Belle sheds year-round. I mean, this dog really sheds.  There is dog hair everywhere, and since I’m a bit of a neat freak, it can really bug me!

I have always done my best to vacuum the floors regularly and brush Belle to remove any loose hair, but she has such sensitive skin those specialized brushes for removing loose dog hair make her yelp.  I tried a grooming glove. It worked pretty well, but I left them outside under the carport one day and they got stolen.  I know, I know, who would steal dog grooming gloves??  Now I have a regular human hair brush for her. It doesn’t hurt her skin when I brush her, but it doesn’t work too well either. Bathing helps to remove a lot of the hair (I remove huge clumps of hair from the bath tub drain). But no matter what I do, there seem to always be little clumps of Belle fur rolling around my hardwood floors.

For someone who likes a clean house, but doesn’t always have the time to clean as well as I would like, the Roomba is a blessing. I have hardwood floors and it works very well on them.  I have gotten where I turn it on in the morning and close my office door to keep the noise out while it runs.  It runs while I am working and puts itself back on the charger when it is done.  I love that I can get two things done at once!

I run it every three days just to keep up with the dog hair.  It really has made a difference.  I think of it as kind of maintenance for  the floors.  When I really want to clean, which involves moving furniture to vacuum around, I still use my traditional vacuum.  But I haven’t done that in a while and the floors still look pretty good.

I have only had two problems with my Roomba. It sometimes gets caught up on the floor air conditioner vents, and sometimes the dog hair gets so wrapped up in the spinning brush that it clogs it up and keeps it from spinning well.  Using a pair of tweezers, I can get the clumped up hair out and the Roomba will work fine again.  You have to clean the brushes every time you use the Roomba, but a pair of tweezers will really help when the hair gets in hard-to-reach parts of the machine.  As for the floor vents, I just have to move it off of them when it gets stuck.  The benefits are much greater than the problems.

Things have changed a lot since the last time I posted.  We have moved to a new house and a new dog has entered our lives.

Belle has a history of marking the indoors of new houses, so that was a bit of a concern when we moved in to the new house. We had spent almost a year and a half remodeling it, so the idea of a dog mess wasn’t appealing (not that it ever is).

So I went online and did some research on how to prevent a dog from marking territory in a new home.  The best advice I found involved walking the dog on a leash to check out all of the rooms in the new house and then immediately take her outside to pee.

The first time we brought her home, she was walked through the house and allowed to sniff things a bit, but never left to stand still for too long.  I went through every corner of the house.  Then we immediately went outside and sniffed the yard until she peed.

Then we put her out in the yard to get used to her new outdoor space.  We brought her in later that day, took her through the rooms to sniff the corners, and then it was back outside to pee and then back in her outdoor pen.

We did this several times whenever we brought her in and we kept a close eye on her – and it worked!  No messes, no accidents, and no bad dog smell in the house. I would definitely recommend this to anyone taking a dog into a new indoor environment.

When she first came to live with me, Belle was not used to walking with a leash. Naturally, she pulled a lot on the lead. This was mostly because she was fearful of it and was trying to get away from it. She managed to pull a retractable leash from my hand once, and the noise it made as she ran down the street frightened her so much, she went faster and faster trying to outrun it.

OK, it was a little funny, but believe me, the pulling on the leash gets old quickly. Now that Belle enjoys her walks, she still pulls at the leash, but now it’s because she wants to walk faster or go over and smell something or chase a squirrel. I like to walk her twice a day, and it was getting so that I dreaded doing it. She even pulled down to the ground one time when I was trying to tie my shoe. That was the end of that!

After talking about my frustrations with walking Belle, one of my neighbors loaned me her dog’s steel pinch collar (also known as a prong collar). I was a little hesitant at first because this type of collar looks like some kind of torture device, but it made a huge difference in my walking experience.

Correct Placement of a Pinch Collar

The pinch collar has made a huge difference in my enjoyment of walking my dog. I can control her a lot easier when we encounter squirrels, loud cars, or other dogs. Even when she gets very aggressive and jumps up and tries to twist out of the collar, it’s not a problem because the collar allows for twisting without twisting my hand off!

Here are a few things that I learned about using pinch collars with dogs.

