Dogs And Ticks

 

Being dog owners, one of the things that we are concern about is making sure that our precious furry friend is not infected with known parasites such as ticks and fleas, but this article focus primarily about ticks, please read one of our article that talks about dealing with fleas in dogs.

 

Some states in the USA tend to have more ticks populations than others, but most dogs in different states can be infected with ticks because ticks can be found in different areas outdoors including our own yards, gardens, and wooded places. In areas where wild animals like deers are present, the possibility of having ticks are huge because deers are one of the major ticks carriers that transfers those parasites from their body to our living areas like gardens and yards where our dogs have access to, and dogs going outside will likely catch one of these parasitic bugs and ended up in their bodies. Although, we might not be able to completely eliminate the presence of ticks all together, there can be preventions to make sure that it will not multiply, spread, and cause health problems in our dogs.  Although, not all types of ticks carry deseases, it is better safe than sorry and be in a habit of regularly checking our dogs to make sure that there are no existing ticks sucking blood out of our precious friends. 

 

Ticks feed on blood of their hosts, in this case the hosts are either the dogs, deers, and sometimes humans. If left unknown or untreated, one tick can multiply to several ticks, and can you imagine all those numbers of ticks all sucking blood out of a dogs body in one time? Worse yet, if the tick they ended up with is known to carry diseases, then that will even create more health risks and problems for the dogs. Early detection is key, a dog owner can easily learn how to effectively remove a tick from a dog if ever you found one. Here is a great video i found at YouTube that guide you step by step on how to remove a tick from your dog: 

Tickless dog is better, but if you have to deal with it in your dog, atleast your dog is in safe hands knowing that you have some idea how to handle it or remove it safely out of your dog. We have more interesting articles about dogs here at www.DogsCircle.com browse below..

Harmful And Toxic Plants To Dogs



As we live our normal lives and enjoying the beautiful weather outside, attending to our beautiful gardens and plants in the backyard to keep them healthy and blooming, we unknowingly grow plants that unfortunately may be harmful and toxic to our furry friends. We hardly think about these things because we grow up with plants in our yard, and we planted them to beautify our surrounding, and we are totally unaware and hardly think that some of these fruits, fruits, and leaves are toxic to animals especially to our dogs. When we have dogs and/or cats, we do need to be mindful which plants are toxic and harmful to them to avoid a n emergency trip to the veterinary to find out what is wrong with our pet when all of a sudden she/he shows some signs of vomiting, abnormalities in his/her health.

One known toxic flower plants to dogs is the Oleander, also called a Rose Bay. Oleander is among the most known harmful flowering landscaping plant to your dog. As beautiful as it is, just one leaf of this plant can be very poisonous to your dog and can be fatal and deadly if not attended to right away.

Other popular plant that we may grow in our yard for easy access as medicinal plant when we have cuts and bruises is an Aloe Vera. Although Aloe Vera is very beneficial to humans in so many ways, it is quite toxic and can be a poison to your dog if she/he ever got curious to this plant and accidentally swallow and digest the latex part of the Aloe Vera which is under the green skin of the leaf. So if you have to grow Aloe Vera, try to put them in a higher spot in a pot where your dog will not have an access to it.

Grape fruits are also known to be toxic to our furry dog best friend, so be mindful if you are growing this delicious fruit and its gravevine or vine plant in your backyard to make sure that your dog will stay away from it and not eat any of the fruits. Some dogs get curious and take a bite of the grape fruit, and if digested, this can be toxic to them.

