Pet Articles Archives | Page 9 of 11 | Pet Grooming Salon | Low-Stress Handling Certified™ Pet Groomers

Pet Grooming: Dental hygiene for your pup

March 4, 2013 By Sunny Lim

The love we feel when our cute little puppy lick us on our faces, but to some people, it may also feel like they’re smearing crap at the same time (not because thy enjoy licking themselves down south).

Causes and effects of tooth decay

Like us, the food they consume (carbohydrates and processed foods are usually the main culprits) will cause the formation of plague. As plague crystallizes and hardens, tartar is formed. When that happens, brushing alone will not be able to remove the tartar. If allowed to form further, tartar will cause inflammation of the gums, also known as gingivitis.

Left unchecked, the bacteria will damage the tooth and this is when your dog will show symptoms of bad breath (I mean REALLY bad breath), receding gums and tooth decay. In very serious cases, the bacteria from the tooth decay may cause infection of the nose, eyes and even the brain.

We have to brush our teeth twice a day and the only difference between us and dogs is that their teeth are spaced further apart and they don’t eat as much junk as we do, but still brushing still needs to be a part of their grooming regiment.

It’s a one way street

Besides, if the tooth is already damaged, extraction is usually the only solution. And because poor dental hygiene affects the whole set of teeth, many of the serious cases sent for dental scaling and extraction goes home with only a few remaining teeth. That is why, protect your pet’s teeth before irreversible damage is done!

And please, do not send it to the pet groomer thinking that a simple tooth brushing will miraculously remove all the tartar build up and bad breath. You have a little more sense than that right?

Besides, little to people know that tooth diseases have a deep impact on the overall health of the body. There is an increasing evidence proving that tooth diseases causes bacteria to enter the bloodstream causing damage to other organs. Just do a quick search periodontal disease and its effects on the body and you be the judge.

So if your dog’s breath smells like death, it’d be a good idea to book an appointment with your vet to have your pup’s teeth checked first.

Prevention is better than… actually prevention is the only way

Luckily, there are products in the market to make this easier, ranging from water additives, to mouth rinse, sprays and gels that you can use without the need for brushing. Then again, I do not like the idea of adding anything to drinking water (although all dental products are safe to ingest, but I believe water is essential to cleanse the system and nothing should be added to hinder the process), so if you really have to use non-brushing methods, I would recommend gels where you can spread with your fingers. Why? From experience, if your dog refuses to let you have their teeth brushed, you’re not going to get a lot of luck with sprays and mouth wash either.

Alternatively, you can use natural seaweed food additives that can be sprinkled on your pet’s food like ProDen PlagueOff. The supplement alters the saliva and prevents plague from adhering to the teeth.

Why I still prefer brushing and how to do it

Finally there’s the age-old method of brushing their teeth that is fast, cheaper and highly effective.

If your dog tends to be on the playful side or refuses to let you do anything at all, I would recommend you to start with more gentle grooming activities like brushing their coat or ear cleaning first.

During this phase, frequently meddle with their mouth – massage their gums, pry open their lips to look at their teeth, start with just the front lips and slowly proceed day by day until your dog lets you stretch their lips to see the rear molars.

You should even let them taste a little of the pet toothpaste. Most of them are flavoured and dogs love the taste! My dogs treats their tooth brushing session as a reward session, jumping wildly when they see that I’m grabbing the tube of toothpaste.

My best advice with difficult, active dogs, be firm and don’t give up. Reward when they comply and be firm and reprimand when they don’t.

One step at a time

To get them accustomed to the sensation of brushing, you can try any of the following methods and adjust accordingly depending on how well your dog accepts it. Suggestions are listed in ascending order with (1) being the least stressful:

Brush their teeth with just your finger and nothing else.
Wrap your index finger with a thin cloth and brush their teeth.
Pet finger brush.
Using a proper toothbrush. Personally I use baby toothbrush for small dogs and normal adult toothbrushes for medium to large dogs. There’s really no need to get pet toothbrushes or those fancy “3-way” toothbrushes.

