fleas

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Grooming Your Golden Retriever

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Grooming your Golden Retriever is a never ending process.  The entire process should be down once or twice a week, and will take you around a ½ an hour of time.  Brushing your dog while he is shedding will help to control shedding quite a bit.  While outside, if your Golden Retriever manages to get burs or other defects in his hair, you should instantly take a few moments of your time and get the burs or other matter out of his coat.

When you groom your pet, you should always start with a good brushing.  Brush his entire body, then once you have finished brushing you can switch to a comb to get out any loose hair that remains in the coat.  While you are getting out the hair, you can also inspect your pet for ticks, fleas, and other types of skin ailments.  If you wish, you can also check his ears and trim his nails as well.

Bathing your Golden is essential to grooming, and can be somewhat complicated.  Before you attempt to give him a bath, you should always brush him first, to get rid of tangles.  During shampooing, you should always use shampoos that are specifically for dogs, since human shampoo can dry a dog’s skin out.  You don’t need to bathe your dog often, once every other week is good enough.  If you properly maintain your Golden’s coat, you’ll find it’s much easier to clean.

To prevent matting, which is very common with Golden Retrievers, you should always make sure that you brush your pet on a daily basis.  Metal combs and brushes work extremely well, and will help you to get a great deal of the hair out.  Although some people choose to use scissors and cut the mats, you can easily injure your Golden if he happens to move or jerk.  Scissors aren’t recommended, as brushing and proper bathing will help to prevent matting of the hair better than anything else.

When you cut your dogs nails, you should trim them a great deal, all the while avoiding going down into the quick.  You should never let your Golden’s nails get too long, as long nails can easily take the shape of the dog’s foot, resulting in a splay.  Therefore, you should always check your Golden Retriever’s nails and trim them every few weeks.  If you trim them just right, you’ll have at least 2 weeks before they need to be trimmed again.  If you do happen to trim the nails past the quick, bleeding will occur.  To stop the bleeding, always keep some styptic powder on hand to make sure that you are prepared if you do make a mistake.

With other types of grooming, you should also make sure that you clean your Golden’s ears as well.  They can get ear infections quite easily, if you don’t clean their ears on a regular basis.  To get the best results and protect your pet from ear infections, you should clean his ears once a week using a quality cleansing solution.  This way, you can rest assured that your Golden has healthy ears.

Grooming is an essential aspect to the health of every Golden Retriever.  All it takes is a little bit of time from your day to groom your pet and keep him healthy.  If you don’t have the time to groom your Golden, you can always take him to a professional.  Whether you do it yourself or take your Golden to a pro – grooming is something that simply must be done.

Grooming Your Golden Retriever courtesy Dog Articles.

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Grooming Your Golden Retriever

Posted on by admin

Grooming your Golden Retriever is a never ending process.  The entire process should be down once or twice a week, and will take you around a ½ an hour of time.  Brushing your dog while he is shedding will help to control shedding quite a bit.  While outside, if your Golden Retriever manages to get burs or other defects in his hair, you should instantly take a few moments of your time and get the burs or other matter out of his coat.

When you groom your pet, you should always start with a good brushing.  Brush his entire body, then once you have finished brushing you can switch to a comb to get out any loose hair that remains in the coat.  While you are getting out the hair, you can also inspect your pet for ticks, fleas, and other types of skin ailments.  If you wish, you can also check his ears and trim his nails as well.

Bathing your Golden is essential to grooming, and can be somewhat complicated.  Before you attempt to give him a bath, you should always brush him first, to get rid of tangles.  During shampooing, you should always use shampoos that are specifically for dogs, since human shampoo can dry a dog’s skin out.  You don’t need to bathe your dog often, once every other week is good enough.  If you properly maintain your Golden’s coat, you’ll find it’s much easier to clean.

To prevent matting, which is very common with Golden Retrievers, you should always make sure that you brush your pet on a daily basis.  Metal combs and brushes work extremely well, and will help you to get a great deal of the hair out.  Although some people choose to use scissors and cut the mats, you can easily injure your Golden if he happens to move or jerk.  Scissors aren’t recommended, as brushing and proper bathing will help to prevent matting of the hair better than anything else.

