The Must Guide to Dog Grooming
Article by Ann Stewart
As the weather continues to get colder across the country, including here in the St. Petersburg area, properly grooming your pet is becoming more important.
If you think through the impact the change of weather has on your own hair, keep in mind it will impact your dog in the same way. As the weather gets colder and the humidity drops, the scalp and hair become drier. This can cause an increase in your dog itching and increased dander around your home and on your clothes.
While grooming your pet at home is an important part of caring for your pet, seeing a professional groomer on a regular basis is crucial, and making sure it's the same groomer is essential.
Professional Dog Grooming Isn't Just For The Pampered
While it is an investment, professional dog grooming can help save both your dog's health as well as your sanity. Before closing the door completely, think through why you should consider a professional dog groomer:
Your Pet's Health - While the first thing anyone thinks about is how clean good looking a professionally groomed dog is, the primary reason any dog owner should consider professional dog grooming is for the health of their furry companion. Professional dog groomers, like those at Advantage Pet Center, are trained to look for signs of health problems in the skin and on the coat. These can be mild skin irritations, abrasions, lumps, bumps, and patchy baldness, just to name a few. This advanced warning can help save your dog's health, and possible life, not to mention your medical costs when you can address a problem early. This training also helps the dog groomer to identify what kind of shampoos and products are best suited for your dog and his or her particular coat and skin type.
The Right Grooming Tools & Skill - Most of us understand the difference between a friend cutting our hair (who hasn't been properly trained) versus going to a professional hair stylist. While the stylist may be more expensive, they quality of your cut is going to be far superior, and your experience is likely to be more positive. The same is true with your dog. Professional groomers know how to help your dog have a great experience while grooming them, and they're going to look great - all because they've had the proper training and have the right equipment.
Don't Forget Your Dog's Nails
Remember, grooming is more than just baths and brushes. The nails are an important piece to being properly groomed, and can have a huge impact on your dog's physical health. While you can cut nails at home, or use a drummel to file them down, do you know how to deal with your dog when the nail gets cut too short? Are you causing yourself or your dog injury by trying to hold him on your lap while cutting his nails? This can be a challenging task to those who are unprepared.
Your Professional Dog Grooming Partner
If you don't have a regular professional groomer, or aren't satisfied with them you can find providers in your area through Yelp or DogGroomerDirectory.com, a directory specific to dog groomers.
About the Author
Advantage Pet Center provides dog boarding, doggie daycare, and pet grooming for the St Petersburg area. Ann Stewart, owner of Advantage Pet Center, has a distinct passion to providing quality care for all animals, from dogs and cats to guinea pigs and snakes. Be sure to check out their services or call to schedule a time to tour the facility.
Use and distribution of this article is subject to our Publisher Guidelines
whereby the original author's information and copyright must be included.
Some Secrets You Must Know About Dog Training
Article by Clement Idahosa
Definition: This is the process of teaching a dog to perform certain behaviors under various conditions and in certain behaviors on command.
Domestic dogs come in a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes. They have been bred throughout most of their history as a working dog used for hunting, guarding humans, helping fishermen with net, pulling loads, herding livestock, as companion dog and others. Dogs live with people and they must behave in a way that makes them safe, pleasant and acceptable to people. Therefore, dogs do not figure out basic obedience on their own; they must be trained by their owners.
The most difficult part of training is communicating with the dog in a humane way that he understands. From the human perspective the handler is communicating to the dog what behaviors are correct, desired, or preferred. From the canine perspective the handler must learn what motivate the dog if the optimum result is desired. You do not need to talk too much when communicating with your dog. However, the principle of all communication is simple: reward desired behavior while ignoring or correcting undesired behavior.
A good handler must understand the communication that the dog sends to the handler. The emotional state of the dog is an important consideration in directing the training because the dog may send a signal that he is nervous, confused, happy, and so on. The dog that is stressed or distracted will not learn efficiently.
There are four important messages that the handler can send the dog:
* Reward or release marker.
Correct behavior. You have earned a reward. For example Free or Okay followed by a reward.
* Keep going signal
Correct behavior. Continue and you earn a reward. For example, Good or Come on.
* No reward marker.
Incorrect behavior. For example, Try again.
* Punishment marker
Incorrect behavior. You have earned punishment. For example. No or Out.
These four messages need to be communicated in both words and nonverbal signals. Also, hand signals and body language are important in the dog training. If the handler gives the dog a reward marker before giving the dog a food treat, the dog will lean to associate the reward marker with receiving something pleasant. Secondly, if the dog receives a punishment marker before he is scolded or put aside for bad behavior, he will learn quickly to associate the punishment marker with the punishment itself.
Command learning is not an easy task for dog. A dog who knows a particular command in one location may not recognize the same command in another location. A dog who you taught how to "down" in the bed room may be seriously confused when asked to "down" in the parking lot. However, the down commands need to be retaught in each new situation. The recall command is the most important of all the training command. A dog who responds to recall command should never be punished. Punishing a dog upon recall teaches the dog that if he returns he will be punished.
It is necessary to correct a dog while training but never use physical force or violent. This may lead to loss of interest on the part of the dog, and in extreme cases even aggression.
About the Author
clement idahosa is a writer.For more information visit: http://collar-dogtraining.blogspot.com
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