Be patient

For every method that you try, do not attempt to brush their full set of teeth unless your pup allows it. Start slow, bit by bit and slowly increase the duration and area covered every day. There is no need to clean the inside of the teeth, as plague mostly forms on the outside and the insides are taken care of when they lick off the toothpaste.

Remember to reward and reprimand accordingly and try to end the training session with a reward. That means that if your pet struggles, wait until he calms down, revert back to a shorter duration or less stressful method and reward the well behaviour and continue the next day.

Natural Alternatives

Call me old-fashioned, but given that plague is a sticky biofilm that clings firmly on the teeth and surrounding plague, I’m still quite critical of how well non-brushing products would work and even if they do, I wonder what effects they may cause if ingested in the long term, even if they claim to be “Natural”.

As for toothpaste, I choose enzymatic toothpaste as they continue to work even after brushing by inhabiting bacterial growth and at least I know that they’re derived from milk.

If you really want to control what goes into your toothpaste, you can mix 2 tbs of baking soda, a teeny bit of olive oil and 1/4 tsp of broth to taste and mix it into a paste. If you want, you can add some chopped parsley or basil into it to freshen their breath and to fight inflammation.

Remember, be it commercial toothpaste or home-made ones, a tiny bit goes a long way. I don’t like the idea of them swallowing toothpaste and baking soda is a source of sodium, so you’ll have to watch that too.

How about starting your pup on that dental regime today? Don’t forget to comment on the problems you are facing as well as your suggestions! Finally, please share this if you find this useful!

Pet Grooming: It’s not just giving your pet a bath.

February 25, 2013 By Sunny Lim

Taking a shower – most of us do it twice a day so we should be experts even when it comes to giving our pets a bath isn’t it? Hell, even some professional pet groomers aren’t doing a good job.

So today I’d like to offer some advice and hopefully you’d learn something new. Apart from its purpose of keeping your pets clean, proper pet grooming technique aids in promoting skin health, although the opposite is also true – when done carelessly, may lead to skin problems. Here’s what you need:

Squeeze bottle. Those selling for a dollar in hardware shops for chilli sauce.
Quality shampoo. Doesn’t have to be expensive. I like to look for those that are sulphate free. Most soaps have sulphate based surfactants which are cause for irritation and other problems manufacturers don’t want us to know. An alternative is to look for Cocamidopropyl betaine, a coconut oil derived surfactant used in most organic product as the main cleansing ingredient.
Quality conditioner. Again, doesn’t have to be expensive. If possible, look for products without mineral oil (or look out for key words like paraffin or petrolatum) and silicone (chemical names ending with -cone e.g. dimethicone, -conol or -siloxane). Or else, make sure they are at the bottom of the ingredients’ list.

Directions:

Mix the shampoo in the squeeze bottle and mix it with 5-10 parts water. How much water to dilute is up to you. As long it’s easy to apply and it foams sufficiently, then it’s OK. Why dilute? The reason is that all shampoo leaves residue no matter how well you think you have rinse it away. Diluting prevents too much residue from accumulating on one area of the skin and coat. Secondly, diluted shampoo spreads easily, rinses easily and saves money!
If it’s a treatment shampoo, please leave it on for 5 minutes or as directed.
As residue does more harm than good, it’s imperative that the shampoo get rinsed off thoroughly until the coat feels squeaky.
Dilute the conditioner like you did with the shampoo and apply it to the whole body. Pay extra attention to the armpit, legs and undercarriage as these are places usually neglected during brushing and more commonly exposed to factors that cause tangles.
Similarly, make sure you rinse off the conditioner thoroughly. A thoroughly rinsed should feel powdery, not slick and oily. A good conditioner should not feel too smooth as it’s a good indication that there is too much silicon or mineral oil in it.
Once a month, mix a teaspoon of baking soda into the shampoo (you may add unfiltered apple cider vinegar too if you want to) and shampoo your pet as usual. This removes the residual build-up and clarifies the hair shaft and skin, making treatment products work better as well as to add volume to the coat. You can even use it on your own hair once a week!

