Choosing the Right Collar and Leash for Your Dog

There are two important components to dog-walking equipment:  a sturdy collar or harness, and a good leash or lead.  Your choices will be informed by your dog’s size, energy level, and obedience aptitude, as well as by your own personal preferences. One of the fundamental decisions you will make is whether to buy a collar [...]

Overcoming Fear in Your Dog

Does your dog hide under the bed when there’s a storm brewing? Try to hide behind you when a stranger is nearby? Piddle behind the couch when someone new comes into the living room? Just like we humans, canines have their own little insecurities, fears, and foibles that can make a day pretty miserable. So [...]

Training Your Puppy Keeps Him Safe

When you bring home a new puppy, it may be that the first thing you think about training is house-breaking.  A laudable goal, to be sure, but did you know you can also start obedience training just about immediately?  In fact, training your puppy as soon as possible will help assure his or her safety [...]

Introducing Puppy to Kitty

If you already have a cat in your home, introducing a dog to the mix can be rather unsettling, to both of the animals, as well as to you.  The entire relationship may hinge on how the initial introduction goes, so it’s important that you control the experience. In many shared-species homes the cat quickly [...]

Please! No Puppies under the Christmas Tree

It’s so tempting to put a small puppy in a nice box under the tree with a ribbon around his or her neck to surprise your kids or other loved ones on Christmas morning.  We’ve all seen the commercials where the dog pops out of hiding and surprises the giggling children or wins the heart [...]

Laws Regarding Puppy Mills

Would it surprise you to know that there is no legal definition of a puppy mill?  You might think it’s pretty self-explanatory, but lawyers need a specific definition.  The ASPCA defines a puppy mill as a “large-scale commercial dog breeding operation where profit is given priority over the well-being of the dogs,” and as we’ve [...]

Don’t Litter! Spay or Neuter Your Puppy

In case you haven’t heard, pet overpopulation is a huge problem, and as the economy continues to stagnate, the problem is getting worse. People are often forced to leave their pets behind when they lose their housing after losing a job, or they may surrender the dog to a shelter because they can no longer [...]

Adopting a Shelter Dog

According to American Humane out of every 100 dogs taken to an animal shelter, about 15 are reunited with their families, 25 are adopted, and the remainder – about 60 – are put down.  On a yearly basis, somewhere between three and five million dogs are euthanized.  The reasons vary for euthanasia, but the most [...]

What is Normal Puppy Development?

Most of us know that when puppies are born, they have their eyes closed and they don’t know where to go to the bathroom, but do you know anything else about how they grow and develop?  If you don’t know what normal development is, it’s hard to tell when something is wrong. Birth and infancy [...]

Bonding With Your New Little Bundle of Joy

When you give birth to a two-legger, much importance is given to the value of bonding with your new child.  Did you ever think about how valuable it might be to your puppy if you bonded with him or her? The importance of bonding Although dogs are often called “man’s best friend”, ideally your dog [...]

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