By Alfred Hernandez
Owning horses is one of life’s greatest pleasures. These gorgeous creatures are powerful, elegant, and extremely intelligent. Of course, they also represent a substantial investment of time and money. However, with the right planning, the proper equipment, and a high quality horse fence, you can spend less time on maintenance and more time enjoying your animals.
Designing a Horse Farm
When it comes to owning or stabling horses, it’s best to start with a sound design. Engaging an expert to do horse farm consulting will go far to ensure that your experience will be rewarding and that your horses will have exactly what they need to live long and healthy lives.
A good horse farm consultant will come to your property and assess your needs as well as the lay of the land. He will talk to you about the horses you currently own and those you plan to buy, as well as how they will be trained and used. If you have a business, he will ask about your business goals, whether or not you will have boarders, and the ways in which your property can bring you the most enjoyment.
Once he has this information, he will design a plan for maximum functionality with minimum maintenance. The plan can include the positioning of the house, barn, paddocks, pastures, gates, training areas, and riding areas. Horse farm consulting may also include suggestions about manure management, pasture management, and barn equipment. An expert who has years of experience in horse farm management can literally save you thousands of dollars by avoiding wasted space and poorly planned designs.
Fencing for Horses
Next to the design process, the right horse fencing is key to keeping your property low on the maintenance scale and high on the enjoyment scale. Today, vinyl horse fencing is considered state-of-the-art. A vinyl horse fence has many advantages over other types of fencing, including value and durability. However, not all vinyl horse fencing is created equally. Some sellers, for example, sell shorter posts, have shoddy customer service, or mix other products with your order.
When selecting a horse fence, it’s important to find one that is made from 100 percent virgin vinyl and comes with a lifetime warranty. The best distributors will even offer a second warranty to replace rails or posts that your horses break. The best horse fence comes in two rail sizes: standard 1.5-inch by 5.5-inch that are .090 thickness, and oversized 2-inch by 6-inch that are .110 thickness. The rails should have locking tabs to keep them in place, thus eliminating the need for screws, bolts, and clips.
To determine how much vinyl horse fending you will need, you should be able to simply measure the perimeter of the area to be fenced. Then, for example, you can buy a three-rail system by the lineal foot, which will include all of the rails, posts, and caps you need for the fence.
The right design and the proper horse fence will save you money, make your life easier, and help to ensure that your horses are safe, healthy, and secure.
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Effective Training through Maintaining Your Dog’s Attention
By Alfred Hernandez
Getting your dog’s attention is one of the most important things you can do to accelerate all other training skills. And if, once you’ve got it, you can keep that attention, then you’re really going to make some fast progress. Keeping your dog’s attention is essential in competition work, in the obedience ring for example, but also invaluable in everyday life.
Okay, so we’ve established the advantages, now we need to look at how to attain this goal. It isn’t necessarily going to be easy to keep your dog’s attention, and some breeds are certainly more difficult than others but here are some tips on how to achieve this with most dogs.
Use the sit command and a tasty treat. Your dog must already have learned this command and it must be solid - the dog must understand what is required of him and respond quickly to the command. You can read my article on teaching your dog the sit command if you haven’t already taught him this.
So, give the sit command, asking your dog to sit in heel position, and use his favourite tasty treat to encourage him to look upwards at your face. Praise him when he focuses his attention on you, give him the treat and release him from the sit command. Do this again and again, each time increasing the time where he is looking and concentrating on your face. You want to have his attention, so he is responsive to your next command.
Soon, your dog will automatically look at you when he sits, because he becomes accustomed to being praised and given a treat. As with all training, you can gradually replace the treat with praise, just giving him an occasional treat to maintain his interest. Whenever you are not giving your dog your undivided attention when he is sitting to heel and looking at you, remember to give your release command. He will quickly lose interest if you are busy, and you need to continually reinforce and reward this behaviour.
Once you and your dog are working well with this in a quiet location, you can gradually add other distractions, increasing these in small increments to allow your dog to adjust. Praise him when he gets it right, give the release command and play with your dog - he must know when he has done well, and training should be a happy, pleasurable pursuit for both of you.
The next step is to extend this principle to heeling and other obedience training. Using the same procedure as above, gradually teach your dog that is to his advantage to watch you, to be looking at your for your next command, during all obedience training. The key to this is to build his attention span by tiny increments and praise him when he has done well. Never get frustrated or angry with your dog if he loses attention. This will be detrimental to his training - simply praise him when he gets it right and make sure, at the beginning, that the treat you choose is his absolute favourite. Praise, fun and patience are the three things that will gradually build obedience in any dog.
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The Proper Hygiene for Your Dog
By Jimmie Mcdowell
Washing your dog is important, but not as important as some people think. Healthy dogs actually don’t need to be washed all that often, but humans prefer to bathe them so that they have a more pleasing smell and appearance. Doggie bath time is a good time to spend with the dog, however. Although most of them don’t like to be washed, they will appreciate the contact and attention that they receive from their owners during a bath. It is also a good time to perform some other necessary “dog maintenance” such as cleaning the ears, checking for ticks and fleas, and brushing the teeth. Since many dogs do not like to sit still for any of these activities, it can be a good idea to do them all at once.
Brushing Dogs’ Teeth
Brushing your dogs’ teeth is just good dental hygiene. Most vets recommend that it be done at least twice a week to ensure your dog maintains healthy teeth and gums. If you’ve not been doing this (and, unfortunately, many people don’t) it’s never too late to start. The dog should have its own toothbrush and special toothpaste designed for dogs. Make sure you brush the back teeth in small circles, the same way you would your own, and brush up and down the length of the “pointy” canine teeth. Dog toothpaste is made to have a pleasing taste (for the dog, don’t try it yourself) and this should make the dog willing to let you perform this activity.
Checking for Ticks & Fleas
Ticks are nasty little arachnids (they’re eight-legged creatures like spiders, and therefore are not insects) that will latch onto your dog’s skin and make its blood their meal ticket. They are most common in wooded areas, but your dog should be checked for them regularly because they can carry a number of diseases. The best place to look for these bugs in under the collar or on the dog’s underbelly, buried in the fur. If found they can be removed with tweezers.
Fleas can be found in the same places, under the fur. The presence of fleas can be betrayed by the sight of their droppings on the dog’s coat. They look like flecks of pepper. The fleas themselves look like bits of brown rice. They’re about an eighth of an inch long. They can’t simply be picked off of the dog like ticks can, but finding them will let you know its time to start the dog on a program to control and eliminate the insects.
Cleaning the Ears
Pet supply stores sell special solutions for cleansing a dog’s ears. Dogs can easily get ear mites, small insects which live in the ears and feed of the waxy secretions there. Over time the bodies of these short-lived creatures build up and form a black, dirty substance. Using a cotton swab dipped in a bit of this solution, gently clean the inner ear. It may be difficult to hold the dog still for this procedure, but it doesn’t take long. And the result will be clean ears and the avoidance of potential infection and earaches in the dog.
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