Tip Of The Week Page 9

Tip Of The Week

Plan for pet disaster needs by: Take the following steps to prepare to shelter your pet: Call your local emergency management office, animal shelter, or animal control office to get advice and information. Keep veterinary records to prove vaccinations are current. Find out which local hotels and motels allow pets and where pet boarding facilities are located. Be sure to research some outside your local area in case local facilities close. Know that, with the exception of service animals, pets are not typically permitted in emergency shelters as they may affect the health and safety of other occupants. Identifying shelter. Gathering pet supplies. Ensuring your pet has proper ID and up-to-date veterinarian records. Providing a pet carrier and leash.

From the moment you bring your puppy home, you must be in control. This means that you are either watching your puppy or he is confined to his crate. There can be no exceptions to this rule. Every mistake that he makes is a behavior that will have to be relearned.

All but the most social dogs and cats should be kept in a separate room during peak trick-or-treat visiting hours. Too many strangers can be scary and stressful for your four-legged friends. No tricks-nor-treats! That bowlful of candy by the door is for the neighborhood ghosts and goblins, not Scruffy and Sammy. Chocolate in all forms can be very dangerous for dogs and cats, and tin foil and cellophane candy wrappers can be hazardous if swallowed. If you suspect your pet has ingested a potentially dangerous substance, please call your veterinarian or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435. Dress-up can be a big mess-up for some pets. Please don’t put your dog or cat in a costume unless you know he or she loves it. For pets who prefer their “birthday suits,” however, wearing a costume can cause undue stress.

House training your puppy begins long before you bring him/her home. Not soiling his quarters is both an instinctual quality as well as a learned behavior. The dam assumes the bulk of the responsibility of keeping both puppy and the nest clean. Some mothers are more diligent about this than others, regardless, this is where the learned behavior begins. As soon as the puppy begins to crawl they will instinctively attempt to crawl away from the dam to relieve themselves. As a breeder, we can do much by keeping the area as clean as possible by frequent changes of absorbent material. As the puppy grows, so should the size of the puppy pen. We want to encourage the pup to relieve itself as far away from the sleeping area and feeding area as possible. By increasing the size of the puppy pen we also minimize the chances of a pup soiling himself with feces. You can always tell the puppies that come from clean and meticulous breeders. These are the puppies that seem to house train in no time with very little effort. Then there are those pups that will soil there own crate and lay in it with no remorse. That is the difference a quality breeder can make. House training puppies should be looked upon as a training exercise. In that light, we can expect a slow progression towards an attainable goal. We can expect mistakes, which will occur with less frequency as training progresses. We try to make the process as clear and simple as possible, so the concept is clear to the pup. We try to minimize the chances of failure by being in control of the variables.

Keep contact information of your veterinarian, 24-hour veterinary emergency hospital, National Animal Poison Control Center and animal shelter or animal care and control agency readily available.

Watch out for electrical cords. Pets often try to chew them and may get badly shocked or electrocuted. Place wires out of reach.

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