Owning a long haired dog is a pleasure - there’s the softness of his fur as you hug him, the beauty as he runs with the wind blowing through his coat, and the compliments from passers by as you go walking together.

 

There is one part of living with a long haired dog that is less than pleasant, and that is “poopy butt”. This occurs when your dog’s poop gets caught in his hair and doesn’t fall to the ground properly when he defecates. The result is that you have a daily clean up job that you’d definitely rather do without.

 

How can you manage poopy butt?

 

The most important part of preventing poop sticking to your dog’s hair is to keep the hair around his bottom trimmed short. Poop is much less likely to get caught in short hair. You can use scissors to do this; alternatively invest in an inexpensive pair of clippers to cut away the long hair.

 

It may take your dog a little while to get used to the sound and feel of the clippers. Take your time, use lots of rewards and make it a positive experience (for both you and your dog. Treat yourself to a glass of wine after. The operative word being AFTER. Trimming and drinking don’t mix) You’ll need to clip his hair on a regular basis, so make sure he’s not stressed by the experience.

 

You can also take steps to make sure his poops are firm. Soft feces are much more likely to get caught up in the hair around his bottom.

 

If his feces are a bit loose, add some fiber to his diet and that may help firm them up. Alternatively, feed him a highly digestible, low residue diet, and that usually results in smaller, firmer poops. There are several commercial kibbles that will help reduce the amount of feces he will produce.

 

Make sure you keep up to date with his worming medication, as intestinal worms can also contribute to soft feces.

 

If you do have to deal with the dreaded poopy butt, don’t despair. Keep a packet of pre-moistened pads handy, and your clean up job is much easier. These  pads will remove any discoloration on your dog’s hair, while its all natural herbal extracts and colloidal silver help prevent the growth of bacteria on his coat. For the best results, rub the pad well into his fur, both with and against his hair.

 

Life is busy, and there isn’t always the time to bathe your dog to clean up a poopy butt. Dry Dog Instant Clean is the solution to this problem. This all natural waterless shampoo cleans without water, and will remove poop that is stuck to your dog’s coat.

 

The other advantage of Dry Dog Instant Clean is that it doesn’t just mask odors, it eradicates them completely. It contains Ordenone, a water soluble material which actually traps odor molecules. So, you won’t have to put up with eau de poop fragrance, but instead you’ll enjoy Dry Dog Instant Clean’s fresh kiwifruit melon fragrance.

 

You already spend a lot of time grooming your long haired dog to prevent knots and tangles and keep his coat looking good. It doesn’t take much longer to trim the hair around his bottom, and then you won’t have to deal with any more poopy butt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s nothing more likely to ruin a pleasant walk with your dog than stepping in dog poop. Even dog lovers don’t appreciate having to scrub poop from the soles of their shoes.

Picking up after your dog in parks and other public places prevents others stepping in their droppings, but more importantly, it can reduce the spread of parasites and bacterial infections to other dogs and to people.

And just think of all of the poop to be stepped in. One study said that 3.6 billion pounds of dog waste per year is produced in the United States equaling 800 football fields one foot high! And the city of Los Angeles reported that "walking dogs without picking up the poop droppings in L.A. at more than 82,000 times EACH MONTH.”  YUCK!!!!

Pick Up That Poop

There are several health risks associated with leaving dog poop in public places.

1. Dogs can pass the eggs of intestinal worms in their feces. These can infect other dogs and if they have a large enough worm burden, they can become quite ill. People can also be infected with roundworm and hookworm eggs which may cause blindness and neurological problems.

2. Dogs can be infected with giardia and may not show any symptoms. However, if a human becomes infected with this little parasite, they may develop stomach cramps, gas and diarrhea. Giardia may survive in the environment and remain infective for quite some time.

3. Salmonella is a bacterial infection that can be spread from dogs to humans. It can be found in feces passed by infected dogs, and can infect people if they accidentally touch these feces and don’t wash their hands afterwards. It too causes diarrhea, but some people will develop further complications including arthritis.

