We all like dogs to look nice, and even the dogs might enjoy looking nice as well.

Dog’s fur needs to be brushed to be kept nice, especially if he has long fur like my dog Chloe. Sometimes I wonder how she can get her fur so messy! The day after I’ve brushed her she looks like it has never been done before. So brushing is very important.

The dog brush you choose has to be one that can handle the dog’s fur. If your dog has long or thick fur he will need a hard bristles that are very close together which are more like pieces of wire.

Short haired dogs only need soft brushes otherwise the hard wire bristles may hurt them when getting brushed.

You can search around you local pet shop or department store for the right brushes and shampoos for your dog,

All the best,

Rachel and the Dogs

All dogs should be taught the basic four lessons in obedience. ‘Sit, Down, Wait, Come’ is an exercise where the dog can learn all four and practice them one after the other. These tricks will let you teach other tricks that are more advanced which include these tricks in most of them.

You will need food that your dog likes, an open area, and no other distractions.

Sit

Get your dogs attention and give him a few treats so he knows you have them. Hold them firm in your hand and lift it above his head out of his reach. This should tilt him backwards in to a sitting position. Command ‘Sit’ and reward him

Continue this exercise and gradually stop the hand movement so he can do it on verbal command.

Down/Drop

The next step is ‘Down’ or ‘Drop’. With your dog sitting, or standing in front of you, hold the treats firm in your hand and lower it to the ground, keeping the treats near his nose. 

From a sitting position, he should go into a down, but in a standing position he might go into a ‘Bow’ position. Don’t reward him until he is in a proper down position. You may have to push on his back. Command ‘Drop’ or ‘Down’ and reward.

Practice this and he will soon get it.

Wait

‘Wait’ is a very important part of obedience. Getting your dog to wait allows you to have a bit of peace when sitting somewhere that your dog likes to follow you to, or when hanging the washing out. He will sit or lay down somewhere and won’t move until you release him.

Sit or lay your dog down in front of you and fold the food in view but not so he can get to it. Command ‘Wait’ and make your dog be still for only a few seconds, and then reward. 

Repeat several times so that he understands what you want him to do. Once this is successful, walk a few steps backwards once you have commanded ‘Wait’. This may take longer than tricks, but it is very important to teach.

Progress this trick so your dog will wait anywhere, any distance.

Come

‘Come’ is a very easy tricks to teach your dog. Show your dog you have food and throw a piece away to him. Once he has found it, call his name and he should come back to you, wanting more food. Reward and repeat.

This time, command your dog to ‘Wait’ and then take a few steps backwards and call his name. If he doesn’t come, try again or click your fingers. Reward and Repeat. The next time you do this, add in the command ‘Come’ after calling his name. Practice as much as you can, even out in the yard. Command ‘Come’ randomly when playing.

Now that your dog knows all of these tricks, you can try the ‘Sit, Down, Wait, Come’ exercise. First command your dog to ‘Sit’, then to lay ‘Down’ or ‘Drop’ command ‘Wait and take a few steps backwards, and then ‘Come’. An easy way to get your dog to practise the Basic Training.

All the best,

Rachel and the Dogs

P.S. Need To Fix Your Dog’s Bad Habits Today? Discover the insider secrets professional dog trainers use to fix problem dogs quickly.

This essential guide gives you the inside scoop on training your dog and could literally save your sanity. Want a well behaved, happy, contented pet? Get your copy today.

Puppy training should start from the very first day you bring your new puppy home. What you decide to teach her in these first few important months of her life will shape the rest of her life, so it is important that you don’t neglect these early steps in her training.

The first thing your new puppy should learn is crate training. What’s a crate? Puppy crates are merely another name for a travel cage made of plastic or wire, that you use to transport your puppy with you in the car or anywhere else when travelling. They are an ideal first home and sleeping area for her to use when she is living inside your home.

Puppies have a natural tendency to want to curl up in a nice, small, quiet place…somewhere they feel comfortable. A crate is the perfect place for her to use as a safe place to hide and sleep.

Confining her to her crate will help develop bladder and bowel control, because she will want to try to keep her bed clean and not soil the area where she lives. She will rather wander off somewhere else to go to the toilet if she can, so every few hours you must let her out to do this or you will have accidents that your are better off avoiding

Her crate will also be a good place for her to hide if she is sick or tired, and you should encourage her to use it whenever you can so she feels safe and comfortable inside.

Introducing Your Puppy To Her Crate

At first, she will need some encouragement to venture inside her new crate, so leave the door open and toss a food treat inside, letting her enter and exit as she likes.

