At last and eventually I have the honor of reading about a Vet who has brought to light in a local newspaper the perils of throwing a stick for your dog. Did you know that dogs suffer more injuries from chasing and catching sticks as they do from accidents on our great British roads.

I knew that because my father was a Vet and as a child I used to see the injuries arrive at the practice door. Some of them were horrific, dog with sticks that had cut their tonsils or where the part of a stick had gone down their throat. The dog is very vulnerable around the face where there are many nerves and blood vessels.If these are perforated it can cause excessive bleeding

My father used to advise them to throw rubber toys or a suitably sized hard rubber ball and with all the dog toys around now there is really no excuse. Think of it this way if you feel that the toys cost too much. What is cheaper ..the toy or the Vets Bill? Mind you when you use a rubber ball of a suitable size make sure it is that really hard rubber and not the soft type. Any dog with the right amount of chewing can take apart a soft rubber ball and get pieces lodged in the esophagus and intestines.

Many a dog that has gone off his food and has been constipated on X ray has been found to have a piece of rubber firmly stuck in his gullet. A dog with this situation can deteriorate very quickly. Life threatening to say the least if he is not taken to the vet in time and at the end of the day highly expensive to get removed! Its much cheaper to get the correct toy in the first place.

So is throwing a stick for a dog really as dangerous as I say? Well let me enlighten you here to just a few typical injuries. Dog left paralyzed after being stabbed in the back of the throat by a stick that then entered the spinal cord. Dogs who suffer a slow death as infection spreads from tiny fragments of wood left lodged in a wound. Penetration of the tongue and into the windpipe by a dog running for a stick that had lodged into the ground

Still not convinced?

With today’s credit crunch in full swing you might like to consider the cost. Some Vets have seen costs in the thousands in treatment fees and in the end the poor dog has actually died. So next time you take your beloved pouch to the park for a walk and he is eager for his chase and return, introduce him to his nice new hard rubber ball, not only safe but bounces for miles!!

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Everyone in the house will be so excited to bring a new puppy home. Reality hits once everyone realizes that it may take a team effort to train the dog with patience and love. Potty training your dog is one of the first tasks, and this alone will call on your to muster up all the patience and effort you have.

If you are trying to potty train your puppy too soon, you’ll probably realize it. You will not have much luck until the puppy is around 2 months old. An important consideration in training your puppy is that you need to establish a routine that will help teach the puppy when it is time to go outside and potty.

Instead of running your puppy outside every few minutes, start with thirty minute intervals. The times between going outside can be longer or shorter depending on your dog. Then, take your puppy out around mealtime, so that your own meal will not be interrupted to jump up and run outside with your puppy.

Setting up a routine and sticking with it is the quickest and easiest way to get your puppy potty trained. Training without a schedule can be a frustrating, fiasco. The sooner your puppy is in a routine, the better off your puppy will be.

Some people feel that establishing a routine is just too excessive. The reality is that it is a fairly simple thing to do, and it will help get your puppy trained. It is the best way for your puppy to learn. Just like potty training a child, your puppy will need to see and complete the process a number of times before it actually “clicks” that going outside means time to potty.

Sometimes you have to try to determine why your puppy doesn’t want to go outside. This is difficult, but not the worst problem you will face. There are other issues like puppy whining and barking. Take one thing at a time. Don’t give your puppy sensory overload. Get him accustomed to pottying outside first. This will be your most pressing task.

Having the correct knowledge of what to feed your dog can be very confusing. Every expert out there has his own favourite canine diet and there is such a vast selection of dog food available that it can be quite overwhelming for the first time dog owner to decide what to feed.

In fact lets be honest even us long time dog owners get caught up in all the different opinions and information and who knows what is what? Think of it—-Fresh, tinned, dried, vacuum-packed ..the list is never ending. Obviously a puppy has a different food requirement from an adult and older dog so make sure that you feed the puppy the correct puppy diet from the choice of food available.

The majority of pet shops and many vets will probably advise feeding your new puppy or dog on a complete dried food which is considered nutritionally balanced. Some will suggest tinned food or vacuum packed meat products. These types of food are numerous and varied and are advertised as suitable for most dogs. In fact most of the advertising will suggest that it is the only way to feed your dog if you want him or her to have a prolonged and healthy life. To discuss each and every type of manufactured food product would be a major book in itself so lets look here at another choice…the Natural diet.

This diet is structured on what your dog would eat in the wild and what wolves eat in the wild today. It is a diet based on raw meaty bones and what most people fed their dogs until the dog food manufacturers took over about 30-40 years ago. It is the diet that your dog is designed to eat. They have the teeth to tear,shred,rip flesh and crunch bones and their stomachs are designed to digest both raw meat and raw bones. Remember that dogs are carnivores and their diet would be mostly meat and bones. They may eat the stomach contents of prey ,that is the vegetable matter but it is not a vital part of their diet and they do not need it.

Most vets will recommend one of the commercial diets as the instructions are on the packet and they do not have the time in a normal consultation to go into the benefits of natural feeding and the quantities needed. Some vets sell dried dog food and so will recommend it. Some pet food manufacturers sponsor Vet colleges so therefore the alternative ways of feeding are not given priority or even discussed and veterinary students do not learn them.

In fact to be honest many dog owners are told that raw uncooked bones are bad for their dogs. The convenience of opening a tin,or scooping out a couple of mug fulls of dried food is simple, requires no thought and suits the busy lives that many owners now lead. The fact that there is now a massive multimillion pound industry which effectively tells dog owners that they the owners couldn’t possibly work out how and what to feed their dogs on their own,has lead to increasing numbers of dog owners accepting that the manufacturers must know best and being drawn into buying commercially prepared food and artificial bones.

