Monday, June 29, 2009

Games For Dogs


Dog owners learn quickly that a bored dog is a problem dog. It is not that the dog is bad; it is that the owner is not investing enough time and energy into his pet. Most pet owners take great pride in showing how smart their pets are. The best way to show this is by playing games with the animal. Smart dogs need to be mentally stimulated.

There are many ways to stimulate your dog mentally and I will list a few. The first and most important is lots of exercise. Set up a homemade agility course and work with your dog on that giving him lots of praise and attention when he runs it correctly. Hide a ball and play find it with him.

Keep a regular schedule each day with your dog. Take a walk at the same time, feed him and groom him at the same time. The schedule or ritual is very important to your dog. Give your dog jobs to do. Anything simple like bring in the paper or getting your slippers. Dogs love to work and will do most anything for you praise.

Obedience training is a wonderful tool for exercising both mind and body. Your dog has to think and make the right decision. He knows he will get rewarded for right decisions and corrected for wrong ones. This type of training also creates a sense of responsibility in your dog and requires him to think in order to get your praise.

You can make a game out of just about anything with your dog and both of you will be rewarded for the effort. Have fun with your dog and keep him busy because that is what makes him happy.

Stop by our website and see pictures and descriptions of AKC purebred dogs. We also have the dog market place where you can find dog recipes, dog toys, pet meds, and just about anything you can imagine.

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Friday, June 5, 2009

Choosing the RIGHT Puppy!



You’ve thought about the pros and cons of adding to your family-life a four-legged, furry, dependant member. The pros have won. The front door opens and you begin “finding the right puppy”. We’d like to make some suggestions for choosing the right puppy! Our suggestions come from experience. Our family has always had at least one loveable, 4-legged, loyal member. Our human children upon “leaving the nest” set out to find their right puppy. In a couple of the cases the dog choices were very good, but due to size, need of exercise, shedding or grooming they didn’t work with their lifestyles. Finding the right puppy for your lifestyle will lead to a strong relationship with the perfect family dog! We’d like to share our thoughts with you about choosing the right puppy! Picking a dog book about dog breeds and their common characteristics can aid in finding the right puppy for your lifestyle. You will soon find that the different breeds adapt to their environments in unique ways. A good resource book we used when picking a dog was the AKC manual. Even once we selected the breed it helped us when picking a puppy from the litter! Another one of life’s hard choices!!
Make no mistake about it; when picking a dog breed, they all require exercise and your attention. Choosing the right puppy for our family meant thinking about the area we had for exercise. Chasing a tennis ball thrown by hand thrilled our “smaller” perfect family dog. The larger breeds we used tennis rackets, bats and frisbees. One standard poodle loved going to my grandparents’ farm. We’d let him out to run along side through the pastures. Most times he could beat us to the house! Appropriate exercise will not only be healthy for you and your puppy and nurture your relationship, it will make training easier. Much like us it will help to focus on learning if you can break it up and exercise for a while.
Other suggestions for choosing the right puppy from the litter are:
· Picking the puppy up and placing him/her on their back with a flat hand over the chest. Does the puppy protest and squirm or try to bite the hand or stay calm?
· What happens when you lift the puppy up from the ground?
**Does the puppy continue to struggle to free itself?
**Does the puppy first struggle then calm down?
**Or does the puppy simply remain calm?
· When you pet the puppy, how does the puppy respond?
**By coming toward you?
**Biting your hand?
**Run away?
Finding the right puppy for YOUR lifestyle is not just about physical appearance. Much like our human friends it has a lot to do with personality. A “quote for thought”:
“Money can buy you a fancy pet, but it takes love to make him wag his tail!”
Let us know your suggestions!
Have a good day and we hope to you visit our Website, Perfect Family Dog.

House Training a Puppy

Oh, if potty training a puppy were that easy. However training a puppy is a 2-way experience that involves you as much as your puppy. Whether using the crate training technique, sod litter boxes or paper training, potty training requires patience, commitment, observation and a schedule! Just like us puppies are unique and have their own personalities that develop as you develop your own relationship with your puppy. We hope here to offer some tips for training a puppy that will help you understand your puppy and aid in this development.

So let’s begin some thoughts about house training a puppy. The first thing to remember is that just like babies, puppies do not have the ability to “hold it” for any length of time. When they eat and/or drink, remember it is a short distance from one end to the other and you need to establish an area that is her “bathroom spot”. Then be observant. Shortly after play time, after exercising, after eating/drinking, should you notice the puppy circling or sniffing a lot these are signs of needing eliminate. Put the leash on the puppy while talking to her or if you are in a situation where you can step outside with the puppy you may want to pick her up and say something like, “Do you need to go out?” Start using a phrase that the puppy can associate with being able to get to acceptable bathroom area. Then when your puppy does use their acceptable bathroom IMMEDIATELY praise her lavishly. Praise will get you farther faster than anything else. Scolding does not. It is confusing to your puppy and scary for her. They understand you are mad and it is directed at them but they don’t always understand why. That is why it has been found that the old method of taking the dog/puppy over to the area they “messed” and “rubbing their nose in it” while scolding didn’t work and often prolonged the learning process.

