Your Dogs Health! Health Insurance.

Pet health insurance is highly required nowadays because of the escalating cost factors pertaining to the health maintenance in dogs and other animals. Dog owners need to find pet insurance firms that settle dues to the pet owners without much delay and in a more appropriate manner. Pet health insurance firms recently come forward to settle the dues in a proper manner after the due verification of the claim. If anything happens, dog care costs can add up without insurance.

Hence, know the approved list of your local animal care hospitals. Even have the list of veterinary experts who are specialized in dog’s health care and disease management measures. Many firms cover up the cost made towards undertaking of surgeries, radiographic examinations, treatment of specific conditions, laboratory fees towards undertaking of various laboratory examinations, and more. There is a weighting period before the approval of your policy by most of the insurance firms after the enrolling from you so it's good to start early.

If you don’t like the insurance firm, at any time, you can cancel the insurance policy. A licensed veterinarian list should be available with all insurance firms. Many payment options are available for the pet owners. It is better to enroll the dogs or other pets before they become adults. The animals when they are young need to be enrolled as a priority.

It is always better to the consumers who are the dog owners. Before the dogs have any illness, accidents, or get into the pre-existing conditions as quoted by many pet health insurance firms, insurance coverage needs to be entered by the dog owners. The medical history of your dog will be subjected to the full review by the insurance firms, so start soon.

Your Dogs Health! How often should your pet be examined?

Most of the dog owners try to find this answer in a serious manner. Whatever the schedule we have for the examination of your pet animal, if there is any abnormality noticed in your animal, without delay, you need to subject the animal for a thorough clinical examination. It can be suggested that even before the purchase of a puppy, just consult a pet animal care specialist and try to understand about the schedules to be maintained for the examination of the animal. This will help a lot in solving many health related problems in the concerned animal.

Though once in two or three months is the general schedule for the examination of the dog, as soon as the puppy is procured the dog needs to be taken to the veterinarian for a thorough examination. Hence, the health care measures related program will be obtained in time. Most of the time, the dog is to be taken to the veterinarian at fifth or sixth week of age because in this period only, the vaccinations against diseases will be systematically carried out. The period of vaccination in the first year will be continued up to the sixteenth week of age and the schedule needs to be maintained accordingly.

However, if you have the pregnant dog, the dog need not be stressed by long distance based transportation for examination purposes. Hence, consult the veterinarian by phone and try to reduce the travel for the dog. However, the veterinary advice needs to be obtained in terms of health maintenance. If the dog has met with an accident either during travel or during routine movements, the animal needs to be taken to the pet hospital immediately.

 

Though no disease is evident, it does not mean that the dog is healthy. There are occasions wherein the animal may look like a normal dog but may have some diseases, which can be found out during the routine health checkups. Hence, the owner has to decide on when to take the dog to the hospital depending on necessity.

Your Dogs Health! Dogs need different diets at different ages

Dogs need different diets at different ages. Yes. This is true.For example, the puppy needs milk as the major food item while an adult dog may need beef or chicken in addition to the boiled egg and milk. So depending on the age factor, the diet schedule varies in reality for the dogs like any other species.

Puppies need greater amounts of protein, fat and carbohydrates than an adult dogs. Furthermore, puppies need more frequent feeding schedules in a day, unlike an adult dog. The movement based requirements of diet are more in the case of puppies, since they are often more active than the adult dogs.

Elder dogs need restricted protein but the protein needs to be easily digestible and easily assimilated in the body. The diet schedule should have ample supply of water for them. Feeding aged dogs too much protein may finally lead to over burden to the renal structures and ultimately, the dog may end up damaging filters in the kidney.

This is true especially when the immune system of these dogs is compromised due to many factors. Similarly, the elderly dogs need less food only because the movements of the adult dogs are highly
restricted and hence, they have to spend a limited of energy.

Female dogs in the pregnancy stage need not be fed a full stomach since it may cause some discomforts to the animal. However,the pregnant animal and the nursing animal need special type of food items that deliver a balanced type of nutrition with proper
supplementation of vitamins and minerals.

The nursing animal with puppies need to be fed with enough amounts of calcium and hence, there will not be any calcium based deficiency and the bones of the puppies will be strong without any curving.

Your Dogs Health! Home made diets

The dog may have allergic symptoms like severe itching, which may not get corrected by different kinds of medications employed over a period of time.  Such cases may get easily treated once the dog food is changed from the commercial type of food to the home made food items.

Home made diets are important in the dog feeding. Many a times, the commercial diets consist of food items that have artificial coloring agents and flavoring agents that are harmful to the dog's body. Home made food items have the guarantee of freshness in the preparation unlike the ready-made commercial items.


The preservatives added in the commercial food items may not be the suitable ones to the dogs from the health point of view.  Even in case of renal diseases in dogs, the home made diets may be made with ground beef, slices of bread, calcium carbonate, boiled eggs etc. 

The purpose is to have the restricted protein supply in the feed items prepared.  This should be carried out with home made diets prepared exclusively for the dogs suffering from renal diseases. Water is added in sufficient quantities to help the proper metabolism in the digestion-impaired renal cases. 




