Proper Care and Feeding of Dogs

As most of you know, we have two dogs: Cowboy, our English Shepherd and Wolfey, our German Shepherd.  I am amazed at the differences.  Wolfey is only six months old and already outweighs Cowboy by ten pounds.  He eats faster than Cowboy and I sometimes have to act as referee at the bowls because Wolfey chows down his larger portion before Cowboy finishes.

I’m sharing some information I found on how to determine the proper amount of food for dogs.  After all, you don’t want your dog to be overweight.  An overweight dog is an unhealthy dog and will be prone to problems such as joint pain and heart trouble.  Most people don’t seem to understand that a dog’s body condition is important.  This is evidenced by the amount of fat dogs I see running around.   And when I meet them and pet them, I can’t feel their ribs at all through all that blubber!  Disgusting!

With that in mind, the best way to tell if your dog is overfed or underfed is by feeling the ribcage.  You should feel some rib, but they shouldn’t feel like a bag of bones.  Here is a great reference with some more description. Increase or decrease the level of feeding based on how they measure up to this standard.  Don’t make changes too drastically though because it will cause stress on the dog.

There are a number of websites out there that can help you determine the appropriate feeding level for your dog, but here is one of my favorites.  Combined with the information of the back of the bag of food you can determine the appropriate amount of food.

Thanks, Robert.

Our dogs are enjoying the nice weather

Here are a few pics of Cowboy and Wolfey enjoying themselves and running around the back yard.  Wolfey is now bigger than Cowboy, at 55 lbs, compared to Cowboy’s 51 lbs.

Cowboy, our English Shepherd.

Wolfey – our German Shepherd.

The chase.

They spend most of every day at each others throat.

A rare occurrence: synchronized sitting, or synchronized obedience.

Thanks, Robert.

Be your own vet – canine hot spots

Our poor English Shepherd, Cowboy, had a case of the hot spots recently.  We thought he got fleas somehow, but upon closer inspection it was a hot spot.  Basically this is a skin irritation from either dry skin, flea bites or an allergy.  I’m guessing dry skin was our culprit based on the time of the year.

The spot was on his hip.  He was biting at it in much the same way as dogs nip at themselves when they have fleas.  It was very quick, tiny bites with his front teeth while keeping the front of his snout buried in his hair.  When I took a closer look, I found that he had slobbered on it quite a bit too. And English Shepherds are not slobbery dogs at all.  He’s not even a licker.  I try to get him to give me a kiss on the cheek once in a while and he just doesn’t.

Pulling the hair away, you’ll find the hot spot.  It looks like red, irritated skin.  I’ve read that they can even bleed and start to smell if they approach the level of an open wound and remain untreated for a period of time.  Luckily we caught this in plenty of time.  Anyone that pays half an ounce of attention to their dog should never let it get to the point where they are bleeding.

First you want to trim some of the hair around the area to help prevent infection, keep it clean and to promote air flow to the area.  I did a lot of reading online, and many just want to use antibiotics for everything.  We don’t.  I believe we would if the situation was serious enough with a risk of infection, but we weren’t to that point yet.  I found a number of remedies after doing some searching online that seemed to work very well.  I tried using witch hazel and also Gold Bond powder.

Witch hazel extract is a cheap anti-itch solution that you could find in any drug store.  It comes in a clear plastic bottle that is shaped like the hydrogen peroxide bottles.  Dab it on the area three or four times daily with a cotton ball until it begins to look better.  If you opt for the Gold Bond powder, just dust it onto the area.  After a few days of treatments, Cowboy cleared right up.

I was planning on writing this article as soon as I diagnosed and started the treatments, but I wanted to make sure I actually succeeded first.  Cowboy has been back to normal for more than a week now.  I checked the spot last night, and it looks like a light scabbing over the area.  He never seems bothered by it anymore. He’s back to living the relaxing life of a normal dog again.

Thanks, Robert.

The running of the dog

Cowboy is still just a puppy at ten months old.  English Shepherds in general are active dogs, so the need to exercise will always exist with Cowboy.  We feel bad that we don’t do this every single day, because that is what he deserves, but we take him out as often as we can.  I should clarify – Courtney takes our son and Cowboy out for a walk everyday.  Cowboy is always on his leash, though.  It is only a few times a week that we go on longer walks in the late afternoon or weekend when Cowboy is able to run free.