Remember I mentioned that a puppy has a weak bladder and doesn’t have a reliable way of “holding it” until approximately 6 months of age? Well, keep in mind that certain activities and emotions can also cause a dog to loose control of their bowls and bladder. These are such things as being excited about you coming home. With some of our dogs it didn’t matter if it was a 30-minute trip to the store or 4 hour separation due to classes. We would always make the first thing we did was to talk with our puppy as we headed outside so that if they could get to their “spot” and “go”. Then we’d praise them and give them some extra time to be sure they had gone all they needed.
Another that you may need to pay attention to is if something frightens your dog. We have had dogs that this goes both ways with. Some dogs don’t like thunderstorms. Most of our dogs did not like fireworks. We normally could not get them to go out when the neighbors were shooting off the fireworks. However when they were finished we’d walk out with them so they could relax and eliminate. We have had friends who had dogs that when they were scared they lost control of their bladder. In short, strong emotion whether it is excitement or fearful can cause a puppy to loose control.

Another reason for soiling is “marking” their territory. It has been our experience that this is more common with male dogs. However when a dog does soil in the house, be sure to clean-up the area thoroughly. If the scent lingers the puppy will smell this and continue to use the bathroom in that area.

People are not perfect and neither are puppies! So with that said there will be “accidents”. If you “catch” your puppy in the act try saying something that distracts them and possibly interrupt them long enough to get them outside to their area. When this happens be sure to praise them for finishing in the acceptable area. If it is too late, it is too late. Clean the area thoroughly. Your puppy will soon notice the difference in no praise and sense that was not acceptable. Some people take the towels and leave them out in the area the puppy uses for her bathroom area so the scent is there. If that is an option for you, it may reinforce the proper area.

When you leave your puppy you may want to use the “crate method” to confine her. This is a very successful method. There are many sizes of crates and some can be collapsed so you can take them with you. You want to be sure your dog, even when full grown, will have enough room to stand, sit and turn around. When your dog is a puppy you may want to corner off part of the area if the crate is too large. If you are going to be gone longer than 45 minutes you will want to leave an area with paper that the puppy can get to so it can use the bathroom if needed. In the beginning you will want to paper the entire area. Observe and within a short while you will notice that the puppy “goes” in the same area. Dogs, in general, do NOT like to soil the area they lay in. So as you notice where that area is you can slowly remove paper from the other areas. Be sure if you are using the crate method for training that the crate is not used as punishment or a “time out” area. You don’t want the dog to fearful of the crate anymore than they would be of a dog bed! Our daughter used a crate for two of her dogs and when we would dog sit the dog would automatically go (without any coaxing) in the crate when he wanted to sleep. The crate is also helpful when your puppy is going through teething and you are gone. It will contain your puppy with toys that safe and acceptable to use as her “teething toy”!

“Toys” are another subject that we’d like to discuss. Dogs need to play and exercise. But we’ll post a blog for that discussion!

If you are in an apartment or don’t have a crate you may want to consider the Indoor Dog Potty. This is a new and improved method that takes over where paper training and litter or sod box training started. This also eliminates late night walking if that is not always convenient or establishes an appropriate remedy for those who work long shifts at a time. The Indoor Dog Potty can be an inexpensive solution for these types of situations.

We also invite you to visit our website, Perfect Family Dog, where we are building pictures and information on every breed of dog recognized by the American Kennel Club. We hope you will visit us often as we build it

We hope these potty training tips for a puppy are helpful. We look forward to your comments and updating with other suggestions!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Choosing A Dog For The Family


This article is about picking the best family dog for your family. The top ten family dogs are all going to be breeds that are very patient with children and enjoy playing with them. Choosing a good family dog needs to be a serious and well thought out plan because the dog will be a family member for many years to come.
Choosing a family dog is the only chance you will get to pick a family member! There are a number of considerations you need to look at. Does the dog like playing with children? Are there other pets in the household and if so does the new dog get along with them? Does the new dogs personality fit in well with the family’s likes and dislikes? There are many more questions that need to be considered when deciding on the type of dog you would like for your family.
You need to look at purebred, designer mixes or mutts. Purebred dogs can be very expensive and it is important to meet the parents of the litter. Mixed breed dogs can be a good option and are more affordable. It is very important to spend time with the mixed breed puppy before you commit to taking it home to get a real good feel for it's personality and traits. The local animal shelter usually has a number of puppies and you can usually find purebred dogs there if you are patient. You should also speak with your local vet about breeders and puppies he might be aware of.
Large versus small is major question. If you live in a small home or apartment you need to consider space and exercise. Can you physically handle a large dog? Are you gone for long periods of time when the dog will be confined? In some cases it is better to consider an older dog if you have trouble or don’t want to train a puppy.
Make sure your whole family spends plenty of time with the new family dog before you take it home! When you get your new family dog home make sure your have food there with the proper nutritional values for your new dog. Also be prepared to do additional dog training to insure you have the perfect family dog. Good luck and enjoy the best family dog ever!

