RVT Pet Care

Quality Pet Products, Est. 1996

Essentials Vs. Accessories: What Do You Really Need for Your Dog

Dog Accessories

Dog ownership carries with it the burden of a number of other purchases.  In order to properly care for a dog and to comply with certain local laws, the owner must have a number of dog accessories in his or her arsenal.  Some of these items are necessary, others are merely conveniences.  It is important to know exactly what you’ll need to properly care for your dog.

The Essentials

Most of the truly necessary items for dog care are fairly obvious.  If you’ve got a dog you’ll need bowls for the dog’s food and water.  Mid size to large dogs have a habit of moving their food bowls around the room as they eat.  This can make a lot of noise and have the frustrating result of requiring the owner to hunt around for the bowl at feeding time.  The problem can be solved by using a heavy ceramic bowl that is difficult for the dog to move around.  A sturdy plastic bowl with a rubber lining on the bottom can be useful as well.  The rubber on the bottom prevents the bowl from sliding around as Rover enjoys his meal.

For taking the dog on walks you’ll need a leash and a collar.  These can be as simple or as elaborate as you’d like, but of course you’ll want to take the size and strength of your dog into account when selecting them.  The collar can (and should) be adorned with a license tag or at least an ID tag that provides your name and contact information in case your dog is lost.

If you live in a big city like New York (Manhattan), Chicago, or other urban area, you’ll need to purchase that miracle of modern doggie convenience the “pooper scooper.”  Most cities have laws against owners simply allowing their dogs to “foul the footpath” or leave little Poodle Bombs all over the city park.  In some cities there is a hefty fine for such crappy behavior.

Optional Accessories

There are literally thousands of optional items available for people to purchase for use with their dogs.  Some of these items, like the gravity refillable water dishes and food bowls, serve a very useful purpose, others – the dog bandana comes to mind – serve no real purpose and are merely decorative or just plain silly.

One item that some owners do find very useful, especially those that live in a hot climate, are “dog booties.”  While they may seem like a simply precocious and relatively useless item, they do a good job of protecting the sensitive pads of a dog’s feet from rough terrain, rocky areas, and hot pavement.  Those in cooler climates may not understand, but in some places, particularly the desert environments of cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque, the summer pavement can literally become hot enough to fry an egg.  You wouldn’t walk barefoot on such a surface and neither should your dog. 

How to Choose a Good Hunting Dog

Dogs have been bred for the purposes of hunting with humans for centuries.  Whether hunting for food or sport, various breeds of dog have been used to help flush the hunted animals out into the open, to retrieve downed animals (especially ducks, pheasant, and other birds), and to sniff out and track animals for the hunter.  It is with these potential duties in mind that a hunting dog should be chosen. When choosing a dog for hunting purposes you may want to evaluate your needs and base the choice on what you want the dog to do, how easily it can be trained, whether it is likely to be “spooked” by the report of a weapon being fired, and how good its nose is. Hunting Breeds There are several breeds of dog that have a natural aptitude for assisting in various aspects of hunting.  Hounds, for example, make excellent trackers, especially bloodhounds.  They have a very acute sense of smell, even for a dog, and have no problem following several scents at once.  Retrievers are quite keen at, well, retrieving.  And make excellent bird-dogs. Hunting breeds are separated into four general groups.  These are the general hunting dogs, gun dogs, retrievers, and bird dogs.  Some specific dog breeds may fit into more than one category. Retrievers Golden Retrievers and Labrador Retrievers are experts at finding and fetching fallen prey.  They are especially useful on duck hunts because their oily coats help them move effortlessly through water to find and retrieve the fallen waterfowl. Pointers and Setters These dogs are useful in hunting because they let the hunter know when prey is nearby.  They are most often used in bird hunts and are trained to freeze and point their bodies in the direction of the hunted bird (pointers) or hunker down low to the ground when they locate a bird (setters).  Spaniels also make good pointers. Hounds and Trackers Bloodhounds and other dogs with heightened senses of smell are used to track all manner of animals.  Whether it is their traditional use in the British fox hunt or their usefulness in tracking down deer, bears, and other such game for hunters in the US, they serve their purpose exceptionally well.

