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You are here: Home / Archives for Featured

Kittens and puppies in a pet shop didn’t come from a flying stork

October 4, 2013 By [email protected]

 

Puppies with mommyWhen you bought your pet from a pet shop did you assume that at the back of the shop there’s this one cozy corner with warm lights, soft cushions, a cute dog nursing its newborn puppies?

In reality, it’s more like this:

These are not photos of irresponsible pet owners.

To be brutally honest, if you have ever bought your pet dog or cat online, from a pet shop or Pasir Ris Farmway, YOU might have been the direct cause of these animals’ suffering. YOU have encouraged pet farms to continue breeding, to supply because of YOUR demand.

Why aren’t they properly taken care of?

To put it simply, pet farming is a business that involves high risks and operating costs.

Bitches are able to give birth only once to twice a year and usually give birth to no more than 4-5 puppies, usually lesser, for smaller breeds. Furthermore, it’s common to have bitches which are late, dogs that are past their fertile age and early death in puppies. Therefore, the breeder usually holds a large pool of dogs for breeding in a limited space, to increase chances of puppy births, to minimize financial risks.

As a result, who’s the one who’d suffer from irresponsible breeders whose aim is to keep costs as low as possible? Your puppy’s birth parents of course, but have you considered that you might be a victim as well?

How does it concern you?

Poor living standards, diets and breeding with close relatives causes poor genetics in offspring are reasons for improper breed standards, poor immune systems, genetic problems, causing a myriad of medical problems for your beloved pet, a ton of vet bills and heartaches for you.

“But my dog has a pedigree cert leh…”

I know some of you, even with much persuasion, would still want to get a puppy or a kitten. But a liar wouldn’t tell you he’s one would he? Firstly, the area where the pet is sold isn’t the place where the breeding stocks are kept, so even if the retail area are kept clean, it doesn’t mean that the rest of the area are kept the same.

Secondly, if the puppy has papers to show that it’s a pedigree or champion blood lines even, to be honest, it says nothing about the living conditions. A pedigree is just a term for a certified pure bred dog, that’s all.

As for champion bloodlines, breeders ain’t going to worship your puppy’s mommy and daddy high on a pedestal isn’t it? Furthermore, many champion are also bought, even if they aren’t, many show dogs’ lives are only marginally better, being confined for long hours just so that they’d look happy when they’re let out.

Finally, just because your pet is imported from Australia or any foreign countries doesn’t mean that they’re cared under the wings of an angel.

This is reality

I admit much news nowadays are sensationalized but ask if you were to ask animal rescuers, volunteers, adopters, honest vets, vet assistants, groomers, pet shop staffs,  the photos you’vee seen are really a common sight. They all looked like that when they’re freshly rescued from pet farms.

I hope you would do a little bit more than to take my word for it. How about spending a few moments just researching on this topic? Add some of the organizations helping out farm animals in Singapore on Facebook. Let all of your friends know, because they might decide to buy a pet someday.  Help your furry best friends, share this article.

Further reading: 

Article in CNN Travel on puppy mills in Singapore

What do we mean by a ‘Reputable Breeder’

 

Filed Under: Cat Articles, Dog Articles, Featured, Pet Articles Tagged With: kitty mills, pet farm, puppy mills

Health: How much water should my pet be drinking?

May 14, 2013 By Sunny Lim

We are constantly reminded to drink 8 glasses of water a day and eat only till we’re 70% full. But what do we do instead? Drink 4 glasses and eat till we’re 110%. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the same situation for our pets.

While it’s easy to see if your pet is overweight, not everybody knows if they are getting enough hydration.

Water is so essential to every being’s physiological functions that it literally take a book to describe them all in detail. In fact, when scientists are looking for possible lifeforms on other planets, water would be on of the condition they’d look for first.

Combined with commercial diets, lack of hydration leads to urinary tract infections (extremely common with cats), kidney and liver problems. Ask any vet the percentage of senior dogs suffering from any of them resulting from not drinking enough water.

But on the other hand, excessive drinking can be a signal to a variety of problems as well, including liver and kidney disease, diabetes and hormonal disorders.

So how much is just right?

Ideally, both cats and dogs should be getting 60ml of water per kilogram of bodyweight. But even vets would say it’s okay if 70-80% of the recommended amount is achieved, give and take moisture obtained from wet food. I don’t think we’re even that strict with ourselves. (*On a side note, I recently adopted the habit of drinking at least 3 litres of water and I do feel more energetic!)

How to measure?

  1. Calculate how much water your pet should be consuming. (e.g. A 5kg Maltese should be drinking approximately 60ml x 5kg = 300ml of liquid daily)
  2. Measure and provide the recommended amount.
  3. Measure the amount left over 24 hours later.
  4. Repeat Step 2.
  5. Always measure and refill at the same time of the day so that you’ll have a more accurate gauge of how much water your pets are consuming.

