Pleasing 4 Pets

Spaniels are gun dogs; they flush game from grass and shrubs. Springer Spaniels scare, or ‘spring’, birds into the air and fetch them when they are shot.

Most Spaniels have sturdy bodies, silky coats, long floppy ears, big eyes and a dome shaped skull, but their colours and sizes vary considerably. Clumber Spaniels have a heavy, head and body and short legs. They are white with lemon-yellow markings. English Cocker Spaniels come in many colours; their heads are narrower than those of other spaniels.

American Cocker Spaniels are smaller than their English counterparts. The head is rounded and the cost is long and dense. They may be any colour. Field Spaniels are long, low spaniels with short legs. They are usually black, liver, red or roan. The Sussex Spaniel is a heavy-bodied, reddish-brown dog with the shortest legs of any spaniel. The Irish water Spaniel has the longest legs and has a dark liver coat of curly ringlets with a top-knot and a slim tail with a smooth tip. The American Water Spaniel is somewhat similar but smaller. Welsh Springer Spaniels are lively red-and-white dogs smaller than English Springer Spaniels, which are usually liver and white or black and white. The Small Munsterlander is a brown-and-white German breed with a long tail. Most Spaniels have had their tails docked.

First decide whether you want a dog as a pet or a guard dog. Choose a pedigree, crossbred or mongrel dog or bitch that you can adequately feed and exercise. Avoid breeds especially liable to ailments. If you buy a puppy, make sure that it is lively, with bright eyes, a clean coat and clean ears.

Give your animal its own bed or rug to lie on. Keep clean drinking water always available. Be sure you feed enough protein, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals. A vet will tell you what to feed a puppy. Big dogs may need seven times as much food as small ones. Offer no between meal snacks.

Provide cowhide strips, a big bone or other chewy toys, but not bones thin enough to splinter or any object small enough to swallow.

Most dogs need bathing less than once a month but you must brush short-haired dogs weekly. And long-haired dogs need a daily brush and comb so make sure you have time spare before you buy a big hairy bundle.

To house train your puppy, put it in a special place after each meal. As it grows older, teach it to obey simple orders such as ‘sit’, ’come’, ’no’. Fit a collar and lead. A choke chain may help your dog to learn obedience, and authority in your voice is essential.

Just remember that you might not want to install any expensive carpets with a new puppy in the house. Not unless you are happy to hire some professional work. Carpet cleaning in London or most other big cities can be quite cheap but other places can be very expensive. Your best bet is to go for cheaper carpets or even laminate/wooden flooring.

Germany’s Short-haired Pointer and Wire-haired Pointer are both heavier than the British Pointer. They are liver, liver and white or black and white, and both have docked tails.

Weimaraners are smooth coated, hound like dogs from Weimar in Germany. They have a good nose and run effortlessly after large or small game. Hungary’s national breed is the lean, noble, golden Vizsla. It works well on land or in water.

The Italian Spinone is also a splendid swimmer. It is a solid, slightly awkward looking dog with a shaggy coat that is white with brown or orange. Italian Setters are powerful dogs with strong shoulders that carry a rather heavy head. The long upper lips and drooping folded ears give it a blood-hound-like look.

The Coarse-haired Griffon from France is grey, roan or chestnut. Its large head has eyebrows, a moustache and a brown nose. A versatile sporting dog, it can scent, point, retrieve and swim equally well.

Setters are beautifully elegant dogs with silky coats and feathered legs and tails. English setters are white with markings of black, lemon, liver or black- and- tan. The Irish Setter, sometimes called the Red Setter, has a flat chestnut coat. From Scotland comes the largest and heaviest of setters, the Gordon Setter, which has a soft glossy black- and-tan coat. All setters make lovable pets but they need a lot of exercise.

Owning a pet can be an expensive business. Veterinary treatment is likely to be the most costly and there’s not a lot you can do about that. Your pet needs inoculations, boosters, flea treatments and may, unfortunately, need treatment for injury or illness as well. These are expenses that you can’t evade.

However, there are any number of other things that you will need to buy or want to buy for your pet. All pets need feeding. All pets need somewhere to sleep. As is the case with many products, if you buy these sorts of things online, you can often take advantage of voucher codes.

Voucher codes are sequences of letters and numbers, which, when entered at the relevant point during the checkout process, allow you to get some sort of discount. The discount varies. It might be a couple of pounds off; it might be a percentage discount; it might entitle you to an additional free item; or it might mean you get free delivery of the items you buy.

These offers tend to be more useful when used with more expensive purchases, so it might be worth buying food in bulk for example. But even for smaller purchases like books or cat beds, why turn your nose up at savings?

Dogs, once, had to hunt for their food, in order to survive, chasing animals in the wild and following herds. Over time dogs invaluable to farmers have been bred, guarding and rounding up their flocks and herds, bred to chase other animals but not harm them.

Modern collies are so called because their ancestors rounded up, colleys, the Scottish, nimble, black faced, mountain sheep that undoubtedly wandered to places unsafe for any man. Typically Border Collies, trained to work together, drive sheep into a pen, upon the order of the shepherds whistle. This total blind obedience is essential in a sheep dog as so not to fright the sheep, a time consuming debt of an unruly dog.

Though, Collies and Old English Sheep Dogs are probably the most commonly known sheep dog, Kelpies from Australia and Puli’s from Hungary, are highly disciplined to jump over sheep’s back without alarming them. Kelpies run along the backs of the sheep to reach the head of the flock, where once there they become the leader. Also, despite their small structure, long low bodies, short coats and foxy heads with erect ears, corgis were bred as cattle herders, nipping the cattle’s heels to drive them to the market.

Britain keeps some five million dogs and the USA more than 40 million. They can be guards, guides, workers, companions or simply friends. Though no-one can be certain about how long ago our relationships with dogs began, we know that dogs and man date back to the Middle Stone Age, as fossil bone found show that dogs were helping hunters 10,000 years ago.

Among the creatures that sport the name dog, there is many a variety of sizes and appearances, gigantic sleek animals the size of a four year old tower over scampering fluffy things no bigger than a pigeon.

Some dogs belong to an identifiable, classified breed, meaning that their parents and usually recent ancestors were the same type of dog. Others have parents of different breed and are known as cross breeds, yet, some dogs are neither thoroughbred or cross bred, these dogs whose parents are of mixed breeds are called mongrels.

Mongrels are often seen as to be a more robust dog, and more friendly than thorough bred dogs. As their parents were not themselves the offspring of pedigree dogs, the features that will be apparent in their pups cannot at all be foreseen. Also, new Pedigree breeds introduced from other countries have to be recognised by the Kennel Club.