Tips on Grooming Puppies By Kelly Marshall

When you bring a puppy home for the first time, you may be thinking of a million and a half different things. You may be concerned about the housebreaking, where it is going to sleep, the food your want to feed it, and the tricks you want to teach it. Something that a lot of people forget to think about in the beginning is the grooming of the puppy. It is extremely important to begin grooming the puppy right away instead of waiting for it to become older.

Even though some people might think that grooming a small puppy can scare it away from the entire process, it actually works in the opposite way. When you introduce the puppy to the grooming process in the beginning, it begins to view it as a natural part of life and thinks nothing about it. Most of the time, you will quickly begin to see that the puppy even enjoys the time it gets to spend with you while being groomed. Not only does the process feel good but also it is a little extra one on one time that the puppy gets to spend with you.

Bath Time

Allow your dog is play in the water in the tub. Fill the tub only an inch or two and throw a couple of the puppy's favorite plastic or rubber toys in there. Make it a fun experience for the puppy and nothing more. Do this every day for about a week or until you see that the puppy no longer associates the tub with anything that is scary to it. Once you reach that step, go ahead and introduce using the sprayer or a cup of water and pour it onto the dog, still with the toys in the tub. Once your puppy has become used to that you can add the dog shampoo and begin washing the puppy as normal.

Brushing

Allow the puppy to sniff and look over the brush all it wants. By making sure that the puppy gets to check the brush out, it will see that it is nothing to be alarmed about. The puppy will see that it is not an object that is going to hurt it and therefore will not be afraid. Start by brushing the dog slowly while making sure that the puppy is comfortable. The whole idea is to make it an enjoyable bonding experience between the two of you that also allows the puppy to be groomed.

Oral Care

Make sure that you have yourself a nice doggie toothbrush and flavored toothpaste for dogs. Start by placing a little bit of the toothpaste on your finger and allow the dog to lick it. If it will not lick the toothpaste, gently reach your finger into the mouth of the dog and rub the toothpaste along the teeth and the gum lines. This will allow the dog to become used to the taste of it. Then break out the toothbrush and allow the puppy to sniff it, lick it, and play with it. Just like the grooming brush, you want the puppy to see that it is nothing to be afraid of.

In due time you will see that grooming your puppy is easier then you thought. As long as you follow the tips you will have no problems and your puppy will grow into a dog that enjoys its grooming sessions.

Resource: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=373357&ca=Pets

The Dilemma of Raising Many Puppies of the Same Age By Jeff Nenadic

If you want to get bring up multiple puppies in your house and don’t know which brood to select. Then you might want to know some of the advantages and disadvantages of growing many puppies that belong to the same age group.

Selecting Numerous Puppies Is Definitely Not Worth The Difficulty

In case you are raising puppies of the same brood and same age group, then it is natural that, as they grow one of the puppies will tend to become dominant and become the leader of the others. You must be knowing, how it is to raise a commanding and arbitrary dog. Here it means that, as the puppy grows to be obedient, it fails to have the self confidence lacking the social skills.

This dog who is dominating most of the times will become very combative towards other dogs in all the situations. What happens when one dominates the others is, the other dogs will feel a little insecure and will not be able to cope with the abilities of this dominant dog, this can sometimes lead to stress related problems in them. Not only this, both the dogs will go through separation angst when they are isolated from each other. This is something like separating twins or siblings during childhood.

Watch out for some severe dog fights

As the multiple dogs grow, they will slowly start establishing their roles amongst themselves, and therefore you don’t have to bother too much about the grown up dogs fighting. But when you consider dogs fighting when they are puppies, as they are small they tend to fight physically, when there is a competition. Some of the situations where you will find them fighting are, they will fight for toys and during meals. And this is mainly to grab more attention.

When this kind of fighting takes place, you have to give them, proper commands and training to make them behave properly. If this habit is not curbed, then the puppies will start hurting each other during the fight, and the one puppy that is always docile will start developing solicitude as he grows. And if all your dogs belong to the same sex then these issues will escalate.

The behavior and training process will take a back seat while you have multiple puppies

This is the prime concern which most of the dog owners ignore while they get many puppies into their houses. As they come in a pack, these puppies will spend most of their time among themselves, and they do need much of your attention, even the need for training becomes less. So, before you plan to get multiple dogs consider all these aspects.

Attention and all that may not sound serious to you, but imagine training all the puppies to the rules and commands of your house. This is not easy, it would be extremely difficult for not only you but your family members too, as these puppies are busy among themselves, and your commands will go unnoticed.

Resource: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=374313&ca=Pets