Tips To Prevent Urinary Tract Infection (UTI)

My dog does not have the liking for normal drinking water. Therefore, it seldom pee. Soon, it began to develop Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). From then on, I started to think of ways to encourage my dog to drink more water. Here are some tips I tried personally, and it works wonder:

1. Drop one or two drops of tasty fish oil or extra virgin olive oil into your dog's drink
2. Moist your dog's meal by adding water
   
3. Give your dog clear vegetable stock as treats (Do make sure there are no harmful ingredients. Take note of my previous post "Food That Are Harmful To Dogs")
   

Different dogs have different taste preference. Observe your dog's preference and change the above accordingly.

Natural Cure For Dry Skin Dog

Apply organic extra virgin olive oil onto your dog's skin. It acts as a natural moisturizer to your dog. It is absolutely safe if your dog licks on its skin. The only downside of it is that it may cause your floor to be a little greasy.

Have A Relaxing Dog Obedience Training

A very simple, yet effective way to train your dog is to enjoy every training session!

This makes you, the dog trainer, more relax when you give commands. A relax dog trainer tend to be more patient. Easily frustrated dog trainer will unknowingly create a very tense training environment for his dog through his harsh tone. This will cause fear in the dog, and he may even relate commands with reprimands. It is difficult to train a dog that does not enjoy its obedience training lesson.

Keep Dog Obedience Training Short

As a dog trainer, you should keep the daily dog obedience training short. Try not to exceed 15 minutes per session. The most effective time span to train your dog is everyday, twice a day, ten to fifteen minutes each lesson.

Exercise this dog training tip, and do not forget to praise your dog whenever it responds to your command.

Dog Training Hand Signals

Today, I am going to share with you another dog training secret. Besides verbalizing your command, accompany it with hand signals. Do not cause confusion to your pet dog by having different signals to the same command. Make sure you synchronize the signs within the family. In this way, you will be able to communicate the commands effectively, be it verbally or visually. Adding hand signals will help your pet to learn the commands faster, enhancing its learning.

Once, your dog is able to respond to your command, you can actually give commands either through hand signaling or verbalizing. This is beneficial if you have family members with hearing problems or if your dog loses its hearing when it grows old. In these cases, your dog will still be able to understand and respond to the commands.

Missing My Dog

I am missing my dog. Looking forward to bringing it back home this weekend. I should have trained my dog to use the phone! lol.

Fear Of Thunderstorms

Does your dog have noise phobia? My dog becomes distracted, ignoring my commands, trembles, hides, bark, paces up and down the hall, and follows me closely whenever there is thunderstorm.

I used to stroke it, trying to comfort my dog whenever it is afraid, without realizing that I was actually reinforcing undesirable behavior. Owners should not pay special attention when their dogs are showing signs of fear.

One of the most effective ways to help your dog is to distract it with noise from the radio or TV. If your dog's resting place is near the windows or door, try to change the environment. Move his resting place away from the sounds of pattering rain and thunderstorm.

Prevent Dog Ear Infection

Dogs with physical discomfort tend to be frustrated and have quirky behavior. They will scratch and may even wipe on your favorite furniture.

Many dogs, especially dogs with long ears, tend to suffer from ear infection due to moist ear canals that have not been dried up properly after bath. Owners must sure that their dogs shake well to remove excess water from their ears.

I am going to share with you a dog bathing tip that will ensure that your dog shake well after bath. To encourage more shakes after bath, try to drip some water on the top of its head. Your dog will naturally want to shake it off. This will help your dog to clear out excess water from its ears.

What Does It Mean To Love My Dog?

Loving your dog does not mean giving in to its whine and beg. Giving in to your dog's bad behavior will spoil your dog. A happy dog is one that is able to live in peace with the people around it. Such dogs have no problem living within certain limits and boundaries set for them, thus creating many positive experiences for both the dog and the family.

So loving your dog really means staying persistent and be consistent in training your dog so that it will be able to live in peace with the environment it is in.

Build A Strong Bond With Your Dog

Another important dog training tip is to build strong bond with your dog. It is definitely effective for the owner to train a dog that has close bond with him.

