Important basic dog care guidelines?

Jul 12, 20125 min read

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Published: Jul 12, 2012

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These guidelines are for you people who want your pampered pet squeaky clean. That's not a bad thing though, you are just trying to do the right thing to help man's best friend! Every dog needs slightly different care then others because it really depends on the breed. If you had a long haired breed or a poodle, then you would need to do more coat work. If your dog has his ears down then you would need to do more ear work. It's as simple as that! You can always ask me in the comments section of the page for the specific breed care your dog needs (If you don't know the breed, post a photo and I could tell you right away).

Here are some simple tips to keep your dog in check:

Visit your veterinarian annually for an exam and vaccines.

Give your dog a heart worm pill once a month, year-round. (I give my dog every 6 months, so it really depends on the dog.)

A high quality diet of 80% dry food, supplement with vitamins is recommended. Sometimes you will have your average "picky dog", usually small dogs, but they are very finicky on what they eat. All you have to do is customize to your dog because you don't want them starving right?

Give your dog a treat once in a while! Treats can help clean the teeth, and help with bad breath.

Brush and rinse teeth at least once a month, this will minimize bad breath.

Clean ears once a week. This really depends on the dog, mostly the down eared dogs.

Use dog shampoo for the body and human baby shampoo on the head when bathing.

Control fleas and other external parasites. Check your pet for ticks, and remove them immediately. Also you can put flea medicine on them every six months (or whatever the package says) to keep the parasites off your pet completely.

Exercise your dog 3 times a day. You can play, walk and just have fun with this one. Usually if you have more then one dog the job gets done, unless you have a lazy pack of hounds.

You can always start training your puppy at 10 weeks of age. Your not alone on this one, a good way to get your puppy used to people and other animals is to go to puppy training classes. Trust me, you and your dog will have lots of fun, and even older dogs that need some discipline can go as well.