Pet Care Tips Blog

So, your dog's scratching? So what! It's what dogs do isn't it? Well, yes, but within reason! All dogs do scratch, but if it becomes excessive, there's usually something wrong which needs attention. Read on for free vet advice on how to give the necessary pet care whilst avoiding unnecessary vet fees.

First of all you need to do a bit of detective work to find out what's going on.

What causes it?

Scratching is what's called a 'non-specific sign' - in other words it can be caused by lots of different things. If your dog is scratching more than is normal, in a general, all over sort of way, then the first thing to look for is to see if he's carrying any 'passengers'. The commonest such things are fleas - fast-moving, chestnut-brown, 2mm or so, and difficult to catch as they race through the parted fur - they tend to congregate around the neck and rump, but they may turn up anywhere, perhaps even on you!

Pet Nutrition is a complicated subject. Dog as well as Cat owners often overlook the advantages of scientific, well balanced nutrition for their pets and consequently suffer the problems that may arise due to lack of it.

Homemade pet meals often fall short on vital nutrients. Packed food products for cats as well as dogs are available in the markets today.

Cat Food products

Cat food generally consists of wet foods, dry foods and raw diets. Reading the label and being aware of the risks that raw foods diet may pose is necessary.

1. Canned Wet Foods for cats

If you are thinking of canned wet foods for your kittie, make sure its high in protein. Buy small packs so as to feed the cat a whole pack in one go. Refrigerate unused portions immediately or they may get rotten. Warm up the leftovers to room temperature again as cats do not like cold foods.

2. Semi-moist Foods

Semi moist foods are good but not the very best of nutritional choices for cats. They often contain, added flavours, colours, preservatives, not to mention, artificial sugars. Artificial sugars are a complete waste as cats cannot taste sugar.

3. Dry Foods

Dry foods come without the hassles of preservatives and sugars and can be left out for the cats. They can have them at their own convenience.

cats are carnivores. Choose foods for them that are based on meat as well as beef. Read the fine print carefully and do not trust the name. Ideally, cat food should not contain artificial colours, flavours and sugar.

Dog Food Products

Dog food diets are as complicated as cat food. Similar to cats, dogs are carnivores as well and will need to have diets that have meat and beef as their first ingredient. Chicken also makes a good first ingredient.

Dry Dog Food

Dry dog food diets will consist of things like hard meat biscuits as well as bones. These are less likely to get spoiled than semi moist foods.

Wet Dog Food

As the name suggests, it has high moisture content as compared to semi-moist foods. Wet foods are very well sterilized, sometimes even cooked inside the can. Wet foods have a higher protein and fat content.

Alternative Dog Food

This is a lot different from the traditional commercial pet food. Some popular dog foods come frozen or freeze dried as well as dehydrated.

A normal balanced dog diet would consist of 25%-30% protein and about 15% fat. If you are planning home cooked diets for your pedigree then make sure it has all the vital nutrients such as proteins, fats, taurine and other multivitamin supplements.

Steer clear of products that include horse meat and grain by-products.

Accounting for better than five percent of all tumors known to occur in the dog, lymphosarcoma is the commonest malignancy seen in aging dogs, especially those in the eight to twelve-year range. Its cause is unknown and is relentlessly fatal, but early diagnosis combined with one or more of the therapy modes just described can comfortably prolong life for eight months to a year.

This tumor can develop in any organ or part of the body, and symptoms will naturally depend on the location. If it's in the digestive system, there may be vomiting, prolonged diarrhea, and continuing weight loss despite a good or even ravenous appetite. The liver or spleen may become quite enlarged causing a “big belly.” Tumors in the chest can cause coughing and difficult breathing, as can tumefied tonsils.

One should try to learn to deal with the small problems of dog in advance as they can become a major problem later as pets whether they are cat or dog are the part of our family and no one wants their family member get sick or at last stage die. Even though someone has got the easiest cared dog in the world, but they still need some care towards them therefore one should try spending some time some skill for easy and stress free grooming of the dog to maintain a good balanced nutrition for the dog. Few tips which would help in the grooming of the dogs: 1 The most important thing that the most of the dog owners are unknown to is correct way of washing their dogs. Dry- grooming most of time creates a problem for most of the owner of dogs. The most number of dogs don't like bathing and in most o the cases they start panic the moment the tub is taken out. 2 The best way to get the dog addicted to bathing is start this activity when he is newborn or a puppy. 3 The moment the dog will get used to the sensation of being rubbed and handled he will enjoy it. Dogs are genetically social creatures and they love the physical affection and contacts and it doesn't need a long time that they start to stat trusting someone. But it should be kept in mind that the dogs' intrinsic dislike bathing, due to which sometimes they can create anxiety and outright panic. Most of the people consider that dogs can eat almost everything and they don't need to pay any special attention to what to be put in their bowl to eat. Some of the dogs' owner feed their dogs with the leftover of their meal and consider it to be enough for the dog. These types of bad health routines lead to common dog health problems like malnutrition, obesity and various problems like arthritis, hypersensitivity or lack of energy. The perfect diet of a dog should include all the basics that make a body work properly with off course the basic element. Most of the people don't consider water important but they should keep it consideration that animals can resist sometime without food but they can't carry it without water. As the body of animals is a rich content of water they require a high percentage of water at regular interval to maintain the equilibrium. Analyzing the activity of the dog that he undertakes the whole day the meal of the dog should be decided accordingly. These days the market is flooded with a common food which includes all the nutrients and other components which is required by the body of the pet to grow properly.