Edie MacKenzie

Edie MacKenzie is a published author, traveler, dog lover, and tortoise enthusiast. Passionate about what she does, her books provide peopel a firm grounding in the dog breed and their unique characteristics with a nice touch of humor.

3 Tips To Help You Find The Best Veterinarian

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Choosing a Veterinarian

Since you do not have much time to spend researching for the ideal veterinarian once you have your dog, it is a good idea to do your search ahead of time, before you bring the puppy home.

But before you reach over for your phone book, check out for other resources and find out what you can get “through the grapevine”.

First, see if your breeder can recommend you to his or her Veterinarian. Also ask for recommendations from other dog owners that you can trust. You can learn a lot from their experiences, but use your own judgment because their opinions are going to be subjective and may not necessarily be accurate.

If you do not know anyone who owns a dog, your next bet is to go to the Yellow Pages or go to the Internet and look for vets in your area.

Below are 3 factors to consider when choosing the right Veterinarian.

1. Is the Veterinarian close to your home? Try to find an office as close to your home as possible, preferably within a 10 minute driving distance.  It’s very important to know that help is just a few miles away, especially during an emergency.

2. If your dog is suffering from a specific type of health problem, such as cancer or some kind of behavioral problem, look for a Veterinarian who specializes in that type of field.

3. Similar to human health care, veterinary care is either done in a small practice (where you are able to see the same vet on every visit  throughout your dog’s life), or a large practice (where you get to see the first available vet on duty). In a small practice, your Veterinarian will be able to get to know your pet on a more personal level. This will help him with his diagnosis and keep track of your dog’s health better in the long run.

On the other hand, it may be more practical to choose a Veterinarian that belongs to a large practice because it is quicker to get an appointment in an office where there are more doctors available.

This having a Veterinarian to contact is crucial, especially during an emergency.

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Here’s Dog Trainer Chet Womach On How To Save Money By  Handling
Basic Vet Issues At Home

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Leash Training 101 – Do You Have The Right Mindset

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Leash training your dog is much more than actually following a few steps and guidelines.

It’s the actual mindset of the owner that is the single most important element.

Success or failure, joy or frustration – all depend on how you approach your dog’s leash training sessions.

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Training Tips To Get Your Dog To Obey!

If you’d love to discover EXACTLY how to get your dog to stop urinating on your carpet and actually ring a bell when he needs to potty. . .

Train puppies to NEVER chew on furniture or expensive rugs – even when you aren’t there to supervise. . .

Learn simple techniques for getting any dog to stop barking at strangers or from begging you to let him back inside –

Plus a TON more step-by-step dog obedience strategies THOUSANDS of regular people are already using, check out –

The Hands Off Dog Training Method

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Start your leash training off on the right paw, so to speak. If you have a puppy that is unaccustomed to a leash and collar, let it first adjust to the feel of a buckle collar only.

Once it is comfortable wearing the collar, snap on a short, light line and watch while it drags that around. Leave the line on for 10-minute leash training sessions a couple of times a day until your puppy no longer pays attention to it.

For an older puppy or adult dog that you have had fitted for a head collar or prong collar, again, let it have time to adapt to the feel of this new device before snapping on a leash.

Do not leave specialty collars on an unsupervised dog. Because both prong and head collars tighten with pressure, a dog can suffer serious injury if the collar catches on an object. Pay close attention to your dog during these get-comfortable sessions.

It’s important that you approach training with the right attitude, because teaching leash manners requires absolute consistency on your part. Every walk becomes a training session, whether you plan on it or not. There is no such thing as “We train when we walk after work, but all the other walks are just walks”.

This is a difficult concept for people, as we are impatient, hurried, and often doing something other than paying attention to our dog as it walks.

While your dog is learning, there should be no rushed walks, no stops to chat with neighbors, no using the time to make a call on your cell phone, etc.

You can’t expect your dog to become mindful of you during a leash training session if you consistently ignore it.

Likewise, recognize that your dog doesn’t pull on the leash to aggravate, annoy, punish or get back at you – it’s simply a matter of cause and effect. The dog is thinking: I pull, you follow, and therefore, I get to where I want to go.

