Train Your Dog to Rescue You - Learn to Evacuate and be Prepared with Your Pets - Learn K9SAR Mantrailing Train a Dog to Find People using Trailing Tracking and HRD Area Search - Read about nose work, manners and obedience - Get Information on Search and Rescue Dog training seminars - Preview Books by author and instructor Amber Higgins. The Books: Family Disaster Dogs, - Evacuate with a Dogs Help, - My Puppy Can Find Me, - Start Mantrailing for Work, Sport and Fun
Yes Ur Dog and Puppy Can Find Family
Read and hear easy games to play at home with your dogs, puppy and kids that teach valuable skills that may come in handy. Listen on audible or read on Kindle Unlimited and here's a free trail for you.
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One of the things that you should always be careful about when it comes to your dog is their health. We know that a lot of people would like to think that they would notice if there was something amiss with their dog's health, and we’re not saying that you wouldn’t.
What we are saying though, is that you need to be actively looking for any problems too, just to be on the safe side. In this article, we’re going to be taking a look at some of the things that you can try if you’ve noticed something or quite right with your furry little friends help! Keep reading if you would like to find out more.
More Exercise
The first thing that you’re going to need to think about is getting them some more exercise. It might be the case that they are not getting enough, and this is negatively impacting their health overall. You may think that this sounds odd, but it happens more than you realize.
Dogs need at least half an hour of exercise per day to stay healthy, and it’s your job to ensure that they get that. If they don’t currently, find a way to make sure they are going forward.
Their Food
Another thing that you should look into is changing their food and the general diet that you are giving them. It might be the case that they have an intolerance to something that you are feeding them and it’s causing them to not feel well. Or, it could simply be a poor diet that is leading to them not feeling their best. It’s hard to think that what we are doing could be causing their problems, but it’s a reality that has got to be faced because it might well be exactly what the problem is.
Look into healthy dog food, and make a decision about what will be best for your little friend. It might take some trial and error until you find the right one, but you can also make homemade recipes to go alongside it.
See A Vet
Of course, if you are concerned and you think that there might be a problem that you cannot fix by yourself, then you need to take your dog to a vet as soon as possible. They will be able to identify the issue, and then do something to help your dog get back in the best possible health. Call your vet as soon as you start to get worried, or if the symptoms that you were not previously that concerned about have worsened or not gone away in a few days.
Hopefully, you have found this article helpful and now see some of the things that you should consider doing if you are worried about the health of your dog. It’s important that you are doing everything in your power to ensure that your dog is as healthy as possible, so keep your eye on them as much as you can going forward.
Did you know all dogs are Family Disaster Dogs ? I created this site and wrote the first book after having worked as a professional dog groomer, dog trainer and breeder for 30 years, along with volunteering with my bloodhounds and shepherds for Search and Rescue for 15 years, I trained in all aspects of emergency response, and trained many other dog handler teams during that time.
I realized one day that pet dogs can help their family in emergencies and disasters. Dogs do not need to be a certain breed or trained as skillfully to find a person or other pet that wanders from home or gets lost while camping. Every dog tries to follow whoever leaves the area, if the dog does not appear to try to follow they are still very much aware of the person or other pet leaving the room, house, camp or area.
So it makes perfect sense to me and most people I mention this bit of logic to, that our own dogs can find us if we get lost. That yes, the dog wants to go with us every time we leave the house but we shut the door and lock them in. So if a toddler happens to wander out of the house and is missing I always suggest to allow the family dog out of the house (on leash or off) and follow the dog who will naturally try to follow the person who left before the dog.
Dogs naturally follow pack members. We only need to take advantage of this natural instinct and ask the dog to find the missing pack member. Including other household pets and dog or cat friends. So if your cat or other dog goes missing, use the other dog to find them or a friend's dog that the animals know.
Small dogs, giant dogs, young dogs and old dogs....can locate missing loved ones like search and rescue dogs do. They can also help you evacuate, fetch survival items if your trapped and go get help upon command.
Let’s look at a few of the ways a pet dog can help locate a disabled child or adult in an emergency.
Keep in mind that a dog always know where people are in the house or yard. They find you for food and play or to go for a walk. Dogs pay very close attention to where each family member is and what is happening. We, humans, seldom notice the dog doing its job of watching over us.