All tinned and processed foods have been cooked and the resulting changes in the structure of the food means that the dogs digestive system has to work much harder as it was designed to digest raw ingredients. Then there is the major effect that cooked processed food has on the dogs teeth. The majority of dogs fed on an artificial diet will have to have their dirty teeth and infected gums attended to by a Vet several times through their lives.The processed food gets stuck in the teeth causing infection. Just take a look at at your own teeth after you have eaten dried food like a biscuit…..that’s what your dogs teeth look like after eating dried pellets. Even using artificially produced teeth cleaning products will leave a deposit on the dogs teeth.! Bacteria enter the body through the diseased and infected gums and teeth and this can set up chronic infections which later may result in liver,heart or kidney problems.

Cleaning your dogs teeth is not going to remove all the gunge and honestly who is going to clean their dogs teeth twice a day! ..imagine it? By eating raw bones the dogs floss their own teeth naturally in the ripping and shredding action. The only teeth that need to be artificially cleaned are the canine teeth which are the teeth designed for killing the prey and are not involved in the ripping and grinding motion. Try cleaning your dogs teeth with an electric toothbrush…believe me it works! If you start when they are a puppy I can assure you they will get used to it.

Having a new puppy in the house is very exciting and fun. Everyone will want to touch the puppy, everyone will want to play with the puppy and everyone will want to feed the puppy. When you first bring your puppy home, you should take note that you are taking the puppy away from the mother. We know, your puppy is an animal and that is what animals do, but believe it or not, your puppy was used to the mother. This means your puppy is going to be vulnerable, so for the first couple of weeks, in order to go through successful puppy training, you should keep the puppy on a routine.

You may not realize this right now, but those first couple of weeks you have you puppy in the home is very critical. Before you got you puppy, you should have gotten certain items such as a dog crate or dog bed, water bowls, puppy chow, leash, toys, collar, etc. All of the family members should have decided and agreed upon the responsibility, rules and the routine.

Right now, everyone wants to feed the puppy, play with the puppy and hold the puppy. Those rules that have been established can easily be broken. Everyone has previously agreed that the new puppy will be sleeping in the crate of her own. However, as soon as the puppy came home, everyone insists that he or she should be sleeping in the bed.

When you first bring your puppy home, you should start the training right away. There are some individuals that believe waiting the first couple of days to train the puppy is fine. However, if you wait the first couple of days to train your puppy, you will find that the puppy will get used to this routine. Obviously, you do not want your puppy to get too used to doing the wrong thing. What exactly is the wrong thing?

Well, chewing on the shoes may be cute (or frustrating), and you should not allow your puppy to do it, even if he or she is not doing any harm to the shoes. Going to the bathroom on the floor is not acceptable. Sure, accidents happen and we understand this, but on your behalf, you should make sure you take the puppy out at regular intervals. In fact, you should take the puppy outside every couple of hours and after each meal.

As you’re learning how to train a puppy, one thing you must do when you first get the puppy in your house, you should make sure all of the rules are clarified with the other individuals. All it takes is one person to ruin the puppies routine, so you should make sure this does not happen. Make sure everyone in the home knows that the puppy needs to be on a routine, no matter how cute he or she is when she is chewing on something that does not belong to him or her.

When you play with your puppy, make sure you play gently and quietly. We know this may be irresistible to do, but don’t go flooding the puppy with activity and attention. If your puppy looks like he or she wants to lay down and take a nap, then step back.

You should take note that puppies will need their sleep, just like you. Once you’ve learnt the real technique of puppy training and you have mastered it, you will be able to tell by the obedient dog that is sitting in front of you.

When it comes to selecting the right tanning lotion, there are so many options available it is almost impossible to know where to start. The good news is that through the wide range of selections, there is a product for every particular individual. The bad news is that no one can advise the right formula for any individual.

The only real way to find the right lotion for your skin is by trying a few dozen brands. Now it makes no sense for anyone to buy that many bottles just to find one that may or may not be the best fit. But that is the reality since no one can tell you exactly what brand is best for your particular type.

The best way to do it is through the use of samples. Preferrebly free samples of course but it is also ok to spend tiny amounts for huge sampler packs and there are ways to get both.

A great place to start would be magazines that focus on cosmetic and that area. Try some retail stores and talk to the makeup people at counters at department stores. Some companies will offer samples in newspapers, or online at their websites.

If you have specific brands in mind, find out if they offer samples of their product by visiting the company’s website or calling the dealers. Most lotions used at tanning salons are pushed by particular manufacturers so most salons should have samples of the new or most popular items.

When those places aren’t enough, go onto ebay and you can find sampler packs for a small price relative to the amount of lotion you will get. They come in huge varities so you can try lots of different brands just by buying one package.

The basic idea is to try as many samples for as little money as possible. This makes a lot more sense than paying full price for a dozen different bottles that may not work out at all. Also, once you find a tanning lotion that works well, continue to sample others. Eventually you will find something that works better than your current lotion.

On the flip side to finding the perfect lotion, there are some formulas that will cause adverse reaction especially if you have sensitive skin. The upside is that these occurances are rare and usually very mild allergic reactions. Just remember what to avoid and move on.

When you find one you like, try varities by the same company. They tend to offer the same formula base, with slight tweaks. And chances of improvement usually are from the small adjustments rather than whole new changes. So go out there and find your skin’s new best friend.