Dogs as Pets and Pet Dogs

by
Paul James

Mum, can I have a pet snake? Dad, mum won’t let me keep rats in the house! I dunno, kids and their animals. I remember having a pet mouse when I was a youngster (unbeknown to my parents), but it wasn’t really a pet as a pet is truly defined, as its home wasn’t a cage with a revolving wheel, a tray full of nibbles and a bunch of wood shavings, no, my mouse, Sniff, lived in a box at the bottom of the garden at night and the inside pocket of my school blazer during the day. Why? Well, I thought it would impress the girls. Ah well, we live in learn. I know now that all the lads with nice girlfriends had a family dog as their pet, and taking it for walks was a great way to meet up with their sweethearts of an evening.

Mum, dad, can I have a dog? I don't know why I kept asking as the answer was always a predictable NO each time the question was raised. Our neighbors had a dog called Trash and that’s exactly what it did. This mongrel bitch trashed everything she could during her conscious hours. Their furniture was torn to shreds, all the wooden doors were scored with scratch marks, the house reeked from top to bottom with doggy odors, including the fowl stench of pee, and the retched thing never stopped barking. I often wondered why they never gave it some kind of obedience dog training so that everyone, including them, would get a bit of peace and quiet into their lives. I used to despise the Smith family and always blamed them for my parent’s decision not to get a dog. That was until Elsa came into our lives one very cold, wet, and wintery day.

I remember returning home from the fish and chip shop one evening and hot on my heels was this floppy eared cross breed with a limp and a lop sided jaw. She’d obviously been out for a while as she was shivering and shaking with the cold. I felt so sorry for the poor little sod as this pooch was soaked through to the skin too. The young mutt appeared a little shy, even nervous perhaps, and I wondered if she’d attended some kind of dog training school at some point as she seemed to obediently walk by my side without any fuss whatsoever.

I allowed her to follow me home and that caused a right ole ruckus indoors. “You can take that filthy hound right back to where you found her”, screamed my mother. “Just look at the state of my lovely clean floor! Get that dopey dog out of the house NOW!” I was just about to guide this dripping dog back to the streets when she flopped herself onto the kitchen floor, rolled her big sad eyes up towards mum as if to say, “please misses, just let me stay for the night”.

Guess what? It worked! The lady of the house turned to me and said; “Don’t you think I’m going soft or anything, but we can’t really send her back out onto the streets on a cold winter’s night like tonight. We’ll clean her up a bit, give her a feed, and fist thing tomorrow morning, we’re taking her to the dog pound where her owners can collect her”. Of course, I was over the moon to have a dog in the house, even if was for just one night.

The following day, we took Elsa, as we had temporarily named her, to the dog compound. They said it was unlikely that anyone would come to collect her as it appeared she had been badly treated by the previous owners. They went on to say that they had most likely driven her miles from the family home and abandoned her onto the streets. They asked if we would mind looking after her for a couple weeks just to see if anyone did come for her. They explained that they were full to capacity and if she wasn’t collected and no one adopted her as a pet, it was very likely she would have to be put to sleep.

To cut a very long story short, she wasn’t collected, but she wasn’t returned to the dog compound for sudden death either. Over that fortnight, she won over the hearts of everyone in the house, including my anti-animal mother who went out and invested in some dog grooming supplies. She became a family pet for 13 long years and was permanently named Elsa. This much loved and pampered pooch really did live a dog’s life before she sadly passed away in the spring of 1986.

Paul James is a proficient webmaster and publisher of Pickingpets.com This is a brand new website which is to include all manor of pet related issues. His first pieces, including this one, are about pet dogs, taking them into the home, and the benefits of obedience dog training. Lots of new content to come in the weeks and months ahead.

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Dogs - Part Of The Family

by
Michael Russell

How many people own dogs? Crazy question really, isn't it? I bet the answer though would be staggering. The dog has become such a major part of family life that it is almost taken for granted. We see it either sitting in the window waiting for its master to come home, lying on a carpet on a winter's evening, in the warmth of a living room, or running after a ball, thrown by one of its owners.

