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Dog Grooming

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:11:21 GMT

Dog Grooming

Most people often assume that dogs need to be washed on a regular basis with a shampoo bath. This can be somewhat harmful to your dog because dogs need some oils on their skin to protect them and their undercoats. Now, dogs sometimes can get pretty stinky and pretty dirty. So occasionally a shampoo bath is a necessity. Depending on how smelly or dirty your dog is, it might be that your dog only needs what we consider a deodorizer bath. Now this kind of bath is typically an outside shower with a garden hose and a very limited amount of shampoo just to knock off the smells. Another bath that the dog might need is when they get really dirty or they just really stink, like when they rolled in the remnants of a dead animal. In those cases, a full bath or shower using dog friendly deodorizer shampoo is a must. However, it is still only recommended that dogs get shampooed every couple of months, perhaps twice a year.
Most people don't have the ability to wash a dog inside their house during cold weather or cool weather months, or even during the summer. An idea to counter this problem is to see if you have a faucet (like in a utility room or a utility sink) that has the ability to take off the tip of the faucet and replace it with a garden hose adapter that threads onto the end of the faucet. These are often available at a hardware store. Now to get the water from your utility sink inside your house to your dog outside your house, we found it very easy to get a stainless steel flexible short hose that can run to your outside location from your sink. Screw it onto your garden hose adapter on your utility sink faucet then put a nozzle on the end of the hose. We leave the faucet sprayer on at the end of the hose off while turning on the warm water at the sink to let the water warm up enough to be comfortable for your dog. To keep your hose from wiggling too much while you are waiting for it to warm up, we put our hose-end sprayer (cylindrical hose attachment sprayer) inside a fixed open pvc pipe as a temporary holder.
One of the most dreaded dog grooming tasks that most dog owners face is the trimming of toenails. After we learned through many experiences with using toenail clippers for dogs and cutting off too much of the quick, this has led to bloody carpets and a real mess. Remember that just like human fingers and toes, dog’s toes will bleed for a long time as it takes a long time for the dog’s blood to coagulate at the quicks. So it's best to trim the dog's toes in a manner that will eliminate the possibility of cutting the quick of the dog's toenails. To avoid cutting the quicks with nail clippers, we found it much easier to use a Dremel™ tool with a sanding wheel attachment. Now this will take some time for most dogs to adjust as the Dremel™ tool makes a bit of a whining sound with the motor. The sanding wheel will tickle the dog's toes when it comes in contact. To allow for the dog to adjust to these sensations, we find it much better to turn on and off the Dremel™ tool several times without touching the dog's toes at first. After a few times of doing this, perhaps once a day for a few days or even a week, then eventually tap the dog's toenails with the spinning Dremel™ tool sanding wheel. This will allow the dog to get comfortable and familiar with this vibration sensation the tool will create on the dog's toes. After doing this for a few seconds at a time, perhaps once a day for a few days or even up to a week, the dog should slowly acclimate to the sensation and allow you to actually start trimming the toenails with very little hesitation. The dog's natural reflex will be to pull the paw away from your tool as the tickling sensation will cause this at first. We found that this sensation and this reflex generally goes away and slowly the dog will become very used to it. It is always a good idea to use the reward system to give the dog when they accept the use of the tool on their toes successfully. Our dogs now enjoy this experience and always know it ends with a treat.
For dogs that have hair or fur that needs to be brushed, there are several options for dog brushes. We have found that using brushes with stainless steel bent-tipped bristles is much better than brushes with plastic bristles or bristles with tips on them as they generally don't get into the undercoat, which is where most brushing is needed. Using a steel comb is very helpful to clean out the hair or fur from the brush. Remember to brush your dog about once a month to keep them from matting their undercoats. Also remember that undercoats sometimes insulate your dog from both extreme heat and cold. Best to research your dog breed to see recommendations for brushing frequencies.

