Puppies make wonderful companions and a new puppy is a source of pleasure and joy. Here are a few tips for the care of your puppy.
Housing
When your new pup arrives home, let him quietly become familiar with his new surroundings. Show him where his bed is. This should be warm and dry, free from draughts and in a quiet area. Start him sleeping where he is always going to sleep. Don’t allow him to sleep on your bed “just for the night” if you don’t wish him to be sleeping there permanently.
Pups have two speeds; asleep and full speed. They can become tired easily and should be left alone to rest. If your puppy is crying when you first leave him alone, a ticking clock may be kept near his bed to substitute the sound of his mother’s heart. A hot water bottle (not too hot) wrapped in a towel or blanket can also help to keep him company.
Feeding
Try to find out what the puppy was being fed before you got him and start him on a similar diet. Any time you change your dog’s diet do it gradually, as sudden changes can cause stomach upsets or diarrhoea.
The pup’s diet should be based on a good quality commercial puppy food as they are balanced and contain all the vitamins and nutrients that your puppy needs. Check that the food your puppy is eating is labeled “balanced” or “complete.”
The pup may become fussy if fed only on a particular brand or flavour so try to alternate regularly. If you base his diet on the commercial puppy foods, you can add other types of food to give him variety.
Always provide fresh, clean drinking water.
A large raw bone (either brisket or marrow bones) is good for keeping your dogs teeth and gums in good condition. Do not feed your dog cooked bones because they can splinter and can cause serious problems in the digestive system.
Puppies aged six to twelve weeks should be fed four times a day. As a rough guide they should be allowed to eat as much as they feel inclined to at each meal. Allow 15 minutes access to food at each meal and if they are not inclined to eat, remove the food and try again at the next meal.
From twelve to sixteen weeks they should be fed three times a day and then twice a day from 16 weeks to six months of age. Large breed adult dogs are best fed twice daily. This is especially important in large breed dogs that are prone to gastric dilation. This includes but is not limited to Labrador Retrievers, Great Danes, Bull Mastiffs and German Shepherds. Other breeds, once they are older than six months of age, usually require only one meal a day. In deciding how much to feed your puppy use the recommendation on the packet as a starting point. If they are getting too fat, feed less, if they are getting thin, feed more.
Life Plan
Life Plan is a program designed to tailor your pet’s yearly health check ups and vaccinations to their age and breed. Pets, like us, have a higher likelihood of certain illnesses at different ages. As your pet becomes older we will concentrate on different health issues with a strong emphasis on preventative health care.
When your pet is due for a health check, a reminder letter will be sent in the mail. This letter will contain a series of questions that may help us detect both behavioural and medical problems early. This will help us institute preventative health care programs before these conditions become severe. Certain tests, such as blood or urine tests, will be recommended for specific age groups. Please bring the reminder, previous vaccination certificate and health check up reports when you come in. (If you can find them!)
With puppies we focus on preventative health issues such as parasite control and behavioural issues like mouthing and biting.
As your pet gets older, we will ask you to bring in urine samples and may recommend blood tests or other tests, such as electrocardiograms or x/rays, to determine if problems are starting to develop.
What are the benefits of Life Plan?
Questions on your pet’s behaviour and the utilisation of specific tests will allow us to recognise any health problems much earlier. The early recognition of problems will ensure that your pet’s health is optimised.
The major benefits of Life Plan include maximising the information that we can gain at each annual health check and minimising the impact of illnesses in your pet through early detection and implementation of preventative health strategies.
Our aim is “Healthier Pets for Life!”
Vaccinations
Vaccinations protect your dog against diseases that otherwise cause serious illness or death. The diseases we vaccinate for are:
Distemper
This disease can cause severe fever, respiratory symptoms (coughing, sneezing, nasal discharge, pneumonia), eye discharge, vomiting, diarrhoea, loss of appetite, listlessness and dehydration. Nervous signs such as muscle tremors, convulsions, loss of balance and progressive paralysis can occur later in the course of the disease. The recovery rate is extremely low.
Hepatitis
The clinical signs of hepatitis vary from mild to severe. Severe attacks of the disease can cause sudden death. Less severe attacks cause high fever, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, “blue eye” (cloudiness of the cornea) and jaundice.