How to check for proper hydration?

So even though your pet is optimally hydrated, there are times (e.g. When its ill, having diarrhea or vomiting, lactating, long hours outdoor in the sun etc.)  when you’d need to check if your pet is dehydrated. First, you can do so by pulling the skin above the shoulder blades and a well hydrated skin will snap back quickly into place. Secondly, you can also check their gums. If it’s tacky and dry, it’s poorly hydrated.

How to ensure they don’t drink too much or too little?

Drinking too little:

  1. Positive reinforcement: Praise your pet and give’em treats every time your pet takes a drink. It worked for my dog real quick.
  2. Beef it up: Add pork or beef stock or what ever stock you’re cooking into their water. However,  I suggest that you only do this occasionally. The same reason why so many people are addicted to soft drinks no?
  3. If they’re being fed dried food, try adding a liberal amount of water into their food.

Drinking too much:

  1. Feed them using a bottle instead, because water is dispensed a little at a time. But because there’s usually a lot of dripping when drinking from a bottle, so you’d have to take that into account when calculating how much water is being consumed. 
  2. If feeding from a doggie bottle doesn’t seem to decrease the amount consumed, try using a big rabbit drinking bottle. The nozzle has a smaller diameter so even lesser water is being dispensed.
  3. If there’s always someone at home, you can also try rationing the water, dividing the recommended amount into several portions and giving them one portion every few hours. You’d have to use this method if your pet doesn’t know how to drink from a bottle.

 

 

Filed Under: Cat Articles, Dog Articles, Dog Health, Featured, Long Live The Cat, Pet Articles Tagged With: pet drinking water, pet health, pet hydration, the grooming table

About the blog

April 15, 2013 By Sunny Lim

Hi and welcome to The Grooming Table's page!

I hope this effort of mine is able to improve the lives of pets and animals

I’m excited that I finally found the courage and time to start writing about pet care. After working in the pet industry as a pet groomer for almost 3 years now, it's heartening to see people going great lengths to care for their own pets, as well as less fortunate animals.Yet on the other hand, there are so owners who wish to take better care of their but have no idea on how to do so, or worse yet, getting wrong or obselete information.

So often, I'll have pets that come in which are so mentally out of balance really gave me the urgency to start communicating to the masses. There is only so much I can do if I just educated my customers one-by-one. I’m really hyped up on the fact that this has the potential of being able to help more animals and their owners achieve higher levels of relationships, health and mental balance. So please help me to help them.

If you find my articles, tips etc. useful, please share with your friends and encourage them to share as well so that all could benefit and hopefully start them on a journey towards taking better care of their pets. If just a handful would do so, I would have served my purpose. But of course, I will continue to strive harder so that more than just a handful could benefit. In addition, please, give me your feedback regarding anything at all – content, layout, English, anything! I'm new to this and I would be very, very grateful.

Anyways..

This website has been created with the sole purpose to educate follow pet lovers on the different aspects on pet care focusing on natural and holistic approaches in an Asian context.

Though this journey has been  rewarding working as a pet groomer, it has also brought me great pain seeing all the animals who could have deserved better – and they all should deserve better. But I can’t blame the society, because I used to be one of them. That's why in the articles, I'll try to include numerous tips and tricks that I've learnt to help you save time and money (but please don't ever scrimp on quality food and products) while keeping your pet in tip-top condition.

“I really don’t have the time!”

It's a chore taking care of your pets – that used to be my excuse, and I agree it takes time and effort. But yet, our furry ones have continued to give us their 100% of their love (I’m writing this and my 2 years old Silky-look-alike-’Yorkie’ is jumping non-stop begging for my attention.) and that’s one of the main reason I joined the pet industry – it’s my way of giving back to them.

From then on, I started reading whatever I could on pet care and I realized that a lot of people can really benefit from the information out there! Just that there’s a small problem: I can only help that many pets as a groomer. I needed to reach out to more people.

Help me, help them.

So again, if you feel the same way as I am, if you feel that more animals deserve help, do me a favour would you? If you find this website helpful, let your friends and family know. Secondly, I’m still learning and I hope that this community should also be one that builds on each others’ knowledge. If you have a topic that you feel strongly about, do write to me and and I’ll post it up on this site (credited to you of course). But please cite your sources if you have made any references in your articles. It is just to help readers find additional information on the subject matter as well as to avoid plagiarism.

Help spread the word.

For the love of those who love us the most,

Sunny

P.S. If you're interested in knowing more about the pet grooming services we have to offer, please give us a call @ 9199 2024 or 9489 5882. Especially if your dogs have chronic skin problems, we'll love to see how we can use natural products to help. Looking forward to seeing you!

Filed Under: Featured, Home, Pet Articles, Uncategorized Tagged With: pet articles, pet care, pet grooming, the grooming table

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