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Traveling With Dogs

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:26:44 GMT

Traveling with dogs

As dogs often get very thirsty when you travel with them in cars, it is a good idea to always maintain a collapsible dog bowl and a plastic bottle or jug of water in your car. Keep in mind the water contained in bottles or plastic jugs can get either cold or hot based on the temperatures outside the car. So always keep it in mind when temperatures go below freezing that the water in that container might freeze as well. Or if the temperatures get really hot, the water in that container can become very warm and not as pleasant for your dog to drink. Change out the water once a month to make sure your dogs always getting fairly fresh water.
If you live near fun places for dogs to roam, for instance the beach or a mountain stream or dog park or natural place that doesn't really drain very well, then you've probably run into dogs with muddy feet when they come out from playing or come in from that walk that you're taking them on. To accommodate for the mess that the dogs might create we suggest having some old towels in your car and perhaps a soft bristle, handheld brush so that you can sweep off the sand or wipe off mud and clean up their belly from the mud splashes and sticky sand that they generate when they're running through puddles or on the beach. This is an easy way to help keep your car clean and to keep the dogs from bringing the mud and sand into your home.
When traveling with your dogs, always be aware of local ordinances at beaches or in parks for controlling your dogs by requiring them to be either on a leash or allowing off leash dogs. Most beaches allow dogs to be off leash but within voice control all times during the offseason months between Labor Day and Memorial Day holidays. Of course, always be mindful of other guests in those areas and always assume that other people will be uncomfortable with seeing your dog approach them while off a leash, even if allowed at that time and location. Courtesy to the public folks sharing the area with your dog is always a good idea.

Dog Food

Fri, 15 May 2026 13:21:32 GMT

Dog Food

To keep your dog from bloating their stomach with too much air while eating, it is a good practice to elevate the dog food off the floor approximately 1 foot depending on the size and breed of your dog. We found a small table approximately the size of a dog dish for our dogs and that seems to work pretty well.
If your dog is an aggressive eater (eats very fast), sometimes it helps to put your dog food in a puzzle bowl so that the dog must navigate through the puzzle to get to the food and it'll slow his swallowing rate down substantially. Puzzle bowls are dog food bowls that have obstructions (typically large grooves) for the food to settle in and forces the dog to use their tongue to dig out the food particles.
If you don't want to get a puzzle bowl and spend that extra money, it is also just as easy to find some river rock (smooth, fist sized stones) to put in the middle of your bowl for your dog to navigate around while your dog eats.
The biggest challenge that most dog owners have is the cost of dog food for your dogs. We have found that by purchasing natural ingredients at the grocery store, this cuts the cost of dried dog food at the pet store by about half. Now this varies on the types of ingredients that you choose to get for your dog. There is often the ability to find savings by selecting ingredients that don't cost quite as much. Some ingredients that are natural at the grocery store obviously will cost more than others. It is recommended that you look at the vitamin intake and the other benefits for humans of the food you are looking at for your dog and it generally will match the benefit. We generated a general list of grocery items that you could buy outside of the dog food aisles. This list came from research by popular dog vets and trainers, Doctor Marty Goldstein and Ceasar Milan. You can also check with a dog nutritionist, often available by asking your veterinarian.
Egg shells: Egg shells are a great source of calcium for your dogs. Some folks crack an egg in their dish with the broken eggshells included. However, I find that adding egg shells separately is better to manage. To do this, I use eggs as normal in my own consumption and just rinse and set aside the broken eggshells. I often just put the eggshells in a mortar and pestle until I have enough to grind up.

A mortar and pestle is a traditional, durable kitchen tool used for grinding, crushing, and pounding herbs, spices, nuts, eggshells, and ingredients into fine powders or pastes. It consists of a bowl (mortar) and a heavy, club-shaped tool (pestle). Top choices include granite for heavy-duty grinding (e.g., ChefSofi), ceramic for non-porous ease of use (e.g., Emile Henry), or wood, generally priced between $23 and $75 (from Wikipedia).

To grind the eggshells, I break up the eggshells into larger fragments with the mortar and pestle. Then I transfer all the broken eggshells back to a small bowl. I then return a smaller portion of the broken eggshells at a time to the mortar and pestle for grinding.

It usually takes about 50 to 100 rotations with a brisk grinding (circular) motion of the pestle. Once the smaller portion is ground to almost a powder (sizes of fragments is about sand sized), I transfer them from the mortar to a small snack bag for long term storage until I sprinkle them on my dog’s food servings.

Here are the items that I would typically apply over my dog’s primary dinner meal while I prepare the meals in advance.

Below is what my dog’s dinners might look like with some of the ingredients off my dog food shopping list. This batch consists of shredded chicken (3 lbs before cooking), dried cranberries, frozen blueberries, peas and carrots (frozen), fresh broccoli crowns, 1 full box of small sea shell noodles cooked. Toppings were applied after I divided the servings up.

