Canadian Golden Tips and Advice

TIPS

On this page is a collection of tips and tricks for Golden Retriever owners. Please submit your tips and suggestions for this page to the editor at

With everyone submitting a few tips and tricks, we should soon have a HUGE collection to help us ALL!

To jump to a specific category, you can use this jump tool:

Articles about dogs, dog training, and dog food - published by Mogens Eliasen

Puppy Tips

Puppy Aptitude Test - Developed by Joachim and Wendy Volhard
have any puppy tips to share?? Email me

Safe Car Travel

When travelling with your dogs in your vehicle, the safest ways are by a doggie seat belt, or by using a crate. Many dogs are killed during vehicle collisions, when they fly forward and smash into your windshield.
If you have your dogs in crates, many people attach an envelope or similar, to the top of the crate, which specifies the dog's name, and what to do with and for the dog, in the case of an accident, where you are hurt too badly provide for their immediate care. If you don't have somewhere as noticeable as the top of the crate, another good place is the glove compartment.

Flying with your Dog

Here are a couple links that are full of tips you should read before putting your dog on a plane.
Flying with Dogs

Flying with Dogs

Travel and flying with dogs on an airplane

Emergencies

Tennis Balls can be very dangerous. If your dog happens to get a tennis ball caught in his throat, the best technique to get it out, is to work it up from the outside of his throat. For more info, please read: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/8920/balls.html

Vacations & Trips out of Town

When travelling with your dogs, always bring copies of their registration papers, proof of vaccinations, and a photo of them. When travelling across the Canadian-US border with your dogs, you might be asked for their rabies vaccine certificate. As for the photo, if for some reason, your dog is lost during your vacation, if you have a current photo of him/her, it will help anyone who aids in your search.
If you are taking your dogs with you, ALWAYS bring a fully stocked canine first aid kit. You never know what you might get into during your travels, always better to be prepared. Here is a great link to the various things you should include in your kit - What to Put In Your Canine First Aid Kit
It is a good idea to become familiar with the boarding kennels in your area, just in case you need to leave town in an emergency. Visit the local boarding kennels, ask questions, see their facilities and find one where you would feel comfortable leaving your pets.

Grooming Tips

Grooming tips - with PHOTOS!! Excellent resource - morningsagegoldens.freeservers.com/Grooming.html
Tips on using a Dremel Tool for trimming your dog's nails! - http://hometown.aol.com/DoberDawn/dremel.html
Did you golden get tree sap in his coat??? Try peanut butter!! This apparently works really well to take the sap out.
Did you golden get sprayed by a skunk??? Peee-ewww!! Click on this link to take you to a homemade de-skunking formula - http://www.golden-retriever.com/how_to_deskunk_your_golden.htm
Large matts in your goldens hair?? Instead of trying to rip or pull out large matts, first try making one large matt into smaller - more manageable - matts. Using your scissors, cut the mat in the same direction as the hair. Continue to do this until you have smaller matts that can be brushed through. Using this method, the place where the matt was, will blend into the coat and will be much less noticeable, than if you had to cut out the entire matt.
More Grooming tips:
- Grooming the Golden Ear
- Grooming your Golden's Feet
- Grooming your Golden's Tail

Winter Tips & Reminders

Salt can be harmful to your dog's feet. Don't walk them where walk has been applied, or purchase some dog booties to protect their feet.
Keep the hair inbetween the pads of your golden's feet trimmed. Snow and ice can attach to long hair under their feet and form into ice balls which are very painful to walk on!
Dry your golden's feet when they come inside from the snowy/wet outdoors. Moist feet can itchy for your pet, but the trapped moisture can also grow bacteria, and yeast.
Anti-freeze is VERY harmful for your dog!! The substance in anti-freeze is quite appealling to dogs because it tastes sweet making it twice as hazardeous. Watch for anti-freeze and radiator leaks carefully, and be careful what puddles your dog drinks out of during your walks - if it's really cold a puddle should be frozen, if it isn't, suspect an antifreeze leak and keep your pet away!

Christmas and Holiday Tips & Reminders

Chocolate is poisonous for your dogs. Keep all chocolate far out of reach.
Most Christmas ornaments and decorations are poisonous or potentially dangerous for your pets, this includes mistletoe, holly berries and poinsettia plants. Reactions can vary from a mild skin irritant to cardiac arrest!
Do not feed large amounts of left over cooked turkey to your dogs - this can cause a pancreatitis outbreak which can be very painful and serious for your dog. Also, NEVER feed your dogs cooked bones - they can splinter and cause internal injuries.
Christmas trees can be very attractive - for your pet as well!! Especially all the nice smelling gifts underneath! The tree respresents many dangers, glass balls, christmas lights, plugs, chocolate in presents, etc etc. A good idea is to set up an exercise pen around the tree to keep your dogs away from harm.
A tip from Sandy Brock - "Before the holiday go to a pharmacy and buy a box of cotton balls. Be sure that you get COTTON balls...not the cosmetic puffs that are made from man-made fibers. Also, buy a quart of half-and-half coffee cream and put it in the freezer. Should your dog eat glass ornaments. Defrost the half-and-half and pour some in a bowl. Dip cotton balls into the cream and feed them to your dog. Dogs under 10 lbs should eat 2 balls which you have first torn into smaller pieces. Dogs 10-50 lbs should eat 3-5 balls and larger dogs should eat 5-7. You may feed larger dogs an entire cotton ball at once. Dogs seem to really like these strange treats and eat them readily. As the cotton works its way through the digestive tract it will find all the glass pieces and wrap itself around them. Even the teeniest shards of glass will be caught and wrapped in the cotton fibers and the cotton will protect the intestines from damage by the glass. Your dogs stools will be really weird for a few days and you will have to be careful to check for fresh blood or a tarry appearance to the stool. If either of the latter symptoms appear you should rush your dog to the vet for a checkup but, in most cases, the dogs will be just fine."

Training Tips

Here is a link to an article about how to train with a prong collar: Click Here
Here is a link about the problems with head halters: Click Here
10 Tips for Dealing with Problem Behaviours by Suzanne Clothier Click Here
Barking - "how to train a dog not to bark...or other options in the event of failure"
Comparison of Two Antibarking Collars For Treatment of Nuisance Barking - A comparison of the citronella spray collar and the electronic shock collar.

Handling Tips

http://geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/8989/handling.htm - Handling Your Own Dog
http://www.canismajor.com/dog/jrhandlr.html - Junior Handlers: Teamwork in the Ring - Junior Handling information
http://www.freehomepages.com/fcr/juniors.html - Junior Showmanship
http://www.flatcoat.com/handling.htm - Handling your Flat-Coated Retriever - not written for Golden Retrievers, but most of the information is applicable.

In the Event of Your Death

You should include in your will the instructions for who should care for your pet. Specify if there is a close friend or family member you wish to adopt your dog (talk about it with them before hand, so they are aware as well). Some people don't feel their dogs would be in capable hands with any of their friends or family, so they leave their dog to an appropriate rescue group, knowing that rescues put alot of effort into finding the best family match for each dog.
Another important thing you should do, and keep up to date, is a record for each pet. This sort of thing would include your dog's likes and dislikes, medication amounts and times, behaviour characteristics, etc. This will really assist the new caretakers of your pet, after your passing.

Directions for Make at Home Items

Click Here for instructions on how to make your own Portable PVC Exercise Pen! "Dog show and agility people have been using metal exercise pens for years. Problem is that the commercial ones are expensive. For about one half of the price of a commercial, metal exercise pen, you can construct this PVC exercise pen, which ends up being slightly bigger."

Miscellaneous

Have some tips to share?? Email me