As you do this, tell her “Into bed” or something else that you feel comfortable with. Encourage her to look around inside her crate and let her walk in and out as often as she likes so that she gets comfortable with it.

After a couple of days of offering treats in her crate, move on to placing her meals inside so that she has to enter to eat. This will make her enjoy being un her crate, because she will associate it with nice things, like food and shelter.

Once your puppy is happy to be inside her little retreat, revert to feeding her outside, and offer occasional treats only inside her crate. As you do, continue to say to her each time “Into bed” so that she learns to understand that this means “Go into your crate”.

Now you should be able to start locking her in for short periods of time to get her used to the idea of being confined. If she carries on, barks and struggles, do not let her out! Just try to calm her by saying “No, be quiet” or leave her alone in the room until she settles down again.

Once she is quiet, let her out and pat her enthusiastically. If you let her out before she calms down, you will be teaching her that all she has to do to be released is to carry on like a lunatic and she will be set free.

Is this what you want? No I thought not.

So, only release her from her crate when she is calm and happy and you will have a much easier time controlling her tantrums and will make life much more pleasant for everyone in your household.

The best place for her crate when she is little is in your bedroom near your bed. If she knows you are near she will feel safe at night, plus if she has to get up and relieve herself, you will hear her scratching at her crate door trying to get out.

She will not want to soil her home, so she will do everything in her power to let you know that she needs to go outside. If she has an accident, then it’s probably your fault, not hers…

House Training Your Puppy

The best way to teach your puppy that you want her to relieve herself outside the house si to take her out there, wait until she does what you want her to do, and then make a fuss over her when she does it. She simply has no idea of the difference between the inside of your home and the outside unless you teach her.

One of the worst things you can do is to let her relieve herself on a newspaper inside when you first bring her home. By doing this, you are encouraging her to do this inside your warm, cosy home rather than outside where she should be doing it. Don’t fall into this trap or you will have a hard time re-education her once she has established a routine.

When you are waiting with her outside, try to encourage her to relieve herself and when she does, praise her and tell her she is a good dog. Then take her inside again.

Don’t get frustrated and come inside prematurely, because you will probably find that she will go on the living room floor as soon as you turn your back. Be patient, and after only a couple of weeks, she will have the idea of where she has to go and your problems in this area will be over.

One last thing. It is not a good idea to punish your puppy for relieving herself in the wrong place (by your standards, anyway) by scolding her or rubbing her noise in her mess. This will teach her that relieving herself is wrong, not that the place she did it is wrong.

She may start sneaking off and doing it in places like under your bed or in the washing basket while you are not looking…as annoying as it is, try to remain calm and simply follow the routine of taking her outside, waiting for her to relieve herself, praising her and then bringing her back inside.

German shepherds are very intelligent and your puppy will learn what you are teaching her quickly. Have patience and you will have a win in a very short period of time.

Try not to let your puppy roam freely around the entire house - she may find something too interesting to miss somewhere and forget to go outside, resulting in you finding unpleasant packages in places you’d rather not find them…

Close doors around your home so that she stays where you can see her, and she will usually let you know \when she wants to go outside.

House Rules

Puppy training should include helping her understand the house rules of your home. It’s one thing to have her sitting on your lap on the couch when she’s 8 weeks old, but quite another when she is 18 months old and weighs 50 pounds.

You have to lay down the law right from the start and train her in what not to do when inside your home. This included things like scolding her for chewing on things that don’t belong to her, when she jumps up on visitors, stay off the lounge chairs and not to pull the washing off the clothes line…

You have to be very specific when you are teaching her what si right and wrong. For example, if she picks up one of your children’s toys, take it off her saying, “No, this is not your toy”, and give her one her own, saying “This is your toy”.

In this way she will learn what she can and can’t play with. You have to remember, she will learn by repetition, so by re-enforcing these messages and showing her what she can and can’t do, she will quickly understand what is acceptable behaviour.

Puppy training can be time consuming in the early stages, but persisting with it will indeed be a worthwhile use of your time.

Your new German shepherd puppy will give you years of pleasure if she knows the boundaries and understands what constitutes acceptable behaviour.

We hope that this introduction to puppy training has helped you understand the basics of what is involved.

All the best,

Rachel and the Dogs

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We all love having a home, and dogs are no different. Dog houses come in all shapes and sizes from the basic cardboard box to an elaborate kennel fit for a King (well a dog King, anyway).

Your dog will find refuge in her home when she feels like being alone, gets scared by something, or simply wants to go to sleep. Dog houses are a great investment if you want peace of mind knowing that when she is inside she is safe and happy.