Your own dog is one of the most valuable assets to have available for finding a known person who wanders off while hiking or camping and goes missing. If an earthquake, flood or storm separates members of the household, most likely the family dogs will be with one of the persons or nearby attempting to reach the family pack.
As part of the pack the dog depends on us surviving too. Dogs live with us as family members and as part of the pack, they live to please us. They are always by our side and follow us around waiting to give us a helpful paw when the time comes or just to be near.
This natural pack instinct in the dog is very easy to take advantage of to find a missing pack member, such as our child or elderly parent who are missing or trapped unable to reach us or to get help.
When a favorite family member leaves the room the dog often follows, when the person settles to stay in one place, the dog often lays at the person’s feet waiting for what will come next. The dog is always nearby, willing and ready to participate in what we are doing so let’s take advantage of the dogs’ natural desire to help us.
If you watch your dog, you will notice that the dog realizes when a child is missing from the family pack. Also, think about how many dogs cry and have separation anxiety when a favorite family member leaves them. Does your dog get upset when you leave them alone in the house or car? Separation anxiety results from our dogs wishing to go with us. The anxiety is from the dog wanting to stay with its pack and not be left behind.
This proves the dog is very much aware of each person in the family and where that person is. When one leave, if they do not come back to join the dog or family pack the dog will look for them. It’s the nature of the dog.
If we allow the dog to go find the person, the dog will do just that !
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You can use this to your advantage if a family member is ever lost by simply asking the family dog to take you to the missing person.
Remember dogs find us every day when they are hungry. The dog already knows how to find people, we as dog owners only need to learn how to ask the dog to help us.
Just follow the dog to the person, let the dog do the work, do not make any suggestions or guide the dog because it will only confuse the dog.
Working search and rescue dogs often look like they are just going for a walk, they may go slow smelling here and there like nothing is important as they work the many hundreds of scent particles that mingle together with the lost person’s scent.
These scent particles are everywhere and blown by the wind, affected by the natural environment. Only a dog knows how to understand and puzzle though. We humans do not have that nose work skill. We are not equipped to use our sense of smell to discriminate scent particles like animals do.
Trust your dog.
The dog is always right.
The nose knows.
Practice by playing hide and seek with your dog and family members, especially special needs children.
Here’s a few ways to play and learn together with the family dog. If you have more than one dog, it’s easier to do this one dog at a time or the dogs may be more focused on each other than finding the person.
1. Hold the dog
2. Have a family member hide behind a open door or piece of furniture indoors
3. Let the dog go and tell the dog to “find them” use the person’s name
4. Follow the dog to find the person
5. Encourage the dog as they look for the person
6. Everyone make a big happy fuss over the dog finding the person
7. Lots of praise and happiness
8. Repeat with the person hiding in different places
Hiding spot suggestions
Indoors
Under blankets on the floor or bed
Behind open doors
Behind furniture
Under big cardboard boxes
Lay on the floor in another room
Outdoors
Do not let the person who hides go too far to hide at first. Gradual, over days and weeks, add distance to how far away they go to hide. Start off only hiding within easy sight of the dog and person holding the dog. Keep this game simple for the dog so they grasp the idea to find the person when asked.
Trust your dog, in a real emergency the dog will use its natural drive and instinct to reunite with the missing pack member when asked.
Keep in mind, you are not training the dog to find the person, the dog already knows how to do that. You are going to teach the dog a word you will use to ask them to do what is natural for them and the use the word is what you are actually practicing.
Otherwise the dog does not know what the word means or what you ask and you do not have a way to tell the dog to act on its natural instinct.
Here's my children's book that tells the whole family a fun way to train a dog to find family and go to another person by name.
Believe it or not our dogs do know our names because they hear everyone else call us by the name.
With very little time spent and a whole lot of fun practice you will see how easy this is to do and then you will feel reassured that if your child or loved ones ever go missing or get lost you can start searching while waiting for the police who often will not respond to a missing person case until 24 hours has passed to give time for the person to return on their own.
In my books and on my website, I explain how easy it is to teach the average family dog how to come to our rescue like search dogs do and how to use your own dog to help you evacuate during emergencies and disasters.
Visit www.familydisasterdogs.com to learn more about me and how your dog can rescue you!
