Be sure to sign in my Google's Friends Connect widget- Follow me here

What is Following?following means your friends coming to see what you have posted on your blog and keeping updates on it. THis is real good for your ranking also the more followers you hve the better. As you can see I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT BLOGGERS NEW GAGET THE FOLLOWERS BUTTON and this is to bad for me for as you can see I only have very very few followers and that is because I just found out about the gaget and just placed it on my blog and so I HOPE that being as Im far behind in followers that all MY FRIENDS Who VISIT DOTBLOGGER and who are in my bloglist WILL SIGN UP ON THE FOLLOWERS BUTTON for right now I feel so lonely without any followers in my gaget and I know that is my own fault for not checking up and seeing what new gagets BLOGGER has put up for us.......................................................
Do you have a favorite blog and want to let the author and readers know that you are a fan? Well now you can do that and more with the Blogger Following feature! You can even keep track of the blogs you follow via your Reading List on the Blogger dashboard.

How do I become a Follower of a blog?
There are several ways to become a follower of a blog. One of the easiest ways is to visit a blog that has added the Following widget and click on the "Follow" button under the "Followers" widget:
You'll then see a popup window with the options to either follow publicly or privately:
Select how you'd like to follow the blog, then click the "Follow this blog" button. It is that simple, you are now a follower of the blog! If you elected to follow the blog publicly, your profile picture will be displayed on the blog with a link to your Blogger profile (Note: The widget may not show all followers of the blog. If this is the case all followers will be linked from the widget). When you become a follower of a blog, the blog will also be added to your Reading List on your Blogger dashboard and this site will also show on your FriendConnect profile for all the sites you've joined using Friend Connect. Additionally, you can become a follower of any blog or URL (even if the blog doesn't have the Followers widget) by adding the blog to your Reading List on the dashboard.
FTP Blogs
If you join/follow an FTP blog from your dashboard or the Nav bar, the owner of the blog WON'T be informed that you followed the blog. However, if you join/follow normally (via the gadget) the owner WILL be informed that you followed the blog.
How to remove yourself from following a blog
The easiest way to remove yourself from following a blog is to visit the blog, and click "Settings" under the Following widget on the blog.
You will then see a pop-up window with your profile settings. Click the "Stop following this site" link and you will be removed from following the blog. If the blog doesn't have a Followers widget, you can still stop following the blog. To do so, go to the "Blogs I'm Following" tab under your Reading List on your dashboard.
Then click the blue "Manage" button. You will then see a list of all the blogs that you are following. To stop following a blog, click the "stop following" link next to the blog you want to stop following.
Lastly, following a blog will create a subscription to the blog in your Google Reader account.
What does Blocking a follower do?
When you Block a follower of your blog, the user will no longer appear in the Followers Gadget on your blog and will not see your blog in their Blogger Reading List. However, since your blog is public, the user can still use the other feed readers to subscribe to your blog, read your posts, and comment.
How to grow your audience with Following
The Followers widget is a great tool to help you grow your blog's audience. Readers often visit a blog and enjoy it but fail to return. With the followers widget you can get all readers to return and become a fan. We highly recommend that you write a post about your followers widget and encourage all readers to become a follower. Additionally you should put your followers widget at the top of your sidebar so more readers will notice it. Many readers ignore sidebar items so by writing a post about your followers widget and moving the widget to the top of your sidebar, you will inevitably grow your audience.

Source: bloggers help .....