I found this video that talked about Oleander and other plants that are or may be toxic to animals especially dogs, so its definitely worth watching because they are quite common in many household and many pet owners are unaware that some of these plants are actually dangerous and poisonous to our dogs:





We dont always follow every single minute what our dogs are doing while they are out in our backyard relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather. Dogs are known to be very curious and particularly love to check out something foreign things that normally they dont know about. You just have to be watchful and mindful whenever your dog started to act differently, show signs of vomiting and upset stomach, and if she/he is showing any of these signs after prolong stay outside, chances are he/she got interested in plants and trees and eventually shallowed leaves or fruits or flowers that might be harmful to your dog. When you are not sure what is happening to your dog, or what she/he ate while outdoors, it is best to consult your veterinarian to make sure than she/he will be treated properly right away, and with all the symptoms and signs that you observe it is best to bring him/her to the vet soon enough before any symptoms get any worse, its always best to think safety first, better safe than sorry.

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How To Clean Your Dogs Ears

Perhaps, one of the most neglected part of a dog's body that many dog owners fail to check often enough is the dog's ears. Checking your dog's ears regularly is just as important as making sure that your dog take his/her heartworm pills regularly, or preventing fleas infestation in your dog's body. It is important that your dog's ears is kept clean, free from dirt and debris to avoid developing ear infections that could damage your dog's ears later on. Prevention is the key, check your dog's ears regularly to make sure that it is clean and no signs of infections building or developing.

When cleaning your dog's ears, you need to make sure that you do it safely and administer the ear solutions and/or medicines (if needed) properly. There are ear cleaning solutions for dogs that are readily available in most dog stores or pet stores. Always consult your veterinarian if you are not sure which dog ear solutions is best for your dog. Proper usage and application of such store-bought solutions must be observed in order to safety and effectively apply them to your dogs ears because improper application could result in serious injuries in your dog's ears.

Early warning signs that your dog's ears need checking and immediate attention is when you started smelling foul odor coming from your dog's ear, or when your dog frequently scratch his/her ear(s) indicating that something is definitely bothering her/him inside her/his ear. Dog ears problems that dog owners may discover from their dog is different, its definitely case to case basis, there are instances that do-it-yourself remedies just wont do it, in some cases, you need to consult your veterinarian especially when there is/are sign of infections or irritations, and you cannot safely perform the treatment or cleaning yourself without making the situation worst or irritate your dog's ears. The rule of thumb is, when in doubt, better leave the cleaning or treatment done by a trained professional that knows how to handle the job safely. Dogs ears can be very delicate, doing things wrongs could possibly damage his/her ears internally especially when it is more than just dirt or cleaning that is required of the situation.

If you are confident enough that all you need is a good cleaning of your dog's ear without the need to go to the vet clinic to inspect your dog, here is a short video clip that may help you how you can properly administer a store-bought dog ear solution to your dog:





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A Surgery For Our Princess

Meet our beautiful adopted pet dog Katie. We happily rescued her several years ago from the local animal shelter, when she was a still a puppy, less than a year old. She is a mixed breed with a mixture of rhodesian ridgeback and sharpei type of dogs as her biological parents.





Weeks ago we noticed that she has a growth in her behind, just below her tail. It was smaller back then. We noticed recently that its growing so much bigger with a size more than a marble, almost 3/4 of an inch, which is beginning to really bother her a lot. Few days ago, the growth started to bleed and we try to clean it but it is still an open would and putting a band-aid on it is impossible because it is just below her tail.. We would like to rush here to an animal hospital as soon as we can inorder to have this growth taken care of before it get infected especially that it is located just below her tail and everytime she do her business, the chances that her bowel movement rubbing against it the wound is 99 percent because the growth is that close to the opening, unfortunately. GNRTBJDXKVWF

Dogs And Cookies

I always wanted to bake a homemade cookie for our dogs. We have two bigs jars of peanut butter that I bought from Costco, and I am the only one that really love to eat it at home, so I have plenty of peanut butter that I need to use up before their expiration date. I learned that dogs love peanut butter and i also noticed that some dog treats actually have some peanut butter in the ingredients. One of these days, I will find a peanut butter cookie recipe for our dogs. I have peanut butter cookie recipe for humans, i have to find our more if its actually just the same ingredients and cooking steps for the dog version.