Even when the conditioner indicates that they can be left on or rinsed lightly, my past experience has shown that it may cause skin problems rather than help it. One possible explanation may be that because of Singapore’s humid weather, the conditioner retains excessive moisture on the skin and coat, creating a moist environment that promotes bacterial and fungal growth. Most pet products, including food, are designed and used in cooler climates and we have to keep that in mind.

If you need any more pet grooming tips, let us know what you would like to be featured!

Stories: What My Dog Taught Me About Joy By Sandi Shelton

February 9, 2013 By Sunny Lim

A beloved retriever shared six life lessons with his master

For most of my life, I have been a cat person.

I have lived with little house-tigers that sharpened their claws on my couches, played midnight hockey with my hair ornaments and dragged my dirty laundry from the hamper to my pillow. I have even endured the terrifying stare of a cat that sees she’s getting a second night of “Seafood Surprise” canned food for dinner.But then I married a man who was allergic to cats, and when my last beloved kitty, a dowager queen named Lady Macho, passed on, my husband suggested we get a dog.A dog! What a concept. I figured we’d think about it for a year or three. And then a friend told us about Jordie, a golden retriever puppy who needed a home. He’d been bred to be a show dog, she said, but when he was 6 months old, a routine X-ray revealed that he had a bit of hip dysplasia—and just like that, his show career was over and he needed a family.

We had him for 13 years, five months, three weeks and then part of one day. And in that time, he showed me a lot about life. Whereas my feline companions had taught me about aloofness and how to be cool (qualities I admired but never could master), Jordie taught me The Six Major Laws of Dog Happiness, which work equally well for humans.

1. Live in the moment. Whether he was basking in the sun, letting his ears blow in the breeze or rolling in a mud puddle, Jordie was always giving himself a good time. Go for a car ride? A hike in the woods? Take a nap in the shade? Everything was the best idea ever and so exciting it was as though it had never happened before. He never felt guilty about it, never thought, Hmmm, I really should be doing my taxes. He just took the joy and thanked whatever the god of dogs brought his way. After watching him awhile, I finally realized that if I didn’t try to interpret, explain and manage everything, if I stopped apologizing for not being productive every minute of life, I could sometimes almost approach that kind of happiness myself, the happiness of just being.

2. Going a bit insane is wonderful. I used to pride myself on staying rational, stable and calm. Dogs don’t buy any of that. At least once a day Jordie took off on what we called a “puppy blowout,” when he would suddenly sit up at full alert, as if hearing a distant call from his wolf relatives or his home planet, and then erupt in a full-tilt charge through the house, running in circles through the dining room, kitchen and living room, dashing down the hall and through the bedrooms, leaping up on the beds and down again, then careening up and down the stairs. His ears flew behind him; his eyes were wild—a portrait of pure joy and sheer insanity. Did he care that he looked ridiculous, that we were definitely laughing at him and not with him? Did he fear losing control? Not once. I’ve learned to do some puppy blowouts myself, singing at the top of my lungs, dancing like I’m at a disco at closing time or simply getting up from my desk to run and scream for a bit. It’s wonderful.

3. Just showing up is enough. This is probably one of the great laws of dog happiness and one of the reasons we love them. Dogs don’t solve our problems and never offer one piece of advice. All they do is sit with us when we’re emotional basket cases, and that’s enough. One day when Jordie and I were out walking, we stopped to talk to a woman we didn’t know. Usually Jordie, who was shy, stayed close to me, but this time, he went over and stood next to the woman, nudging her hand and then licking it. I apologized for his forwardness. “Oh, that’s OK,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I was just diagnosed with cancer last week, and dogs know how to be with people who are sick.” Sure enough, I started to notice that whenever one of us wasn’t feeling well, Jordie was right there next to our beds, just being present—a St. Bernard without the brandy.

