First Coast Pet

Posts Tagged ‘pet dog’

The most important aspect of keeping a pet is to take its proper care. In case your pet is a dog, you’ll need to be really careful about grooming it correctly. Correct grooming not only makes your dog look good aside also makes it feel good. There are a number of things which make a part of dog grooming but there are certain fundamental things which are an essential.

One of the first things to do to guarantee your dog is groomed properly is to brush his/her hair. Not brushing your dog’s hair often enough could lead to caught fur which in turn could finish up damaging the dog’s coat. Regular brushing can help prevent that and maintain the coat.

While hair brushing is important, you need not brush your dog’s hair daily. The frequency of brushing that your dog needs will depend on the length of the coat. Dogs with longer hair require more frequent brushing as compared to dogs with shorter hair.

Washing your dog is also an essential part of grooming. A bath is ensures that your dog is both clean and well groomed. Showering consistently doesn’t simply keep your dog’ coat clean but also dumps a bacteria or germ sticking to his coat. Some of these bacteria or germs could pose a threat to the dog’s health if left unchecked and cause illnesses and other disease.

Again, the frequency of your dog’s bath depends on the breed of the dog. While almost all of the dogs can do with one bath in a month if kept clean, some exceptions have to be considered. The most important exception naturally is that your dog had gone out and has come back all dirtied. Dogs need a bath with halfhearted water so watch out about the temperature. And , ensure that you get the right dog shampoo for bath.

Nail trimming is also a part of dog grooming. Dogs with longer nails are sometimes more susceptible to diseases of diverse kind then those with shorter nails. This is because without regular trimming the nails could attract dirt or germs making your dog more inclined to sicknesses.

Now, about nail clipping you’ve got to realize a vital thing. There’s a likelihood that your dog might not ‘agree’ to the exercise. If you have trained it about clipping part since it was just a puppy, the picture could be favorable. Grown up dogs are a different story. Best path is to give some sedatives to dog before you go about clipping its nails.

You do not need your pet to be a social embarrassment for you. Thus, it is vital that you follow these necessities of dog grooming and make your pet appear and feel good.

Our Australian Shepherd, Mittsy, was pretty much a normal puppy as far as chewing on things goes. She did the shoe thing and the wooden legs on our kitchen chairs. The puppy chewing phase lasted until she was about 15 months old.

After that we could be certain that our furniture was safe, but there was never a month that would go by without Mittsy testing something new to see if it was edible. Thank goodness for pet gates, or we probably wouldn’t have much left of our house and home.

There are many things that are considered dangerous to a dog if ingested. At some point or another, Mittsy has pretty much eaten everything on that list, with only minor indigestion.

We were terrified for her the first time this happened, and it has happened several times since then. On her first Easter weekend with us, she managed to find our children’s cache of left over chocolate Easter eggs. Mittsy devoured as many as she could, wrapper and all.

The stomach pains she would experience would last about a day and then she would be back on the hunt to see if there was anymore of this glorious food to be found.

These Easter delights were obviously quite seasonal, but with a house full of teen aged daughters, Mittsy’s favorite staple food was readily available 365 days a year. What would that be you ask? Why lipstick of course, and the redder the lipstick the better she liked it.

Unfortunately a regular chore around our house was removing red lipstick stains from beige carpets. We went through periods where we remembered to put up the pet gate, but whenever we forgot, the red streaks would be there to remind us.

Mittsy’s crowning  moment was yet to come.

Once a year, friends of ours host a long weekend get together at their summer cottage. Several families are invited and pets are included. Its a favorite weekend for our family and we look forward to it as soon as Spring arrives.

The majority of this infamous weekend was absolutely fabulous. Unfortunately, on the day we were to leave for home, Mittsy decided that she would need lots of food to tide her over on the four hour trip home. She searched high and low looking for any kind of eats she could find.

Her first find was the french loaf that we had been saving for that evening’s Italian feast. She managed to eat the whole loaf of bread before anyone caught her. You would think that this would fill her up, but oh no, not Mittsy.

We had been out playing around and in the water, and I was sent to find a frisbee that was in the cottage. Unfortunately I found more than just the frisbee. Out the back window of the cottage, my eye caught some movement. There was Mittsy filling herself on the gourmet treasures in the cottage compost heap.

I managed to chase her away from her compost delight, but within half an hour or so, Mittsy became very ill. Every breath from her mouth was steaming in the air, even though it was a 90 degree day.

It would be four hours before we got back to civilization, and we thought by starting the trek as soon as possible, we could get Mittsy to a vet before nightfall. We finsihed packing the car, said our goodbyes and headed out.

There were several stops on the way home as Mittsy tried to clear the contents of her stomach. You can’t believe how disgusting that was. Our kids wanted to get out of the car and walk home.

By the time we got home, Mittsy had somehow totally recovered and as soon as we opened the car door, she was off on a run wanting to play in the yard. She was off her normal diet for a couple of days, but no more than that.

We watched her closely, made sure she had lots of fresh water to drink and marveled at the dog with the iron gut. It was like she was saying to us “I told you I could eat anything”.