• Do not jerk it like you would to correct a dog wearing a traditional leather or vinyl collar. This can injure your dog.
• Size the collar to your dog. You may need to take out a few prongs to make it fit a little better, but don’t make it too tight.
• Place the collar at the top of the neck, closer to the head. This may require you to keep your lead a little tight to keep the collar in place. However, this gives you the best leverage for controlling your dog. If you keep the pinch collar down at the base of the dog’s neck, they may ignore it completely.
• Don’t take the collar off or put it on over the dog’s head. Have one prong that you have bent a little more than the others to make it easier to take on and off.
• Do not leave this collar on the dog when you are done walking or training him or her. This collar can get caught on something like a fence or a shrub and constrict on the dogs neck as he/she pulls and potentially hurt your dog.

I’ve been using the pinch collar for two years now and my dog doesn’t mind or fear it one bit. I have to admit that a lot of the time I have it down at the base of her neck lately, but as soon as I see another dog approaching we stop and raise it to the top of her neck for control. It has made walking with Belle so much more enjoyable and I no longer dread it.

It seems like this has been the wettest winter in several years.  We have had a long period of rain interspersed with just a few cloudy but dry days here and there and a couple rare sunshine days too.  All of this rain makes Belle’s dog pen very muddy.  To make matters worse, the grass around the gate to the pen died before winter due to some sloppy weed-eating around the edges of the pen and there isn’t much of anything to keep the soil turning to mud.

After Belle’s recent surgery, I’ve been keeping her indoors almost all of the time, only taking her out briefly for bathroom breaks.  Even still, her belly and legs get muddy and I have to towel her off when she gets back inside.

Yesterday I went out of town, so I had to leave Belle outside for the majority of the day. Although it wasn’t raining, her pen was VERY muddy. It’s important to keep my dog clean until the stitches come out, so I did what I could to make her pen more palatable.

Pine straw covering muddy spots

She also has another wood palette in the corner of her pen that gives her a place to lay that is off of the ground. This is really useful when the ground is as wet and muddy as it is right now.  It also provides a little more warmth than cold ground in winter.

My neighbor, Ms. Virginia, who owns a Jack Russell and another mixed breed dog, bought a bale of hay for her backyard this week. It helps her dogs stay out of the mud a bit better.

Although these aren’t the best options – a concrete floor in a pen would probably work best, they are temporary solutions to the wet ground in your backyard and help prevent your dog from getting too muddy during rainy seasons.

We got the results back from Belle’s minor surgery this past Monday.  The skin growth was benign. Yay!

Stitches on my dog Belle after minor surger

The blood work came back normal and there was no sign of infection in her urine sample either.  The veterinarian and I discussed the frequent urination problem that she has been having.  He recommended that I begin measuring her water intake. If she is drinking more than six cups of water a day (based on her weight), then this may be an indication of other problems.

This is day three of me measuring the amount of water I am giving Belle and how much she is drinking.  She has not drunk more than three cups of water each day, which I think is a good sign.

Her requests to go outside to use the bathroom were very frequent on Tuesday (about 5 times in two hours one evening), but seem to have lessened as the week goes on.  I suspect it may be a bit of a boredom and lack of exercise problem, since I haven’t been walking her much at all due to my illness and the really cold weather.

I’m going to begin to walk her more, especially since the weather is warming up, and see if that helps the problem.  I will need to take it easy for another week though, due to the stitches in Belle’s stomach.

I just got back from the veterinarian’s office. Today was Belle’s 6 month check-up and Bordetella vaccination. She got checked for heartworms – none present! And she also got her fecal exam and annual exam.

I asked my vet about the unusual skin growth on her stomach. He looked it over and said that although it didn’t look like it was something to worry about (something about it having hair growing out of it and maybe being an odd hair follicle), it was best to remove it and test it. That way we could be sure it was a benign growth.

Since I had not fed Belle this morning, since I wasn’t exactly sure of all that was being done for her exam, she was able to get in the queue for surgery this morning (dogs with a full belly can’t undergo anesthesia). We’ll know in a short while whether the growth is something that we need to be concerned about.

My vet is a great guy. My dog is very timid in the vet’s office; he actually gets down on the floor with her and examines her rather than put her on the table, which really makes her nervous.

Scheduled exams are a great time for me to get all of my pet questions answered, and I take the opportunity to do so. If I have anything I need to ask, I’ll write it down and bring it with me. I often forget, if I don’t write them down.

Since I have a home office, I spend a lot of time with Belle (and vice versa J). The pervious two and a half weeks I have had quite a nasty cold. As a result (and due to weather being in the teens), I haven’t walked Belle much at all.

I began to notice in the last week, that she is asking to go out to urinate a lot more frequently. Usually, she will go out in the morning to use the bathroom, and then maybe go out two or three more times that day.

