Westie Terrier Blog

What’s the quality of your dog’s life?

If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably say its great. But is it really?

My dog, Willow, gets walked for at least two hours every day. She gets good meals delivered on time. She has a comfortable bed to sleep on, and I take her with me when I go out whenever possible. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? In fact, I think she’s really one of the most fortunate dogs around. And yet… sometimes I wonder.

Here’s why. Our dogs provide us with companionship, love and stimulation. If we walk them as we should they also get us out of the house and give us an opportunity to exercise. All good stuff, for sure, but there’s another aspect to the relationship, and its this: no matter how good our dogs have it, they are still our prisoners.

If we don’t walk them they don’t get out. Dogs have traded freedom for security, and it isn’t always a fair trade.

Today is a rainy day in Courtenay. We had a good walk in the park this morning, checked out the Salmon spawning in the river, sniffed the tracks where the bear walked through last night, said hello to her dog friends along the way. Right now, she’s curled up on the chair next to mine, sleeping while I work on the computer. She won’t get out again until I take her.

From a dog’s point of view, most of its time is down-time, waiting for its master to do something with it. This is exactly the life a convict leads, mostly just waiting until exercise period, except that dogs can’t read or pursue a hobby to keep their minds alive while they wait.

I’m not trying to pick on anybody here, and I’m not holding myself up as any kind of paragon. I don’t know what the answer is to the quality of life question, but I do think its important that we ask it of ourselves from time to time.

Ideally, our dogs would be partners, not just pets. Every dog would have a fulfilling job to do, one that challenged its mind and gave it lots of exercise. Unfortunately, except for a few working dogs, they are simply our pets and our prisoners.

I don’t know how to move from one state to the other, especially with all the restrictions that modern life places on us, but I can’t stop thinking about it either. What do you think about this? Leave a comment below if you have any thoughts or suggestions. We’d love to hear from you.

Dogs will chew almost anything, and they’ll often swallow it as well. Organic stuff usually gets converted into stuff we need a bag to pick up, but plastic and rubber can be problematic. Things that aren’t broken down by the dogs digestion often just sit in their guts and block anything else from getting by. This post from poochdogs.com illustrates this perfectly.

This is a real problem with the large terrier breeds like the Staffordshire Terrier, but Westies can find themselves in trouble as well.

Dog Swallows 5 Toy Cats!
Written by Dogguru on 17 November 2010

When Snowy, a West Highland terrier from Cambridgeshire, couldn’t keep her food down for two weeks, her owners sensibly took her for a check-up at the Cromwell Veterinary Group. Imagine their surprise when the routine x-ray came back looking like this!

Yes, that is exactly what it looks like; Snowy had swallowed a family of 5 toy cats, the biggest of which was 2 inches tall! The other 4 cats were about an inch long as well, which means they would take up quite a lot of room inside any dog, let alone a little West Highland terrier – a breed that rarely grow to taller than 11 inches themselves!

After the operation to remove the cats, associate vet Carol Barker reported that Snowy had made a good recovery and was much happier. Although we don’t know how Snowy managed to find or swallow the toys, this is a clear reminder to all owners to keep easily-swallowed things out of reach of toys. Especially if they look like lunch!

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With so many flea treatments to use from it is often difficult to differentiate one from another.  Why then would you choose to use Advantage Multi for dogs or indeed Advantage Multi for cats?   Well the clue lies in the name “multi”.  This is not just any ordinary flea medicine.  Instead of just concentrating on external parasites this product also tackles a range of internal ones too.

The product is used in the same way for both canine and feline pets.  You apply the liquid supplied onto the skin of the animal.  Ideally this is done between the shoulder blades (for dogs) and at the base of the neck (for cats).  This allows the active ingredients to penetrate the skin and spread even around the body quickly.  Large dogs may need to have the liquid applied in two or three extra spots along the spine to the base of the tail to speed this process up.

As you would expect since this product is closely based on the original Advantage flea medicine, it deals with fleas very quickly and very effectively.  Adult fleas (the ones that do all the biting) are stopped within minutes, and around 12 hours after application there should be no more left.  Additionally larval stage fleas and their eggs are stopped from developing further so future populations of fleas are also wiped out.

So far so good, but why choose Multi over ordinary Advantage?  The reason is simple, heartworms.  These internal parasites are passed from infected mosquitoes to our pets.  Although unproblematic in their tiny larval stage, as they grow they congregate around the organs to breed, doing untold damage to an animal’s health, and even proving fatal in some instances.  Once adults have developed remedying the situation is costly and dangerous for dogs, and virtually impossible for cats.

Using Advantage Multi for your pets is a simple way to prevent the problem as it contains an ingredient able to safely destroy all larval stage heartworms present in the system before they become problematic.  Used monthly you continue to ensure that not only is your pet free from fleas, but also that they are not at risk of heartworm disease.