Pet Information

Pilling a cat can be a “nightmarish” experience. Cats don’t want something pushed down their throats, and they’ll fight with all their might to prevent it. In fact, it’s amazing how powerful their small bodies can be. Here are some ways to make the pilling process easier and less stressful – for both you and your cat.

The easiest way of pilling a cat is to crush the pill into a powder by using mortor & pestle or by putting the pill between two spoons. Then mix the powder with a small amount of wet food (preferably a preservative free, healthy wet food). If your cat usually eats dry food, she will probably view the wet food as a treat and eat it up.

If the medication is a capsule, just pull the capsule apart, sprinkle the contents on the wet food, & mix, & serve.

If your cat won’t eat the wet food that contains the pill or if she is too ill to eat, you can get a “pill gun”, also called a “pet piller”, from your veterinarian. This is a plastic rod with little rubber cups on the end that hold the pill until a plunger is pressed. It’s best to get a long gun with a soft tip.

Your vet can show you how to use the pill gun, but here are some basic instructions. Getting your cat’s mouth open is going to be the most difficult part. First, be sure the pill is in a handy place. You can put your cat on a bookshelf with her bottom in a corner or you can put her on your lap firmly braced. Have your cat facing to the right if you’re right handed, & vice versa. With your left hand, grip your cat at the cheekbones, putting your palm at the top of her head. Keeping your finger off the trigger, with your right hand, insert the pill gun until the pill is positioned over the tongue & open throat. Then pull the trigger & withdraw the gun quickly. Be sure to give your cat a treat directly after giving the pill.

If you don’t feel comfortable using a pill gun, you can try giving the pill by hand. Extend your cat’s head backwards just far enough so that her nose is pointing towards the ceiling. At this point, most cats will slightly open their mouths. With the little finger or ring finger of the hand holding the pill, open the bottom jaw a little more. You may need to hold her top jaw with your other hand while doing this. Aim straight and lightly throw the pill or drop it so that it hits beyond the hump in her tongue. (Be sure to drop or lightly throw the pill rather than shoving it down so that your cat is not as likely to gag and so that you lessen your chance of getting bitten.) Most cats will then instinctively swallow the pill.

In case none of these “pilling” strategies work, as a last resort try to find a compounding pharmacy, and have them make flavored liquid or gel out of the medication.

Behavior can be a huge iisue with our pets. If each dog and cat owner in the United States took the time to understand the root of their animals’

behavioral issues, our animal shelters would be substantially less populated with strays. Around sixty percent of animals in shelters are there simply because of various behavioral problems. When cats start scratching furniture and dogs begin barking continually, it is quite natural to say to ourselves: I didn’t sign up for this. In some cases a pet’s behavioral problems can be entirely or almost entirely health related. In some other cases they can simply be a product of our own mistakes as owners. When all is said and done, who would really want to use a litter box that has not been cleaned in several weeks?

Before you do anything else you must overcoming our pets’ behavioral problems by using our imaginations…… to get into their minds and to try to understand the world through their eyes. Then we may actually see that we ask an awful from our pets. First of all, we put them into a human-created environment and then expect them to simply forget their wildness and behave in ways that suit only us. Many of the things that we teach our animals go against their nature. We sometimes ask our cats to relieve themselves into small trays when it is only natural for them to do so anywhere in their territory. And we discourage our dogs from barking at our guests or passerby when it is

they are just trying to communicate with strangers who are entering their environment.

If it is not stress or some kind of illness, then we should look at ourselves as owners: are we asking our dogs and cats to behave in ways which are totally impossible under the circumstances that we have provided for them? For example, are we asking our cats to use litter boxes that we rarely even clean? Or are we asking them to keep their paws off the couch when we have provided nothing else for them to scratch for the long hours in which we are gone? Are we asking our dogs to defer their whole worlds to us, while all we offer in return is a few hours a day of our aloof presence sprinkled with paltry playtime and affection?

The Komondor is a gorgeous sheep dog from Hungary where she was bred to fight off bears and wolves. This is a no nonsense dog that makes a serious watch dog and guard dog. She is not a barker and her ears do not move much so she may not communicate that she is disturbed and about to defend. She is generally good with farm animals but can be very aggressive with people not in her immediate family and other dogs, including your kids friends. She can tend to be a one person dog and needs early extensive socialization. She may be too aggressive for suburban life. Farmers have taken notice of her due to the population explosion of coyotes.

Approximate Adult Size

The approximate adult size (two years old or older) of the Komondor is 26 to 32 inches to the withers (highest point of the shoulder) and 80 to 135 pounds.