Some dogs will be wary of a new home at first, so you may have to offer her food or a treat initially to encourage her to venture inside for a look, but once she is comfortable to it, you’ll probably find that she will spend a lot of time resting and relaxing in her new accommodation

She may be a even more comfortable if you were to put her favourite toy, a blanket in there.

Happy browsing,

Best wishes,

Rachel and the Dogs

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If your dog spends all or some of her time inside your home, then one of the many dog doors currently available will make your life a whole lot easier.

Her own door will allow her to come and go as she pleases, without letting every bug, bird or other creature in the entire neighbourhood flock into your home whenever they feel like it. 

They can be adapted to fit just about any doorway and can usually be installed with a few tools by anyone with a basic level of mechanical ability.

There are many different types of door available. If you are searching for the right dog door for your dog, you will need one that will be big enough for your dog once he is full grown.

The style and configuration of your home will determine to a large extent what type of door will suit you. Browse through the various styles and choose the one most appropriate for your lifestyle and needs.

We hope you find the right door for your needs. If you can’t find what you are looking for, please let us know and we will see if we can help.

Happy door hunting,

Best wishes,

Rachel and the Dogs

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A dog training collar can often be a good idea if your German shepherd tends to bark more than you would like. 

Some owners find that their dogs can bark a lot, often at the worst times, like at three o’clock in the morning when you have a big day ahead of you.

A simple bark collar is probably your best choice if this is your situation.

Your neighbours will thank you as well…

A dog training collar is simple and easy to use, whether its an electronic training collar to stop her straying too far from your property or a simple bark collar. 

We bought an electronic bark control collar for Chloe, put it on after reading the instructions, and it worked like a treat.

There are of course many other types of dog training collars available. 

They range from the basic barking dog collar to hunting and sporting collars and everything in between. There are also Electronic dog collars which incorporate a containment device that acts like an invisible fence, keeping your dog safe and within the boundaries of your property.

 Some people have asked me if using a dog training or bark collar is safe and humane.

The small electric shock that Chloe receives when she barks is quite harmless, it just serves to tell her ‘NO’, that’s not the behaviour we want. 

I have seen tests that show that a dog training collar set on a low level gives a similar sensation to when you rub your feet on a nylon carpet and give yourself a static electricity shock when you touch something else in the room. Not painful, but it gives you a slight jolt and tingles a little.

Chloe still has an occasional bark, which is fine (she is a dog, after all), but now she doesn’t stand at the fence going nuts as the garbage man empties the bin at the bottom of the driveway

Definitely a worthwhile investment if your dog wants to bark at everything she sees or keeps you awake at night.

We hope you find just the right dog training collar here to suit your needs,

Kind regards,

Rachel and the Dogs

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Choosing a German Shepherd Dog Breeder can prove to be a bit of a lottery if you don’t know what to look out for. There are a lot of backyard breeders around with the sole motivation of making a quick buck.

These guys do tremendous harm to all breeds, with German shepherds being one of their Favourites due to their growing popularity, because in many cases breed dogs that have congenital defects and behavioural problems, creating dogs that should never have been born and damaging the breed.

We bought Chloe from a friend who has been a German shepherd dog breeder for many years. I was still getting over the loss of my last dog, Tara. She was only a shepherd cross, but her devotion and temperament made her a wonderful companion and we had spent many happy hours together.

Her loss really shook me, and I wasn’t really ready to have another dog in my life, until I met Chloe.

She was the last of the litter, and when we saw her we just fell in love. You can probably see why…she is proving to be every bit as wonderful as Tara was…a true companion.

When you start your search for your new German shepherd, remember that most good dog breeders rarely if ever advertise in Newspapers, because they will generally have a waiting list of buyers for their puppies and they tend to sell mainly by word of mouth to previous buyers or their friends.

A good German shepherd dog breeder know that their puppies will be highly sort after and that they will never have any trouble finding willing buyers for them. They can also charge a premium price because their puppies are in such demand.

If you do see an ad in a Newspaper for shepherd puppies, always be very careful about terms like ‘Champion Pedigree’ or “With Papers’, as these don’t necessarily mean that the dog advertised will be a Champion in it’s own right.

It may only have had a ‘Champion’ ancestor ten generations ago and having ‘papers’ really only means that both her parents were registered somewhere in a kennel registry…it doesn’t mean that she is a pure bred German shepherd champion who will bring home trophies wherever she goes.

