Best Friend

A dog's breathing and heartbeat can suddenly stop after being in a traffic accident, drowning, poisoning, or from shock. When this happens, it is crucial to administer an immediate cardiac massage as well as artificial respiration in order to save his life. As soon as you notice that he has stopped breathing, have someone help you call the vet for advice while doing your best to resuscitate the dog. It is very important to get oxygen rich blood to the brain as quickly as possible to prevent brain damage. His heart needs to be restarted within a few minutes in order for him to survive.

If you are not sure whether or not the dog is breathing, press your ear firmly on his chest and listen for a heartbeat. Once you hear a heartbeat, you may go ahead and begin mouth-to-nose resuscitation. However, if you cannot hear the heartbeat, then you need to start administering cardiac arrest immediately.

When starting the mouth-to-nose resuscitation, have the dog lie down on its side, making sure that the neck is stretched forward. Clear any obstructions from the mouth and pull the tongue forward. If you see any damage to the nose, an unconscious dog will breathe through the mouth and the tongue may block its breathing.

While keeping his neck as straight as possible, cup his nose with your hands and breathe into the nostrils for about three seconds to inflate the lungs. Observe the chest to make sure that it has expanded. Pause for 2 seconds and then repeat the process.

Check to make sure that the heart is still beating by feeling behind the dog's elbow with your hand or by placing your ear on the dog's chest to listen for a heartbeat. As long as the heart is beating, keep on administering the mouth-to-nose resuscitation until the dog is able to breath on his own.

If the dog's heart stops beating, you need to start administering cardiac massage right away. Begin by placing the heel of your hand just behind the dog's elbow on the left side of his chest. Place your other hand on top then firmly press both hands down and forward toward the brain. By doing this, you are squeezing blood out of his heart and into the brain. Repeat the procedure 6 times at 1 second intervals.

After you have finished with the 6 cardiac massage, give 1 breath of mouth-to-nose resuscitation. Continue alternating until the heart starts beating, then you may start resuscitating.

Puppy training can be taught in many various different forms, and it is especially important to be clear on your vocal training commands. Your little pup may become confused if told the same things that may have different meanings to you. For a great example, let's refer to the command words �OFF� and �DOWN�.

It is important to learn the difference between "OFF!" and "DOWN!." When you get into obedience work, you will use the command "DOWN!" to mean that the pup will lie down. Therefore, while you're working on the problem of jumping up on or at you, don't use the wrong command. Tell Puppy "OFF!" And what if she doesn't? Let's examine why a puppy jumps before we try to eradicate jumping.

Have you ever greeted someone you love and been able to see only that person's ankles? Don't you want to look into the face of your beloved? So does your puppy, so, being very short, it jumps up to see you. The first thing you can do to begin to eradicate the unacceptable jumping is bending or squatting down to greet your puppy. You bend and your puppy doesn't have to jump up to see your face. That's an important beginning. Second, every time the puppy jumps up on you, take his/her front paws, put him off you firmly, and while you're doing this, say "OFF!" loudly and firmly. If you do this, coupled with the bend-over greeting, while the puppy is still young, you have no need for rougher methods. Remember to pat him and say "Good Puppy" as soon as all four feet are on the floor.

Praise must always follow any attempt by the pup to do what you've demanded, even if the attempt is a pretty casual version of what you have in mind as ideal compliance. Your praise is your puppy's reward for good behavior. However, maybe you have a year-old stubborn-minded dog who has been running your life his way before you read this. You don't need me to tell you that you have a problem! You're going to have to get rougher than the behavior described above if you want results. I suggest a knee-jerk reaction. When you see your dog coming at you to jump, bring your knee up fast against his chest. At the same time, shout "NO. OFF!" Do this every time. You may even shove with your knee. Knocking the dog down once or twice may be beneficial to it in getting the message across; certainly it'll be beneficial to you in working off some frustrations.

Sensi just after receiving anesthesia

Todays post is more or less a video-blog (which I believe is called vlog), but I just wanted to add a bit of information to the video.
I took Sensi to Oxford Veterinary Hospital recently for two procedures — a doggie dental and minor surgery to fix a blood clot in his ear.
My veterinarian, Dr. Stephen Steep, is awesome and allowed me to film the whole thing.
The ear is a procedure weve had done once before — not on the same ear, but the other one. Essentially, Sensis allergies are driving him to scratch and shake to the point that hes breaking the blood vessels. The blood clots up and if allowed to stay, would eventually wrinkle up his ear like what we call cauliflower ear or wrestlers ear in humans.
Besides being bothersome to Sensi, I just cant handle my good lookin boy becoming all disfigured when its something that can be fixed.
There is more than one way to tackle this problem, but considering it worked so well for us on the other ear, it was no brainer to employ the same method once again. Lets hope its the last time!