Saturday 30 July 2016

What You Feed Your Dog Could Have an Impact on Allergies


FOOD ALLERGIES

If your dog’s allergies are year round instead of seasonal chances are your dog has food allergies. Common symptoms are ear infections, excessive scratching, red or scaly skin

hair loss and skin infections. Once your veterinarian has identified that the dog doesn’t have mites by skin scraping, then it’s safe to suspect food protein in your dog’s diet is the culprit.

Treatment

Your vet will recommend a special hypoallergenic diet to try. A two- month trial will be needed to make a correct diagnosis. You must be diligent to feed your dog only the new diet and nothing else while you are trying to identify the allergen. Once you identify your dog’s allergy to be food protein you must avoid giving your pet that food or similar treats. Then the reaction should disappear. Symptoms will return if these types of proteins are reintroduced into your dog’s diet.


Thursday 28 July 2016

Dirty ears




EAR CLEANING


If your dog’s ears smell and he is pawing at its ears or shakes its head often, this is an indication of an ear problem. Best to be seen by your vet; could be an ear infection or a yeast infection.
Certain dogs have allergies and red ears are an indicator.

Cleaning ears: use pet store ear cleaner that isn’t alcohol based as this can sting if open cuts are in the ear from scratching. If your dog has hairy ears the hair may needed to be plucked and trimmed so your dog’s ear can breathePlucking to excess can also be detrimental and irritate the ears. Trimming ear hair may be easier using blunt-end scissors; be careful not to nick the skin. Make sure no hairs fall further down the ear canal.
After removing hair (if needed) you can now clean the ear.


Use a few drops of the ear cleaner on the inside flap of the ear, not too much so it doesn’t run down into the ear canal. Then rub the dog’s ear working the drops into the ear.
Use gauze or cotton balls and wipe away brown waxy debris.  

Let the dog shake its head, this will loosen up more debris. If a lot of debris is in the canal use a Q tip. Wet the tip of the Q tip with clean cleaner and then very carefully go a little further down into the ear. The Q tips are good for digging debris out of the crevices. You don’t go too far down the canal or you could damage the ear drum.
If there is a lot of debris still, an ear flushing may need to be done by your Veterinarian.



Friday 22 July 2016

WATER SPORTS THIS WEEKEND

     Avalon Ranch to host Canine Watersports     competition in Horton July 23-24 

Saturday 2 July 2016

TICKS

                                                              ENGORGED TICK
                                                               TICK TWISTER
                                                                    EASY
                                                        SLID UNDER TICK AND TWIST
                                                                              PULL
                                                LIVE TICK WITH HEAD INTACT

Friday 1 July 2016

HAVE A HAPPY CANADA

          KNOW THY DOG WISHES YOU  A  
           HAPPY AND SAFE CANADA DAY