Useful Home Remedies for Dogs Dry Itchy Skin and Other Skin Ailments

Dog skin problems seldom give rise to emergency situations. If you are regular in your pet care and look for changes in the skin and coat for dog or cat dandruff, canine or feline acne, and skin lumps and lesions, there is every reason to believe that you will have enough time at hand to consult your veterinarian about it.
The skin and coat of a pet is the best indicator of any underlying condition that may be brewing inside your dog’s body. Given that your dog cannot communicate minor discomforts to you, the skin proves to be the best indicator and early warning for problems to come.
It has been observed that itchy skin, paw chewing, constant licking and allergies in dogs have become more common than ever before. Diets, digestive enzymes, dietary supplements and essential fatty acids are used for long term treatment of itchy skin in dogs. There are also some home remedies that you can effectively use for short term treatment:
For hot spots, prepare a mixture by dissolving two aspirin tablets in one tablespoon of rubbing alcohol. Take another cup of warm water and dip a tea bag in it. Mix the two and let it cool. Shave the hair around the hot spot, and apply the mixture with a cotton ball and use as often as required. You can follow it up with a cortisone spray or cream that is available over the counter.
Allergies are the most common cause of itching in dogs. Allergies may be caused by contact with an allergen causing multiple crusty lesions that are extremely itchy. Give your dog a cool bath for ten minutes to relieve itching. You may add colloidal oatmeal in the bath.
For itchy feet, mix Epsom salts in cool water. Dip the dog’s feet in the water for 5-10 minutes, ensuring that he does not drink it.
Ear mites in dogs often cause excessive scratching in areas around the ears. Soak a cotton ball in mineral oil and gently swab the ear canal. This will remove the ear mites but only temporarily.
For insect bites, use water mixed with baking soda to relieve the itch.
Flea collars are not advisable for use over a long period. If your dog tends to catch fleas often, a diet that includes yeast and garlic is an effective way of keeping fleas at bay.
An itchy skin often leads to canine and feline hair loss if the itch is not attended to in time. In addition, itchy skin is almost always a precursor of an underlying or hidden medical condition. Home remedies can, at their best, provide only temporary relief. They can provide comfort to the dog for some time and give you some adequate time to arrange for expert consultation. Source: Tess Thompson

Leash Training for Adult Dogs

Leashes are wonderful things for dogs. Leashes mean getting to go out of the house and yard to all sorts of interesting places. Leashes mean enjoying the outside world, protected from myriad dangers. With a little training, your dog will happily greet the sight of the leash, and walk along on it easily without pulling.

Does this sound too good to be true? There's a trick to it! The hardest part is remembering to use the trick every single time you and your dog use the leash together. Once you form the habit, your dog will too.

It's a good idea to start with treats in the early stages, to develop the ability to bring the dog to your side with a minimum of effort and without stress to either of you. See Attention, Please! for those instructions. If your dog is still a puppy, you'll want to do the foundation training as noted in Leash Training for Puppies. The puppy leash training also applies with a timid dog who is afraid of the leash.

For competition training to heel in formal obedience, it's wise to continue the treats. The sport of obedience requires precise position and movement from the dog, and skillful treat training achieves such precision while keeping the dog happy.

Going for walks is not the same as obedience competition, though. Treats will help make walks into happy experiences for dogs who tend to be fearful, so don't hesitate to continue the treats if they seem to help at all. Observe your dog's body language to make sure the dog enjoys the walks as much as you do.

If you are training your dog for dog sports, you'll need a different word cue for recreational walking. The heel or other competition cue word means precision, and certain other things, depending on the sport involved. It also means full attention.

Walking down the street to exercise and socialize, you'll take your attention off your dog and allow the dog's attention to wander, too. So you need a cue for this walking that doesn't require full attention. It can be any word or phrase you like. You can also teach your dog one word cue for walking on your left and another for walking on your right side!

When the dog pulls on the leash, pressure on the dog can cause damage, no matter what type of collar you use. The constant pressure also reduces the dog's ability to feel your motions with the leash, resulting in the need for excessive pressure to restrain the dog if that should become necessary. This excessive pressure can cause temperament problems in some dogs.

Keeping a loose leash is really simple. All you have to do is react every time the leash goes tight. Don't try to determine when the dog is pulling. Instead, make it black and white by reacting whenever there is tension on the leash.

So here's what you do. Start out for your walk. Make sure your arm holding the leash is comfortably bent, elbow in to your side. Walking along with your arm extended is not a good control position for working a dog. The instant the leash goes tight use one of three options. 1) Stop -- works well for sensitive dogs and young puppies. 2) Back up -- works well for highly trained dogs. You can have the dog come to heel position from left or right directions (vary it), or take backward steps. 3) Quickly straighten your arm to create momentary slack in the leash, and step off abruptly in a new direction, taking a right turn or right-about turn.

