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Helping Your Fearful Dog Gain Confidence

Living In Fear, Helping Your Fearful Dog Gain Confidence

Living a life filled with fear or anxiety is no fun for humans or dogs. In fact, it is a terrible way to live. Feelings of anxiety, nervousness fearful dog hidesand fear flood the body with toxic chemicals and can shorten a lifespan. Helping your fearful dog gain confidence can be as simple as introducing exercise into their routine, implementing basic obedience skills, coping skills and using something pleasurable (food or toys) to change the way your dog feels about the fearful object or environment.

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6 Potty Training Tips for Puppies and Adult Dogs

6 Potty Training Tips for Puppies and Adult Dogspotty training tips for puppies and dogs

I receive many calls regarding potty training both for puppies and adult dogs. With the holiday season there will be many more calls as puppies and dogs are high on the Christmas wish list.

Most people know that a puppy must be potty trained. When adopting an adult dog, you may think that they should already be potty trained. However, if the dog is being adopted from a shelter

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Pet Suffocation, Snack Bag Dangers

Suffocation by Snack Bags, Is Your Pet at Risk?

Recently a pet sitter of ours arrived at a client’s home for their daily dog walk only to find that sadly the dog had passed away. She found the dog at the base of the stairs with a potato chip bag stuck firmly on his head. She started Cpr immediately but it was too late. Cause of death, suffocation by the snack bag.

When a pet sticks their head in a bag or box to get the food, their pet suffocationbreathing creates a vacuum and the bag tightens until they can’t get it off and they suffocate.

Imagine the horror. Imagine how the sitter felt, as she has known this dog for years. This however, is nothing compared to what the owner felt when our pet sitter called to inform her of what had happened. Utter devastation are the only words to describe this situation. [Read more…]

Blastomycosis: Is Your Dog At Risk for Death by Fungus?

Is Your Dog At Risk for Death by Fungus?

blastomycosis in dogsLurking in your yard, in your mulch no less could be a naturally occurring fungus that readily infects dogs, cats as well as people and can be deadly for dogs and cats if not caught early. Blastomycosis is a yeast like fungal infection caused by Blastomyces dermatitidis.

This organism is commonly found in decaying wood and soil, usually near bodies of fresh water. [Read more…]

Don’t Bake Your Dog (Dogs In Hot Cars)

Yes, you heard me! As the days begin to warm, the temperatures in your car become hot. Hot enough to kill your dogs in hot cars. It only takes 10 minutes for the inside don't cook your dog, dogs in hot carsof your car to reach a temperature that can cause heatstroke in your dog. According to Jules Benson DVM “Heat stroke can permanently damage a pet’s health very rapidly. The change of only a few degrees to a dog’s normal body temperature can quickly result in coma, organ dysfunction, permanent brain damage, even death”.

Your dog’s body temperature of 101°- 102.5° is already naturally higher than a human’s. Coupled with the fact that in minutes the temperature inside your car can soar to deadly levels even on a relatively cool spring or summer day. [Read more…]

The Dangers of Foxtails and Your Pet

The Dangers of Foxtails and Your Pet

Foxtails -A foxtail is a spikelet or spikelet cluster of a grass, that serves to disperse its foxtails (grass awns) seeds as a unit. Thus the foxtail is a type of diaspore or “plant dispersal unit”. Some grasses that produce a foxtail are themselves called “foxtail“, also “spear grass”. – wikipedia

foxtails grass awnThese “foxtail like” weed clusters have barbs that when disturbed, fall and work their way into the ground making it hard for the cluster to come loose from the dirt. The outside part of the cluster also harbors bacteria composed of enzymes that break down cellular matter.  [Read more…]

7 Stress Signals Your Dog May Offer Prior to a Bite

Teach Your Children Well, 7 Stress Signals To Watch for Prior to a Dog Bite

Dogs can and do bite.  In the US alone 850,000 people seek medical fearful dogattention for dog bites annually. When children are bitten it is usually a dog they know (theirs, neighbors, friends). While biting is usually a last resort type of communication for most dogs, it is just that, a way of communicating “I am afraid” or “I don’t like what you are doing to or around me”.  Usually a dog offers another form of communication previous to a bite. Most adults and definitely children either don’t pick up on these signals or ignore them. [Read more…]