For few years already, we have been giving our dogs Checkups Dental dog treat and they enjoy it, and the treat seems to help freshen up their breath but to save on cost, we only give it to them once a day, 1 to 2 times a week because we have more than one dog.

I was blog hopping today and I encountered this one blog that posted a recipe for minty cookies for dogs. I am yet to try the recipe myself, but Im sure our dogs cant wait to try the cookies!

Dealing With Fleas

Nobody wants to deal with fleas, including our dogs. But when you have dogs, you might be facing some flea problems at some point, if not, you are lucky and keep it that way. Fleas are nothing but parasites to our dogs and if your dog is infected with some fleas, it is best to face the problem and not take it for granted because if you just ignore it, it will only multiply and make things worse.

There are different ways that a dog can get infected with fleas. She/he can get it from your yard or lawn, other dogs, or from your carpets or furnitures that may have some fleas in them. Your dog will not be able to tell you that she/he got fleas, but one major indication that your dog might be infected with some fleas is if you started to notice that your dog has been scratching and itching a lot. Fleas can go anywhere in their body, from head to toe. Fleas are little insects that are hardly visible by the human eyes, and it goes even harder to see when your dog have long hair or fur.




But dont go panic, there are several different measures that you can do to prevent fleas, or to remove fleas from your beloved furry friend. Since it is hard to control exactly where a dog can get fleas from, it can be from your own backyard or from other dogs that they associate with, it is best to keep your dog protected by putting a shield in your dogs body to keep the fleas away. There are several different flea prevention products that you can purchase nowadays inorder to prevent fleas in your dogs. There are flea control chemicals that you can apply to your dogs back to prevent flea for months, or even a flea control collar that your dog can wear.

But if you suspect that your dog has fleas already and you need to get rid of them and do something about it before they multipy. To manually control the fleas from your dog body, you can use a flea comb to remove some of the fleas. A flea comb is a specially designed comb with tiny teeth inorder to sweep most fleas out. You can also purchase a flea body spray that you can apply to your dogs body to kill any existing fleas.

If a dog is infected with fleas, chances are some of the fleas fly off to your carpeting, etc. If you think that some of the fleas are already present in your carpeting, you can also purchase a chemical spray that you can apply to your carpet to kill the fleas. And if you suspect that your dog get the fleas from your lawn, there are also spray products that you can buy to spray in your lawn to kill the fleas.

If you use any of the flea products, always make sure that you read the instructions, labels, and proper applications so that you will be able to get the most use out of a product and not encounter any problems due to misapplications and improper treatments.

Between you and your beloved furry friend, keep the love alive, but not the fleas!

If you think this is a helpful tip and want your friends to know, feel free to give them this website link.

This article is written by JazeVox of www.DogsCircle.com All Rights Reserved.

Exploring New Dog Food Flavor

We currently have two (2) dogs that have totally different diet and eating habits. Our first dog, Katie, is quite young and energetic adult dog and can usually eat almost any kind of dog foods without any problems, but we regularly feed her dry kibbles having wide mixed of vegetable flavors in it. Our other dog, Coco, she is an elderly dog and prefers easy-to-swallow dog foods, so we usually feed her the soft burger dog foods or sometimes hard food with mixed in gravy flavors.

We recently went to a store that handed out free sample packet of dog foods. At that time, they were handing out samples in lamb and chicken flavors. Our dogs never had lamb flavored dog foods before, so we were not sure how they would like it, but it was free for the taking, so we decided to let them try it. In order to determine which of the flavors, lamb or chicken, our dogs most prefer, we poured both types in each bowl, lamb flavor on the left side of the bowl and chicken flavor on the right side. Surprisingly, after snipping both flavors first, both our dogs ended up eating the foods in the left side, the lamb flavor first!