With the third option, the dog may feel a slight pop on the leash, but will immediately realize that you made a move and the dog missed it. This doesn't feel unfair or upsetting to the dog, and gives the dog an easy way to prevent it from happening again, by simply paying more attention to your movements. Moving this way gives the dog something to DO, and you employ body language to clearly communicate what you need. You don't have to be athletic, either. Just a few quick steps are enough of a change of direction for even a large dog.

When the dog turns attention to you and moves to get back close to you, praise, praise, praise! And keep moving -- make yourself and your actions unpredictable enough and interesting enough that the dog has to make an effort to keep with you. Continue to generously praise the dog for this effort.

The loose leash needs to be your new habit, for all situations. Never stand there, or walk along, with the leash tight again. The dog will quickly think you WANT it tight if you go back to that habit, even after you've taught the dog to walk on a loose leash. It's so natural for the dog to pull when the leash is tight that most dogs, even trained dogs, will nearly always do it when someone tightens up on the leash. In fact, the dog may HAVE to pull on the leash when the leash is tight, to keep from being off balance.

It's really we humans who cause this problem because by holding the leash tight, we teach dogs that a tight leash is normal. That's why it is so quick to retrain a dog on this. And forever afterward, you'll have an easier dog!

When you get used to this handling, it's very good-natured and happy on your part, and the dog has a great time, too. You'll always need to react to a tight leash with some sort of change in direction for the life of the dog, but it becomes second nature. You won't look foolish to the neighbors, you'll look fantastic.
By Kathy Diamond Davis
Author and Trainer

Expensive Pet Food Brands No Better Than Cheap Pet Food?

When it comes to buying pet food, higher cost doesn’t always mean higher quality, according to the March issue of Consumer Reports. A higher price could indicate better ingredients and better quality control during and after manufacturing, but it could also just mean prettier packaging, more marketing, or a fancy name. And despite food safety concerns that resulted from a recall of pet food tainted with melamine in 2007, Consumer Reports urges caution for consumers who are considering making their own pet food, a growing trend.


Consumer Reports asked eight experts in dog and cat nutrition at seven top veterinary schools what consumers get by spending more for pet food. They were also asked what they served their own pets: Most of the experts said they use a variety of common brands sold at pet stores or supermarkets.

A recent survey by the Associated Press found that although Americans may be spending less on themselves, they’re not scrimping on their pets. According to the survey, just one in seven pet owners said they had curtailed spending on their pet during the past year, even as they cut back on other expenses.

Thirty-seven percent of U.S. households have dogs, and 32 percent have cats. But because of multi-cat households, felines outnumber canines: As of 2007, there were almost 82 million cats and 72 million dogs.

The bottom line, says Consumer Reports: It’s more important to look for the overall nutrient profile of a particular pet food brand than it is to shop by price or even individual ingredients. “As a pet owner, your main goal is to ensure that your animal is active and healthy,” says Jamie Hirsh, associate health editor at Consumer Reports. “That suggests that the food you’re buying is doing its job. But it’s also important to know that you don’t have to choose the most expensive food to get what’s best for your pet. Look for food labeled ‘complete and balanced,’ which indicates it can be the pet’s sole nourishment.”

Hirsh advises pet owners to look for labels stating that the food’s nutritional adequacy was validated by animal-feeding tests based on protocols from the American Association of Feed Control Officials, a regulatory group. That statement is a step above the other one that AAFCO allows — that a food was formulated to meet the group’s nutrient profiles. “In addition, make sure the package has contact information for the food’s manufacturer, in case you have questions,” Hirsh says.

Consumers should also take into consideration the age of their pet and whether he or she has special needs. For example, cats with kidney or urinary problems might benefit from the moisture in wet food, while animals with dental issues might do better with dry food.

What Pet-Food Labels Really Mean

For pet food, there’s no official definition of organic, human-grade, premium, no fillers, or gourmet. Gluten-free foods are generally necessary only for the tiny percentages of pets that are intolerant of that protein. There’s some evidence that antioxidants — such as vitamin E — and some omega-3 fatty acids might enhance pets’ immunity or help protect against certain diseases, but the experts interviewed by Consumer Reports were split on whether consumers need to look for them.

