Saturday, June 21, 2008

If Your Dog Has Ticks

Here are three steps to follow.

Remove the tick immediately. An infected tick can transmit disease in only a few hours. Wear latex gloves, if possible. Use tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible, and pull gently. Clean your hands, the bite area, and the tweezers with disinfectant.

Place the tick in a small container of alcohol. Make note of the date. In case of future illness, tick identification will be important.

Never try to burn, smother, or otherwise get a tick to "back out." Also, do not attempt to remove a tick with your fingers. These methods do not work and can cause the tick to regurgitate more potential pathogens into the dog's skin.

Alternive way from my mom:Here is a simple way that you can get them to back out and that is by using some dish soap in a cotton
boll and laying it over the tick for a couple of minutes and they will back out because they can't breath.
Then they will get caught in the cotton because they
back out into the cotton. walla! Easy way to catch a tick.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Pack Mentality

Understanding the Nature of the Pack

Pack leaders don’t project nervousness. They don’t project panic. They don’t project tension.

What’s the same about a dog, an elephant and a horse? These animals all organize behind a leader.

People make a mistake when they treat dogs like humans. Every species has its own psychology. If we understand its psychology, we can control the behavior, because we know how to relate to them.

Newborn puppies need to find a place or status within the pack. They don’t get a name like we do, because personality is something humans create and only exists in our world. In the animal world, there are two positions: the leader and the follower. Dogs are simple; we make their lives complicated by misunderstanding what they need as a species.

Dog Speak
Dogs communicate through constant energy. The pack leader always projects a calm-assertive energy. Energy is what I call beingness: who and what you are being at every moment. (If you don’t know what I mean by calm-assertive energy, think about Oprah Winfrey. She is calm and assertive in the human world.) Pack leaders don’t project nervousness. They don’t project panic. They don’t project tension.

Simply put: the pack leader is a calm-assertive presence that provides balance to the pack. It’s also not about gender; a female or a male can become pack leader. Pack leaders control everything; nothing is open to debate.

Two Worlds Collide
When dogs come into our homes, they meet emotional energy for the first time. We shower them with affection, and they see us as excited energy. This is why dogs don’t listen to humans. Their mothers never acted this way. Where did the calm-assertive leadership go?

We often develop a different agenda for our dogs. We want to make puppies our babies. When people see a nervous or shy dog, they console her like they would another human.

In the animal world, this nurtures instability, something a pack would never do. From day one, the human fulfills himself and forgets about what’s important to the dog.

In the absence of a one hundred percent leader, the dog, even a submissive one, will seek to fill what they see as a vacant role. The dog will ignore the owner or act out in other ways. This is the beginning of giving control to the dog.

One of the most important things you can remember is that dogs are animals. If we don’t fulfill them as a species, they won’t live a balanced, centered life. Understanding and projecting a pack leader’s calm-assertive energy will create a positive and lasting connection with your dog.

from Cesar Millan website

Thursday, June 19, 2008

***Dog Days Of Summer Safety Tips***

With these hot summer days we all need reminders about the heat and our fur children. Please visit www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=2958