Here's a page full of DIY dog training lessons I wrote for everyone to do in the comfort of home.
Your dog is your best friend - or will eventually be if you recently got the dog as a puppy or from a shelter. That bond and relationship you build over time is a beautiful one and often enough, but we all wish that dogs could live just as long as humans can.
However, all those years of happiness you give them, they will return with unconditional love from the beginning to the very end. It’s important that you avoid injuries to your dog which can harm your pooch’s quality of life in general.
Dogs can get into accidents and cause injury to themselves. Sometimes that can’t be avoided but when it can, it’s good to know what you can do to prevent the injuries from happening.
Here are some helpful tips on how to avoid injuries to your dog.
First and foremost, understand the dangers that are present to your dog specifically. Every dog is different and therefore what might harm one dog might not harm yours. If there are certain health problems that your dog has had in the past, then you might wish to avoid doing anything that could trigger it to happen again.
For example, some dogs are known to pick up anything and everything, sometimes swallowing what they have, even when it’s not edible. As a result, some dogs end up getting foreign objects stuck in their intestine and needing some pretty life-saving surgery in order to recover from it.
That sort of injury is something you want to avoid from happening again, especially as it could be fatal the next time around.
Look at your dog’s risk factors and consider what you can do to avoid them from recurring again.
In general, every dog breed has their own health conditions that they’re more susceptible to. The reasons for this could differ from whether they’re a mixed breed or if they are a certain shape or size which makes them more prone to the health condition itself.
Brushing up on your knowledge of the dog breed and the health conditions that are common with the breed is worthwhile. Learning more can help you put the preventative measures in place needed to reduce any risk of injury to the dog itself.
You might also find that some health conditions are better prevented with earlier care and others might be inevitable. This is something you should do fairly early on in your ownership of the dog, albeit before you even decide on what dog breed you’re going with.
A regular walk each day can keep the vet away. As the same saying goes for doctors, but in the shape of an apple, you should be doing what you can to keep your dog away from the vets. Other than any annual vet booster, you hope that your dog doesn’t need to keep going back to the vets at some point in their life time.
Taking your dog for a regular walk every day is going to keep them healthy. Even for lap dogs or dogs that love to lounge on the couch all day, even those dogs need a bit of walking every day.
Twenty minutes should be the baseline for most dogs, with some needing slightly more and others needing well over an hour to tucker themselves out. Consider taking your dog for a good walk every day to mentally stimulate them and ultimately ensure they’re getting a good amount of exercise daily.
Heat can be a problem for dogs, especially as they can only regulate their own temperature so much before needing help from their dog owner. If you’re taking your dog out in the heat during the day for a walk, then this can be dangerous to their health.
For some dogs a hot day can prove fatal so depending on the weather keeping your dog indoors is better than letting them get too warm outside.
The indoors can also be a warm place, particularly over the summer. That’s why you should be looking to keep your dog cool indoors too. Making sure there’s plenty of water out throughout the day, to opening windows and even filling a bath of cool water for your dog to take a dip in every so often. The more you can do to keep them cool, the better for their health.
Just like humans, slippery surfaces can be dangerous. When your dog loses control of their footing on a slippery surface, whether it’s wet and therefore slippery, or just does not have enough grip, it becomes dangerous.
Your dog could end up banging into a piece of furniture, which in turn could collapse onto them, causing injury. It’s best to try and keep surfaces as dry as possible and add gripping points in the form of rugs where possible.
Dog supplements are great and can be a good way to provide your dog with some extra nutrients. Your dog’s joints will be sprightly when they’re young but become more brittle and vulnerable as they get older.
There are plenty of dog supplements on the market that are great for joint care, so this is something that’s worth considering. If your dog has problems with their legs or they have trouble with their mobility, then Hero Braces are a great way to provide support and aid injury where it’s required.
Finally, be aware of the signs and symptoms of fatigue or overexertion. Fatigue can quickly turn dangerous and some dogs don’t know how to slow down or take a break from their playtime. Try to look out for the signs, like excessive panting or fatigue itself as the indicator that you need to stop play for a bit.
These tips will help avoid injury so that your dog can live a long and healthy life in the future.
How to Evacuate with Your Dog's Help click above to see my book! If you live in an area that is prone to natural disasters, such as hur...
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