A Good Breeder Will Offer A Money Back Guarantee

A good breeder will always give you a money back guarantee on any puppy you buy, no matter what the circumstances for you no longer being able to keep your dog.

If for some reason you cannot take care of her any longer, any breeder worth their salt will take the dog back and find a new home for her - the dogs’ interests are always paramount in their minds, never merely the potential for making a profit.

A good breeder will also check you out thoroughly by asking you questions like where you live, the size of your property, have you had a German shepherd before, are you aware of the responsibilities of owning a dog the size of a shepherd and the amount of exercise and training she will need.

If you can’t answer these questions in a manner that shows the breeder that you can take care of your new dog, they may be reluctant to let you take one of their puppies home with you.

It is very rare to find a breeder of quality German shepherds who will sell their puppies to a per store…why would they? They should have a continuing demand from people looking for a quality dog, so why pay a middle man when you don’t have to?

As mentioned earlier, you might have to wait a while to take your puppy home, because most good breeders will have a waiting list, and you probably won’t be able to jump the cue to get your puppy first - everybody else will be trying to do the same thing. Be prepared to wait if you want a good quality dog…

A good German shepherd dog breeder will have their dogs tested for common problems such as hip dysplasia and eye problems. They will usually offer a guarantee that if these problems occur in the dog you buy, they will refund your money or replace the puppy with another one.

Sometimes there is a time limit on this but everything is negotiable.

Do They Specialize In German Shepherds?

A good shepherd breeder will usually only breed one or at the most two types of dog.

They are typically fanatical about their German shepherds and often show them, work with them in events such as Schutzhund, or enter them into agility or obedience events.

If they breed more than two different types of dogs, then they are probably just in the Business of producing puppies - their main focus is not maintaining and bettering the breed. These are usually not the type of breeders you want to buy your puppy from.

A good breeder will be happy for you to see the puppies parents and will never let them leave home before at least 8 weeks of age, preferably 9 or 10 weeks.

These people love their�dogs and take care of them like pets rather than as just a Business investment - you will be able to tell when you visit the kennels what type of atmosphere the dogs live in, and this will give you a good idea of what sort of breeders they are.

Always Talk To Previous Clients

Ask the breeder if you can talk with previous buyers of their puppies so that you can get unbiased feedback from people who have already purchased from them. If the breeder is unwilling to give you the names of some satisfied customers, maybe he doesn’t have any…be careful.

Of course, there are privacy issues here, so maybe you could ask the breeder to call some previous buyers for you rather than give you their phone number, but either way, try to talk to a couple of people who have had experience with this breeder’s German shepherds. It may just save you problems in the future.

The breeders kennels should be clean and tidy, and there should be ample room for the parents and puppies to play and live comfortably.

A Couple Of Final Questions…

Do you like the overall attitude of the breeder? Is he friendly, co-operative and helpful, or does he avoid your questions and try to pressure you into buying when you aren’t ready?

Do they raise their puppies indoors and do they tend to them at all hours of the day and night? They should.

Are all the dogs on his property well trained and friendly? Aggressive dogs are a warning signal that puppies may turn out to be the same. Check it out.

Also, a good breeder will not sell more than one dog at a time to anyone who is not familiar with German shepherds and their care. A backyard operator will sell you ten if he can to get rid of them so that he can start breeding the next litter. Buying in bulk for a discount does not apply when buying a dog.

German Shepherds Aren’t For Everybody…

In closing, remember that buying any pet, especially a dog is going to require a commitment of time and money from you and your family. A dog is a living, breathing creature that is totally dependent on you for it’s every need. She is going to take up a lot of your time, so you will have to be prepared for that and make allowances in your daily routine for play, training and exercise.

She will give you years of pleasure and enjoyment if you treat her as part of your family. If you aren’t prepared to put in the time and love your new German shepherd like the other members of your family, then buy yourself a pet rock instead!

Wait until you are really ready to own a dog before you take the plunge - you will both be much happier.

I hope this introduction to choosing a German shepherd dog breeder has helped by giving you some tips on what to watch out for and questions to ask before you buy a German shepherd.

We hope you have a wonderful time buying, training and loving your puppy and new family member.

All the best,

Rachel and the Dogs

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Dogs love toys. They love chewing and tupping and fetching, and getting alot of attention from their owners.

But when you don’t have any time to spend with you dog, they will need something to keep them occupied. Dog toys are great for that.

The kind of toy you get must suit your dog. If she is a small breed you will need a toy she can easily hold onto,whereas large breeds need toys that are strong enough to cope with large jaws.

Good luck with your toy hunting!

All the best,

Rachel and the Dogs

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