Archive for the ‘Caring’ Category
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Today we came across a very useful tool on the internet for your dog, it basically tells you what the ideal weight should be for your dog.
All you have to do is type in a few details about your dog, age, breed, etc and once you’ve entered your pets information in, it will then calculate the ideal weight your dog should be.
Unfortunately there are dog owners who feed their animals too much, the amount of time we see overweight dogs is getting quite frightening. Some dog owners think they are being kind to their pets by giving them the same food what us humans would eat on a day to day basis, but in reality they are hurting their dog. If a dog doesn’t eat a well balanced diet it can cause all sorts of health problems.
If you have time, do take a look at this website advising you on the correct weight for your pet – go to Pets Get Slim.
Posted in Advice, Caring, Dog Food | No Comments »
Monday, December 1st, 2008
Checking your dogs ears and nails should be done on a regular basis no matter what type of dog you have. If you haven’t checked them yet then do so as soon as possible.
The majority of dogs nails will naturally wear down if it frequently walks on rough or hard surfaces, however this is not the case for all dogs as some dogs nails will sometime continue to grow. If your dogs nails become too long, its toes will start to spread and it will have difficulty walking. Long nails in dogs can break more easily and this can cause considerable pain. If your notice your dogs nails are becoming longer than normal I would suggest taking him/her to the local vet / professional groomer where they will cut and file them for you. I personally would not suggest doing them yourself as you may cause more problems.
With regards to your dogs ears, they need to be looked at on a frequent basis. If your dog has lots of hair within its ears is can cause many problems especially if your dog is long or rough coated. Because your dogs ears are a warm, moist area, bacteria likes to grow in this area. Once bacteria starts to grow your dogs ears may start to itch which in turn will make your dog scratch and possibly cause an infection. If you use a very luke warm solution of water and gently clean the inside of the dogs ears with a wipe or professional dog flannel this should do the trick at keeping the bacteria at bay. Also if your dogs ears become extremely hairy, take a very small pair of nail scissors and gently clip any hair out of the way if it seems to be causing a problem. However please do take care doing this, some dogs will gladly sit there and let you do it, others will not. So if you have a dog that doesn’t like you touching its ears, then ask your vet or dog groomer to do it.
NOTE: Never use cotton buds on your dogs ears, this can hurt the dog and cause serious damage to its ears or hearing.
Posted in Advice, Caring, Dog | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
Have you given your dog new treats recently? Treats such as doggy chew sticks, flavoured dog biscuits or similar? If so be very careful not to give your Westie too many if you are trying out a new brand.
Recently we bought Mitzi a bag of ‘dental cleaning sticks’ which we saw advertised on TV. On the rear of the packet it said they were suitable for all dogs and would help remove the plaque on dogs teeth. Great we thought, not only will she have lovely clean teeth, she will enjoy the doggy treat as well at the same time.
The instructions were to give a small dog one of the dental cleaning sticks per day, no more. So being a responsible dog owner, we thought we’d try Mitzi with just half of one of these sticks, just in case a full one was too much. Mitzi really enjoy the treat we had given her so we thought we would give her the other half later on in the day.
After about an hour of giving the treat to our West Highland Terrier she was letting off the most disgusting smells in the world! Mitzi cleared the lounge and our guests within 5 seconds of letting off! The smells continued throughout the evening. Our house smelt like a chemical factory! Obviously it wasn’t Mitzi’s fault, it was whatever was in these dental cleaning sticks that made her stomach so bad it produced all this gas and wind! All I can say it thankfully we never gave her the full treat, only half of it.
My advice to you is when trying out new dog treats on your beloved pet, only give your West Highland Terrier either half or less of what the manufacturer recommends because not only can it be bad for your dogs stomach, you may never see your guests again if it happens to you!
Westies do have quite delicate stomachs so always be aware of what you feed them.
Posted in Advice, Caring, West Highland Terrier | No Comments »