Parvovirus
Parvovirus enteritis results in severe diarrhoea, vomiting, abdominal pain, fever, loss of appetite, and extreme depression. It is often accompanied by rapid dehydration and collapse. It can affect dogs of any age but is most common in dogs under six months of age. Approximately 50% of puppies that develop parvovirus diarrhoea die from the disease or complications.
Canine (“Kennel”) cough
This respiratory system disease is characterised by a harsh, non productive cough that may persist for anything up to three weeks. In young or old animals it can predispose to a potentially fatal secondary pneumonia. Canine cough is either caused by a virus (Parainfluenza) or, less commonly, bacteria (Bordetella). We routinely vaccinate for both forms.
At six to eight weeks your puppy is vaccinated against Distemper, Hepatitis, Parvovirus, and kennel cough. At twelve to fourteen weeks he is vaccinated against these four diseases again. At sixteen weeks he has his booster for Parvovirus and Kennel cough. (With some special vaccines called Protech, the 16-week vaccination is not necessary.) To keep your dog protected from these diseases an annual booster vaccination is required.
Intestinal Worms
There are several types of intestinal worms. Roundworms are a major problem in puppies. Puppies should be wormed against roundworms at two weeks of age and then every two weeks until 12 weeks of age, then once monthly until 6 months of age.
After that they should be wormed every three months for life with an “all-wormer”, such as Endoguard. These all-wormers treat for round worms, hookworms, whipworm and tapeworms. When purchasing worm tablets read the label carefully as many do not treat for tapeworms. If you are using Sentinel or Interceptor for heartworm prevention you only need to worm for Tapeworm every three months. Please ask us which worm preparation is most suited to your puppy.
Heartworm Disease
Heartworm is a prolonged debilitating disease that can be fatal. Heartworms are long thin worms that live inside the arteries of the lung and the chambers of the heart. The disease is spread via mosquitoes. Even if your dog never leaves your backyard or house, it can still become infected.
Treatment of heartworm is very difficult and can be dangerous to your pet so prevention is best.
There are several effective drugs available for prevention. The two we use most commonly are Revolution and ProHeart SR12. Revolution is a monthly product that kills adult fleas too and only needs to be applied to the skin. Proheart SR12 is an injection that is given once a year to adult dogs. Failure to give the correct dose at the correct time can result in the dog becoming infected with heartworm.
All dogs over the age of six months must have a blood test before starting prevention. If any tablets are missed, a blood test should be taken before giving the next tablet.
Socialisation
The dog to human bond is established early in the pup’s life. Encourage your family and friends to mingle with the pup. Socialising with other healthy dogs is good but should be minimised until two weeks after your puppy’s last vaccination. Introduce your puppy to new people and dogs calmly avoiding excitement and excess rough play. Supervise young children with the puppy initially. Try to give equal attention to other pets in the household to minimise the chance of jealousy. We cover all this and more in our Puppy Preschool.
Registration
Every council requires dogs over three months of age to be registered. It is cheaper to register desexed dogs. In this area you can contact the dog control officer of Prahran for more information. Dogs and cats are now required to be microchipped prior to registration.
Identification
Your puppy should always have some form of identification on. The minimum required is a dog tag with his/her name on it and your telephone number. The best thing is to also have the dog implanted with a silicon chip. This is a permanent invisible identification that is achieved by just one small injection.
Training
You can begin training your puppy when he has settled in. He is never too young to start, and the earlier he starts the better. Basic training is simple but you should take care to be consistent and patient with your puppy.
Obedience training clubs and books are a great help, especially if you have not trained a puppy before. A good, simple and easy to follow book is “Dog Training, The Simple Modern Method” by David Weston.
The puppy will learn to recognise his name if you use it often, especially when calling him to come. The word “NO” should be understood by the puppy, but after saying this command when he has done something wrong, it is good to show him the correct behaviour and praise him for that. Consistency is very important so as not to confuse the puppy. All members of the household should be encouraging the same good behaviour, and discouraging the same bad behaviour.
You should start with teaching your puppy simple commands such as Sit, Stay, Come and Heel. Puppies have a short concentration span and so lessons should be kept short, no longer than 5 minutes.
Toilet Training
Avoid Noxious Treatment.
Scolding, hitting or rubbing the dog’s nose in its urine or faeces after it has eliminated in an undesirable location is notoriously ineffective at house-training. Often it makes matters worse, because the dog becomes more anxious.
