Coping With The Death Of Your Labrador Retriever

By Richard Cussons
A Labrador Retriever can generally live for up to 13 years or a few years longer as long as good medical care exists. Most of us consider our pets as friends, as loyal companions who are always there to share our happiness and laughters or be with us in our darkest hour, listening and understanding us in their own little way. With the innocence and playfulness reflected in their eyes, some pets are considered as a child, a playmate or a sibling.

The death of a pet can affect us like or even more than the death of a relative or friend. Some may not share your grief of losing a dear friend and some may not even understand your grieving for losing just a pet. But you must realize that you do not need anyone's approval to mourn the loss of your pet, nor you do not have to explain yourself to anyone. You and your pet spent countless days and nights together in each other's company making your bond so strong. It is just normal to express grief when he's already gone.

The first thing that you should do is to talk about your feelings. Talk to people who will understand you. If your family or friends love pets, they will understand what you are going through. You can seek help from pet bereavement counseling services, pet-loss support hotlines, local or online bereavement groups, books, videos and magazine articles. Talk about your feelings! Don't try to avoid your grief by not thinking or trying not to think about your pet. Look at his photos, reminisce the good times, and talk to others about your loss. Express your feelings, write it in a journal or a poem or a blog.

If there are children in the home, be careful and be honest in telling them the real situation. Make sure that they can handle the information about death and the loss of the pet. Never say that the pet was "put to sleep" or "went away" because your child may wait for the pet's return. Make it clear to your child that the pet will not return but he is happy wherever he is now. Just like you, it is normal for the child to grieve over the lost pet.

A Labrador Retriever can truly provide years of companionship and love but his death doesn't mean the end of everything, that you will also live in grief and pain. Remember, your pet doesn't want to see you sad...

About the author:
Richard Cussons writes information articles on different breed of dog such as Labrador Retriever. Check out Labrador dog training tips at labradorsavvy.com.

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Labrador Retriever As Therapy Dog

By Richard Cussons
A Labrador Retriever makes a good candidate for therapy dog because the breed is known as well-balanced and versatile breed. A Labrador Retriever has exceptional and working abilities making good working dogs and very friendly and mellow disposition making excellent family dog.

Therapy dogs, also called therapy pets or visiting pets refer to a dog that helps people by just visiting them. They are trained to provide affection, comfort, entertainment as well as therapy to people in hospitals, nursing homes, retirement homes, prison, mental institutions, schools especially to special education students and stressful situations such as disaster areas. Dog of any size, color or breed can be a therapy dog but Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers are often used because of their friendliness to strangers in addition to their versatility and mellow disposition.

A therapy dog must be:

Social. The main purpose of therapy dogs are to interact with other people they are visiting. They must enjoy human contact and be content to be petted, hugged and handled. The dog should also get along well with other dogs since others will probably be there at the same time. The dog should love all the people and children and should be accustomed to people on crutches, canes and wheelchairs. If the dog does not enjoy interacting with other people and other dogs, the visit will be no use and may only hurt the patient and will make them feel rejected.

Immunized. A therapy dog must be protected with vaccine against rabies, distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, para-influenza and parvovirus. A yearly physical and stool check as well as heartworm tests are also necessary. Ask for exam certificates or the papers to prove the vaccinations and that your pet has been tested.

Properly trained. The dog must be at least one year of age and have his Canine Good Citizen Certificate. Some organizations for registering therapy dogs require AKC obedience title or have passed a training club graduation class. A dog must also learn to handle sudden loud and strange noises and must learn some simple tricks to entertain the patients or the audience.

Therapy dogs should not be mistaken as service or assistance dogs. Service dogs directly assist humans and have a legal right to accompany their owners. On the other hand, therapy dogs do not provide direct assistance and institutions may invite, limit or prohibit therapy dogs. However, if you have a Labrador Retriever, you can have both therapy and assistance dog in one.

About the author:
Richard Cussons has written articles of various breeds including Labrador Retriever. Discover tips on Labrador dog training at labradorsavvy.com.

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Shih Tzu - Dogs Social Behavior

By: Het Ram
Dogs in general, under free-ranging conditions, will live in mixed-sex, mixed-age social groups. Social ranking is determined by age, although sex may play a role. Females seem to be responsible for leading more often than males. Social ranking is maintained primarily by deference, not by agonistic interaction. Sexual maturity in domestic dogs (including the Shih Tzu) occurs between 6 to 9 months of age (later for giant breeds), while social maturity begins to develop at 18 to 36 months of age.

