its name. Use it on a regular basis, call your dog by its name each time you want to get your dogs attention. As soon as your dog is aware of its name and comes when called then you are able to make the leap and start on obedience training. The next big thing on your priority checklist ought to be to toilet train and house train your dog. Do you really need to put up with your dog relieving itself all over the place in the house for more than you have to? Of course not, so it's important that you should handle this as soon as you can. Throughout the training process accidents are unavoidable, especially if you have a puppy, puppies cannot hold it in as long yet however they'll be able to hold it in longer as they get older. It is your responsibility as a dog owner to simply clean up the mess till your dog has been toilet trained.

Short training sessions which are about fifteen to twenty minutes have been proven to be essentially the most effective. Lengthy training sessions that go for hours will often make dogs bored and lose interest. Attempt to train your dog about two - three times every day. Remember to revise over old and learned training once in a while so your dog does not forget. a good dog trainer will never punish their dog because this won't do any good and won't teach your dog anything but to only be afraid of you and will trigger bad habits for you to deal with in the future. a good dog trainer will always use praise and treats to reward their dog when it has accomplished the fitting thing. Be patient with training and keep training until your dog learns what you want it to do.

With proper obedience and behavior training, you will build a stronger bond together with your dog and be a proud owner of a cheerful and healthy dog that you would be proud to walk around on with and spend time bonding with. Training your dog is the most greatest thing you can do for your dog as it's the foundation to the beginning of an amazing life for your dog.

Amazing Dog Tricks by Paige the Border Collie!