Below are the 9 servings (1 cup per dog per dinner meal). This is the third meal of the day for my two 50-75 lb dogs (Australian Shephard, Chesapeake Bay Retriever). Breakfast is ½ cup of dried kibbles from the bag off the store shelf, lunch is ½ cup for the Aussie and 1 cup for the Chessie (based on daily activity, I reduced my lazy Aussie’s serving (down to ½ cup) and kept my active Chessie at 1 cup serving size for lunches). Lunches are similar to dinners, except I only refrigerate up to 5 days and any extra lunch meals are frozen in the freezer to prevent spoilage. You can see how I applied toppings (eggshells, turmeric, flax seed, and sunflower seeds). I used a “pinch” for most and just sprinkled a little of the eggshells and turmeric on each serving.

Below is how I store my dog’s premade dinners and extra lunch meals (above my limit of 5 for refrigeration) in our freezer. Note the frosty paws in the small ½ portions on the top shelf. We keep the supplies for future dog meals in a bin noted on the left side on the main shelf.

6. Attached below is a list of grocery store items that dogs can eat. I often print this list out and laminate it (or take a photo of it) so I can take it to the grocery store if I am shopping for natural dog foods (not dry kibbles).

7. Attached below is a list of grocery store items that dogs cannot eat. Partially taken from www.Callmepmc.com .

a. Grapes (all kinds)

i. Includes raisins which are dried grapes

b. Onions (all kinds)

c. Garlic (seasoning or raw)

d. Dark Chocolates (good idea to avoid any chocolates)

e. Macadamia Nuts

f. Avocados

i. Causes vomiting and diarrhea

g. Certain mushrooms

h. Gums, candy, and some peanut butters (containing Xylitol)

i. Check the ingredient list on the peanut butter jar before buying or giving it to your dog.

i. Salty or spicy foods (dogs digestion does not know how to deal with salts)

j. Alcohols

k. Cooked bones

i. Suspect to splintering.

ii. Only raw bones are advisable. Check with your veterinarian.

l. Many dairy products (in abundance)

i. Most dogs can handle some minor dairy products on a very limited basis such as cheese.

ii. Be careful about giving your dogs ice cream, not recommended.

For summer cooling, feed your dog a frozen treat of blended Greek (plain only) yogurt, peanut butter (no Xylitol) or applesauce, and some honey, and banana. Blend until mixed and pour into small Tupperware cups (approximately ½ cup serving sizes). Freeze overnight and store in freezer until consumed by your dog. They should lick the contents out of the cups. Do not let them eat the containers, so watch them carefully while they are enjoying the treat.

m. Fruit pits and seeds

i. While dogs love apples, do NOT let them eat any apple seeds.

ii. Most seeds contain cyanide and are toxic to dogs.

n. Citrus, Carrots, and Corn in abundance

i. Small portions of citrus (peeled seedless oranges, mandarins, etc.), carrots, and corn are okay for dogs. Oranges, carrots, and corn are typically higher in sugar and may affect your dogs if given in abundance over time.

Traveling With Dogs

As dogs often get very thirsty when you travel with them in cars, it is a good idea to always maintain a collapsible dog bowl and a plastic bottle or jug of water in your car. Keep in mind the water contained in bottles or plastic jugs can get either cold or hot based on the temperatures outside the car. So always keep it in mind when temperatures go below freezing that the water in that container might freeze as well. Or if the temperatures get really hot, the water in that container can become very warm and not as pleasant for your dog to drink. Change out the water once a month to make sure your dogs always getting fairly fresh water.
If you live near fun places for dogs to roam, for instance the beach or a mountain stream or dog park or natural place that doesn't really drain very well, then you've probably run into dogs with muddy feet when they come out from playing or come in from that walk that you're taking them on. To accommodate for the mess that the dogs might create we suggest having some old towels in your car and perhaps a soft bristle, handheld brush so that you can sweep off the sand or wipe off mud and clean up their belly from the mud splashes and sticky sand that they generate when they're running through puddles or on the beach. This is an easy way to help keep your car clean and to keep the dogs from bringing the mud and sand into your home.
When traveling with your dogs, always be aware of local ordinances at beaches or in parks for controlling your dogs by requiring them to be either on a leash or allowing off leash dogs. Most beaches allow dogs to be off leash but within voice control all times during the offseason months between Labor Day and Memorial Day holidays. Of course, always be mindful of other guests in those areas and always assume that other people will be uncomfortable with seeing your dog approach them while off a leash, even if allowed at that time and location. Courtesy to the public folks sharing the area with your dog is always a good idea.