“Come on, Fido…..get off the couch. You know we have to exercise 15 minutes a day…” Rarely is this the conversation heard with your dog! Dogs are naturally energetic and athletic and love to exercise. More frequently, if dogs could talk, the conversation would more likely be, “Are you ready? Are you ready now? Can we go now? Can we go now, please? Please, please, please, PLEASE can we go now?”
“Bless you!” “Bless you!” “BLESS YOU ALREADY….” How many times have each of us actually said this to our dogs? Well, if you haven’t, you’re one lucky dog owner! Dogs can have the same symptoms as humans do to allergies! Did you know that? Yes, you’re not imagining things….your dog can sneeze his head off, too, as well as having other symptoms.
Oh, the joy of dog slobber! We love our dogs but some breeds of dogs are more prone to drooling than others and it’s a trait of those breeds that these dog owners know and….love. But we should all be aware that there are other reasons that our sweet doggies drivel.
One question that is occasionally asked by new puppy owners is “Why won’t my puppy eat?” Well, the good news is that MOST puppies will eat all the food they can get in their little mouths! The negative aspect to that is two-fold: first, because they can overeat and nobody likes to clean up puppy puke; the other negative to it is that they really can’t differentiate between food and a button or a piece of wood or anything else yet. So, be very careful about finding and picking up any “thing” that you might drop and by giving them a pre-measured amount of food.
Walking the dog is great exercise for the dog and for YOU! Since it is good for us, and fun, too, doesn’t it seem like it would just come “naturally” to the puppy? Well, just like everything else we must teach our puppies, walking on a leash must be taught, too.
