Pet Sitting, Dog Walking, Scottsdale, AZ

Archive for the ‘Pet Care’ Category

I asked on Facebook if anyone had any questions. Dee asked this question:

Cat question…is there a safe way to medicate so they can be groomed. Nails etc.

Seeing as though this dealt with medication and grooming, I decided to ask Dr. Casey of McDowell Mountain Animal Hospital. Within an hour I had a response.

First, they need to have an exam with a vet to make sure that they are 1. healthy enough for sedation and 2. have no other medical problems that would make them sensitive to stressful situations- diabetes, heart disease, thyroid issues, anemia. . .

Next, there are multiple options depending on the level of stress/pain.  1. Mild sedatives (usually oral)- these are the first level and can be effective in simply grouchy kitties- tablets are usually given orally 30-45 minutes before an appointment and will usually last 8-12 hours.  These cats are still awake the whole time, just a bit foggy.  2.  Injections (these need to be given by a vet and the grooming supervised be a tech or vet – we do this all the time to minimize stress)- these are usually good for healthy adults who come un-glued- hissy, biting and dangerous to themselves and the groomer, they are reversible and usually completely out of the system in 6-8 hours.  These cats are mostly asleep- but can be roused with strong stimulation.  3.  Inhaled anesthetics- we use these for feral animals or painful animals (like matted cats- the grooming can actually be quite painful if the mats are in contact with the skin)-  this is equivalent to “twilight” anesthesia- kitties are fully asleep.  The medication is inhaled and then exhaled and usually are out of the system in 30 minutes.

Most of these things need supervision- but oral medications are usually tried first.  Some kitties are just grouchy about being handled- I might be if I was a cat:)  I tried to start my male cat as a kitten with nail trimmers-  it just never worked and now it takes two of us to do it at the hospital – he still doesn’t need medication, but he sure tells me about it:)

- Dr. Caroline “Casey” Magargle
Owner/DVM

Might I suggest that you pop in and check out her place? Go on in for a get aquainted visit. I am sure that her and her staff’s bedside manor and ability to hold your hand thoughout everything will impress you. Her and her staff sure did impress me and Rocco!

Dr. Casey   McDowell Mountain Animal Hospital 480.419.6300

Puppy Love isn’t always so lovely.

Although it doesn’t sound like the most appealing job in the world, housebreaking a new puppy will play an important part in bonding with the newest member of your family.  It will teach you patience and leave you with a better understanding of what your puppy wants once he has learned.  In addition, he will learn acceptable behaviors and exactly what is expected of him to live happily and comfortably in his new home.

Keep in mind these tips:

Tip #1: Attention Span It’s important to remember that, just like a small child, a puppy’s attention span is very short.  When you teach a young child not to hit, he likely won’t learn the lesson the first time, but instead, gradually after you’ve shown him repeatedly that it’s not okay.

Tip #2: Consistency You will have to be consistent with your dog when training him.  Also, when housebreaking your puppy, keep in mind that he is not intentionally being a bad dog; he just has not yet learned what behaviors are acceptable! Be sure to use the same words or commands all the time. Words are arbitrary and potty to your dog is not interchangeable with “peepee,” “bathroom,” or “outside.”

Tip #3 Get on Schedule Start housebreaking your puppy with a simple feeding schedule.  Give him breakfast, lunch and dinner, just as you would yourself.  By doing this you will be helping him become regular with his bowel movements.  Once he has eaten, wait 20-30 minutes and then take him outside.  Watch how long it takes before he is able to void.  This will give you an idea of how long to wait the next time you take him out.  (Within about a week, you should have his schedule down.)  Try to never let him eat at free will, leaving food in his bowl all day, because it will cause him to have accidents and make housetraining all that much more difficult. If you need help with keeping to your schedule, consider getting our puppy packages!

#4 Things to avoid. Despite the old rules of training a puppy, you should never hit, rub his nose in his messes, or yell at your puppy.  By doing this, you are telling him it is bad to relieve himself at all!  In addition, most dogs respond negatively to aggressive and mean behavior and it has the opposite effect—they regress in their training rather than advance.

#5 Praise Glory! While housebreaking your puppy take him straight outside when he has an accident.  In addition, don’t forget the praise!  Every time he “goes” where he’s supposed to, praise him lavishly, and soon he will begin to understand exactly what brings praise, and what brings that disappointed face.  During the process, don’t forget that full control of the bladder and bowels won’t happen until 16 weeks of age, so don’t expect too much from your puppy in the beginning.

#6 Supplies on Hand Also helpful in housebreaking a new puppy is to buy a stain remover/ odor relief spray.  Household cleaners and sprays cannot be smelled by dogs; only those made for animals will work.  When an accident happens, clean the mess and spray immediately.  This will cover the odor left and your puppy will not try to mark his territory there again.