Dog feces attract flies, and they help the spread of these diseases.

If dog poop is not picked up, it can also contaminate ground water, and be washed into lakes and streams. Poop contains nutrients which can promote the growth of algae. It can also use up oxygen as it decays, and the result is a less than perfect environment for the resident fish.

There have been studies done which show that some lakes and creeks contain high levels of fecal E coli bacteria, and it’s likely that dog poop is a major source of these bacteria.

Keeping It Clean

Picking up dog poop may not be the most savory job, but as you’ve seen, it’s very necessary. There are some ways of making it easier and more environmentally friendly.

If you use a plastic bag for picking up poop, consider using a biodegradable one. Regular plastic bags can take many hundreds of years to break down in landfill.

You can put your bag of dog poop in the trash can, but when you consider the number of dogs in a city,that’s a lot of trash. You can flush the poop down the toilet, and it will be treated at the sewage treatment plant.

Many people use dog poop in their compost bin, or in their worm farm. Compost containing dog poop is best used on flowers and trees, rather than on food producing plants. If you’re going to put dog poop in a worm farm, make sure you don’t do it straight after you give your dog a worming tablet. Most worming products don’t mind which type of worm they kill.

After you’ve picked up your dog’s poop, have a quick look under his tail to make sure he is clean. If he needs a spruce up, Dry Dog Instant Clean is the product you need. This all-natural spray cleanses his fur without needing water or rinsing, and its active ingredient, Ordenone removes all trace of bad smell.

Illegal Poop!

Another reason to pick up your dogs poop is that it’s illegal in many cities not to!  If you decide to let your dog poop in public in London without proper removal, you could get a hefty $750 ticket!

If everyone picked up their dog poop when they went walking, just imagine how much cleaner our environment would be!

Dogs are renowned for having really bad smelling flatulence, and sometimes their breath isn’t a whole lot better. In spite of that, they never seem embarrassed, and still make lots of friends at the dog park.

We may laugh but if your dog has either of these problems, it’s not that funny. They’re a lot less pleasant to cuddle up to. Even worse, if your dog is flatulent, you may be blamed for the smell!

Causes

By far the most common cause of bad breath in dogs is dental disease. Plaque accumulates on the teeth; this is a soft sticky build up of bacteria which can be found predominantly on those big upper molars at the back of the mouth. This leads to inflammation of the gum, calculus formation, and loose teeth. Not only is this painful, but it smells.

Some foods can also cause bad breath. A well known example in people is garlic - if you’ve eaten it as part of your meal, you’ll often have no friends for a little while.

Let’s look at the other end. All dogs produce gas in their gastro-intestinal tract, as part of the normal digestion of food. Most of the gas that passes from the intestines doesn’t smell at all. Any bad smell is caused by hydrogen sulfide, better known as rotten egg gas.

Some dogs swallow large amounts of air while eating, especially if they gulp their food. This has to go somewhere, and while dogs will burp, a lot of it often comes out the other end. This isn’t usually offensive, but can be quite loud.

The foul smelling flatulence is usually due to poor digestion of certain nutrients, such as protein or fiber. When partially digested food reaches the large intestine, it ferments and releases excess gas. Some dogs also like to eat rotten food or other unsavory items, and this too adds an unpleasant odor to their wind.

Cures

If your dog is excessively smelly at either end, it’s important that he’s checked by your vet. There are some less common medical causes of flatulence , such as intestinal cancer or inflammatory bowel disease that need medical treatment. Similarly, dental plaque needs to be removed - it doesn’t just cause bad breath, but can lead to more serious conditions such as heart valve damage, and kidney disease. This is usually done under general anesthetic - most dogs won’t voluntarily lie back and open wide.

Although you’re not likely to stop his flatulence altogether, you can reduce the smell.

1. