Category: Training

How to Prepare Your Pet For The New Arrival

Healthy Dog Club

By Dr. Karen Becker For many couples, their dog or cat is the first ‘baby’ in the family. Then one day a human baby arrives on the scene, and the family dynamic changes. Getting your dog ready for the new baby is important. This is often not a happy state of affairs for the furry, four-legged kid in the household. In order to help your dog or cat make a smooth transition from ‘only child’ to the new family, a good deal of pre-baby planning and preparation is necessary. The…

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The Truth About Acupuncture for Your Pet

Healthy Dog Club

  We are going to talk about acupuncture and how it benefits your pooch. Zuzu’s story When Lisa Carp’s Labrador retriever, Zuzu, was diagnosed with leukemia 3 years ago, she was devastated. Zuzu, now 9, began chemotherapy treatments, but Carp wanted to find holistic ways to complement his medical care. Working with Ihor Basko, DVM, a holistic veterinarian in private practice in Honolulu, Carp also began making nutritious meals and booking regular acupuncture treatments for Zuzu. Zuzu’s follow-up exams confirm that he is now cancer-free. “Without chemo, an improved diet,…

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Test your dog’s intelligence

Healthy Dog Club

  Short-term memory The first test looks at short-term memory. You may observe failures in your own short term memory in situations when you ask for a phone number from an operator and correctly dial it immediately, meaning that the number is stored in your short-term memory. However, when you get a busy signal and hang up to dial the number again, you often find you’ve forgotten the number, since short-term memory fades quickly. The test requires an average-sized room that doesn’t have a lot of furniture or other material…

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Would you ever expect this would be the cause of cancer in your dog?

Healthy Dog Club

  Fifty percent of dogs over the age of 10 develop cancer at some point. We see malignant lymphoma, which is a tumor of the lymph nodes. We see mast cell tumors, which is a form of skin cancer. There are mammary gland tumors, or breast cancer, and soft tissue sarcomas. An excerpt from Raw Meaty Bones By Tom Lonsdale, Veterinary Surgeon In 1981 Richard Doll and Richard Peto published The Causes of Cancer, a report commissioned by the US Congress. The authors estimated that about one-third of human cancers…

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Aggressive dogs off leash

Healthy Dog Club

by Doggy Dan Clients often ask what the proper thing to do is if you’re approached by a potentially aggressive dog. It’s a good question and a common enough scenario that pet owners will eventually find themselves in. An unfamiliar dog off the leash might come running up to you while you’re out for a walk with your dog. Being challenged by another dog when you and your dog are out walking is a real cause for concern, especially if you have a small dog or a puppy, an older pet,…

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What do you call it? Dogs associate objects with words differently than humans

Healthy Dog Club

Dogs learning to associate words with objects form these associations in different ways than humans do, according to research published November 21 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Emile van der Zee and colleagues from the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom . Previous studies have shown that humans between the ages of two to three typically learn to associate words with the shapes of objects, rather than their size or texture. For example, toddlers who learn what a ‘ball’ is and are then presented other objects with similar…

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Small dog syndrome — why you need to take control!

Healthy Dog Club

Before I even start writing about this I need to point this out: Regardless of a dog’s size, all dogs should be treated equally. We have a tendency to view small dogs as needing us more than a larger dog. We see things that small dogs do as cute, but if a big dog did the same thing, we would consider the dog’s actions as aggressive. A dog who growls at another dog, a cat or a person is saying they are the dominant dog. Growling is also a sign…

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Is food aggression in a dog acceptable?

Healthy Dog Club

Food aggression is not acceptable and should be corrected immediately. Most trainers recommend following training: 1. Do not put the dogs food in his bowl, sprinkle it on the floor. This forces the food away as the dog eats, making sure the dog does not eat too much too fast. It also takes the dog longer to eat. The longer it takes him to eat without someone disturbing him, the more likely he is to learn that his food isn’t going to be taken from him. 2. Make doggie meatballs.…

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