Picking a commercial dog food was also easy back then. There were only a handful of brands to choose from and these pet foods all had practically the same ingredients, only varying in color and flavor.

Nowadays, there are so many varieties to choose from. Below is a list of some of the popular commercial foods available for your dog:

Organic Dog Food

Most dog food products found in the market today contain pesticides and other chemicals. If you want to give your dog food that is free of these chemicals, consider organic dog food. However, the term “organic” can be misleading, so read the ingredients carefully before making your purchase.

No Preservative or Natural Preservative Dog Food

Most dog foods contain preservatives in the form of artificial chemicals such as ethoxyquin, BHT, and BHA. These are added for two reasons: To prevent the food from spoiling and keep the taste lasting longer. Some dog foods, however, have natural preservatives like vitamin C (often listed as ascorbic acid) and vitamin E (often listed as tocopherols).

Before you buy a dog food with natural preservatives, be sure to read the ingredients first to make sure that the preservatives are actually derived from nature instead of it being artificially synthesized.

You may also buy dog foods that are free of any kind of preservatives. These products must be properly sealed in a cool, dry, bug-free place and used promptly to assure freshness.

Vegetarian Dog Food

Vegetarian dog foods allow vegetarian dog owners to exercise their dietary beliefs with their dogs. These foods contain all of the necessary vitamins and nutrients that your pet needs, so long as they are properly made. A vegetarian diet is also beneficial for dogs that are allergic to meat.

Raw Dog Food

Many dog owners believe that a diet of raw food is the healthiest way to feed their pet because this is the way wolves and other wild dog species ate. This belief has no scientific facts to value its accuracy. However, a diet of raw food can expose both you and your pet to dangerous bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli.

Therapeutic Dog Food

Therapeutic dog foods, along with necessary medical care, have been the growing trend in dog food products today. It is only available through a veterinarian and is usually prescribed for cases of preventive treatment, as an after-surgery diet, or for certain health problems like food allergies.

Dog Diet: 5 Types Of Dog Food You Want To Consider is a post from: RealBuddies.com

One good thing that has come out of this is that trainers have realized that positive reinforcement give your puppy more of an incentive to behave better than negative reinforcement (punishment)… Personally I have changed some of the way I train my dogs and have mixed feelings about giving the dog treats and too much praise during training, but these are some of the things that I have found to work over the years…

Using positive reinforcement has pretty much become the norm, with different kinds of treats, praise or even a “click” given when your dog performs what you ask them to do. For those of you wondering what the “click” refers to, I’m talking about Clicker Training (which is another subject for a different day).

These are a some basic principles to be observed if you plan on using the now, standard, positive reinforcement training with your dog during your training session:

1. Always start your training with a positive mindset with a calm confidence. Start with an easy command that you are pretty sure that the dog is able to perform. This will build confidence in your abilities which will build a positive attitude about training. By the way, if you choose to give your dogs treats during training, please use treats made for dogs… not hot dogs or table scraps (and make sure they are SMALL pieces).

2. If you are feeling down, don’t start the training session! If you’re feeling like you’re just not up to it, feel sick or are stressed out about your work or something, just put it off until you feel better. Your dog is going to pick up on it and will most likely behave accordingly. In other words, he won’t respond well to your commands because you are not projecting confidence (like an Alpha dog should).

3. This also applies if your puppy is sick, or had a stressful experience. You definitely don’t want to set your dog up to fail… you both need to be up to the task before running out and getting serious about your training.

4. Don’t try to force your dog to do something that obviously isn’t working. This is going to stress your dog out and it won’t go anywhere. Just go back to some of your other commands that your dog is capable of doing and try to build it into whatever behavior you want your dog to do.

5. Don’t get stressed or angry at your dog! If you feel yourself getting irritated or angry, STOP TRAINING! You don’t want your dog to associate training with negativity.

6. End the training with something easy. For instance you can review a few of the things you worked on, starting with the most difficult to the Easiest. Make sure you give them a quick praise or a treat. This will end your training with something positive.

7. After your session, have some fun with your puppy. Play fetch the ball or Frisbee or something and let him run around.

Bonus Tip: By the way, I personally start a training session with a long walk to “tire the pooch out” before we get going. If you do this, you will find that you get better results.

You will have noticed the recurring theme here: creating a positive and enjoyable atmosphere and attitude around the subject of training. Achieve that and you’re half way there – and what’s more both you and the dog are having a good time!

7 Golden Rules of Dog Training is a post from: RealBuddies.com

A designer dog collar will often carry with it a theme of some sort. In some cases, the theme may lend itself to something distinctive about the breed itself, or the country of origin of your dog’s breed. As an example, an ideal designer dog collar for a Scottish terrier may carry a plaid or tartan design. An Irish sheep dog may very well be decked out with a designer dog collar that features gold studs set in brilliant green leather. If the idea is to recognize something about the country of origin, there is any number of ways to incorporate that into a theme for a designer dog collar.

At times, the designer collar may be less indicative of something to do with the dog or the origins of the breed, and have a great deal to do with the tastes of the owner. As an example, a poodle that is owned by a woman who favors pink may find that the designer dog collar is made with materials that are in various shades of pink, and may include studs or other ornamentation that are similar to jewelry that is favored by the owner. A biker type may decide to deck out his dog in a spike covered black leather designer dog collar, one that matches the leather accessories that the owner likes to wear when hanging out with his biking buddies. A businessperson may go for something that is simple and tasteful, perhaps even somewhat conservative. Someone who is very conscious of picking the right accessories to go with every outfit may keep on hand a number of different designer dog collars, each of them matching one of the owner’s favorite walking outfits.

