When you set about training your puppy you need to establish a few ground rules.  The first rule must be that you are in charge and that your puppy does exactly as it is told.  Now your puppy doesn’t know what to do until you show it, so any form of discipline must be completely out of the question.  When your dog jumps up and you don’t want it to, you don’t hit it, you move away and when your dog sits and doesn’t jump up you tell it what a good dog it has been.  It’s all about rewarding good behaviour and ignorning bad behaviour.  If you can do this then your dog will develop into a good dog in no time at all.

Remember that the seeds of a good a dog begin as a puppy.  If you don’t train your puppy then you won’t get a good dog.

Balls

Firstly when it comes to balls you need to make sure you have the right size.  This might sound a little funny, and i’ll give you a moment to get yourself over it…  Now when you have a ball that’s too big for your dogs mouth yet the dog still thinks the ball will go in there due to it’s misleading size then you have a problem and if you continue to use this ball in play your dog will never be interested in playing with a ball

A large ball is different, and even dogs have a sense of proportion.  If it’s clear that the dog won’t get it in its mouth then you can bet that the dog has figured this out too; now that might not seem very clever to you, but to a dog that is advanced mathematics!  Larger balls are good for kicking around while your dog tries to take it from you.

Rope

If you are going to play tugging on a rope with your dog please try to remember that your dog’s teeth may not be as strong as the muscles in your arm and if you are pulling your dog as he tugs on a length of rope then you will be likely to pull out it’s teeth (if not straight away then you will certainly loosen them for another time).

It’s not even a difficult decision to make really, not when you consider it properly.  If you have a dog then you will probably already be well aware of how expensive veterinary fees are these days and you will no that you sometimes need to take money that’s needed somewhere else in order to pay for the well being of your dog.

Well, if you consider that last vet bill for goodness knows how much money, and you divide it up over a year then you’ll probably find that you can easily spread the payments and get an insurance policy that will pay these unexpected vet bills for you.  Not only that, if you get dog insurance, some of them may even provide you with a reward to pay someone should your dog get lost and compensation money should your dog die.  The main reason though of course is to keep your dog alive and well, and this is why the majority of insurance companies provide cover for up to a large amount of money for vet bills.

Check out who’s insuring their dogs and they’ll tell you that they don’t regret it for a minute.

Here are a few steps to take in order to ensure that the puppy you get from a breeder is a good one and it’s likely to be as fit and healthy as it can be for its breed.  You must appreciate that some dogs have genetic problems with their health due to overbreeding a long time ago, and you cannot hold the breeder responsible for that:

• Research your chosen breed.  If you want to buy a particular type of puppy then research its breed on the internet and go and visit any other places you can where you can see the dog fully grown too.  This will give you some idea of how they are supposed to look, their temperament (take over an average of a number of dogs of course) and if they have any distinguishing features that should be prominent.
• This research extends to the parents of the puppy you are planning on buying.  For example, an Alsatian should have a nice straight back and look alert.  If the parent dogs don’t look as they should after your research then do not buy the puppy.  It’s really the only way you can judge how a puppy will turn out by looking at it’s mother.  If at all possible you should be able to identify the father too, and perhaps interact with them both at some point to see how their temperament is.
• Ask the breeder for testimonials of other buyers, show winners or other people who have done business with them.

If you look closely you will see what you’re buying.

It’s a simple enough question isn’t it?  Why indeed do you have a dog if you’re not going to play with it?  It costs hardly anything to get some simply dog toys and play fetch or something like that, and depending on the breed of dog you have you’d be amazed to see how fast they pick up training habits through playing.

Dogs love to play and they love to be active, it’s in their natural make-up.  If they don’t play then they become lethargic and unhealthy.  This is also a good reason to play with them.  These days food and snacks are often a danger for dogs and if they are a constant snacker, or you have members of the family who just won’t listen when you tell them not to feed the dog, then you must ensure that if you can do nothing else about it you have to exercise them and play with them.

On top of all these reasons there is also one more very important one.  You build a relationship with your dog and become the best of friends.  If you bond by playing, your dog will be forever faithful and loyal to you.  You only have to give a little to receive a lot.