Special Health Considerations

Most dog breeds have certain inherited health problems associated with that specific breed and the Komondor is no exception. Be on the look out for Canine Hip Dysplasia (genetic based looseness in the hip joint that can lead to arthritis pain and lameness), skin problems and bloat (Gastric Dilation-Volvulus, the second leading killer of dogs, can kill within the hour, this space is too limited for a complete explanation but you should read up on this). Feeding more then once a day and avoiding exercise right after meals may help guard against bloat. This disease list is an informative guideline only. Other diseases may also be significant threats, please contact your veterinarian for a complete list.

She should visit the veterinarian several times in the first year for shots, boosters and check up. Then, as an adult, she should visit the veterinarian yearly for shots and check up. As she gets older, six years and on, she should visit the veterinarian twice a year for check ups and shots. Remember; avoid feeding your dog sweets.

Grooming

The Komondor should never be brushed or combed. It can be washed but may take almost a day to dry. She needs to be set up on a grooming schedule with a professional but she may be very aggressive to someone that she does not know. A better solution is for her owner to learn how to groom her from a professional and do it themselves.

Her teeth should be brushed at least twice a week with toothpaste and toothbrush designed for dogs. Brushing removes the accumulation of plaque and tartar which can cause cavities (rarely) and periodontal disease. Dog periodontal disease can lead to pain, loss of teeth, bad breath and other serious disease.

Her toenails may need to be examined for growth and clipped regularly. The toenails of the rear feet grow slower than the toenails of the front feet. Generally a guillotine type trimmer is the best for this chore and competent instructions to accomplish this can be found on the net.

Life Span

The Komondor can live between 8 and 12 years with proper nutrition, medical care and excellent living conditions.

History

The Komondor comes from Hungary where they were used to protect sheep from wolves, bears and dogs. They were first registered by the American Kennel Association in 1937.

Some Registries

• Komondor Club of America
• UKC United Kennel Club
• NKC National Kennel Club
• CKC Continental Kennel Club
• APRI Americas Pet Registry Inc.
• AKC American Kennel Club
• FCI Federation Cynologique Internationale
• NZKC New Zealand Kennel Club
• KCGB Kennel Club of Great Britain
• ANKC Australian National Kennel Club
• ACR American Canine Registry

Litter Size

3 to 10 Komondor puppies

Category

Working

Terms To Describe

Strength, dignity, agile, light feet, dignified, suspicious

SPECIAL GOOD POINTS

• Makes a very good watch dog.
• Makes a very good guard dog.
• Little to no shedding.

SPECIAL BAD POINTS

• Requires professional grooming.
• She can be very lazy.
• They need firm obedience training.
• Can be a one person dog.
• Not a barker.

Every dog is an individual so not everything in this information may be correct for your dog. This information is meant as a good faith guideline only.

When buying lights for your fish tank, make sure that you know what each lighting source is capable of. You need to be certain that you get the lights that will be best suited to the needs of your fish tank.

Having the proper fish tank lighting is essential for maintaining the delicate artificial ecosystem needed in the aquarium. The lights are available in several shapes and sizes and are classified according to their wattage and temperature scale.

Make sure to choose the fish tank lighting carefully because an artificial light source will increase the water temperature, which may disturb the fish tank environment.

When choosing the lights for the fish tank, do not make the mistake of only keeping in mind the aesthetics of the fish tank. The marine life will suffer and not survive for long. In fact, while choosing fish tank lighting you need to also choose the necessary cooling devices to regulate the water temperature.

Fluorescent lights are extremely useful as they can be considered as a universal design. This is by far the easiest way to add light to your fish tank. A universal design means that the lights will simply fit any brand of tank as standard, both saltwater and freshwater.

If you intend to keep green plants inside the fish tank then it is advisable to go for the Metal Halide Light bulbs. They produce the entire spectrum of light which will help the plants achieve maximum growth.

There are four different types of fish tank lighting available on the market. These are:

[1] The Regular Fluorescent Lights which are able to provide wattage at around 15-40 watts. These are the easiest and cheapest to use. They also do not require the extra cooling devices as the temperature range of this brand of lighting is 3000-10000k.

[2] The Compact Fluorescent Lights are able to provide wattage at 10-100 watts. These lights will heat up the water, so will need to be installed along with cooling fans.

[3] The High Output Fluorescent Lamps will give wattage at 20-60 watts and need to be supplied with continuous T5 power. Also available are the Very High Output Fluorescent Lamps which provide wattage at 75-160 watts. These lamps will raise the temperature to 10000-20000K. When choosing this type of lighting your will need to install a chillier as well as fans

[4] The Metal Halide Light bulbs are the most powerful form of fish tank lighting. They are extremely advantageous due to the fact that their light is close to sunlight and helps the growth of the fish and plants.