Often, the home made food items are prepared using the freezing procedures to kill the germs or by adding grape seed extracts to provide sufficient antioxidants to the home made food items.  Food grade vinegar is also added in many times to the meat pieces prepared in a fresh manner.  All these can be enriched with vitamin supplements that are available in fruit essences, fish oil etc. 


Cranberry juice, bananas, fish and meat are prepared in a quality manner and no preservatives are added during the preparation of these kinds of food items and the dog becomes more active after the consumption of such food items.

Your Dogs Health! Pet Identification

Pet identification is highly required in these days because of the need for the licensing of the dog in a proper manner and to reduce the numbers of the stray dog menace in streets.  Pet identification is done by many methods, which are different from each other. The cost factor for that also has variations accordingly.


The identification of your pet may be done by personalized tags, some times by the municipal license tag, rabies tag, and more. Most of the time, your telephone number and your name will be on a place in the personalized tags of the dogs.  If any body encounters the dog accidentally during the event of missing of the dog will become capable of reporting the facts to the concerned officials. 

Plastic and metal pet identification tags are available in multiple colors and the dog owners can choose the color they want. However, many select the reflective type of dog tags along with the collars.  Hence, the dogs can be identified even in darkness to a greater extent. 


Nowadays, many electronic gadgets are available like microchips which are embedded into the dog. However, these kinds of electronic chips need to be implanted behind the ears and once implanted, this will reveal all the data embedded in this in the computer.  A collard and tagged animal makes an indication that it is not a stray animal and this gives more security to the dog. 


Traditional forms of identification of the animal like tattooing is now a day not carried in dogs. Thus tracing the missed animal will become easier for the pet owners mainly due to the identification-based dog collars. 

Your Dogs Health! Fleas and other parasites

Fleas and other parasites need to be given always a priority by the dog owners. The common incidences of flea bite allergy in case of dogs cause worries among the dog owners.  Flea bite induces allergic reactions in the concerned area bitten by the fleas. Hence, the affected area looks like hairless area and the animal starts scratching.  

Fleas cause severe dermatitis in dogs with severe flea infestations. Many times, the flea bite causes allergic reactions in the dogs.  In many occasions, dogs experience severe discomforts due to these allergic reactions. Medicated collars are available to treat and prevent the infestation with external parasites like ticks or fleas. 


Other parasites like ticks, lice in addition to the internal parasites like hook worms, round worms, whip worms etc. cause affections in the health status of the animal. For example, if hookworm affects the animal, most of the times, the dog has anemia. The anemic signs become more prominent depending on the degree of affection by the hookworm. 


Hookworm larvae can pass directly through the skin and cause problems in the affected ones. Such dogs may reveal lesions pertaining to the dermatitis in the feet region and in the skin areas. Skin rashes may be seen frequently in such cases and the affected animal passes loose stool, which is of red tinged and mixed with blood material.


If the round worms are seen in more numbers, the affected puppies reveal a potbelly condition, which is easily recognized by the dog owners themselves. Piperazine salts are given by oral route for the treatment of this problem. However, broad-spectrum anthelmintics like pyrantel pamoate, fenbendazole etc. are given to treat these conditions.

Many drugs have come in market to treat the fleas and other parasites.  Nowadays, the medical agent called as ivermectin is highly preferred by many dog owners to treat the fleas and other parasites in dogs. This drug is available in injection form and oral form. Even the drug is available for the external application also.  

Your Dogs Health! Spaying and neutering

Spaying and neutering of dogs are highly wanted if you don't want to breed the dogs and however, these activities need to be carried out by qualified veterinarians specialized in pet care and management. Anesthesia is required along with due surgical procedures for carrying out the spaying and neutering.  

One has to understand first the terms like spaying or neutering. Both are related to the surgical approaches of sterilization in case of females and males respectively.  However, the term neutering is also related to such procedures in both sexes.  Accidental pregnancies that are not wanted can be highly minimized by these procedures.

Spaying and neutering helps to prevent occurrence of pyometra, which is a common reproductive disorder-giving problem to the dog owners.  In male dogs, the neutering helps to prevent the occurrence of prostate enlargement or cancer.  Hence, these help to minimize the incidences of reproductive disorders in dogs. 


By these spaying and neutering, the male dog't desire in search of female dog in heat is highly minimized and hence, wandering of male dog is reduced. The animal becomes calm also by these surgical remedies. Territorial behavior of these animals is also highly minimized by these in case of male dogs. 


Spaying of your dog before the occurrence of first heat is the best one to avoid the incidence of breast cancer. If the dog is spayed after the first heat, the chances of occurrence of breast cancer in them is more and has been proved by research. Younger group of dogs need to be subjected to these operations to avoid complications in future.


Many veterinarians prefer the spaying and neutering of dogs only at the age of five to six years. However, these can be performed even at the age of three to five years. Postoperative care needs to be followed meticulously to avoid the occurrence of infections by microbial organisms.