Why is the dog so popular? Don't know the answer to that. But I guess folk more knowledgeable than I could answer better. I feel it is because they give loyalty without question. They "invade" our homes and almost take over. Correction, they do take over. Like most people, my family had a dog when our kids were younger. We follow the theory that if kids are kind to animals, they in turn will be kind to people. Don't know if that's strictly true, but I like to think so.

There are many ways to keep a dog and buy a dog. Pet shops thrive in most countries and do particularly well around Christmas time. Who can resist an eight-week-old puppy with doleful eyes, head tilted, looking at you and your youngsters. Battle half lost already. On getting him/her home, we have to decide what to do with him. Where will he sleep? What do we feed him? Who takes him a walk?

The answer to the first question realistically is it will sleep inside for as long as you let it. Kids play a part in this. Novelty plays its part as well. It soon sorts itself out though when our new little friend, starts to leave messages all over the house. Then usually, shouting is heard and the animal has its first experience of life on the outside.

As for who takes him for a walk. The kids do naturally for the first three days while they are showing the new house pet to their friends. Then guess who has the job after that? I am sure those of you who have been through this, creep around the house, morning or evening, trying to avoid stirring the dog who is expecting the daily exercise. How do they manage to tell the time?

It is certainly easy to see why the animal aid organisations are pretty well full up after Christmas time, once the novelty of pet ownership wears off. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh. Dogs are such fun and they give so much. Most are very good with kids and I have always found they fit in quite neatly to normal way of life. That is until they decide to rearrange your garden. Don't let anyone tell you that certain breeds don't dig. They all do!!

After all the humour and sometimes after all the shouting, dogs are wonderful company and if our household was anything to go by, when our 14-year-old dog became ill and the awful decision was made about her future, we lost a family member on that fateful day.

Haven't had a dog since - perhaps think about it during retirement, but memories remain and seeing other folk enjoying life and being happy with their pets, gives me a warm glow and quite a bit of nostalgia.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Dogs

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Dogs - How to Cure Dog Breath

by
Michael Russell

If you have a dog whose breath packs a powerful punch, chances are that plaque is the culprit. Plaque is the same bacteria film that covers our teeth if we don't brush for a while. It can also lead to smelly and sometimes dangerous gum infections. With a little bit of care you can help prevent your dog's breath form turning to stinky.

Just think on how your breath would smell is you didn't brush your teeth all week. Yuck. Brushing your pet's teeth as much as you brush yours would be ideal, but twice a week is okay for your dog.

Brushing your dog's teeth may sound like a horrifying event, but if you start brushing their teeth while they are young, your experience will soon turn into a pleasant one. Don't start brushing immediately or you will get a big protest. First start by handling and stroking your dog's mouth. Do this for a few minutes a day and reward them for good behavior. After a few days of handling your dog's mouth, you should begin lifting you dog's lip with a piece of gauze on your finger and begin brushing in circular motions. After a while you should be able to move on to more teeth after they get used to it. After a little longer you can graduate to a soft bristle brush designed for a dog.

They even have toothpastes for dogs. Some are flavored like chicken, beef or a malt. This will make their experience a lot more pleasurable. Don't use human toothpaste as it will foam and dogs can't spit and it will upset their stomachs.

Even after all that practice and your dog still doesn't like having their mouth handled, you can get a toy. There is a hard rubber toy that has grooves in. Vets recommend this particular toy for dogs who don't like having their teeth brushed. It is specially designed for your dog's teeth. You can put a little of your dog toothpaste in the grooves and your dog can brush their own teeth.

There are some people who make oxtail soup. For those very few, you can give your dog the cooked oxtail. The tail's tendons will help massage the teeth and gums. It will help clean those hard to reach places.

If you don't make oxtail soup, try a raw carrot. A little bit of carrot, that you can give as a snack, can act a tooth scraper. It will be pretty mild, but it will help scour away the stinky plaque. There is even dog mouth sprays and they do the same thing for dogs as they do for us.

You can stop giving your dog canned food. When you make the switch to dry food you will help to improve mouth odor. Dry dog food scrapes the surface of the teeth. Also, do not let your dog nibble throughout the day. The harmful bacteria in your dog's mouth are always active. Pick up the dog bowl if your pet doesn't finished within a half an hour. If you only feed your dog a couple of ,times a day then you only feed the bacteria a couple times a day.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Dogs

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