Therefore, it is important to build strong relationship with your dog. Make effort to spend quality time together. Besides taking a walk with it, you can also play fetch with your dog. On your busy days at home, you can even make your dog lie near where you will be.

Enjoy each other, and you will find it easier to train your dog!

A Healthy Dog Makes A Well-behaved Pet

To have a well-behaved dog, the owner has to ensure that the dog stays in good health. A sickly dog tends to be quirky. It is, therefore, important to ensure that it has a well-balanced diet.

Here are some recommendations from the vet:

60% Carbohydrates such as brown rice
30% Protein such as egg and meat
10% Vitamins, minerals and fibers such as vegetables

You can also give your dog some healthy fruit treats such as apples.
As suggested by my vet, I also gave my dog oil supplements.

Do take note of my previous post "Food That Are Harmful To Dogs"

Happy feeding!

How Not To Give The "Come" Command

Never give the "come" command in a disapproval tone, or else it will be unwilling to go to you.

Dog Training Advice: Get Its Attention

Set your dog up for success during dog training! Always make sure it has your attention before giving any command. If it is distracted, face your dog to get his attention. Once your dog is looking at you, start giving command.

Food That Are Harmful To Dogs

As I have mentioned in my previous post, food allergy is one of the most common cause to excessive dog scratching and licking. Instead of feeding your dog with ready-made commercial dog food, it is better to prepare your own home-cooked dog food, so that you can eliminate the food that your dog is allergy to.

Owners who are preparing their own food for their dogs must be careful to choose the right ingredients. Food that is good for human beings may be harmful to your dogs!

Here are some examples of food that are harmful to dogs:

• Alcoholic beverage
• Avocado
• Bacon
• Chicken Bone
• Chocolate
• Coffee
• Fruit seeds and pits
  
• Grape
• Green potato
• Ham
• Macadamia nut
• Nutmeg
• Onion
• Potato skin
• Raisin
• Tea
• Tomato
• Walnut
• Wild mushroom
• Xylitol sweetener
• Yeast dough
• Excessive dairy product
• Excessive fats
• Excessive garlic
• Excessive grains
• Excessive liver
• Excessive salt
• Raw garlic
• Raw liver

Excessive Dog Scratching and Licking Cause Skin Problem

Excessive dog scratching and licking are some common canine behavioral problems. My dog used to behave in this manner, and it led to serious hair loss and sore skin. It was frustrating to both my dog and me.

One of the most common cause to such excessive behavior is food allergy. Many busy, working owners resort to commercially prepared dog food as their dogs' main source of diet, just as I used to. In the recent years, there have been an increased skin problem in dogs that are fed with ready-made processed dog food. Some frustrated owners, like me, have switched to home-cooked dog food and are gradually seeing considerable improvement to the dogs' skin.

Owners must take note that the switch must be made gradual. Sudden switch may result in vomit and diarrhea. Begin by adding a little more new food to the old food each day over several days, allowing your dog's body system to adjust to the new food.

Be conscious of its skin and behavior during this change. Observe its skin condition closely. You may have to try this out for many rounds with different food, to eliminate those that your dog is allergy to.

Always ensure that your dog has a well-balanced diet. A healthy dog is a happy dog.

Treatment For Separation Anxiety

Does your dog suffer from separation anxiety at night? My dog used to whine and bark at night when left alone to sleep. After three days of consistent training, it now sleeps soundly on its own.

To train your dog to sleep alone peacefully, the owner must first speak the same phrase such as "good night" or "go to bed" to your dog whenever it is time for it to sleep. Then walk away. In the first few nights, expect it to whine or call for you. Be firm. Never attend to it.

With about three days of consistent training, your dog will understand that no attention will be given whenever it is time to go to bed, until morning comes. Once it understands it, your dog will feel secure to stay on its own at night. It is only then, that it will be able to sleep peacefully on its own.

Before letting your dog be alone, always make sure that it is in a danger-free environment, with fresh clean water, and comfortable bedding, especially during cold seasons!

Dog Training Secrets: Good Dog Names

Today, I am going to share with you some dog training secrets that many are not aware of. Few owners actually realize that giving a dog a good dog name is an important step to having a well-trained dog.

