A Little Cream Cheese Helps the Medicine Go Down

From Kathy:

Getting pills into Tess is always a challenge.  I usually poke them down her, but sometimes she clamps on my fingers–ouch!  And she decided not to keep the pill down after digesting it.  Vickie suggested giving her half a Pepcid, to keep the stomach acid down.  And then I read that coating a pill with a bit of cream cheese works wonders.  Tess gobbles it down like candy!  Thanks for the advice, Vickie!


Living with Kids and Dogs

I stumbled across a great resource and had to share!  Colleen Pelar, CPDT. I haven’t yet been able to get a copy of Kids and Dogs: A Professional’s Guide to Helping Families, but after perusing Living With Kids and Dogs…Without Losing Your Mind, it’s surely great too. Colleen even has a Living with Kids and Dogs website!

Hoisting the reviews from Amazon:

Kids and Dogs Reviews

This book is both fantastic and unique. Every dog trainer, groomer, dog walker, shelter worker and general dog aficionado who would like to help parents improve the life of a dog living with children should read this book. It’s filled with first-hand experience and stories that illustrate the points in memorable way. <P>As both a parent and a person who counsels dog owners, Colleen Pelar is able to take us into the mind of the parent so that we understand the misconceptions that they have that drive them to make the dangerous mistakes they make with regarding how their child and dog interact. More importantly she offers many useful tips and suggestions as to how anyone can help educate parents about the relationship between their kids and pets. –Dr. Sophia Yin, author of Low-Stress Handling, Restraint, and Behavior Modification of Dogs and Cats and How to Behave So Your Dog Behaves

Reading Kids and Dogs is like drinking cool, clean water in the middle of a hot, barren dessert! This clear and helpful book fills a gaping hole in the dog literature–how professionals in the field can help people trying to raise kids and dogs at the same time. I give it all paws up and a body wag from the shoulders back. –Patricia B. McConnell, PhD, CAAB, author of The Other End of the Leash, For the Love of a Dog, and Tales of Two Species

As a dog training and behavior professional without human children, I plead guilty to many of the inappropriate assumptions and unrealistic expectations that trainer/author Colleen Pelar describes in her latest work. This book is an invaluable resource for dog aficionados, professional or not, who seek to make relationships between families and their canine companions more successful. –Pat Miller, author of The Power of Positive Dog Training and training editor for The Whole Dog Journal

Living with Kids and Dogs Reviews

At last! A kids-and-dogs book for parents written by someone who “gets it.”This is a wonderful book. Useful, useful, useful information—all the main points in an extremely easy-to-read style. As a trainer and a mom, Colleen sees the full picture.” — Dr. Ian Dunbar

Living with Kids and Dogs . . . Without Losing Your Mind by Colleen Pelar, CPDT, covers more than introducing a baby to the family dog. It has chapters devoted to each stage of a child’s life with parental pointers for setting their family up for success while raising kids and dogs together.

~ Parenting books say control your dog; dog-training books say control your kids. The reality is far more complex and goes way beyond placing blame on either children or dogs for being who they are. ~

Living with Kids & Dogs . . . Without Losing Your Mind provides busy parents with simple, realistic advice to help ensure that the relationship between their kids and their dog is safe and enjoyable for all.

You will learn how to • Help your child and dog develop a strong relationship, built on trust and cooperation • Set your family up for success with a minimum of effort • Recognize canine stress signals and know when your dog is getting worried about normal kid activity • Identify serious behavior problems before someone gets hurt • Provide specific help for managing the interactions with dogs through each stage of your kids’ lives from infancy through the teen years • Prevent your child from becoming part of a growing statistic—children who have been bitten by a dog.


Veterinary Information Network

Thanks for this Melissa! We actually have some ‘in-house’ experience with this very thing.

Posted on Veterinary Information Network, the article begins:

The spreading popularity of topical hormone treatments in people — especially but not exclusively menopausal women —  is having unintended medical consequences for the users’ pets.

Spayed dogs and young female puppies are showing up in veterinary exam rooms with markedly swollen vulvas as if they are in heat. Male dogs present with enlarged mammary glands and abnormally small penises. Animals of both genders experience fur loss.

Read the entire article.

Photos courtesy of Dr. Lisa Pope, Stevenson Ranch Veterinary Center



Fish oil…flax seed oil

Susan wonders:

I’ve gotten completely sick of opening capsules of fish oil for the dogs.

I take flax seed oil every day.

Any reason not to give the dogs the same thing?

Susan


Alma and Roadie…and teeth

Heard from Alma:

Debbie, I took Roadie to the vet for a check up since he is now 6 years.    He weighs 21.9 lbs, heart good, ears and Eyes good.  He told me to wipe his  teeth with a  wash cloth ????  Don’t know about that (smile)  I  give him the denta stick by Pedigree after eating.

The groomer cut some of the hair  off of eyes,, don’t know if it was an inverted cut or not.  He looks like he is looking out from under an awning (smile).  He looks something like Dante on your website.

Warmly,

Alma &

So, I’m curious what the rest of you to maintain the health of your dog’s teeth.