Tag: puppy

Why your dog’s haircut costs more than yours

A new season can bring new challenges to your dog’s grooming routine. It’s tempting to groom your dog less often when faced with various tests. One of the most important challenges is money. In today’s time, especially after the deadly pandemic, many are facing financial issues. We have even been questioning the groomers about the costs of grooming.

Let me share a light hearted, yet logical post today about why our dog’s haircut or grooming costs more than our own haircut.

It is very important to meet a dog’s needs and requirements, a part of which is grooming. Many have opted to groom their dogs at home. But once in a while, it is advisable to groom your dog with a professional. Just like how once in a while or periodically we get our houses or offices or cars deep cleaned, the same way we need to groom our dogs by professionals.

So why does it costs more than our haircuts? Allow me to break this down for you:

  • Our hairdresser doesn’t clean our rear-end. Funny isn’t it? But it’s true. Grooming doesn’t involve just bathing our dogs or cutting their hair. The groomers go beyond that to keep our dogs clean and give value to the money.
  • We don’t go weeks without taking a shower or washing or hair……….hahahaha! Yes, due to some circumstances, we don’t or cannot give our dogs a bath at regular intervals. That’s the time when we need a professional groomer who makes sure that our dogs shine like stars after a grooming session.
  • Our barber doesn’t remove boogies from our eyes. True that! As mentioned before, groomers go beyond their job to clean our dogs.
  • We don’t bite or scratch our barbers (even if the haircut is bad, we will sulk in the corner but not bite themJ). But when it comes to dogs, a new and strange time full of noises and equipment, those dogs that haven’t visited professional groomers before may not be familiar with these surroundings, resulting in anxious behaviour.
  • Our haircuts don’t include manicure and pedicure (unless we pay extra). Our dogs grooming is inclusive of everything and more.
  • We sit still for our hairdresser. But do dogs ever understand the concept of staying still? Hard pill to swallow. Keeping a dog calm and comfortable during a professional grooming session is extremely important for achieving a safe and accurate cut. And the groomers are skilled in that.
  • Our hairdresser only washes and cuts our hair on the head. We pay extra for everything else. However, a professional grooming session for dogs (as mentioned before) includes every basic procedure.
  • And most importantly, the likelihood of us peeing or pooping on our hairdresser is pretty slim. I will leave this right here……………hahahahaha!

A professional groomer does every part of the routine, they are experienced and educated, they have the correct equipments and know exactly how to use them, they can recognize changes in our dog’s health, and they know how to work with our dogs and control their behaviour.

Although home grooming may sometimes seem like a more accessible and affordable option, many benefits come from taking your dog to the groomers that can’t be replicated at home. Visiting a professional groomer from time to time is not only a great way to care for your dog’s coat, but it is vital to their health and wellbeing too.  Visiting a professional groomer shouldn’t be seen as a last resort but rather an essential step in caring for our dogs.

Do you have a pet dog?

If you have a dog, chances are you will have a healthy heart, and mostly likely live longer. Medically speaking, a dog at home means better cardiovascular health, especially for heart attack and stroke survivors who live alone. Prior studies have shown that dog ownership alleviates social isolation, improves physical activity and even lowers blood pressure.

Keeping a dog is a good motivation for physical activity. Let’s talk about personal experience. My dogs have helped me stay away from depression, and losing and maintaining a healthy weight. I am physically very active in the form of walking my dogs, getting up to fill their water bowls, tending to them when they are ill, cleaning the house when they dirty it, feeding them, etc. My dogs help me in not living a sedentary life. I am on the move most of the time even at home.

Above were some of the physical advantages of having a dog. However, my dogs have helped me in more ways than many in keeping me sane. I never feel lonely. I have a motive to live, and that is to give my dog the best and healthy life. I never think of suicide. I don’t constantly require human company, as my dogs are always around. My dogs also encouraged me to start this blog and share my experiences.

But the worse part about having a dog is – saying “Goodbye”. Ever since Casper crossed the rainbow bridge, I have never been able to fully recover. Dogs have a magic effect on us, which doesn’t vanish even after they are gone.

One of the reasons for these therapeutic effects is that dogs fulfill the basic human need for touch. It has been found that touch calms our nervous center and slows down our heartbeat. Touch also lowers blood pressure as well as cortisol, our stress hormone. It also triggers the release of oxytocin, a hormone known for promoting emotional bonding to others. So now you get it, dogs are clingy. They don’t even leave you alone to the bathroom – ha ha ha ha ha!

Every dog should have a home. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not saying every home can have a dog. There are a lot of factor to be considered before getting a dog home like money, size of the house, number of members at home, city you live in, etc. And having a dog does not mean a piece of cake. It’s a huge responsibility. But once you have a dog, then there is no looking back. Your life changes for the better.

Let me share another benefit of having a dog. My dog’s Instagram account has more followers than my personal account. Also, many a times when I walk my dog, I have had many people approach me to pet my dog and just start a random chat with me. Not that it is safe to talk to strangers each time, but I have made many genuine friends only because of my dogs. Socializing at its best!