You must reshape this thought process. Put emotions aside when leash training, view your lessons as an opportunity to forge a new relationship and decide that from this day forward you and your dog will learn how to enjoy your walking time together!

Nutrition – The Role Of Protein In Dog Health

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Protein and Dog Health

How does protein work in a dog’s body and dog health?

Picture a string of beads and each string is needed to produce a complete picture or an artwork.

The job of protein in your dog can be compared to this strings of beads. Each protein is similar to individual strings of beads.

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Dog Health Secrets You Need To Know!

“In This Shocking FREE Video Report You Discover Why 87% of Dogs Die Too Early & 3 Easy Things You Can Do Today To Stop It Happening to Your Dog”

Dog Food Secrets

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Just as these strings are put together in the right order to create a picture, different types of proteins have to go together to be able to produce a dog.

Each string is made up of different numbers of colored beads that are lined up in an exact pattern to produce certain body parts such as the hair, the nose, or the ear of the picture.

Dog Health and Amino Acids

The colored beads can be compared to amino acids, or substances that are connected to the strings to produce different proteins.

There are 23 amino acids that are the molecular building blocks of protein.  A dog can produce 13 amino acids inside his body while the other 10 amino acids must come from an outside source and has to be consumed.

A puppy will not grow unless he is supplied with the remaining 10 essential amino acids.

Without them he will become sick and will eventually die. Similarly, if an adult dog is not getting the proper amount of these 10 amino acids, he will become weak and suffer nutritional deficiencies.

These 10 essential amino acids can be acquired from meat and plants, which offer the best sources because they contain the largest number of essential amino acids.

Not all proteins are the same, as some are better for your dog than others. The amount of protein a dog needs depends on how much of the essential amino acids are supplied by that protein.

The protein’s ability to provide the dog’s Minimum Daily Requirement (MDR) of the 10 essential amino acids is referred to as its “biological value”.

Here are a few additional facts about the importance of protein for dog health:

1. Proteins are the building blocks of your dog’s body.

2. Proteins are necessary for all aspects of growth and development and are very important in structural makeup and the immune system.

In addition, they are burned as calories and can be converted to and stored as fat if needed.

3. They are required for healthy nails, skin, and coat.

4. They are necessary for the production of hormones in the bloodstream.

5. They provide a healthy immune system.

So now you know the importance of protein and dog health

Dog Health – Confused About Dog Nutrition? Read This

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Giving your puppy good food, healthy treats, and the necessary supplements will not only increase dog health, but it will also affect his behavior and his ability to be trained to learn new things.

Every dog is different, and there are certain factors to consider when determining the diet program that will fit the needs of his growing body and dog health.

However, there are also general rules that owners must follow to ensure that their pets are getting the balanced food and supplementation that their bodies require.

For Good Dog Health Avoid Giving Your Dog Human Food

Most vets and breeders do not recommend adding table scraps to your dog’s diet. They will also likely tell you that the majority of commercial vitamin and mineral supplements that are available today are only a waste of money.

When you give your puppy human food, he will not only get used to eating that type of food, but the difference in the taste of human food and dog food will cause him to reject his own food.

He will become a finicky eater, affect overall dog health, and be more difficult to get him back to eating his regular food.

For Best Dog Health, Take It Easy On The Supplements

It is also not necessary to give your dog a separate vitamin and/or mineral supplement along with human food and his own food. The majority of supplements out there are ineffective and can even be dangerous to some level.

For example, providing your puppy with an extra calcium supplement is not at all beneficial. It doesn’t aid in bone growth, but actually does the opposite. In some cases, extra calcium in your puppy’s body can actually develop to certain types of bone problems.  Adding a combination of supplements is just as harmful to your pet because they can create an imbalance to his diet.

Keep It Natural When It Comes To Dog Health

Your puppy is better off with his own food, which is a good, commercial dog food specifically tailored to his needs (ask your vet for recommendation). In addition to the dog food, you may also give him a multivitamin such as Omega 3 oil and occasional liver tablets which, in my opinion, are one of the best treats you can give your dog. Omega 3 and liver tablets are available in most health food stores, pet stores, and online catalogs.