When choosing your dog's name, be careful not to choose a name that sounds like commands such as "no", "off", "sit", "down", "heel", "stay" or "come". This creates confusion as your dog will not be able to differentiate "Joe" from "no", "Sid" from "sit", and "Patch" from "fetch".

If you have more than two pets, do not give them similar sounding names such as "Max" and Dex". They will not be able to know which pet you are addressing.

Your commands need to be communicated clearly to each of your dogs. It is vital not to give any of them names that confuse.

Weird Dog Behavior And Five Effective Remedies

Has your dog been behaving weird recently? Has it been unusually barky? Or has your toilet-trained dog been peeing at places that it should not have?

Your dog may be bored. Unknown to many, boredom in dogs can lead to undesirable behavior. Here are five remedies to help your dog:

1. Take a long walk with your dog
2. Give your dog stimulating toys, especially those that can hide tasty treats
3. Switch your dog's toys so that it plays different toys on different days
4. Play games such as Fetch and Hide-and-Seek together with your dog
5. Allow your dog to socialize with other dogs

Take time to sniff out the cause of your dog's unusual behavior. The truth is, we make our dogs what they are.

More dog training tips coming up! Stay tuned.

Dog Behavior Training Tip: Tone Of Command

Have you ever seen a dog wagging its tail when the owner is trying to show his disapproval? That is because the owner has not been articulating his disapproval to his dog effectively.

As an owner, it is important for you to create distinct differentiation between your tone of praise and tone of disapproval. You should sound cheerful and happy when you praise your dog. On the other hand, you should lower your voice in a firm tone when it misbehaves. You do not need to yell or raise your voice to communicate your disapproval.

Take note of the above dog training tip. Remember to be conscious of your tone.

The Best Environment To Train Your Dog

One of the most important dog behavior training guidelines is to build an environment of praise.

To encourage good dog behavior, owners should reinforce their dogs good behavior by praising their dogs whenever they have done something good. Make it a habit to spot your dog's good behavior, be always ready to give praises. Through my experience, I have realised that it is more effective to communicate to your dog what it has done right (praise) than what it has done wrong (showing disapproval). Praise is an effective tool, it goes a long way!

Giving praise is easy. Simply give your dog a genuine loving pat and verbally articulate "good dog" in a happy tone. However, delay praise will not be effective. Make sure you praise your dog immediately after it has done the right thing.

All dogs want to please their masters. They just need to know how. Start reinforcing your dog's good behavior today!

Consistency In Training Your Dog

As I have mentioned earlier, the owner's attitude is the key factor in determining the behavior of his dog. How then, should the owner's attitude be, in order to encourage the dog to behave in a desired manner?

Be consistent. The dog's behavior will never improve when the owner is not consistent about it abiding his house rules. By allowing it to lay on the family couch for most days, and closing one eye on its behavior on some days definitely does not help to stop your dog from laying on your family couch.

It is also important that everyone in the house is consistent in communicating the rules for the dog to the dog. Your dog will still be laying on your family couch if you are the only one in the family who do not allow it to lie on the couch, when the rest of the family do nothing to stop this behavior. Therefore, the owner must make sure that every member of the family knows the Dos and Don'ts for the dog, and communicate them consistently.

Once the rules have been communicated clearly to your dog, you and your family will enjoy the presence of a happy and well-behaved dog.

An Introduction To Dog Behavior Training

Getting out of hand with your dog? Wondering if you have brought home the wrong dog? Have you ever stop to wonder if it is really your dog's fault? Is there a way to improve its behavior?

I strongly believe that a dog's behavior can be trained, no matter how young or old it is. The owner's attitude is the key factor in determining the behavior of his dog.

We often hear complains of how badly behaved some dogs are, putting full blame on the nature of the dogs, failing to recognize that the actions of the owner are actually encouraging the dog to misbehave.

Having a dog with a good behavior makes both the owner and the dog happy. Do not give away your dog simply because it has a bad behavior. Be a responsible owner by training your dog, letting it know how to please you.

Dog behavior training does require time and effort, but it is totally worth it!