At social maturity, a hierarchy depends upon age, sex, size and temperament. In a free-ranging group, dogs that challenge the established social hierarchy may leave and form their own groups if they do not succeed in altering the extant social order. Social maturity is also the time when problems such as aggressions and anxieties develop. Roaming, mounting, urine marking and intersexual fighting are caused by the sex hormones, particularly testosterone. These problems can often be prevented or greatly reduced by neutering, especially in males, in households with several pets, males and females, or a household with all males.

Between 3 and 8 weeks of age, dogs tend to focus on other dogs (if available) for their social stimuli. Between 5 and 12 weeks of age they seem to start to focus more on people if people are available. Dogs are most receptive to learning about how to deal with new or different environments until about 16 to 20 weeks of age. This is not to say an older dog would never adjust to a change in environment. It is just to say the adjustment is easier before this age. With time and patience any dog of any age will adjust to change just as people do.

It is not critical to switch the focus of exposure either to other animals or to people at any one specific period. Given the adequate opportunity, puppies will learn about the social and physical environments when they are ready. Trying to introduce them to a specific situation is not critical to producing a well-socialized puppy or adult dog. Of great importance is to avoid extremely fearful stimuli.

Dogs kept exclusively in cages and kenneled and not exposed to people at all after 14 weeks of age may have severely undeveloped social skills. If you are purchasing an older dog from a private breeder, this problem is not likely to surface. The type of older dog I am talking about here would be one that was raised exclusively in kennels with cage after cage and perhaps 3 or 4 or maybe more dogs sharing the same cage. Maybe their only contact with people would be the short presence of someone passing by with water or food. Usually dogs that are raised by individuals in private circumstances have adequate and quality contact with people.

Regardless of the age of a puppy or dog, that life needs to be shown a daily caring atmosphere from their human caretakers to be able to provide them with the ability to adjust readily and easily in new homes or environments. Without human interaction and caring, the dog may experience social problems and behavior problems that otherwise would have not surfaced.

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The Benefits Of Good Dog Training Aids

By: Garnett Johnston
Dog training aids involve more than just a simple collar and leash and over the years have seen good improvements in the range and availability of these training tools. If you are taking on the task of training your own dog then there are several advantages you can benefit from by using good dog training aids to assist you in achieving the goals of your training with your dog.
An obvious case of where this is true is whilst teaching your dog to fetch. It simply can't be done without having something to be thrown, collected by the dog and brought back to you. Typically a stick is a good choice, but if you are in a park and there are dozens of similar sticks then your dog may become confused and you won't have the same success.
An alternative to the stick would be something like a training dumb-bell. These can be thrown a good distance without much effort. They are bright and easy to retrieve - even when your dog doesn't and many of these float on water if you are using it on a pond or lake. These are also easy and comfortable for your dog to pick up whereas I have seen sticks cause damage to a dogs mouth and gums over time.
Teaching your dog to heel can be aided by the use of a dog training line. This is essentially a long leash that can be used to indicate, by tugging, that you wish the dog to return to you when you issue the heel command. These training methods do not do away with the need for voice commands but instead make it easier for your dog to understand the desired response you are looking for when you do call to him.
Other training aids can include collars that discourage barking. These collars emit a pungent spray when your dog barks. The smell is not liked by the dog and over time the dog will realise that not barking prevents the release of the spray. The collar can be removed and hopefully the dog will not bark just as often as before.
If you are training your dog for more sporting activities then the use of whistles can be effective. Here you will typically issue a command to the dog like heel or sit and then back this up with a whistle command. The dog will eventually associate the whistle with the desired response. The trainer or owner can now issue the same command to the dog but over a larger distance. This technique is also used extensively by sheep farmers or herding dog owners for the same reason.
Training your own dog can provide lots of rewards and satisfaction, however it does take considerable patience. Good dog training aids can help reduce the amount of time required to reinforce the training and provide positive results. Remember to reward your dog when you see them showing the right response regardless of what training aid is being used.

The author runs a free dog training information site where you can pick up lots of hints and tips on training your dog. There are also some useful free dog training videos that can make the whole process of training your dog much easier to understand. For more advice on dogs please visit http://www.dogtraininghut.com. Training your own dog can be a rewarding and satisfying experience.

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