Other supplements to give your dog are natural, whole foods. A few examples of these are wheat grass, brewer’s yeast, bee pollen, and barley. These are foods that contain nutrients from nature and will not interfere with the nutrients in your dog’s diet causing good dog health.

Dog Food & Supplements: An In Depth Look At Nutrition And Dog Health (6)

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Pet food manufacturers have made it quite easy for the average dog owner to feed their pets and positively effect dog health without having to be an expert nutritionist.

All of the work has been done by the modern manufacturer for easy and effective measures to ensure proper dog health.

Since it isn’t possible for manufacturers to list all of the nutrients and their required percentages as published by the NRC (National Research Council) on their labels, the terms “complete diet”, “nutritionally complete”, “balanced”, and “balanced diet” are used.

————————————————————–

Dog Health Secrets You Need To Know!

“In This Shocking FREE Video Report You Discover Why 87% of Dogs Die Too Early & 3 Easy Things You Can Do Today To Stop It Happening to Your Dog”

Dog Food Secrets

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This tells the consumer that the product inside the can, bag or box, contains all the essential vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates and fats the average dog needs to satisfy his daily requirements.

The nutritional requirement for good dog health puppies, however, is somewhat different than that required for adult dogs. The diet of the adult dog is usually referred to as a “maintenance diet” where a puppy diet is referred to as a “growth diet”.

In 1974 a regulation went into effect that required all dog food manufacturers to specify on their labels whether the product is complete and balanced for the adult dog (maintenance), complete and balanced for puppies (growth), or complete and balanced for growth and maintenance both. Since all manufactures comply with this regulation, the only thing left to the consumers is to read the label.

Among the varieties of canned, bagged, or semi-moist dog foods, there are certain drawbacks, as well as advantages. This is true even though they are nutritionally identical if advertised as “complete” and/or “balanced”.

Because canned dog food may contain up to 78% moisture, a dog necessarily has to eat a larger quantity of a canned product to get the same volume of food that he would get if fed a dry product. It takes three pounds of commercially prepared canned dog food to be equivalent to one pound of dry food.

But manufactures do not fill a can two-thirds of the way with water, then top it off with a little dab of dog food. The moisture content inside the can is there by the very nature of the ingredients. For example, when a human buys a thick juicy steak, he’s buying well over fifty percent moisture. The butcher didn’t inject that moisture into the steak with a hypodermic needle.

The moisture content in canned dog food serves a definite and useful purpose toward dog health, both in processing and in the dog’s digestive system. The drawback to the consumer insofar as canned dog food is concerned, is usually one of economics. It can be very expensive due to the large quantities of canned food most normal to large sized dogs will need to eat to get in their daily caloric and nutritional needs. Keep in mind, proper dog health can be very expensive, but well worth the love and affection!

Puppy Training – Teaching Your Dog To “Leave It”

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Along with many crucial commands used in puppy training, there is one command that your puppy needs to learn for his own protection, and that is the safety command of “Leave it.” You are out for a walk and puppy comes upon a roadkill or carelessly discarded garbage.

For the sake of his health, you puppy training command, “Leave it!” and you will need to enforce it with a gentle snap-and-release of the leash.

If he does not hear (or understand) the “Leave it” command, get his attention followed by “Leave it.”

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Puppy Training Tips To Get Your Dog To Obey!

If you’d love to discover EXACTLY how to get your dog to stop urinating on your carpet and actually ring a bell when he needs to potty. . .

Train puppies to NEVER chew on furniture or expensive rugs – even when you aren’t there to supervise. . .

Learn simple techniques for getting any dog to stop barking at strangers or from begging you to let him back inside –

Plus a TON more step-by-step dog obedience strategies THOUSANDS of regular people are already using, check out –

The Hands Off Dog Training Method

————————————————————–

This one is so important that at four to six months of age you can even use an entrapment as a teaching tool. When the puppy cannot see you do it, plant a piece of trash, maybe an empty cereal box, on the floor and stick around until the pup goes to investigate. As he goes to sniff it, shout “Leave it!” and as he retreats at the force of your voice, say “Good dog.”

It is an extremely versatile and useful command. It also has an amusing side effect. Many young puppies respond to the extreme urgency in your voice and not only “Leave it” but do an instant Down flat on the ground! It’s a two-for-one in puppy training!

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