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| July 25, 2009 | Training/Product Recommendations |
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Hopefully this will answer many questions you may have. We do not receive any compensation from any of our product recommendations, we just want to let you know about the products we use and what we recommend for you based on our experience.
First of all, we recommend a book by Brian Killcommons. "Good Owners, Great Dogs". Recommended to us by one of our puppy owners, this book can answer many questions you may have about puppy selection, behavior, training, and many, many more topics. The main thing is you don't have to wade through pages of text. Look up a question or problem, it will be answered in a page or two rather than having to wade through pages of text. We have a copy of the book, read it, and always recommend it. You may not find it at a pet store - check at a bookstore chain (BooksaMillion, Barnes & Noble, etc., or even Amazon.com if you can't find it).
We now also recommend crate training for our pups that will spend at least some of their time indoors. Refer to the Brian Kilcommons book for information on that, or you can call us. It does help to have them crate trained if you are going to have them in your house - whether you keep them there a lot, or just for really cold weather or storms, it helps to crate train them while they are still young. Some Border Collies are especially terrified of thunder, lightning, or storms. One of ours (Lucy) will let us know there is a storm coming at least an hour before we can actually hear thunder. When it starts to thunder (long distance) she will climb or jump out of the pen, run to the back door, and as soon as she gets in the house she goes directly into the bathroom (no windows), jumps into the bathtub, and stays there until the storm passes. Are they smart or what? During really bad weather, we have four "nervous nellies" that have to stay in our kitchen.
If you have any problems with pups pulling on their leash, we recommend an anti-pull harness you can use to train your pup. We have only been able to find them at Walmart so far. The specific brand name is Yuppy Puppy. (They do have a website www.yuppypuppy.com) Not always available at Walmart, but generally they are stocked. Walmart also stocks another brand of harness but we don't like them. The Yuppy Puppy harnesses really do work well and they are not as complicated as other types. Very young pups (up to about 15 pounds) will fit in the Small size. Pups (at about 3-4 months old) and almost all of our adults will generally always use the Medium size (the harnesses are fully adjustable). With the Yuppy Puppy harness you don't have to worry about hurting or choking your pup because the leg straps are padded (unlike the other Walmart harness) and the harness helps to keep them from pulling, without choking them. They learn very quickly. The harness is designed so that you can leave their regular collar on while using the harness. The harness prevents the problem of them running away from you by pulling their collar off - they can't wiggle or jerk out of the harness if you have it adjusted snugly. The instructions on the package also states that th harness should not be left on continuously - only while you will have to have the dog on a leash. We can't recommend these more highly.
The first solid food our pups eat is Pedigree canned puppy food (at about three weeks old). As they progress (when they get their milk teeth), we gradually introduce some dry food with their Pedigree canned food. The dry food we use is Diamond brand. We use Diamond puppy food for pups, Diamond Sporting Dog Formula for our adults. We get our Diamond dry food from Pet Depot (a local chain here in North Alabama). I have seen Diamond at Tractor Supply Company (TSC) around here, but don't know if it is widely stocked. I had to badger the folks at our Pet Depot to stock the Sporting Dog formula. They stocked the puppy food, but not the adult. If you can't find it, ask, and keep asking. I did, and it worked - they listened to a regular customer. Now it's one of their best sellers. Diamond was never on that big recall for contaminated foods some time back. We've been using it for about six years. Bright eyes, shiny coats, healthy dogs - what more can you ask? We always advise folks to avoid Ol Roy (too much filler, too much poop), or the "Kibbles & Bits" stuff, because of all the dyes that they use. It may look good to you, but we try to discourage folks from using that type food. We do "poop patrols" in our pen, and foods with dyes can stain their poop. Because of that, you can't tell if you have a health problem, or if it's just the dyes in the food. We also don't recommend the really pricey stuff like Science Diet, Iams, Eukanuba, etc. (they were all on the recalled/contaminated food lists). You can get a quality food without having to pay a premium (inflated) price. Main thing is to keep them on a consistent diet. Changing foods can cause tummy upsets. If you decide to change foods, mix your current food with a new food to make a gradual transition. Please, don't get them started on people food (and particularly avoid chocolate and onions - they can be deadly). You're just asking for problems. Call us if you have any questions.
There are many, many other things we could go into. We always recommend you call us or email if you have any questions or problems. If you have a problem, we've probably already been there, done that. Just ask!
Mike, Debbie, & the furry gang
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