Finding a Responsible Breeder

It is an exciting time when you get to bring home a new puppy.  He quickly becomes part of your family and you create a bond with lots of cuddling, trips outside and walks in the park.  If buying from a breeder, you will want to be sure you choose a responsible breeder versus a backyard breeder (those who are only breeding for financial benefits). When shopping for your new dog, there are things you need to expect from your breeder as well as some things the breeder will expect from you.  If you have found a responsible breeder—which can be done through references—he or she may come across as a very nosey person.  This is okay, considering that the nosier breeder, the better! From a responsible breeder you can expect to be asked such things as your work schedule, who lives in the house with you, what your yard layout is like and the kind of friends you have that may be visiting you in your home.  Although these seem like personal questions, the breeder cares what kind of home their puppy may be going to. A breeder who asks no questions and is just looking for the sale won’t be able to offer you the same quality and breed of puppies as the responsible breeder will. Another perk to buying a puppy from a responsible breeder is that you will be told the lineage that the puppy came from.  In other words, you’ll be privy to the father’s as well as the mother’s heritage, and will be given the papers to prove it.  This can be an important aspect of buying a puppy because personalities, as well as health issues, are generally hereditary, and it’s nice to be certain that your puppy is from good stock.  Most of the time, a backyard breeder or pet store simply won’t offer this type of information.  In addition, pet store puppies usually come from a puppy mill—a relative breeding farm—and they are sold on a first come, first serve basis.  Questions aren’t asked of the buyer and no attention is paid to the puppy’s welfare. A responsible breeder will also expect the buyer to have questions and concerns of their own.  A buyer should not be afraid to ask questions about this new life you will be taking into your home.  Here are a few things you should ask your breeder about as well as some expectations that you should have: 
  • Is there a signed veterinary health certificate, plus a written health guarantee from the breeder, including one against congenital defects? 
  • Are ACVO eye screening and OFA or Penn Hip certificates completed, to avoid any future problems with the puppies? 
  • Does the breeder have a written contract available for you to sign, specifying the rights of the seller and also the breeder’s rights? 
  • Is all health information available and up to date? 
  • Can the breeder provide AKC or CKC registration papers on the puppy? 
  • What is the lineage of the puppies?  A responsible breeder should be able to tell you lineage from generations back, as well as giving you a family tree of the puppy.
Responsible breeders will be able to help you find the puppy that is right for you and will be happy to give you tips on raising and caring for your new bundle of joy.  As long as you find a responsible breeder, it’s a sure thing that you’ll find the perfect puppy.

Thinking About Getting a Pet? Which Pet Is Best For Your Family

There are lots of ways that people choose a new family dog. Some may search the newspaper for advertisements from breeders who are selling new puppies; others find breeders via listings on the internet, while still more may simply purchase a puppy from a local pet store. Perhaps the best method, however, in terms of being helpful to society in general is to adopt a dog from a local animal shelter. Adopting a dog brings a new friend into your life. It also helps to reduce the number of unwanted and homeless dogs in your area. Unless the shelter is a “no kill” facility (and these are sadly few and far between), it will also save a dog’s life. Animal lovers everywhere champion the adoption of dogs from shelters as opposed to any other method of bringing home a new pet for this reason alone, but there are other reasons to choose the adoption option.
  • Adopted pets have had their shots
  • Shelters often have information about a dog’s temperament
  • Adopting a pet frees space in the shelter for more dogs
When you adopt a dog you can be sure that the staff at the shelter has had the dog examined by a vet for diseases and parasites and that the dog has had its shots. This is not always true of dogs acquired by other means such as kids giving away “free puppies” from a box in front of the local grocery store or PetsMart. The dogs at a shelter are not just strays and often are turned in to the shelter by former owners for various reasons. When this happens, the shelter collects as much information about the dog as possible, including whether its good with children, how much it barks, how playful or obedient it is, whether its housebroken, and other important details. While it’s true that this information is only as good as the honesty of the former owner, most of the time it is fairly accurate. Animal shelters provide a valuable service to the community that they serve by keeping the streets as free of stray animals as possible. Because many of them do this with little or no public funding or governmental support, they are very limited in the number of dogs they can have in the shelter at any given time. The only way that they can bring in more stray animals is if they remove the ones they currently have. This is done through adoption or euthanasia. Obviously they would prefer to have the dogs adopted rather than killed. Adopting a dog could very well save its life and allows the shelter to bring in another dog in its place.