After centuries of domestication and breeding, dogs understand more about us and are more connected to our emotions than we realize. Our dogs “read us like a book” and they mirror our stress levels. They have learned to act/react based upon our verbal communication but more importantly on our nonverbal [...]

Temperament refers to those aspects of personality, such as introversion or extroversion, often regarded as innate rather than learned. -Wikipedia These innate/inherent traits are the permanent mental and neurological characteristics of a dog that shape an approach to the world; described as naturally occurring and therefore cannot be learned or eliminated. Temperament can however be influenced [...]

Weight control – more than half of the dogs in this country are overweight or obese. Ignoring the problem can lead to diabetes, and disease of her joints, heart, liver, respiratory system and some forms of cancer. Look for a healthy, grain and corn free diet. Remember . . . if [...]

Your dog’s sense of smell is fascinating, remarkable, and is currently getting a lot of attention from researchers. The scent ability of your best friend beats humans, paws down. I think about it this way. When you make pizza, you smell pizza. Us dogs . . .  we smell every [...]

In my 10 years of working with dogs, anal glands have become, sort of, a normal topic of conversation for me.   While I still find it disgusting, it’s not as terribly repulsive as it used to be.  And as common a topic as it is for me, I’m finding some [...]

For those of us whose lives are blessed by our dogs, their health is very important, and vaccinating for disease is part of our routine care regimen. Vaccines are given to introduce the disease to the dog in a weakened or modified state (a live vaccine) or a killed state, [...]

Dogs experience digestive upset like vomiting, diarrhea and constipation . . . partly because we have a tendency to eat things we shouldn’t like dad’s leather shoe, the contents of the garbage can, the remote, a dead carcass . . . and many other yummy treasures we find out in [...]

Like humans, dogs have different blood types that are inherited. Human blood types are based on 3 antigens, A, B, and O, resulting in possible blood types of A, B, AB and O, and each one of these can be either positive or negative. Type O negative blood is generally [...]

What you need to know   Our dogs are family members and we want to do the best that we can to keep them happy and healthy. There is a lot of buzz going around about canine influenza . . . causing a lot of concern. I believe that knowledge [...]

Foods to avoid feeding your dog We all want the best for the four-legged members in our family.  It’s always heartbreaking to see someone you love not feeling well, and it’s even harder when they can’t tell us what’s hurting them.  Sometimes, the answer is right in front of us.  [...]