Are Human Foods Safe for Your Dog?

It can be very difficult to ignore your dog as he lovingly and longingly looks up at you begging you to share your mouth-watering food with him. Many of us can't resist giving our dog human food now and then, but what foods are actually safe to share with your dog? Of course, you should always check with your veterinarian and be aware of any food allergies your dog has, but there are several foods that are okay to give your dog.

Popcorn: When you and your pooch are cuddled up on the couch watching a movie together it is all right to share some of your popcorn with your dog. Ideally it should have no butter or salt, which is a great low calorie snack for your dog (and for you!)

Squash: Squash is a good treat cooked or raw. It helps in preventing constipation in your dog and is also beneficial for eyesight.

Green Beans: They can be given to your dog thawed or frozen.

Pasta: Cooked pasta is a great treat for your dog. You can also freeze it and give it to your dog frozen.

Apples: An apple a day keeps the doctor away! Apples are a good source of fiber and vitamins for both you and your dog. Obviously, don't feed your dog the seeds or the apple core J

Rice: Rice can be a nice treat if your dog has a tummy ache. White rice is easier to digest while brown rice contains more protein and less starch.

Lean meat: Chicken, beef, and pork all provide a good source of protein.

Salmon: Salmon can help your dog's immune system and can help keep their fur and skin healthy.

Sweet Potatoes: Sweet potatoes are a good source of vitamins for your pet and are tasty too!

Cottage Cheese: Cottage cheese is high in protein and calcium. Since cottage cheese is a dairy product, and some dogs don't do very well with dairy, make sure to only give a small amount.

Peanut Butter: Peanut butter is a healthy high-protein treat. You can put some inside of a toy or a bone and let your dog lick it out.

Eggs: Eggs are a good source of protein for your dog.

Melons: Watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew are all healthy melons you can share with your pet. Stay away from the more exotic melons.

Many dog treat manufacturers are now incorporating the above foods in to their treats. Of course, they are probably not as good as the real thing but are also good options for a healthy treat. Many local pet stores in Arlington, such as Dogma, offer natural treats with some of the above ingredients, such as peanut butter. If you have a dog walker, you can ask him or her to give your dog one of the above treats when they come by for their daily visits.

Tips That Can Help You Train Your Puppy

Many people are always happy when they get a puppy for the family. It is better to get a puppy so that it can get used to the family early. When it becomes older, it will be able to identify members of the family. For this to happen, the puppy has to undergo puppy training so that it can get used to the people it will be around. However, the puppy can frustrate you when it starts messing up the house with its excrements. This can become frustrating as one has to keep cleaning after the puppy. With puppy training, you can be able to help the dog know where to excrete.

There are certain ebooks and physical books that can help you train your puppy to become a well-behaved animal. In these books and manuals, you will find tips that will help you train it. The importance of the training is to help the puppy behave well.

Let us look at some of the tips of training these baby dogs.

One important tip when puppies are being trained is to ensure that they don't mess up anywhere and everywhere. If the puppy develops this habit at an early age, it will become more difficult to control it at a later stage in its life. This kind of training should start when the puppy is about 6 months old. Just like with human beings, training helps create a certain habit. There are some neighbours who can charge you in a court of law because of this bad habit of the dog. You can also train the puppy not to mess up on the floor or on the carpet.

Another tip in puppy training is teaching it how to respect and love you. This is similar with children. Normally, we reward children when they do the right thing and punish them when they do the wrong thing. The same principle can be applied to puppies: reward the puppy if it does something nice and 'punish' it if it does something wrong. The puppy has to realise that you own it and that you are in charge of it. Puppy training is not supposed to bully the puppy but rather make it respect and love you.

Simple Guidelines in Buying Dog Beds

A more enlightening understanding of the adjective dog-tired will be gleaned by unsuspecting people after they find out that this word has a bit of factual basis as well as a brief history to go along with it. Dogs, at a young age, typically have insurmountable physical energy to help them keep up with their daily activities. The level of physically unflagging activities that canines participate in on a daily basis can even surpass humans at some point. Thus, the enthusiastic but inevitably taxing routine exertions that our furry friends partake in everyday certainly accounts for their lengthy REM cycles usually reaching up to half a day, not surprisingly since researchers have proven that dogs spend about an equal fraction of their lifetimes sleeping.

We take extra care to provide our loved ones with the ideal supplies and necessities when they are under our roof and if you have a pet dog, providing them these necessary living arrangements in the same level as your relatives is pretty much a given. They might not be lacking when it comes to receiving nutritious food but have you been thinking about the level of comfort that your dogs are presently enjoying while they're fast asleep? They also deserve comfortable dog beds to sleep on.

If you have been particularly concerned about this aspect of your dog's domestic way of life, then finding out about the burgeoning dog bed manufacturing industry will probably come as a relief. Since the industry's inception, the varieties of dog beds have consistently been doubling with specialised improvements being hntegrated into a diverse range of dog beds. The wide range of dog beds that can readily be examined and ordered online will ensure that your beloved pet will be sleeping more conveniently with a particular bed that they can call their own in no time at all. As for the far-ranging dog bed varieties being marketed the most in demand innovations right now include heated dog beds, which ensures that your pet canine remains comfortable and warm despite the onset of freezing temperatures. On the other hand, cooling beds prevents any adverse conditions from happening to your furry friend whenever intense to moderate heat waves occur. This is even more essential for dogs that reside in tropical environments.