4. Feel guilty… and move on. Dogs are masters of the quick guilt trip. They are so very sorry they ate all the appetizers, unrolled the toilet paper and soiled the floor. They are the picture of contrition—lowering their heads and tails, shuffling around, even whimpering about how horrified they are at their scandalous behavior. And then—presto! It’s over! They’re happy again, back to feeling completely unashamed and quite certain that you’ve forgiven them, too. It’s not that dogs don’t know trouble; it’s just that they know something we forgot: Staying in trouble mode is boring, destructive and doesn’t do anybody any good. Go for a puppy blowout or take a nap. Even just wagging your tail can make you feel better.

5. You can’t always be perfect. I have an ex-husband who, every year at Christmas, wanted our children to mail him a white clam pizza from a certain famous pizza restaurant in our city. The children didn’t drive, and the pizza place was too snobby to accept phone orders, so this meant that I had to spend an evening standing in a two-hour line (often in the rain or snow), order the pizza, wait for it to be made, then bring it home, pack it into plastic bags and then into a box, and overnight-mail it to him thousands of miles away—year after year.

Once, after we’d bought the required pizza, before we could pack it up, Jordie came running into my bedroom with that “Timmy’s-in-the-well” look that all watchers of Lassie remember. We followed him to the living room, where it turned out there were slices of pizza strewn everywhere. Some had dog-sized teeth marks in them. Others were simply missing altogether. Jordie dashed around in circles, seemingly distraught at what he had done, before he forgave himself and went to lie down and digest his pizza dinner.

It didn’t take me long to figure out what to do. I threw away the obviously “used” slices and dusted off the ones that were resting on the couch and on the rug. And then, yes, I packed them up in plastic bags and sent them off the next morning in the mail.

Oddly enough, I didn’t even feel bad about it. Or if I did, like Jordie, I got over it quickly. And the bonus: I was never asked for another clam pizza.

6. Learn to let go. Make no mistake: Dogs love their possessions just the way humans do. Jordie often had a special stuffed animal friend, a treasure he guarded and protected like his own dear child. When he was in the throes of these relationships, he wouldn’t even go for walks without his “lovey” coming along. And then, months later, for no reason I could discern, the relationship would simply be over.

He would awaken one day, take a look at his beloved and heave a sigh that spoke volumes: Regret was in there, and sadness, but also a kind of acceptance of a difficult fact. It was time to say goodbye. Perhaps this was a mutual parting of the ways that they both acknowledged at some dog-to-polyester level. He would carry the stuffed animal outside and place it behind our shed, never to be visited again. And that was it. When he came back into the house, he was done, free from his responsibilities. It clearly hadn’t been easy, but it was over.

If it’s not easy to say goodbye to a stuffed animal, it must be even harder to say goodbye to life. But that day came, too.

At the end, he had a series of strokes that at first made it difficult for him to walk straight and then made it impossible for him to walk at all. We couldn’t bear to give him up, yet we knew we had to. But how do you decide when? We spoke of almost nothing else for weeks. The vet said that when Jordie was no longer taking pleasure in life, that might be the time to have him put down.

Finally I made the appointment, the last one of the evening. Jordie and I spent the afternoon together, and I sat with him while he dozed on the floor. I offered him all the forbidden treats he loved: chocolate candies and bites of ice cream. He obligingly took a few nibbles, but I sensed he was only doing this for me.

The truth was that he was ready. He put his head next to my hand, the way he’d done with the lady who had cancer. Then he sighed, the way he had when he was about to say goodbye to a stuffed animal.

I knew it was me he was comforting, not himself. He was ready to slip away, to ride that moment right out of there—without fear, without panic, without regret. I recognized the same wordless happiness he’d always known.

He licked my hand, took one more deep breath, and then he was quiet. We sat together until it was time to go.

Sandi Kahn Shelton is the author of three humor books about parenting and four novels, including The Stuff That Never Happened, which she wrote under the pen name of Maddie Dawson. She’s at work on a fifth novel and is thinking about getting another dog. She lives in Connecticut.

A beloved retriever shared six life lessons with his master

Job Opportunities