Feeding & Drinking Routine.
Feed the dog at regular times. For a dog that defecates at night it is better to feed it one meal first thing in the morning. Take it out for an empty last thing at night.
Reward Elimination in the Correct Place.
Dogs tend to eliminate away from their nest or bed, in areas where they or other dogs have eliminated, against structures like trees or fences, and in long grass. A dog is more likely to eliminate straight after a sleep, meal, or play session. Take the pup to the area you want it to go and wait with the dog and reward it (tit-bit, praise and pat) for eliminating there. Once the pup is eliminating consistently in the desired place, you can stop rewarding every time. If it shows pre-elimination behaviour (restlessness, sniffing, circling, squatting or leg cocking) in the house, immediately take it out without a reprimand to the desired place.
When you are out, the dog should be either kept out of the house with free access to the elimination area, or confined in a small area in which the dog eats and sleeps. Elimination is unlikely in the nest or near food.
Cleaning Up.
Clean up any urine or faeces in the house when the dog cannot see it being done. This stops attention being drawn to the urine or faeces and it becoming a significant item for the dog.
Tips Kindly Supplied by Dr Robert Holmes, Behavioural Consultant.
Car Travel
Get your puppy used to the car when he is small. Take him on short rides initially with someone else to hold the puppy while you are driving. No food should be given to the pup for about two hours before the trip. Spend some time making the car a “happy place to be” by feeding the puppy in the stationary car and playing with him in the car. If the puppy is happy and relaxed eating and playing in the car then progress to him going on very short trips that end with a walk at the park or some pleasurable experience.
We recommend that dogs have a car harness to keep them in place in the car. This is just like a seat belt for humans. You never know when you may have to brake suddenly and your pet may be catapulted forward in the car, causing severe injury or bruising.
During the trip remember only to praise him when he is bright and happy. If you pat and cuddle him when he is nervous it will encourage anxious behaviour.
Teeth
As dogs get older they often get severe dental problems, such as gum infections and rotten teeth. The best way to prevent this is to brush the dog’s teeth.
Important Points In Prevention of Dental Disease
1. Feed food that will help the teeth to stay clean. Raw meat may be fed if it is given in one large piece that will force pets to use their teeth to chew.
Raw shank or brisket bones fed once or twice weekly will often help. Check with the veterinarian to make sure there are no reasons to avoid bones with your pet. Dogs have evolved to eat bones and hard substances, but with anything hard that enters the mouth, there is always a slight risk of it getting stuck or causing other problems.
2. Provide rawhide, CT dental chews, hard rubber or nylon toys (eg Kong). Remember that the treat foods are a source of calories and may lead to weight problems if too many are given.
3. Brush your pets’ teeth regularly. This is best done daily with special enzymatic dog toothpaste. Do not use human tooth pastes. More information on this comes with the toothbrush and toothpaste.
4. Special foods such as Hills T/D can be fed when your puppy matures to prevent tartar formation
Teething
Puppies get their baby teeth (deciduous teeth) between two and eight weeks of age. From two to six months of age they shed their deciduous teeth and their permanent teeth erupt. They have all their permanent teeth by seven - eight months of age. Supply your puppy with chew toys, such as rawhide, during these months.
Flea Control
Life Cycle Of the Flea
Fleas are small, brown or black wingless insects with flattened bodies. These blood-sucking insects cause considerable irritation and distress to infested pets. Severe infestation may lead to anaemia from blood loss. Fleas spread the common tapeworm in dogs and cats. Flea bites also cause skin disorders on both pets and people.
After taking a blood meal, fleas drop off the animal and deposit their eggs in cracks, crevices and carpeting. A single breeding pair of fleas may produce 20,000 fleas in three months. Eggs hatch after two to 12 days into larvae that feed in the environment. Larvae moult twice and then spin a cocoon for anywhere from a week to a year. Fleas are very difficult to kill when they are in a cocoon. Most (90%) of the life cycle is spent away from the pet in the environment. This is why control of the flea in the environment is essential for proper flea control.
Control of Fleas
Many flea control products are not compatible with each other and cannot be used safely in combination. Also, some insecticides that are used in dogs should not be used in cats. Keep the insecticides away from children. Read the safety directions on the container very carefully when using chemicals and insecticides.
