When you work for a company that does grooming, you meet and talk to people who are often from out of state. These people sometimes call in for appointments for baths or hair cuts, and get mad when we tell them that we need to see proof of rabies information before we can do anything with their pet. The most common response we get to that statement is anger and annoyance.

The gist is, how dare we ask for proof that their pets are responsibly vaccinated against disease before we put them in an area that has a high pet traffic volume. They are out of town, and just wanted to get their dogs bathed.

As a grooming salon that is run by a corporate company, Petco requires proof of Rabies vaccination before taking a dog into the back areas of their salons.

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Overweight and general weight problems are everywhere in modern America, and even in the modern world. You see a lot of diets, where you cut things out of what you eat and watch calories. You also see a lot of concern for health problems associated with weight – overweight people have a lot more heart, joint, and diabetes problems. What a lot of people don’t consider is that these health problems – heart, joint, diabetes – affect overweight animals just as much, or more, as humans.

Consider a human that is twenty pounds overweight, and their optimal weight is one hundred and fifty pounds. This means that while their optimal weight is one hundred and fifty pounds, they are actually one hundred and seventy pounds. That human has added on thirteen percent of extra weight onto their body (twenty pounds is thirteen percent of one hundred and fifty pounds).

Now, what does this mean? It means that while twenty pounds is a significant weight addition for a one hundred and fifty pound human, it is less than a fifth of their optimal body weight.

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Everyone loves their pets, right? Well, in a perfect world.

I’m sure we can all agree that there are some people that harm their pets by not caring for them enough. We all hear the horror stories and watch the animal cop shows with tears and horror. Animal cruelty is far too common.

Fewer people will notice and agree that some people harm their pets by loving them too much.

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Watching dogs is a long time hobby of mine, because they do such interesting things. No, really, watch your dog for just 10 minutes while he is outside with you. If you don’t have a dog, I suppose you could always borrow a friend’s (with permission, of course). The point is, you can learn a lot from simply observing.

Dogs are unpredictable creatures because they are first and foremost conscious, intelligent animals that we don’t always understand. So, when we look at them and note their behavior, we have to look at them and understand that perhaps we don’t understand them as well as we’d like to think.

A person who is walking in the park and encounters a dog on a leash barking and freaking out at them may make a few assumptions or conclusions. The first might be that the owner of the dog is not a very good one, since they can’t control their dog. Another might be that the dog is aggressive and shouldn’t be out in the first place. Unfortunately, a lot of these assumptions, whatever they might be, are wrong.

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Some things to consider around the house when you bring home a dog for the first time or the fiftieth time, whether they’re a puppy, or a fully grown adult dog.

Consider basic dog behavior. They play, they roughhouse, and they occasionally get into trouble that you wish they wouldn’t. That’s their nature, and unless you happen to be the luckiest dog owner in the world, any dog you bring home is bound to get into some trouble.

Look around your house. Are there wires everywhere? If you run a computer based business from your home, you’re bound to have electrical wires everywhere. If you have an entertainment system, a personal computer, or even just a stereo, you’re going to have something a dog can chew on, or trip over. Chewing or tripping on electrical wires is not only bad for your dog, but also bad for the equipment in your house. It can get expensive too, depending on what they happen to break in the process.

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