For tips on types of cleaning solutions and how to remove the stains from your carpet, read these articles:

Removing Pet Stains from the Carpet.
Cleaning Supplies Every Pet Parent Should Have

Remember that housebreaking a puppy is a big responsibility that can lead to you and your puppy sharing a special bond.  Giving encouragement and lots of love will make all the time spent worth your while! I know. I have Rocco the Rockstar. BHPS’s Office Manager.

Whoever said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, must not have owned a dog.  If dogs are anything, they are extremely intelligent and can learn many new things given the chance to show you.  When training your dog, keep in mind that yelling, hitting, cursing or punishment is uncalled for, as dogs will retreat backwards the more they are yelled at.  Besides, you wouldn’t treat a child like that and dogs are essentially just little children with tails and four legs! Positive reinforcement goes a long way. Your pet wants to make you happy so be sure to sing it many praises!

Words are arbitrary. The first thing to learn when training your dog to do anything new is to never change your verbal expression, tone or volume.  If you say, “come here, boy” then do not change to “Fido, come here”.  By doing this, your dog will become confused and it will cause unneeded frustration for both of you.

Rapid Rewards. A couple of tips to take into consideration when training your dog is to reward him with treats for good behavior, however be sure to also give a lot of praise and patting to ensure he does not rely totally on the treats when being good.  You may also think about enrolling your dog in an obedience class.  Even if training is going good at home, this will give him extra practice with interaction between other animals and people.

Overload. When training your dog don’t cram everything into one day and expect him to remember it.  Dogs have short attention spans and will quickly become bored, so try to keep training time down to short sessions throughout the day.  Here are a few of the easier and more popular commands to teach Fido.

Come- Use a toy or treat to encourage him to come towards you.  Say “Fido, come.”  As he makes his way towards you, praise him.  Once he is in front of you, hold onto his collar for 30 seconds and then let go.

Sit- Press gently down on his backside and say “sit.”  You can also hold a treat above his head.  When a dog is forced to look upward, he will automatically sit on his hind legs.  Just as he bends to a sitting position, say “Fido, sit.”  Remember to praise and reward.

Down- Get your dog into a sitting position.  Slowly guide his legs straight down in front of him until he is flat.  As you are doing this, repeat “Fido, down.”  Keep him in this position for 30 seconds and then praise and treat.

Stay- Have Fido sit.  As you slowly take a couple steps backward, say “Fido, stay.”  Hold your hand out as you do this, palm facing him.  If he moves from position, tell him “no” and return him to the starting point.  If he stays, praise and treat.  Don’t forget to find a ‘release command’ like “ok”, or done.”  This will tell him it is okay to move.

By using persistence, consistency and patience when training your dog, you will almost effortlessly be able to teach new commands and tricks.  The ‘trick’ for you is to always praise and treat.  Start with these easy commands and before long you will have him doing somersaults!

If you are in need of a dog trainer we only recommend the best in the valley. Mark, with Doggie Steps Dog Training has done some pretty amazing things with some of Bella’s House & Pet Sitting’s two and four legged clients.

Boredom and variety are always interconnected in case of dog misbehaving. Many times, boredom can be managed with variety of tactics and toys that will distract the animals to a greater extent.

Boredom experienced dogs may have different types of behavioral patterns.  For example, some dogs will be seen barking continuously and some may be engaged always in some digging activities.

There are many ways to get your dog out of its boredom activities. Many toys are available which simulated duck, dog, rodent etc.

These may be kept inside the crate and in particular, puppies love these items.  A buster cube with multiple treats may be placed in the dog’s shelter and the animal soon understands on how to roll the buster cube to get the treats it prefers. A Buster Cube is an ingenious toy use for simulating and activating your dog during play and feed time.  Instead of placing the food monotonously in one place, change the place of feeding suddenly. Try looking around Paw Pose for some fun toys as well!

Such actions will be helpful for removing the boredom like activity in your dog. Activities pertaining to boredom need to be redefined well by the dog owners.  This will help them to a greater extent to drive away the unwanted behavior patterns in their pet dogs.

For example, some dogs may often have destructive biting characters and will be seen biting chair, cloth, mats, and everything that can see. After ruling out the teething problem if it is a puppy, provide  it with some large sized balls, mineral mixture based bone materials, etc. Such variety of materials help to reduce the boredom related activities.

Of course, keeping them mentally and physically stimulated is always a huge key to success. Although if you do not have the luxury from working at home with your fur kid, then hiring Bella’s House & Pet Sitting to be your fur kid’s buddy in the middle of the day will save you lots of couches, shoes, remote controllers, and more.  The best part about it all is that your pet won’t be bored all day long and have already had his 30min of exercise for the day! Mention this article for $5 off the first 15 pet sits!

Written by Sarah, owner of Elite Pet Care in central and south Scottsdale www.elitepetcare.com

As you all know, I am a pet sitter in Scottsdale. I recently moved to Seattle to be a Seattle pet sitter. Well, expanding the business as I like to say. So I had to travel to AZ from Seattle for 16 days to do some pet sitting in Scottsdale and dog training dvd making for my P.A.W.S method of walking dogs. 16 days is way to long for me to be without my little Buddy, so I decided to take him with me!