Many products for killing fleas cannot be used on puppies under three months of age, so check the labels before using anything. There are special puppy flea rinses, eg. Fido’s Free Itch Rinse Concentrate to help with flea control.
Frontline Top Spot and Revolution are liquids that are applied to the back of the neck and kill fleas for up to one month. Revolution controls heartworm too.
Desexing
We recommend that all dogs be desexed at six months of age. Female dogs are spayed which is the surgical removal of the ovaries and uterus (ovariohysterectomy). Male dogs are neutered which is the surgical removal of both testicles (Castration). These operations are performed under a full general anaesthetic.
Pets that have been desexed use their food more efficiently. They only need to eat 90% of the food they ate before they were desexed. If you cut down the food a little and adopt a common-sense approach to exercise. They will not become fat.
Reasons for and Against Desexing Dogs:
Males
Arguments in favour.
● Stops unwanted puppies
● Less roaming and wandering
● Fewer strays and abandoned pets
● No testicular cancers
● Much less prostate disease
● Less aggressive tendencies towards both people and dogs
● Reduced registration fees
Males Arguments against
● Slightly increased chance of urinary incontinence problems when older
Females Arguments in favour.
● Stop unwanted puppies
● Fewer strays and unwanted pets
● No “seasons”
● Much less chance of breast cancer
● Eliminates womb infections
● No problems associated with pregnancy and birth
● No pseudo-pregnancies
● Reduced registration fees
Females Arguments against
● Slightly increased chance of urinary incontinence problems when older
Grooming
Puppies that have long hair or thick coats should begin being groomed as early as six to eight weeks. Long haired dogs should be brushed daily. Be gentle when brushing your puppy and make it an enjoyable time. Then you will be less likely to get grooming and bathing phobias when your puppy is older.
Brushing puppies before you feed them will make them look forward to grooming sessions. It’s best to place the puppy on a chair or table and then brush from the top of the head to the tip of the tail, not forgetting the chest and face. Be gentle and don’t pull at knots or the puppy will learn to dislike grooming.
Nail clipping for your puppy is a quick and easy task that is often forgotten. When ignored, ingrown nails can occur which is extremely painful. Old cats and dogs that don’t wear down their nails by walking on hard surfaces appear to be most susceptible to overgrown nails. We offer nail clipping to all pets, from birds and rabbits to dogs and cats. Clipping can be done by a groomer while your pet is being pampered in our grooming parlour. Alternatively, you can make an appointment for a vet or nurse to clip the nails at a small fee. The final option is to give nail clipping a try yourself by purchasing a pair of nail clippers from our clinic. If all else fails, you can file the nails with an emery board! Feel free to call us for any queries about nail clipping.
Separation Anxiety
New puppies need a bit of special care when being left alone to lessen the chance of some behavioural problems such as separation anxiety. Don’t make a fuss. Dogs can be exposed to very short absences from an early age so that they develop a tolerance to them. Some owners have fed or given their dog a bone as they leave. This is logical as long as it is given when the dog is non- anxious. Initially only leaving the dog for very short periods with the owner in sight can prevent separation anxiety. Once the dog learns to accept the owner’s absence, the length of absence should be increased.
Environmental Enrichment
It is important to make the home environment as interesting as possible for your pup. Toys should be rotated regularly, so that they are exciting when they come out again. Treat balls or Kongs can be filled with food (or a meal) and will keep your pup occupied for hours.
Digging pits or sand pits can be provided to focus your pup’s attention on one area of the garden, rather than your entire garden being chewed and landscaped to your puppies desire! It is possible to bury treats or toys for your pup to find. This makes the digging area more fun than the rest of the garden.
It is also preferable that your pup is able to observe passing traffic and people.
Environmental enrichment will help to reduce the risk of destructive behaviour and nuisance barking.
Pet Insurance
A variety of pet insurances are available for your puppy. Insurance can help cover the cost of unexpected veterinary visits and provide the best possible care for your pet when the need arises. Refer to the different insurance companies and their policies to find out which suits you and your pet’s needs.
Good Luck
Owning a puppy can be a very rewarding experience. Treating him properly from the beginning and encouraging him to do the right things will ensure that you and your puppy will get along well and have few behavioural problems in the future. Have a great time with your new pet.
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