Consumer Reports recommends that consumers educate themselves about pet food labeling, which is mostly defined by AAFCO, which sets standards for pet food manufacturing.

Here are some examples:

– The 95 percent rule (Beef for Dogs). Named ingredient(s) must account
for a least 95 percent of the product by weight.
– Dinner; also Entree, Formula, Nuggets, Platter, Recipe (Chicken and
Salmon Dinner for Cats). The named ingredients must make up at least
25 percent of the product by weight, not counting water. Each
individual food must make up at least 3 percent.
– “With …” (Gourmet Fillets with Turkey for Dogs). Contains 3 percent
or more of the named ingredient.
– Flavor (Beef flavor). No specific percentage required, but the
product must contain enough of the food to impart the claimed flavor,
or another substance that tastes like it (beef stock, for example).
– Guaranteed analysis. Mandatory guarantee that the food contains the
labeled percentages of crude protein, fat, fiber, and moisture.
– Light, lite, low-calorie. Meets AAFCO limits for a reduced-calorie
diet for overweight dogs and cats. “Lean” and “low-fat” have a
similar meaning for fat.
– Natural. Technically, the food has few or no synthetic ingredients.
But the claim is loosely defined.
– Grain-free. Protein in the product comes from nongrain sources
(perhaps for people who want pets to eat more animal protein). It’s
unclear whether there’s any benefit to a diet high in animal protein.

What Consumers Can Do

Consumer Reports offers the following advice to pet owners:
– Be careful when making your own pet food. Most experts said they
hadn’t seen a pet get sick from inexpensive food; however, half said
they had seen pets become ill from eating homemade pet food, a growing
trend since the 2007 recall of some commercial pet food contaminated
by melamine. Dogs and cats each require about 40 different nutrients
in very specific proportions, so pet owners who insist on making their
own pet food should consider enlisting a nutritionist certified by the
American College of Veterinary Nutrition (www.acvn.org) or get help
from the Web sites www.balanceit.com or www.petdiets.com.
– Consider your pet’s age. Age-specific food is very important for
puppies, kittens, and pregnant pets, who have especially stringent
nutritional needs. Foods labeled either “for growth” or “for all life
stages” meet those needs. Foods “for maintenance” are for healthy
adult animals only. “Senior” is a marketing term, not a nutritional
term.
– Weigh the costs and benefits of wet versus dry food. There’s no
nutritional difference between wet and dry pet food, but there is a
cost difference. Wet foods contain about 75 percent water, so pets
need more to get the same calories, and that makes wet food more
expensive per serving.

Author Details
K9 Magazine is a lifestyle magazine for modern, forward thinking dog lovers.

Attention Visitors to Dogcents I need your VOTES

Vote for me at Bloginterviewer. Make this month a Happy one by showing your support and voting for Dogcents at Bloginterviewer. At present Im running behind and I need to catch up with your votes I can make first place and win the prize that will desperately help me in my casue to Save the dogs with the prize I can buy food for these poor dogs who need help. I have asked for donations over and over again but seems no one cares enough to donate a few dollars to help me to in my quest to Save the dogs so Please show your support at least by giving up a few minutes of your time to stop and vote now for this blog so that I may have a chance to win this month so Click on the TEXT Link here FOR ME CLICK HERE http://bloginterviewer.com/animals/dogcents-ruth

Dog Fleas? At Christmas? You’d Better Believe it!