During our next trip to the same store, we decided to purchase the lamb flavored dog food in huge bag and add it in their diet. So now, they have more types of foods and we just randomly alternate their foods on a daily basis, to allow little excitement and some surprises to their food bowl. I think they kinda like the what-flavor-do-i-get-today system going on too :-)

Note: If you are concern about your dog's health and well-being, have you ever thought about what are the ingredients included in your dog's food and where they come from, you might want to consider preparing the dog food yourself, which we do cook dog foods for our dogs.

Written by JazeVox

Dogs Eating Grass

We noticed that our dogs eat grass leaves everytime they have an upset stomach. Although, basing on our observations, a lot of times, eating grass only worsen the situation of their stomach pain and suffering because the grass they eat literally cause our dogs to get choke and vomit or throw up due to the unchewed long grass, probably just as worst and bothering as a hair ball that cats have to go through every now and then when they lick they hair clean. So every time we notice our dogs suffering from stomach pain, we try to minimize their outdoor stay to keep them away from eating the grass. It is unknown to us if there are any specific grass that they eat, or they just eat any type of grass they could find in the yard. If you notice the same behaviour with your dog, eating grass and vomiting it afterwards, for safety of your dogs, if she/he is not recovering soon enough from the stomach pain, it is always best to consult your veterenarian about it, inorder to get the proper medications for it.



Written and Photo by JazeVox

Dogs In The Cars During Summertime

Most of us love to travel with our dogs, but here comes summertime and in many parts of the nation like California, weather temperatures here easily gets intensely hot and uncomfortable for both humans and dogs to be outdoors for so long. Many of us, when we travel with our dogs on a hot summer or spring day, we usually either have an aircon on or have the windows open while the car is on the move to allow fresh air to flow through easily the vehicle. But when we leave our dogs in a building parking lot inorder to go shopping or to dine in a restaurant, a lot of times these type of establishments all over the country do not allow dogs in their premises, so we ended up having to leave our dogs inside the car while we eat in a restaurant or enjoy shopping in an air conditioned room. So if you plan to leave your dog in the car because you have stuff to do while your dog waits in the car, then try to park your car in a shaded area with windows crack open so that the dog can have a breeze and the car wont get oven-hot while your dog is waiting for you. There are definitely instances that it is best for someones dog to just stay in the house than be left behind alone in a parking lot inside a car while the hot summer afternoon sun directly cooking the car and making the car feeling like an oven.

During your travels and trips with your dogs, it is definitely ideal to always bring along fresh water and a water bowl handy for your dogs specially during hot days so that your dog can have a drink when needed to regain some fluid back into his/her system specially that summer heat can easily make people and pets dehydrated and thirsty.

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Drinking Water For The Dogs

When dogs get thirsty, they usually look for water, mostly regardless of the source. So it is highly recommended that you provide water bowls wherever your dog frequently stay most of the day. It is best that there is a designated area for a water bowl filled with water that is always accessible for your dog because as dog owners we dont always know when a dog needs a drink, and it is quite impossible to tell when a dog need a water exactly, its not like they can open the faucet or open a bottle of water so they can drink when they want to, they usually just rely on us. As dog owners ourselves, we noticed that our dogs water bowl sometimes get empty two times a day specially when it gets really hot inside the house.

Water bowl for your doggy should also be provided outdoor because they easily gets thirsty after playing and running around the yard or lawn. If you dont have a water bowl filled with water outside and your dog get thirsty, chances are he/she will looks around the yard like in planting pots basin to get some water to drink. But standing water from flower pots is quite dangerous for your dogs because if the mosquitoes are hatching and larvaes are present in it, then it is unhealthy to drink. Sometimes, we also add plant fertilizers and other nutrients in our plants and some of these chemicals drain down to the pot base below, which is something that your dog should not be drinking.

To avoid your dogs from drinking water in the wrong places, it is best to provide them safe and healthy water both indoor and outdoor. And try to check water contents atleast once or twice a day to make sure that there is actually a water in the water bowl.


©www.DogsCircle.com Written by JazeVox

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