Taking preventative measures ensuring your pet's immunity from joint pains, arthritis and other physically debilitating conditions can be realised by purchasing orthopedic beds. The preferential sleeping positions of your pet likewise influence the type of dog bed that you'll most buy and they are available in a lot of local pet supplies store. A dimensional allowance of seven inches is recommended for dogs which retire in a curled up gait, dogs used to stretch out position, in contrast, require at most twelve inches of allowance for utmost comfort.

One Smart Chihuahua

My wife and I like to think our three year old Chihuahua Ninya is the smartest dog ever born, and the other day she did something that only reinforced that contention.
Like most dogs, Ninya has lots of toys and, again like most dogs, she knows the names of most of her toys. But unlike most dogs, Ninya makes up her own games to play with them. One of her favorite toys is what we call "stringball." It's a rubber ball with a string tied through a hole in the center so that, when it's thrown, the two eighteen-inch long strings trail tantalizingly behind it. Ninya likes to take stringball out on our patio, place it precariously on the edge of the fountain, then, taking the string in her teeth, nudge the ball into the fountain and pull it back out with the string. She will also take stringball or one of her other balls up on the chaise lounge and, standing on her hind legs, drop the ball against the back and let it roll down so she can chase it.
While we don't make a habit of feeding Ninya from the table, it has occurred with sufficient frequency that she often sits on the floor beside my chair staring soulfully up at me while I'm eating. Usually, when I ignore her, she'll go get one of her toys and bring it to me, is if to say, "Well, if you're not going to feed me, at least you can play fetch" (though I sometimes suspect her real motive is to interrupt my meal as punishment for not sharing it with her).
Last Saturday, while we were having a lunch of Waldorf Salad, I told Ninya that apples and walnuts are not good for dogs. Seeming to understand she went to her toy basket and brought me stringball and dropped it at my feet. When I threw the ball through the bedroom door, it bounced in such a way that the string became entangled in the lower cross strut on my computer desk. Ninya surveyed the situation for a second, then took the string in her teeth and pulled. The ball came up to the cross strut and stopped. She let the ball back down to the floor, then pulled on the string again - with the same result. She then dropped the string, stuck her head under the desk, and grabbed the string right next to the ball. Of course, when she pulled it out, the string untangled itself from the cross strut and she brought the ball back to me for another throw.
Now, I'm not saying Ninya is smart enough to have figured out that one of the two strings was on top of the strut and the other was on the bottom, and that she could retrieve it by pulling on the ball instead of the string. But she was at least smart enough to think, "Hey, I tried that twice and it didn't work. I think I'll try something else" - which makes my dog a lot smarter than most of the people in Washington DC (and a whole lot smarter than the people who keep voting for them).

Learn Why It's Essential To Take Care Of Your Puppy

Getting a dog at first is such a thrill and wondrous addition to the family, it's like having Christmas at a different point of the year. However many people think owning a dog is like a walk in the park when in reality there's a lot more to it than that, there's a lot of work that must be done to ensure you raise a good dog, a well behaved dog that all people love being around and playing with. Your dogs happiness and life satisfaction will all come down to how you train it when you first get him/her as a puppy. Puppies are energetic and non stop as they are so young and always full of energy, this energy must be counteracted with good solid dog training so that your dog grows up to be loyal and respectful to all. Without this training at a young age you will find it very difficult to try and achieve any obedience results later on in your dogs life.

Puppies must be handled with a certain amount of delicacy and you must think tactfully if you want to train them effectively. There are certainly right ways to do things and wrong ways to do things. For instance let's say your puppy makes a mess on the floor, you shouldn't shout out madly at the puppy when it's making the mess. Wait until a few minutes have past then make a scene about the mess. If you shout at the puppy whilst it's making the mess it will think that going to the toilet is wrong when of course it's not, it's going inside your residence that is wrong. So wait till your puppies finished then make it understand why it shouldn't be going inside the house. Then when you see the signals that your puppy is going to try and go inside the house again, take it outside and let it go there. Once your puppy has been outside you can give it praise letting it know that going outside the house is right.

Do you see the right way to handle that situation and the wrong way? It's essential that you do as you don't want your puppy to think its not right to go to the toilet, there are many other circumstances just like this one that can occur that you must deal with using the same initiative. One way a lot of people get started with puppies is by taking them to a training center where you can your puppy can bond and learn the commands together. This is a great way to get off to a good start as you get to learn what's ok and not ok when training a puppy, and your puppy will begin its training with professionals who know how to handle all types of puppies. Once you learn how to train your puppy you must stay consistent to get the most out of your training, as soon as you slip up and get lazy problems will occur.

As a top dog trainer in Salt Lake City UT, Dog Central provides more than just the usual puppy training. We do dog grooming,Doggie Day Care Salt Lake City, boarding, and even act as a dog kennel for pet adoption.