Taking care for your dog does not stop once you have made sure that you provide it with sufficient supply of dog food and nice place to sleep, as most people would understand. Thus, taking care of your dog goes beyond the usual conception on the term “dog care”.
Dog care means providing everything your dog needs from food, shelter, healthy environment, to dog grooming supplies. You might ask, “Why are dog grooming supplies included in dog care?”
Like you, your dog needs to remain clean, neat, and free from disease. It is true that food, shelter, and healthy place for your dog to roam around will keep it safe and healthy.
However, these 3 are insufficient to make sure that your dog will live a healthy life. Because all these 3 are external factors, it lacks one aspect of protection. That is, protection from the self. What does protection from the self means? It means maintaining a well-groomed body starting from the ears, nails, teeth, and coat to keep disease and other forms of harm away from your dog.
Here, dog food and nice shelter is not what your dog needs. What you dog needs are dog-grooming supplies especially made for them.
Starting off with dog shampoo. Let us get this straight: you cannot use your shampoo to your dog. Why? Because your dog’s coat requires a formulation different from your hair. Human shampoo is just too harsh that could cause irritation if used to your dog.
Therefore, you should buy your dog with its own shampoo. There are several brands of dog shampoos available for your pet but ultimately, they all work with the same purpose: to keep the coat of your dog clean, healthy, and shiny.
Dog shampoos are, of course, not enough. You should also get dog conditioner to further achieve the dog coat quality you need. Again, there are several types of god conditioner. Choose one that fits your dog’s type of coat.
After bathing, your dog should need to be dried. Your dog can have its own blow dryer or towel.
For tangles and mats, use brushes and combs. There are different kinds of dog brushes and combs.
If these two are not sufficient to remove tangles and mats, de-matting tool will certainly do the job.
Your dog’s ears should be checked periodically. This is especially important if your dog’s breed has dropped ears since it is more susceptible to bacterial and fungal infection. Check your dog’s ear at least once a week. There is no tool required for inspection but for cleaning, cotton damped with warm water is enough.
Dog’s nails should be cut every 2 or 3 weeks. Scissors style nail clipper or the guillotine style clipper will do the job but be careful on using it. There are different sizes available if you are going to purchase any of the two to fit your dog’s toenail size.
Trimming your dog’s coat is important not only in keeping the dog look neat, but also in maintaining the coat healthy. Use clipper, sheers or scissors.
For tick and flea problems, you should have tick and flea removal products. There are several of these Bio-Spot, Frontline, Advantage, Sentry Pro, Frontline Plus, K-9, and Advantix are some of the brands you can choose from. But remember that tick and flea removal products are different from one another. What you should buy is the type that your dog needs.