By doing some simple research online you will be able to discover the advantages of the metal halide lights bulbs over the more commonly used fluorescent lights or vice versa.

To find out which lights will be most suited to your requirement, visit your local pet store or aquarium as they will be able to give you very useful information and advice on which lights will be most efficient for your setup.

There are many different types of litter boxes, but perhaps the most practical type is the disposable cat litter box. The adaptability of a disposable box is proven by enabling even you to easily construct one at home. Various storage boxes that can be procured from nearby hardware stores can be easily transformed into disposable cat boxes. The bigger the box, the better and more desirable it is to be transformed into a cat box. A storage box with a minimum of twenty-four inches in length and width is ideal.

The basic structure of a cat litter box is a hard bottom section and elevated side and end walls. You can reinforce the lower portion of the box by placing its lid under the bottom of the box. Make sure that the walls are low enough to give your pet easy entry to the cat box. You can also provide for flaps on the upper section; these flaps will cover the litter box, fending off the odor of cat excrement.

Indeed, a disposable cat litter box is a great convenience for you and your cat. But having a cat box by itself is not enough to clear up your cat litter problems. The following are the main issues you should consider in utilizing the many-fold features of a disposable cat box.

Litter And Food Do Not Go Together

It is difficult to imagine having a six-course candlelit dinner inside your toilet. Same for cats, they definitely abhor having their meals in the same place they discharge waste. Therefore, it is important that you set the box as far from your cats food bowl as possible.

The Litter Box Is Place Of Sanctity

How do you feel when somebody barges into your toilet while you are using the comfort station? Like you, cats like quiet time while using their toilet. So put the cat box away from often used doors and noisy places. Privacy is a key consideration so that cats will use the disposable litter box.

Other Tips

If you live in a home with more than one level, it is desirable to set up a box in every level or floor of your home in which your cat can have entry. This is a great comfort for cats, especially the ones with arthritic problems as they do not have to go down or up the stairs just to do their elimination.

Finally, cats love familiarity so once you have found the best area on which to place your disposable litter box do not transfer it. If you must move the box to another place in your home, do not do the transfer drastically. Instead move the box on a piecemeal fashion, often going on just inches per day.

I believe Game shooting is acceptable, and indeed, needed in today’s modern Britain. I will attempt to prove this in the following essay, by taking the most favored anti-shooting arguments and answering them, point for point.

Game birds are released into the wild to die in huge numbers unnecessarily and unnaturally: Game birds, in this case pheasants (as grouse shooting is entirely wild), are released into the wild after being reared in outdoor pens for several weeks. They are then given several months and weeks to acclimatize themselves to the wilds. The pheasants do wander onto roads, but so does practically any other animal, especially agricultural animals (sheep/cows on the road). They live a free life, and are free to go from the area at anytime, as the only thing holding them back, and indeed can hold them back, are the presence of game feeders. These game feeders not only feed the local wildlife and songbirds, and provide a source of food all year round.

It is a high probability that many of the woods used in rearing and the holding of pheasants would not exist today, as they would have been returned to farmland as they are unsound to the agriculture economy. In fact, a large proportion of Britain’s hedgerows would not exist today if it were not for gameshooting. Those very same woods and hedgerows provide a HUGE increase in wildlife habitation for nature.

Gamebirds die in an unnatural and incredibly painful way:

Gamebirds, on nearly all counts, are given a free life, in which they are free to mate, eat, fly, and wander over the earth wherever they may please. And, maybe once a year, they a flown over a group of sportsmen, where they have more chance of being untouched by gunfire than any cow being used for meat has of escaping the abattoir. They have a better life than any cow or chicken, and more chance of surviving. Even when they have the unlucky odds, they often die as soon as they are shot, and if they are shot by an incompetent shot, who are often not allowed too shoot, their necks are broken almost instantly when they hit the ground. There are occasional times when a pheasant may be hit by a clipping shot, and will glide to the ground. These ‘runners’ are then retrieved (but not killed) by a gun dog, and will be killed humanly.

Game shooting only serves to irritate the communities and does nothing to help them: Per annum, shooting contributes 1.3 billion pounds to the British economy. It helps this country with 1 300 000 000 pounds sterling per year. This is not a figure to be scoffed at. Gameshooting provides 70 000 full time jobs per year, not counting the amount of part time jobs it offers teenagers and young adults.