First and foremsot, grooming your dog is an excellent way of bonding.  If you are gentle and kind when you groom your dog they will thank you for it by forming a close bond.  All dogs usually enjoy grooming and if they don’t then it’s probably something to do with the way they are being groomed or the way they have been in the past.  It should be a time when you can spend quality time with your dog and not have any interruptions.  This is probably why most people tend to do it in the evening when everyone in the house has settled down for the night; but it is also a good technique to calm your dog before going for a trip out in a car perhaps or maybe to the vet.

Another added bonus to spending time with your dog and making it look good is the fact that you will reduce the chance of a flea infestation.  When you are grooming you can keep your eyes open for the little devils and treat your dog according to how bad it is.

Also, if you have a dog with a lot of hair you can make sure that their hair stays knot free and take out all the dried up dead hair that usuallyt ends up in the carpet or on the furniture.

So if you’ve been clever and you’ve got rid of the fleas on your dog you now need to turn to your home.  What?  i hear you ask.  Yes, i said you need to turn to your home.

It’s bad at anytime of year but this is especially bad in the summer when it’s really hot, the doors are open all day, the dog is in and out and laying at the side of the room in the shade trying to get cool.  When your dog rolls over at the edge of the room the fleas that have been brought in by it will nest in the carpet, right near the wall where it’s warmest.  You might think that they won’t because your dog has been treated, but all this happened before you did that.

What you need to do is constantly move your furniture when you hoover and make sure that you get right to the edge of the carpet and suck up all those nasty little eggs.  The edges of the carpet often get left and this is where the fleas love it.  In the winter they’re here too simply because the radiator is on and it’s nice and warm again for them.

In the summertime there is nothing more annoying on your dog than fleas, and if you don’t properly treat them they will drive you and your dog up the wall.  A flea bite doesn’t always happen to a dog you know, they like to bite into us humans too, and they feed off your blood.  Nasty little suckers aren’t they?

You can do something about it though, and there are literally hundreds of flea treaments out there on the market these days.  You owe it to your dog and yourself to get the best one possible.  Personally i don’t touch the collars or the powders; they never seem to work.  The best ones i’ve ever found are the ones that are added to the skin on the back of the dogs neck (so they can’t lick it).  These treatment get absorbed into the skin and spread around your dog quickly.

The beauty of these treatments is that wherever the dog goes they spread their treament too and fleas (and their eggs) are destroyed almost instantly.

Dog toys are strongly recommended by all pet professionals for a variety of reasons, and not least among these reasons is what i have just mentioned – the sound mental development of your dog.  Now, let’s not forget the physical development of your dog either.  Any dog toy will do for this development, all you need to do really is toss it and hopefully your dog will run after it; the fetching game does require a little practie in some breeds of dog, and often it’s best to just wait until someone else does it and their dog reacts in a positive way; only this way can you begin to understand your dog.

This leads onto another point that is really interesting.  Dog toys can help you bond with your pet in an important way too and this should not be forgotten.  When you’ve entered your home you should do what you want nd then play with the tog toys with your pet as mch as i can.

You see, humans would have only bred dogs that could be useful for hunting, war, and protection; they would not have been bred for pleasure or fun in any way shape or form; compared with the history of the dog this part of it is considerably small.

A dog breeder would have initially recognised qualities in a dog that they needed and perhaps mated it with a dog that had different qualities that they desired also, in the hope that the two would produce offspring that would develop into the type of dog the human breeder required.  This is how it has always been and this is, in many respects, how it is still done today.

These days however most of the species have been developed as far as they’ll go.  We have hunting dogs that are capable of protection and attack if necessary, and we have developed our hunting dogs with other dogs in order to create hunting dogs with better sight; there is little left to do.  However, breeding has taken on a new meaning now.  Pedigrees are all the rage and if a breeder is to breed his pedigree, then he is likely to want to breed it with another pedigree to keep a good “line”.  This is a type of way to keep an eye on all the dogs in the two seperate families that have been reared and to identify any genetic difficulties that may have arisen.