Little bug equals big problem this winter, warns PDSA
Some pet owners might have more guests than they’d bargained for this Christmas as thousands of flea eggs hatch in our homes, warns leading veterinary charity, PDSA.
The charity for pets in need of vets is warning owners that they, and their four-legged friends, could be set for a winter of stressful scratching thanks to their unwanted visitors.
PDSA statistics* show that there is a 20 per cent drop in the sale of flea treatments during the winter months. Vets believe this is because many owners simply do not realise that fleas are just as rampant in the winter as the summer months.
“It might be cold outside,” says PDSA Senior Veterinary Surgeon, Sean Wensley, “but our warm houses provide the perfect breeding ground for fleas. People turn up the central heating to keep their homes warm, but this means that fleas are able to thrive”
“Pet owners should take effective steps to rid their pets, and their homes, of these parasites by carrying out a regular flea treatment programme,” added Sean.
Fleas can lay thousands of eggs all around our homes – wherever your pet goes the fleas go too! PDSA estimates that some pet owning households could contain around 20,000 flea eggs at any one time, many of which will develop into adult fleas within a matter of weeks - feeding off both owner and pet.
Sean said: “A population of just one hundred fleas can increase to over ten thousand fleas within the space of just six months because of the rapid rate at which they reproduce.
Flea eggs fall off your pet wherever it goes, in particular where they sleep. So if your pet snoozes with you at night, your bed could be infested with hundreds of flea eggs.
With around 14 million cats and dogs in the UK today, most at some point in their lives will be affected by fleas.
“It is vital that owners regularly use appropriate flea treatments in the correct manner” adds Sean. “Using a dog flea treatment on a cat can result in fatal poisoning, as can exceeding the recommended dosage, so always consult your vet for advice on the best flea treatment to use. PDSA vets regularly see pets that have been treated incorrectly with flea treatments, some of whom, sadly, do not survive.”
“Remember too that treating your pet is only part of the solution as you will have to treat your home and any other pets within your household too. Everything the dog or cat comes into contact with should be treated with a product recommended by your vet, otherwise it is inevitable that the fleas will come back.”
Fleas can cause very serious health problems. They are one of the most common causes of distressing skin problems in dogs and cats and in severe cases smaller animals, particularly kittens, can die from anaemia due to blood loss from the feeding fleas.
To encourage owners to treat their pets over the winter period, PDSA, in conjunction with Pfizer Animal Health, is offering its eligible clients a special ‘buy one get one flea’ promotion. For the next six months**, with every three flea treatments they purchase at their local PDSA PetAid hospital, clients will get a fourth treatment absolutely free***! For more information clients should contact their local PDSA PetAid hospitals or call freephone 0800 917 2509.
Did you know?
· Fleas thrive in a warm environment
· Fleas can jump 20cm high, over a metre long and will jump around 10,000 times when looking for a dog or cat host.
· Fleas can feed for up to three hours from one site, and can drink up to 140% of their own body weight in blood.
· Eggs, larvae and pupae can also be carried around the house on the soles of our shoes.
* In 2007, 78,795 flea products were sold in PDSA PetAid hospitals during summer months, compared to 64,213 in the winter.
Source: Dog Magazine

Home Remedies for Arthritis in Dogs

Dogs that suffer from arthritis are going to need the help of a veterinarian. Not only that the condition can be very painful for them – it can also restrict your pets from living their normal live. Whenever dog arthritis strikes, it is a must that you try to alleviate the pain associated with it with the use of the right medicines.

Exercise is very important for dogs with arthritis. While exercise forces your dog to move and possibly worsen the condition of the cartilage, it does them good in such a way that regular movements triggers the release of a lubricating fluid for the joints. These fluids can help greatly in the joint’s regular movements.

There are many things a dog owner can do to help relieve the arthritis pain of his pets. While cure and remedies play a very important role, there is little you can do to fully treat the disease. The only solution to dog arthritis is the proper management of the disease. Try to keep the symptoms of the disease show far and in between.

Let the veterinarian assess the current condition of your dog. There are several over-the-counter medications for dog arthritis that needs to be administered to your pet in order to achieve immediate relief. There are also natural cures and medicines that you can adapt to keep your dog in the pink of health at all times.

However, prevention is always better than cure. Safeguarding your pet’s health is still the best way to fight dog arthritis and other similar diseases. Older dogs need all the attention they need. Dogs have a regular lifespan of 15 years. And so if your pet is 10 years old and above, it is at a high risk of arthritis. As its owner, you should know the things you have to do to ensure that the disease and the pain would occur as rarely as possible. Surce: The Web