Here are a few pictures of Cowboy running free yesterday. We go to a field that is close to our house and must be 40 or 50 acres.   Here he is chasing a rabbit into the thicket.

Chasing something else.  Probably just some sort of bug.

Exploring the brush.  And wouldn’t you know… I just gave him a shower last night!

Popping up to say hello.

So many things to sniff.

Did someone say “Free Salad Bar” or am I hearing things?

Being next to a golf course means we can chase those pesky golf carts on the other side of the fence!

Gotta catch a breather every once in a while.

Maybe even sit down and take a break.

And now back to get a drink of water.

Thanks, Robert.

Our Out of Work Working Dog

It’s true, we have an unemployed working dog.  His name is Cowboy and we think it’s about time you meet him.  It took many tries to get some photos of him because he just doesn’t stay still for very long.  He can sit but completely disregards stay.

52 lbs and showing it off for the camera.

He’s listening for the new puppies we have a few doors down.

So handsome.

He thought picture time was play time.

Cowboy is a 9 month old registered English Shepherd.  Never heard of it, that because he is kinda rare.  His breed is only recognized by the UKC.  Our breeder told us that there are ony about 1200 English Shepherds in the world.  We didn’t know that when sought him out.  We wanted him because of the breeds desirable attributes.  Before kids I went on an extensive library quest for just the right farm dog.  I found several breeds including Border Collie, Australian Shepherd, Lab and German Shepherd that seemed to fit some of the job descriptions but not all of them.  We wanted a dog that could herd cattle, protect chickens, protect children, and relax when needed.  Each of the dogs on our list seemed to be able to do one or two of these task but not all of them.  Then a friend of ours that has a small hobby farm told us about English Shepherds.  She told us they were an old fashioned farm dog.  Perfect, that’s just what I was looking for.  I did a ton of research, gathering every bit of info I could.

The English Shepherd is known for it’s ability to be an all around farm dog who can relax at his owners feet when the work is done.   They can herd cattle but don’t need to do it all day long like typical herding breeds do.  I also read stories about how they have a strong protection instinct and not only can they respect chickens but they can be trained to herd them.  All right, now we’re talking.  Every dog I have ever known has killed a chicken or two.  I thought this was standard for all dogs.  Apparently I was wrong.  Our breeder did tell me that any puppy has the capability to do some bad things so they need to be under supervision with the chickens until they are mature enough to handle the job.  When we did live on a farm Cowboy was just a pup and was too young to meet the cattle and the chickens were in movable pens in the field so he was able to observe them but not mingle with them.  The chores were pretty boring to Cowboy and sometimes in his puppyness he would abandon Robert and head back to the house to hang out with me.  As he has gotten older his attention span has increased and now I think he could reasonably go all day if mentally stimulated.

English Shepherds also are known as a mother’s helper.  And this I can testify to.  Cowboy is my son’s best friend and vice versa.  They play all day long.  My son can get a little rough with Cowboy and Cowboy just lays there and loves the attention.  Even as puppy who liked to mouth anything and everything he somehow understood that Robby was off limits.  While Cowboy loves each of us he seems to be most attached to our son.  When our son leaves and Cowboy doesn’t have the opportunity to go with him he cries at the door until he returns.  The rest of us get a little whimper and then he settles down.

Cowboy is also very intelligent, attentive and craves an opportunity to please us.  He is either underfoot or a whistle away.  I call him the enforcer because he is very attentive to things that are out of order or out of place.  He as no tolerance for people or things that are not following the rules.  He barks at bugs on the ceiling, goes crazy when the newborn puppies a few doors down are in the backyard whimpering, and he makes us stop to check out those tacky Christmas decorations on everyone’s lawn.  He is very high energy and needs a long daily walk and opportunity to run and play fetch off leash.  Even with these things he still has to be chewing a toy or playing with a ball and he loves to dig in the backyard.  We are all at home all day with him and he still finds opportunity to get into trouble.  I can’t imagine if we worked out of the home all day.  This would not be the dog for a busy family with a small yard.  This is the dog for a farm with chores and new smells, and animals and no cars to chase.  We can’t wait until we move to our homestead and neither can Cowboy.  He will truly be in his element and we can’t wait to see him shine.

We will be updating you all on Cowboy’s progress as a fine working dog.  Please feel free to contact us with questions or stories about your English Shepherd.  Until then…