When you cut your dogs nails, you should trim them a great deal, all the while avoiding going down into the quick.  You should never let your Golden’s nails get too long, as long nails can easily take the shape of the dog’s foot, resulting in a splay.  Therefore, you should always check your Golden Retriever’s nails and trim them every few weeks.  If you trim them just right, you’ll have at least 2 weeks before they need to be trimmed again.  If you do happen to trim the nails past the quick, bleeding will occur.  To stop the bleeding, always keep some styptic powder on hand to make sure that you are prepared if you do make a mistake.

With other types of grooming, you should also make sure that you clean your Golden’s ears as well.  They can get ear infections quite easily, if you don’t clean their ears on a regular basis.  To get the best results and protect your pet from ear infections, you should clean his ears once a week using a quality cleansing solution.  This way, you can rest assured that your Golden has healthy ears.

Grooming is an essential aspect to the health of every Golden Retriever.  All it takes is a little bit of time from your day to groom your pet and keep him healthy.  If you don’t have the time to groom your Golden, you can always take him to a professional.  Whether you do it yourself or take your Golden to a pro – grooming is something that simply must be done.

Grooming Your Golden Retriever courtesy Dog Articles.

Looking for a great gift idea? Who wouldn’t love a cute tote showcasing their favorite breed? Check out all of the great doggie gift ideas on Amazon.com –doggieoftheday@amazon.com

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Dogs and Allergies: What You Should Know

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Your dog may have an allergic reaction to anything at any time.  He can even have an allergic reaction tomorrow to the dog food that he’s eaten all his life. He can have a reaction to the detergent that you use to wash your blankets.  He may suddenly have a reaction to the grass in your yard.  As a matter of fact, you may suddenly develop an allergy to you dog.

What causes allergic reactions?  An allergic reaction is the body’s response to an “invader.”  Your body, or your dog’s body, mounts a defense against what it perceives to be as an attacker — whether it’s a flea bite or the corn in his dog food.  That defense can be a rash, hives, itching, watery eyes, and so on.  The body is reacting to the offending allergen by trying to get rid of it in some way.  Yes, the body is overreacting, but that goes along with having an allergic reaction to something.

Why does a dog or someone develop an allergy when they haven’t been allergic previously?  Their body may suddenly decide that something that they previously accepted is no longer acceptable.  The body may suddenly have an intolerance for a specific ingredient. Whatever the body is allergic to, it may only take a very small amount to get a big reaction.

Dogs are most commonly allergic to flea bites which results in flea bite dermatitis — itching, redness, rash, and loss of hair around the rear quarters and over the tail.  According to one vet, for a dog with flea bite dermatitis, or an allergy to fleas, if one flea bites a dog on the nose, the dog will itch like crazy around his tail.  This allergy makes a dog miserable.  Good flea control is absolutely essential for a dog that is allergic to fleas.

Dogs are also commonly allergic to some typical ingredients in dog food.  One of the most common ingredients in dog food is corn in various forms.  Corn can be found as whole corn, ground corn, corn meal, corn gluten meal and so on. If your dog is allergic to corn he will react to any of these kinds of corn. You may have to read the ingredient labels carefully to find some of the corn since it can be slipped in almost unnoticeably.

Dogs may be allergic to other grains and cereals in dog food, so you may need to try your dog on different foods to gauge his reaction.

Dogs can also be allergic to different kinds of meat protein.  Some dogs are now allergic to chicken or lamb since these have been so commonly used as primary dog food ingredients. If your dog is allergic to one of these meat ingredients there are plenty of other meat proteins from which to choose.  Some dog food companies specialize in making foods with novel proteins such as emu meat, kangaroo, venison and others.

If your dog is on good flea control and you have tried different foods but you still suspect that your dog is suffering from allergies, it’s time to see the vet. Your vet can test your dog to see what he may be allergic to.  It could be a cleaning product, something you use in your yard, or one of a dozen other things that we use daily. Your vet will be able to help you identify the cause of your dog’s allergy.

Allergies are a problem for both people and pets but they can be overcome with a little effort. By identifying the cause of the allergy we can eliminate it and make our dogs much happier.

Dogs and Allergies: What You Should Know courtesy Dog Articles.

Looking for a great gift idea? Who wouldn’t love a lovely cutting board showcasing their favorite breed? Check out all of the great doggie gift ideas on Amazon.com –doggieoftheday@amazon.com

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How Do Dogs Get Tapeworms?

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Worms aren’t a very pleasant topic but they are something that you should know about if you have a dog.  You may hear about different kinds of worms and wonder how your dog can get them.  How does your dog get tapeworms, for instance?