Thanks to shooting, two million hectares are actively conserved through the 250 million spent on conservation efforts in Britain alone. The equivalent of 2.7 million work days on conservation is provided by shooting and consequently we have a much wider amount of natural countryside and different habitats, as well as a method, indeed a vessel in which old traditions (not necessarily shooting) can continue and be passed down the generations.

Shooting has helped put Game firmly on the menu, with it being served in butchers and often supermarkets around the country. It has been served in high class London restaurants, and has been promoted by Famous chefs (Michel Roux, Brian Turner, Antony Worrall Thompson and Anton Mosimann).

When game is shot, the birds are nearly all retrieved, and put in a refrigerator trailer. They are not thrown away, or buried to rot. They are handed out fairly around the shooters and the estate larder and nearly every one of them is eaten.

Gamebird chicks are reared in huge numbers in cramped conditions:

Grouse chicks are reared on the moor, completely in the wild, so it is not applicable to them. Pheasant eggs are first hatched in large incubators, and then moved, as like any young chicks, to an area where the chicks are near heat lamps and plentiful food. Chick aggressiveness is not uncommon, but is usually cure when they, as poults, are released to the keepers across the country, to be grown in rearing pens. Of course, some keepers choose to rear their own chicks, and this is obviously slower than the other method.

In conclusion, I believe Gameshooting is justifiable and indeed, needed in today’s Britain, to put another form of healthy food on the shelf (Indeed it has been proved Pheasant is an anti-depressant!) , and that game shooting is less cruel to the Gamebirds than an abattoir is too cows.

For another great article on hunting click here

There are of course many reasons for owners to want a calm, obedient and faithful shih tzu. For one thing, obedient and trained shih tzus are happier shih tzus, less likely to get into tussles with people or with other dogs. Another reason is that many communities require that the dogs living in their neighborhoods be well trained. This is especially true for many breeds thought to have aggression and behavior problems – dog breeds like pit bulls and rottweilers for instance.

And of course, training your shih tzu well will also make he or she a much better family companion, especially in households where there are young children. Many studies have shown that proper dog training makes a big impact when it comes to cutting down the number of dog bites and other behavior problems encountered by dog owning households.

When considering training your own shih tzu, or having someone else help you train it, there are certain basic commands that must be mastered in order for a dog to be considered truly trained. These basic commands include:

* Heel – it is important that any shih tzu learn to walk beside its owner on a loose lead, neither pulling ahead nor lagging behind

* Respond to the word No – the word no is one word that all shih tzu must learn. Training your shih tzu to respond to this important word can save you a ton of trouble.

* Sit – Training your shih tzu to sit on command is a vital part of any dog training program.

* Stay – A well trained shih tzu should remain where his or her owner commands, so stay is a very important command in dog training.

* Down – Lying down on command is more than just a cute trick; it is a key component of any successful dog training program.

Dog training does much more than just create an obedient, willing shih tzu companion. Training your dog properly actually strengthens the bond that already exists between dog and handler. Dogs are pack animals, and they look to their pack leader to tell them what to do. The key to successful dog training is to set yourself up as that pack leader.

Establishing yourself as pack leader is a very important concept for any potential dog trainer to understand. There is only one leader in every pack of dogs, and the owner must establish him or herself as the dominant animal. Failure to do so leads to all manner of behavior problems.

A properly trained shih tzu will respond properly to all the owner’s commands, and will not display anxiety, displeasure or confusion. A good dog training program will focus on allowing the dog to learn just what is expected of it, and will use positive reinforcement to reward desired behaviors.

In addition to making the shih tzu a good member of the community, obedience training is a great way to fulfill some of the dog’s own needs, including the need for exercise, the security that comes with knowing what is expected of it, a feeling of accomplishment and a good working relationship with its handler. Dog training gives the dog an important job to do, and an important goal to reach.

Giving the shih tzu a job is more important than you may think. Dogs were originally bred by humans to do important work, such as herding sheep, guarding property and protecting people. Many dogs today have no important job to do, and this can often lead to boredom and neurotic behavior.

Basic obedience training, and ongoing training sessions, provide the dog with an important job to do. This is especially important for high energy breeds like German shepherds and border collies. Training sessions are a great way for these high energy dogs to use up their extra energy and simply to enjoy themselves.

Incorporating playtime into your dog training sessions is a great way to prevent both yourself and your shih tzu from becoming bored. Playing with your shih tzu helps to strengthen the all important bond between you – the pack leader – and your shih tzu.

Connie Limon is a professional shih tzu breeder in the Midwestern state of Indiana. She publishes a FREE weekly newsletter. A professional newsletter with a focus upon health and wellness for you and your pets. Discounts on shih tzu puppies are offered to subscribers. Sign up at: http://www.stainglassshihtzus.com