The Tea Bag as a first aid tool

Approximately a month ago, at a time when all were plagued by flies and horseflies, Boss, one of our horses started showing signs of an infection of sorts in one of his eyes. It looked sore and was an obvious source of irritation to him. It just so happened that the horse dentist called over during that time and recommended I put a used, wet (obviously cold) tea bag on his eye. So without any hesitation I made myself a cuppa and started the tea bag treatment. After 3 applications, voila Boss’s eye showed a great improvement.

You may well ask why I am sharing this with you as this page is all about dogs. The answer is quite obvious, when you have a terrier, that is. Smudge, one of our two terriers just love hunting around in the hedgerows and quite often come home with thorns in her ears and yes, you guessed it, runny and sore eyes.  Two days ago the little princess promptly appeared with extremely sore eyes, more so than usual. So out came the teabags and again, voila, the treatment worked.

I am not suggesting that you ignore what you feel might be worth a trip to the vet and I will never suggest substituting veterinary treatment for layman advice. Should you however find yourself in a situation that the teabag treatment might help until such time as you can get to the vet, why not give it a go.

 Healing properties of the tea bag

Should you be the Alpha Dog?

If this is a topic that is of interest to you this might be a video worth purchasing Alpha dog

One reason why puppy classes are important

For the single pup in a family home it is vital they have access to adult dogs to continue the parenting role and develop good communication skills. More behavioral problems in adult dogs can be traced back to the absence of this lesson more than any other single factor. They simply do not know how to say "hello," or how to say "hi-but-not-today-thank-you." - Kay Laurence

SIRIUS Sniffer Workshop

Saturday and Sunday saw me and Clyde attending a two day SIRIUS Sniffer Workshop at Dog Training Ireland, Blanchardstown. It was a great thrill to see the International trainer, Kelly Dunbar, utilising the natural instinct of dogs to sniff and turn it into a challenging game where the dog has to switch from using its brain to using its nose.  

Instead of stopping your dog to smell, like almost all of us do almost all of the time, why not allow him to use this, his strongest sense, remember that dogs “see” through their noses similar to how we see through our eyes.  You, as handler, can decide what is appropriate in what circumstance but don’t stop your companion from “seeing” his environment totally. 

CIRIUS Training

Lawn Burn: The Cause & The Cure

Lawn Burn: The Cause & The Cure

Teach Your Puppy to Play Tug of War

Teach Your Puppy to Play Tug of War

The Danger of Incorrect use of Training Aids - Part 1

Last week I took my dogs for a walk along the Slaney River, an amazing walk, with a variety of people with and without dogs, making use of the route.

Not too long after we started the walk I saw, with great delight, a guide dog pup in training walking toward us. Guide dogs are one of my great weaknesses, such a fantastic vocation for amazing dogs. I digress, as we got closer to the oncoming walker and dog my heart sank. The poor dog was walked in a Halti Head collar, now before I get some people’s hackles up, Halti collars can be very good, once the dog has been adequately conditioned to wearing the head collar and, like all other training aids, are used correctly and the user is cognisant of the potential problems that can coincide with the specific training aid.

Let me explain what I saw, the nose strap was pulled right into the dog’s eyes and it was very obvious that the dog was experiencing distress.  It is also important to point out that apart from the immediate distress and definite possibility of future eye problems,  this level of distress can cause longer term problems for the dog, in that he/she can start showing an aversive reaction to the head collar which in turn can lead to it shying away from going out on a walk. For a future guide dog this can cause major, major problems, even to falling out of the training programme.

As part of the process of choosing the training aid that will suit you and your dog it is vital that you investigate the advantages and disadvantages of each aid you consider.

I will share some facts on training aids with you during one of my next postings.