In the past week or so, she has been asking to go out 4-6, sometimes 8 times a day. This is a behavior change for her, but I couldn’t see much more of a difference. She is drinking a bit more as well, but not showing any signs of discomfort.

I mentioned this to my vet today. Since she is already in for surgery, he recommended that we take a bladder sample and blood sample to see if she has a bladder infection or if her white blood count is higher. These would be indicative of some kind of infection which antibiotics would help.

He also mentioned that the increase in peeing could be due to bladder stones. But since she is not peeing in multiple spots when we go outside and not showing any signs of straining, it does not seem likely. I forewent the x-ray for this, for now.

We’ll see what he says! It really helps to know your dog’s behavior well to be able to spot any signs of trouble. Dogs will hide their illness or injury as best as they can. This is a biological response to avoid being eaten by a predator. But observant pet owners will be able to spot potential problems.

Grooming your dog is a good time to look for any problems with their skin, nails, ears, and teeth.  Belle, like most dogs, will hide any injury as best as she can.  Only because I wrestle with her and bathe her regularly have I found things that were bothering or hurting her.

Recently, while rubbing her stomach, I found a strange bump on her skin.  I wasn’t sure what it was, so I pulled the hair back from the spot to see if it was a tick or something else.  I hate pulling of ticks, but I will when I have to!

This spot looked like some strange growth of skin.  It doesn’t seem to bother her, but since we are scheduled for a vet visit next week.  We’ll ask the doc what he thinks it is and what we should do about it.

Belle had another similar spot along her neck that we had removed largely because it was at her dog collar line and could get infected or irritated.  The vet also wanted to make sure it wasn’t a cancerous growth.  Luckily, everything was fine and the removal went smoothly.

I really hate to have Belle under anesthesia, but if the vet says we should get it removed, that’s what we’ll do.

So what’s a dog used to the weather of the deep south do when it snows?  Apparently, if it’s Belle, she tiptoes through it trying to keep from touching as much of it as she can.  One of my friends owns a black lab who is about a year old.  Apparently she liked the snow and actually tried to catch it as it fell!  I guess each dog is different.

As most of the U.S. is suffering really cold winter weather, the cold weather has hit the deep south too.  We aren’t used to the temperatures dropping down below zero, and it really freaks us out – and our pets too!

This morning we woke to snow falling, which eventually turned to sleet and then rain.  Belle didn’t know what the snow was, but she didn’t want to walk through it.  Needless to say, she was only out for limited amounts of time today and it looks like it will be like that for several more days.

In this cold weather, we all have to remember to make sure our pets stay warm and have plenty of water.  For the last several days, the outdoor water bowl has been frozen solid.  Cleaning out the ice and refilling it with fresh water is a must – and even the birds appreciate it.

Adding some bedding material to your outdoor dog house can help keep your dog warm too.  Straw or old bedding material will work, but when the temperature really drops down, bringing your dog inside is important.  And when that bedding material gets wet, it doesn’t keep the dog warm either.  With all the rain we’ve been having in the last several weeks, it isn’t long before bedding gets soaked through.  It is even more important in the cold weather to keep your dog and his/her bed dry.

Here’s hoping we’ll see more snow!

Being a beagle, Belle loves to get dirty. It’s instinctual, something that dogs do to hide their scent. Although Belle spends time outdoors when the weather is nice, she also spends a lot of time indoors with me.

I have hardwood flooring throughout the house. I once had an area rug in the living room, but Belle continuously rubbed her head on it. This made it smell bad often and her collar caught a couple of times, pulling threads from the carpet. I cleaned it a couple of times, but decided it was easier and healthier to get rid of it. I still have a couple of doormats, which I wash from time to time.

Now, the couches are another matter entirely. My couches are a yellow-gold cloth; they don’t show dirt much, but they can get smelly. Belle is not allowed on the couches, but she does rub across the leg area pretty frequently. I start seeing a bunch of hair stuck to the sides of the couch and I know it’s time to clean it.

It’s a challenge to vacuum dog hair from fabric. It gets stuck in the fabric’s weave, making it difficult to remove. One product that I found that helps remove hair from many surfaces is the magic pet hair removal sponge. It really seems to get the hair up better than most other methods I’ve tried. Luckily, it’s washable too. I use this sponge on her bedding before I wash it as well, to remove as much hair as possible.

I use this to clean my couches

I clean the couch about once a month or whenever my house starts to smell like a dog. In warm weather, it takes about an hour for the couches to dry, but in winter it takes a little longer. I really like this product and recommend it to anyone with a pet. I once loaned my Little Green machine to a friend of mine with two dogs. She liked it so much that she bought her own.

