AVIBLOG
The Party’s Over: What to Do for Your Dam When You Send Your Puppies Home
Over the years, many novice breeders have asked me how dams feel when their puppies go to their new homes. As humans, we imagine emotional and possibly physical pain for her when her babies are gone. She cannot understand that we have found good homes for them and...
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late!
Emergency Preparedness for Your Dogs Updated: Oct 2020 As much as we don't want to think about them, natural and manmade disasters that trigger evacuations are more common these days. If you are a dog owner or breeder, you must have a plan to evacuate your dogs, as...
Dog Food Buyer Beware
More and More Dog Foods Are Making Dogs Sick! For years, dog owners have faced challenges when choosing food for their dogs but the situation is getting increasingly dire. In just the last three months, we’ve seen well-known dog foods causing serious sometimes fatal...
Our New Puppy Room and Tools
Check out our new puppy room and a dozen tools we used to make raising our recent litter much easier! Our most recent litter was the first one raised in our new home, with its separate puppy room. In fact, this is the first time in 40 years that we had a room in our...
Dogs Don’t Have Due Dates, They Have Whelping Windows
Recently, I heard about a litter supposedly born prematurely. The breeder said the pup were born on “Day 59, four days before their due date.” This statement prodded me to tackle the concept of due dates in dogs because that concept causes both undue stress and inappropriate inaction in dog breeders, and often the loss of puppies.
How Much Exercise Do Puppies Need?
There seem to be two approaches to exercising puppies by well-meaning owners. There are those who do too much too soon with their pups, doing concussive exercises often as early as 6 months of age. Then there are those who minimize their pups’ activity, almost wrapping them in cotton until their growth plates have closed. So what is the right balance of physical activity for your puppy? What kind of exercises should you do? Can you walk, jog or hike with your puppy?
One Easy Way to Improve Your Breeding Success
One of the easiest ways to improve your breeding success is by enhancing your dog’s physical fitness because fitness and fertility go hand-in-hand. As simple as that sounds, getting your dogs in optimal breeding condition will have broad benefits to your breeding program and will improve your puppies’ health in both the short-term, as well as over their lifetime.
All of us are told that before we breed our dogs, we should get them fit. But what exactly does “getting them fit” mean? Should you take them for longer walks or put them on the treadmill? NO!
Bowls, Biofilms, and Pyometra
Several bloggers have been making seemingly outlandish claims relating biofilm to a huge array of dog problems. To check these claims out, I had been digging into biofilm when I came across new research from the AKC Canine Health Foundation linking biofilm to pyometra. That got my attention!
How To Teach Your Dog To Take Pills
One of the biggest yet most important challenges you face when raising dogs is to teach them to willingly and happily accept medical treatments, such as pills. At some time during your dog’s life, it is likely he will need such treatments.
Four More Ways to Maximize Puppy Development With Your Adventure Box
In my final post in our Adventure Box series, let’s talk about how to ensure your pups get the most out of your Adventure Box. As I said in my last blog post, Adventure Boxes are intended to be challenging for puppies with noisy and unusual items that move, touch, and...
How To Maximize Puppy Development With Your Adventure Box
Are you looking to breed healthy, stable, resilient puppies? Then you need an Avidog Adventure Box for your litter! But Adventure Boxes are only beneficial if they are safe and designed properly. In our last blog post “The Top Five Ways to Make Sure Your Adventure Box...