The holidays are a time when many dog owners go in for a designer collar. How often have we seen dog collars with a Christmas theme that allows our pets to be included in the fun? We may be able to coax our pets in to wearing designer dog collars that blink small colored lights, or are embossed with tiny Santa’s or perhaps reindeer in flight.

Having Fun with a Designer Dog Collar is a post from: RealBuddies.com

Even dumb dogs are clever. Just think of the many ways they get humans to do what they want. Few can resist the soulful eyes and the offered paw when eating something the dog also views as tasty.

One of the reasons for the many-thousand year association between humans and dogs is the latter’s great capacity for communicating in terms the former can understand. How often has your canine companion delivered a tennis ball with a look that you unerringly interpret as ‘time for fetch’?

These are only two examples out of many that show dogs have a great capacity for learning complex behavior.

Dogs can understand a surprising amount of language and body posture, but they process information very differently from humans.

Their eyes respond very differently to colors and have a greater ability to see in low light. Their head muscles allow them to rotate their ears in order to quickly and accurately locate the precise source of sounds. And, of course, there’s that famous sense of smell.

The differences continue on other levels of mental functioning. Dogs understand cause-effect relationships very unlike their human companions.

Classical conditioning – associating a stimulus with a response – can be much more readily surmounted in humans. Humans are much better at changing an undesired response to a car accident or a trip to the doctor. Those associations are much more persistent in dogs.

Dog Psychology | Do Dogs UnderstandOperant conditioning – grasping naturally related cause-effect relationships, usually through positive and negative reinforcement – is even more different between the two species.

I always exit the rear door with my Golden Retrievers when we’re going to play fetch. When I do, we invariably do actually play. By contrast, a hundred times I let them out the side door, where I never follow them. Instead, I leave them alone for half an hour or more. Yet they still go immediately to the back door where they expect a game to follow.

I clearly associated a specific tone and word and a unique hand gesture with every command. In consequence, they learn a wide variety of selected behaviors. They can sit, stay, down, come, roll-over, no-bite, fetch and release, even eliminate on command.

Yet telling them repeatedly not to eat things off the ground that their own experience continually shows them leads to upset stomachs is a waste of effort. They’ll repeat the same unwanted behavior the first time they can. They simply can’t grasp some effects when the cause is much earlier in time.

The lesson from these examples is this. Your companion, whether Retriever or Shepherd, Dachshund or Basset Hound can learn an astounding variety of things, provided you don’t expect the unreasonable.

One woman well-known on the show circuit has trained her friend to perform a complex, several-minutes long dance routine. Search-and-rescue dogs have been trained to pull children from rivers and skiers from avalanches. Service dogs can open a door and pull a wheelchair or fetch a container of water without spilling a drop.

But don’t expect them to think like humans, even when trained to emulate us. No matter how many times you tell them not to, they’ll continue to eat grass.

What Do Dogs Understand is a post from: RealBuddies.com

The well-trained and well-balanced dog should have little problem with visits to the vet. Dog health is a serious concern for the responsible owner and the dog should be accustomed to the veterinary surgery from early puppy hood. Your dog ought to have regular checkups appropriate to his age and general state of health. Also regular inoculations against the most deadly dog health threats like parvo-virus and distemper are essential.

When starting with a new vet, check the consulting hours and appointments system. How long will you have to wait after a phone call for a regular (non-emergency) appointment? Does the vet make house calls, and come out to your dog in the night in the case of an emergency? Can your dog’s medical records be transferred to a new vet should you move home? Do they do regular routine dog health checkups, especially for older animals?

Always make an appointment wherever necessary. If you have a puppy who has not completed all its vaccinations, ask if there is a separate waiting area where he won’t encounter other (possibly sick) dogs. It might be wise to keep your dog in the car until his name is called. This applies especially if he is particularly timid – or conversely, if he is prone to snap at other dogs. This also applies if he is seriously ill and weak, or carrying something infectious. This avoids the dog health hazard of infecting other animals in the waiting room.

Always keep your dog on a short leash both in the waiting room, reception area and consulting room. He may well be inclined to bolt, especially if he is nervous in the vets, as many dogs are.
Your Dog’s Health

Try to be reasonably succinct in describing your pet’s illness to the veterinary surgeon. True, there may well be side issues that warrant a mention. However, the vet doesn’t need to know “well I was walking down the road down by the park at 8.43 this morning. I stopped to talk to Mrs Walker. After that Rover and I carried on to the park. It was then when I noticed he was bleeding from the….” Succinct would be “I noticed he was bleeding when we got to the park this morning”. The vet may have many additional questions to ask you, some of which might seem strange and unrelated to the presenting ailment. Be patient and informative and answer the vet as concisely as possible. If you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t be afraid to say so.

You may have to restrain the dog in order for him to be examined. An experienced vet will know how he would like to do this and will probably ask you to do this in a certain way. as a rule of thumb, a miniature dog is best held in your arms very tightly, or held by the scruff of the neck. With a medium-sized dog you should hold him firmly, one arm around the neck and face, and the other around the body, grasping one of its forelegs. With a large or giant dog such as a Great Dane, it is better to bend over the dog and put your arm around his neck, firmly grasping him. It may be necessary to have another person in charge of the back end. Often giant dogs are comforted by being pushed by your body weight against a wall, a similar technique as may be used for farm animals.

As long as you have a good relationship with your dog and you have trained him to be polite you should have little trouble in the vets. Some dogs are by nature quite terrified or stubborn in the vet’s office. The more you know about his temperament, the more you can prepare yourself for any problems you might encounter, and be one step ahead of him.

Visits to the Veterinarian is a post from: RealBuddies.com