Buddy sticking his head out of carrier

This is something I have never done before so I was a little worried about it. Buddy is a pug and  isn’t petite. So I was concerned with him fitting under the seat first and foremost,  because if he couldn’t fit then he couldn’t come. Brachycephalic dogs aka smooshy nosed, dogs cant travel cargo in the summer because they don’t regulate heat well. Personally I would never cargo my dog  anyways unless he was on some good drugs and sedated and it was the only option.

Anyways, he fit fine in a Sherpa large carrier, those are made for airline travel. They are soft so they can bend under the seat. Since I pet sit in Scottsdale and buddy comes with me alot, i sometimes have to crate him, so he is used to a crate.

If your pet is not used to a crate, get the carrier a week or so before and get them used to it.

I am just going to go through the steps of traveling with your pets from my experience. Travel for this first leg of the round trip from Seattle to Phoenix was smooth and stress free!

1) Make sure you really need to bring your dog along. If you are gone for a few day to a week and are going to be traveling when you get to your final destination and leaving rover at the hotel room or alone at a family members house….. leave him at his own home and hire a pet sitter like http://www.elitepetcare.com yes, shameless plug.

Travel is stressful enough then to be alone in a strange hotel or house is scary and not nice for your dog.

But if your dog will be a part of your vacation then have at it!

2) Make sure your airline takes pets. Google “enter airline you want to look into” pet policy or “airline” in cabin pet policy. Some airlines count the pet as a carry-on. Lame!! I used Alaska and they don’t count them as a carry-on so I had Buddy, a small carry on suitcase and a camera bag.

3) Book your ticket. it may be a good idea to call before you book to make sure there is room for the pet. I called Alaska before I booked and she told me to book first, then call back so I had a confirmation for her…

4) Get your confirmation code and call the airline. They will make a note in the system that you are traveling with a pet.

Airlines only allow a certain number of in cabin pets, so if for some rare reason they are full on the flight you selected, they will help you change the flight for free.(at least Alaska)

5) You will need a health certificate to prove your pet is healthy enough to travel and UTD on vaccines.

In some cases, you have to travel within 10 days of the health certificate issue date. My vet made sure i was traveling within this time frame. Then the certificate is only good for 30 days.

6) Buy or borrow an airline approved pet carrier. The carrier needs to be lined with an adsorbent material. The pet industry makes fleece liners for these carriers which are perfect.

The pets will lay down the entire trip so even though it doesn’t look very comfortable, Buddy was fine. Especially since the mesh on the side of the carriers stretched to accommodate his buddha belly.

**pets need to be in the carriers when they are in the airport. I let buddy stick his head out and no one said anything.

7) Go to the airport and print your ticket at the kiosk if you have no bags to check in. At the kiosk you will be asked to pay for your pet for this leg of the trip. Probably would make more sense to just do it all at the customer service ticket counter, but the airport was empty and I was there 3 hrs ahead of time, so I was putzin around.

The fees will be about $100 each way.

I will sidenote here that Buddy had been walked in the am. went to a picnic in the afternoon and had another short walk before the airport. He was tired and ready to nap for the plane ride. Make sure your dog is tired and pottied out before you get to the airport.

Since I was at the airport at an off hour(saturday at 3:50 p.m. for a 6:50 flight) I had time to kill and I didn’t want buddy to be in his carrier longer then needed, so I asked for the pet area so he could potty and walk around.

It was by the smoking area so that blew, but i found a non smoky spot to sit and let buddy stretch. And he got lots of attention. He went potty, walked around and got some water.

9) Security check point. Pet has to come out of its carrier so the carrier can be scanned.  You walk through the metal detector holding the pet. I took buddys harness off since the tags would set off the metal detector.

Then back in carrier.

10) I boarded the plane towards the end to keep buddy unshoved under the seat as long as possible.

Place the carrier under the seat with the zipper on top facing you so you can have access.

The carrier really didnt fit under the seat too well because of the life vests under the seats, so it stuck out by my feet. The flight attendents didnt say anything.

Buddy just slept the entire time. On take off I stuck my hand in his carrier to rub his neck and soothe him. I also put my finger in his mouth to make him yawn in case his ears werent poppin on their own. I did that every time my ears were effected, I figure his ears pressure is effected too right!

Oh and Buddy passed the worst gas mid flight. It was so gross and thick, yet it made me giggle because it was kinda funny, lol. I looked around and no one even glanced in our direction. Not even the teen next to me that I thought would laugh. Maybe they all just figured it was him because i let people know that there was a puglet on board:)

Especially when a man said I could shove my (sherpa) bag in the overhead compartment. I was like, um..no theres a dog in here!

So traveling with a pet is pretty easy, but its EXPENSIVE!!

If you live in Central or South Scottsdale, take a peek at Elite Pet Care. If you are up in N Scottsdale, call Bella’s House & Pet Sitting!