Pet Care and Training

Pet care and training

Pets continue to play a vital role in our daily lives. We train or
have them trained so we can best interact with our pet and
integrate our pets into our life style. We start them young -
‘potty train your puppy’ - and as they get more mature, we train
our pets to follow specific instructions. Most pets can be
trained; you can even train your pet rat.

Talking to and touching your pet as you train it increases the
emotions you feel for your pet, and soon your pet becomes a
member of the family. We take photos of our pets; we have
slide shows and albums of our pets. So when our pet’s health is
waning, we will do almost anything to help them get better. But
then comes the question of affordability. Can I afford the cost
to make my pet healthy?

Pet insurance is becoming increasingly popular among pet
owners. Pet insurance can help increase and prolong the
health of your pet by encouraging wellness, and the cost of
medication, surgery, and visits to the veterinarian can all be
reduced by pet insurance. A regular visit to the veterinarian
has now become a preventive activity to help safeguard our
pet’s health thanks to the inception of pet insurance.

Pet Stories

Quincy, our family’s pet, is a large breed dog of unknown
lineage. Well…she is more than a pet;
she is a member of our family. Our family
got her when she was about 11
weeks old. We’d had to put down our
other pet I’d grown up with and I was very
lonely without a dog.

The morning we got Quincy, my mother woke me up early to go
to the Animal Control; she kept insisting that my father and I
hurry up. It was a good thing that we did because we managed
to get there just as they opened and we were the first to see
the puppy that had been dropped off the night before. When
she jumped up to be petted my mother yelled, “It’s a girl!”

Quincy is an extremely intelligent dog; a great pet to have. She
learns new words and phrases quickly. We can’t say the words
stroll, amble, mosey, etc. And the word walk
hasn’t been said or spelt in our house for years! She can figure
out how to get her own way in almost any situation; one of her
favorite games involves one of us hiding her ball in what we
think is an unreachable place for her. One time her ball was
placed on the top of a 6 foot fence post; Quincy worked out
that by climbing onto a deck chair and then the porch railing
she could hit the ball down with her paw. Of course, she’d
spent all day ignoring the other 2 balls, 1 squeaky, and
countless sticks available to her in the yard!

We were told that Quincy was a Lab-Chow cross. However, our
vet took one look at her and said, “That’s no Chow.” She was
right. Fully grown, Quincy weighs in at around 95 pounds; she
is waist height and has a much stronger resemblance to a
Shepherd, Lab, or Husky breed. Quincy is one of the reasons I
believe mixed breeds make the best, smartest, and most
reliable of pets.

The strongest evidence we have that Quincy is a Labrador
Retriever cross is her obsession with sticks, balls, and anything
that can be thrown. When Quincy was about 7 months old, she
broke one of her hind legs playing Frisbee with me in the
backyard. As it was a Sunday, we had to take her to the
Emergency Vet Clinic instead of our regular vet and then see
our normal vet the next morning. Luckily Quincy’s leg healed
perfectly and she’s never displayed any lasting effects from her
month in a cast. She’s a wonderful pet. Very gentle and
reliable; she can be trusted with the smallest of other pets and
children.

Rex is a Skye terrier. He is about 4 years old and 35 pounds.
Although he has extremely short
legs, he is actually a medium size breed.
My whole family adores Rex although we
would not recommend a Skye as a pet
for anyone who has children,
grandchildren, or frequent young
visitors. Rex has a list of approximately
8 people he consistently likes and a few who he chooses to like
on random occasions! He is a very funny, loyal, hilarious sort of
dog.

As a young dog raised with an older very dominant dog, Rex
has not had to learn to think for himself. It’s a running family
joke that Rex does not have an original thought for himself and
when he does our older dog lets him know that’s not allowed!
Rex is a very affectionate pet who loves to cuddle when given
the chance; he’ll sit next to the couch and just gaze at you and
nudge your hand so you’ll continue to pet him. He waits every
night to go on his walk and although his legs are short he
marches for as long as you are willing to take him.

Rex has many fears! He’s not what you would call a timid dog,
but he’s scared of quite a few things. He doesn’t like strangers.
He’s scared of the sound the oven fan makes and will not be in
the same room as the vacuum cleaner! That said, he’ll call on
any size of dog even though he stands only a foot tall. “People
are always commenting that Rex has short man syndrome!”

The funny little animal you see is Sophie my pet; she is an
African Hedgehog. Sophie is 2 years old
and weighs about 4 ounces. Hedgehogs
have a tendency to get overweight, so
she is kept on a regular diet. She has a
wheel in her cage, and I play with her
often. Sophie lives alone in her cage
which is something hedgehogs prefer.

I got Sophie when she was about 4 months old. She was from a
pet store and wasn’t used to being handled. Because of their
prickliness and shy temperament, hedgehogs are not the pet
for everyone. I knew when I got her that she was not socialized
and I would not be able to hold her for some time. I chose to
wait for Sophie to climb onto one of my hands before I actually
felt she was ready to be held. That took about a month of
handling her by putting my hands in her cage, giving her an old
tee shirt of mine to sleep in, and feeding her treats by hand.
Now it takes me about 1 minute to pick her up when I want to
play with her. She can be a bit grumpy sometimes and put up
her spines, but that’s just when I’ve woken her up; hedgies are
like people that way! In the summer time I put Sophie’s crate
outside and if I’m out there with her I let her wander around in
the backyard. It’s amazing how happy she seems when she out
there. She’s very spoiled so she doesn’t eat grass or bugs or
anything, but her little nose just goes and goes with all the
different smells. Sophie is a great pet to have.