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Dog Training Tips

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There are few time more frustrating than when your dog runs wild and will not pay any attention to you no matter how much you yell and jump up and down, or when he is running out into the street full of traffic and you can not get him to stop and just sit until you can reach him. These are a few of the reasons for learning how to train your dog. Below we will talk about some types of Dog Training.

Behavior Training

In home dog training begins with behavior training. House breaking, leash training, proper behavior around people and any other behavior that makes him a better, more manageable companion are included in this category. Well trained dogs a usually calmer and more manageable in all situations.

Activity Training

This type of training includes throw and return, herding, hide and seek or any activity that you and your dog enjoy doing together. Many breeds have specialties bred into them such as hunting or swimming. You should concentrate on activities your pet seems to enjoy.

Obedience Training

There are many dog training tips available for obedience training and also some good E-books available online for downloading. A dog that is well trained in obedience is very well behaved and also has learned not to do things like chewing, biting and barking for no reason. Training should begin early in your dog’s life as a puppy.

Usually there is no special dog training equipment need but in some cases a dog training collar can be used for excessive barking. As your relationship with you dog evolves you can identify what areas of training you need to concentrate on and build from there. Always keep in mind that a dog can get bored and this leads to some behavior problems but many of those problems can be corrected but spending more time with your dog.

Most dogs do better if you can follow a routine schedule with them. They need a lot of reassurance and attention. There are many books and classes on how to train a dog but one of the best is an E-Book written by Daniel Stevens who is an expert dog trainer. I am including a link below that will take you to his site. We used his training methods and were very successful with it. Good luck with your training!

Click Here To Check Out Daniel Stevens FREE Training Tips!

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Good Family Dogs

Picking a family dog should begin with creating "the dog family." What this means is, you will need to make the family aware of the responsibilities of having a four legged, furry family member. The family will need to decide who will be responsible for feeding and keeping water down, how will the new dog get exercise, where will the dog sleep, who will be do most of the house-breaking. Just like picking a family doctor, you will need to pick a family veterinarian to take care of medical issues for your new dog.

Good family dogs fit in with the dog family needs and imitations. If there are family members who are very young a small dog could be in trouble just because of rough handling by a toddler. A Huge dog could injure a small child just by getting excited about playing. Does anyone in the house have a problem with loose dog hair? There are breed which do not shed. Are there older members of the family that may be knocked over by a large dog. A medium sized family dog is almost always a safe bet.

Should the family dog be a purebred or a mutt? Purebred dogs are bred for certain personality and physical characteristics.Muts are a mixture of breeds but they still have personalities and problems just like a purebred but they are much cheaper to buy. Which ever type of dog you choose remember, they will be living with you for many years to come so take your time when picking your next family member. Remember, it is the only time you will be able to choose a family member!

Our kids are grown now and living on their own but our memories always include our four legged members. Our kids all have their own dogs and kids to make their memories with and we still have three furry members living with us so there is no such thing as an "empty nest" when you have four legged "kids" at home to take care of you. We are all part of "the dog family" and happy to be so.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Right Puppy To Bring Home!

When your family has decided on a breed and a breeder, it is time to meet the parents of the litter you are interested in and try to learn if the parents
are of the right temperament you are looking for and have the physical characteristics you want. It is often best if there are several litters available for you to compare. Remember, the puppy you choose will be a member of your family for many years so taking some time to evaluate is time well spent!

Most breeders will require a deposit in order to hold a particular puppy. Six to seven weeks is about average before you should be able to bring your puppy
home. It is best to get to see the litter as soon as the breeder will allow to get to know the individual puppies. You should try to make your pick as quickly
as you can so the breeder will hold that particular puppy for you. Many breeders have waiting lists for their puppies if they are reputable.

A good breeder will spend a lot of time with you going over the temperaments and physical characteristics of the individual puppies. A good breeder will be
able to tell you if there are any physical short comings of the puppies and if those are considerations for long term health. Most good breeders will not
knowingly sell a puppy with major health defects.

The breeder should help pick a puppy for you by learning about your family members, activity levels, available time at home, type of home and exercise area and many other intangible factors as he gets to know you and your family. Breeders should be very concerned about proper placement of the puppies and in many cases if the placement does not work out will either take the dog back or be very involved in finding a new home.

As cute as all puppies are you will need to get your selected pup away from the rest of the litter and make sure it is active and squirmy when you pick him
up the first time. He should have straight legs and a strong build. Check to make sure he does not have an overbite in his jaw and clear eyes. Also check teeth and gums to make sure the teeth are straight and the gums look health. Make sure when your puppy is away from the litter he is active and curious about
his surroundings.

If the puppy you are looking at does not seem interested in his surroundings and is not curious about things that move around him and does not react to the sound of your voice pick a different puppy! If you take your time and evaluate each puppy in the litter you will usually be able to pick a companion for your family that will be with you for years and show you the love only a well cared for family member can show.