Dogs get tapeworms from eating fleas.  Fleas ingest tapeworm eggs and when your dog eats the fleas he eats the tapeworm eggs, too.  They then happily hatch out inside your dog.  A single tapeworm can grow to be four to six inches long in your dog’s intestine.  The tapeworm’s head attaches to the intestine.  As it grows it is followed by many little linked segments.  These little segments look like rice.  They break off and your dog passes them when he uses the bathroom.  You can sometimes see them in his stool or they can catch on the fur around his rectum.  A single tapeworm may have 90 of these segments.  Each of these segments contains more eggs for the tapeworm.

When you take your dog to the vet (and this is one reason why you should take your dog for an annual check-up), your vet can identify these little white links as tapeworm segments.  Sometimes these links will show up in a fecal exam, but there is no guarantee that a tapeworm will conveniently break off when your dog is at the vet so your vet may not find the segments when he does the fecal exam.

Over-the-counter wormers for dogs do not work on tapeworms.  You will need a prescription wormer from your vet to kill the tapeworms.

A tapeworm can infect your dog for a year or more.  They rob your dog of the nutrients that pass through his digestive system.  Your dog may have abdominal discomfort, he may be nervous, and he may vomit.  If you notice these signs in your dog, even if you don’t see the rice-like segments of the tapeworm around your dog’s tail or in his stool, take your dog to the vet and tell him that you suspect your dog may have tapeworms.

Tapeworms can be passed to humans so it’s very important to kills these parasites as quickly as possible.  Beefing up your flea control will help prevent tapeworm infestations from getting started.  If your dog has had tapeworms you will also need to treat your yard and home.

If you have a puppy, most vets will offer worming when your puppy has his series of puppy shots.  Make sure that you get this worming for your puppy since it will take care of any tapeworms that your puppy may have when you first get him.

There are other worms and parasites that can bother your dog but most of them can be killed by over-the-counter wormers for dogs, with the exception of heartworms.  Make sure that you get your dog tested annually for worms with a fecal exam to find out if he has any worms or parasites.  Your vet can answer any questions you have about parasites and your dog.

How Do Dogs Get Tapeworms courtesy Dog Articles.

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What Should I Do With My Dogs Matted Coat?

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Humans have daily personal hygiene rituals. We wake up and brush our teeth, wash our face, shower. We shampoo, condition, brush and style our hair daily. We have far less hair than a dog does and we spend a significant amount of time on it. Imagine if you had hair all over your body and imagine if it got knotted and matted and tangled. How happy would you be? Not very, right?

It’s not hard to understand why a dog would be unhappy with matted hair. New arrivals at dog shelters are often covered in tangles and sometimes even family pets are as well. Some owners aren’t very conscientious about their pet’s grooming needs. Don’t be one of those owners.

Tangled hair is an excellent spot for parasites such as fleas, ticks and mites to thrive. Dandruff can build up in the coat and a dog can develop a nasty smell from a coat not well taken care of.

Obviously, having an ungroomed coat isn’t comfortable for the dog, nor is it healthy, but what’s the best way to take care of it?

– Check out the extent of the problem. How far into the hair is the knotting? Is it all the way to the roots? Is it in small isolated clumps or all over? Is it dirty too or just tangled?

– If the problem is really extreme, your best solution may just be to shave the animal and allow new hair to grow. (Be sure when hair does grow back to take good care of it, wash it and brush it regularly to prevent this problem from happening again.)

– If the matting is just near the ends of the hair and not all over, the problem isn’t quite so bad. Get the animal to lay down on a table or where you can work on him. Get a small pair of trimming scissors and a large pair. Use the large pair of scissors to cut out big knots and mats on the animal’s body. When you’re finished with that, use the small pair of scissors to work on the delicate areas of the dog: the face, the paws and the ears.

– Use a dog brush to brush the rest of the dogs coat out to get rid of any small tangles.

– Be sure to check for parasite infestations and treat them if applicable.

Sometimes, a big problem with animals’ coats matting is just being generally dirty. Having a dirty coat can cause a lot of tangles. After sniping out large tangles from the dog’s coat, wash him thoroughly with some dog shampoo and conditioner.

Preventative measures are the best way to battle a matted coat. Be sure to bathe your dog often, use preventative flea/tick medicine if necessary and to brush him when you can. Take care of your dog’s coat like you would take care of your hair (minus that styling part) and your dog will appreciate it greatly.

What Should I Do With My Dogs Matted Coat courtesy Dog Articles.

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