I doubt it will work on all types of material, but you should be able to test a small spot to make sure the fabric won’t fade.

My town has a leash law. I think it’s relatively new, but we do have one. Now that doesn’t mean that everyone keeps their dog under control. As a matter of fact, it’s not uncommon for me to have an encounter with a strange dog when I’m walking Belle.

Now if you’ve been reading this blog, you know that Belle often displays aggression towards other dogs. So when a stray or loose dog comes running up to us, I have to be prepared. Surprisingly, I have become fairly good at standing my ground and chasing the other dog off. I was amazed at my ability to stop a charging German shepherd not too long ago. But I’m not successful every time, and then there are consequences. Not only do I get upset at these occurrences, but me or my dog could become injured.

Once, a dog came running out my neighbor’s open door and immediately this dog and Belle got into a fight. Belle, of course, was leashed, so it wasn’t a fair fight to say the least. I was yelling loudly to get the owner outside to deal with his animal and my instinct was to put my body in between the two dogs. This was NOT a good idea, but luckily I did not get bitten.

Loose dogs, whether friendly or not, pose a hazard. They can run into oncoming traffic, become involved in dog fights, or simply frighten people that are not familiar with dogs.

WHAT WORKS FOR ME

So what can you do when a strange dog without an owner comes running towards you or is paying a little too much attention as you walk by?

I have found that many dogs will respond to commands in a strong, forceful tone. If the dog has any training, using “stop” or “back” or “no” in a harsh, strong voice can do the trick. Picking up a stick and using it to display or warn the dog has helped me too (largely I think it makes me feel better). I have also picked up stones or pine cones to toss in the direction of a dog that continues to follow us. I am not aiming at the dog, but near the dog to scare it off.

If a dog is approaching me, I don’t turn my back on the dog, but don’t move towards it either. I try slowly backing up and keeping my dog under control as best as I can. Displaying aggression towards the dog can turn out badly. And, perhaps most importantly, I don’t run and do my best to remain calm, despite how upsetting it can be to have a dog run at you.

If this doesn’t work and the dog continues to approach, my next resort is to call out loudly to the owner or the house. Oftentimes the owner is at home or outside, but just didn’t think that their dog would get in a fight or cause problems. Remember that just because your dog is friendly and likes other people and other dogs, does not mean that the dog that is walking by is friendly. Leash laws help protect your dog and others.

I often carry a bottle of mace with me, just in case an aggressive dog comes towards us and I have no other recourse. I do not know if this will work, but I assume that it would. Unfortunately, I do not know how I could spray one dog and not the other or even myself. I can only hope that I do not have to use it.

Finally, if you know the owner of the dog that is loose, talking with this person and requesting that they keep their dog under control or in a fenced area may help. They may be unaware that their dog is getting out of the backyard or that it is a problem for you. Most neighbors want to be a good neighbor and will do their best to resolve a problem.

If talking with your neighbor doesn’t work and the dog continues to be left to his own devices, it’s time to call your animal control officer. Animal control officers will often give a warning to an owner before picking up a dog, but if the dog is aggressive, it’s important to get it picked up before it hurts someone.

This veterinary web page provides some very helpful tips on dealing with loose dogs.

WALKING BY MYSELF

There is a product called the Dog Dazer II, which I recently purchased. This device emits a high frequency sound that many dogs dislike intensely. Most dogs will retreat as quickly as possible.

It is impossible to know if this causes a dog pain or just discomfort. It is also a non-specific device so all animals in the area (the device says within 15 feet or so), will hear it and be affected.

It also does not work on all dogs. I have discovered that most large dogs will react to it, but the very small breeds have not, in my experience. You should also not use it when you are walking with your dog as your dog will react as well and may deem it a punishment for something.

I am not advocating the use of this device to try and modify the behavior of your neighborhood dogs or as a training device, but am speaking to my experience in deterring dogs as they approach you

I loaned my dazer to my parents, whom had recently been charged (and nipped at) by a pair of dogs in their neighborhood. Upon seeing the dogs racing towards them, my mother hit the dazer, and the dogs immediately ran back to the house. In addition to carrying this device, my parents discussed this problem with the local animal control officer who had a conversation with the pet owners and the problem has been solved.

Always be careful when strange dogs approach you or your dog, as they can often be unpredictable. Please be a responsible dog owner, obey leash laws and keep your own dog safe and under control.