Let’s talk from astrology point of view (though I do not believe in astrology). It is considered lucky even in astrology to have a dog at home. People who are superstitious and believe in astrology have even told me that, “something evil was going to happen to me which Casper absorbed instead and died”. Once again, I do not believe in all this, my dog was ill and passed away; that was the actual case. In India, in many religions when food is being cooked at home, the first chapatti is given to dogs.

Whatever the reasons may be, my dogs have bought a lot of positivity into my life. I am extremely lucky to share a part of my life with Casper and Junior. They came into my life out of nowhere, when I was not even prepared to own a dog. But now, my life revolves around them. Has I not owned any dogs, I would have missed out on the best parts of my living. I am thankful and grateful for this beautiful experience.

I Love You

I was kissing Junior yesterday, when a thought just popped into my head – does he understand what a kiss means? Does he know that I love him? While I was engrossed in my thoughts, Junior put his soft paws on my lap asking for another kiss. I perceived; he does understand that a kiss is the gesture to show my love to him.

Over the time, dogs tend to love human kisses and are quick to respond positively to them. Yes, your dogs know how much you love them. While we express our love to them in the form of Hugs, Kisses or saying I Love You. They show their love by giving long eye contact, wagging their tail, or bringing their favourite toy to you.

It’s not only humans who like to hear these 3 beautiful words “I Love You”, but even dogs like hearing it. Each time I leave the house, I tell Junior I Love You. I see him playing, I tell him again. I come out of the washroom and see him outside the door, I tell him. I have lost count of how many times I tell Junior I Love him in a day.

Your dog’s eyes do much of their talking. You can communicate back to them using the same language of eye contact. When a dog gives you long, lingering eye contact, it’s a way of saying “I love you.” A recent study shows that oxytocin, the ‘love chemical,’ goes up in both dogs and humans when they share a kind gaze.

Junior loves sleeping next to me. He will never sleep alone. If it’s his bedtime and I am still sitting on the couch, he will hop on the couch and sleep on my lap. That’s his way of reciprocating his love. I have tried giving him his own bed in the past, but he refuses to sleep on it. In the day time, he will relax a bit on his bed, but when he actually wants to sleep, he wants me by his side. Isn’t this a wonderful feeling!

Technically, Junior is my tail and I am his shadow. Most of the times, I don’t even have to tell him I Love You to express my love. He just knows.

Learning to say, “I Love You” to your dog is a simple matter of getting to know both your dog’s individual body language as well as those comforts of pack life that your dog’s animal brain still craves. As a bonus, all or any type of love languages benefits your sense of well-being, too.

The bond between owner and pet is like no other—they’re our companions, always along for the ride no matter what ups and downs life brings. They show us joy and make us laugh, and even listen to us like they know exactly what we’re saying. 

“Nobody can fully understand the meaning of love unless he’s owned a dog. A dog can show you more honest affection with a flick of his tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes.” – Gene Hill, author of A Hunter’s Fireside Book and Hill Country

From A Dog’s Perspective

Presenting a Dog’s guide to save a human. Every once in a while; we need some humour in our life to keep functioning in a healthy manner. So here’s a comic post to brighten up your day.

From a Dog’s point of view:

With the evolution of time, and the stressful periods increasing on Earth, humans are becoming more like machines and following a sedentary life. It is our (dogs) responsibility to walk them so that they stop chasing material things all the time and live a healthy life.

Human beings need to be walked. Or else they sink into their couches and will soon become a potato. It is our job to save them. Let’s get the facts right,   walking isn’t only fun, it’s healthy. Humans are naive, they are obsessed with collars and leashes. They don’t understand, that if we starting running free, then they will run behind us and reach their health goals in no time.

Alright, the leash is important. What if the human runs away? Dangerous, very dangerous! You have to keep your human close to you. Let’s just be a little considerate. We will give them a lot of breaks while walking by sniffing everything that comes our way.

We will also increase the walk time by not peeing at once. We should pee a few drop multiple times so that the human can walk with ease. We love our humans a lot and care for them. So we have to think from all angles to help our humans not turn into couch potatoes.

Besides this, we will also give some exercise to our humans. Poop and walk away. If our human is well trained, they will bend down and pick our poop. Good aerobics.

On the way, bark at leaves or bottles to remind your humans that they are in safe hands.

Periodically, when you feel your human is getting slow or lazy, pull the leash and trying running fast. The human will get energised in no time. It is our responsibility to train our human to be prepared for any situation.

Once you are home, reward your human with a lot of kisses for doing a good job. After a few kisses, don’t let your human sit immediately. Humans have a short memory span. Remind them that the trainer needs food for energy and do not give up until you are fed.

After all this is over, head to your comfort zone and go to sleep. It is good to occasionally fart in your sleep to awaken your human’s senses. So go ahead and religiously purify the air.

Repeat this entire procedure everyday to get good results.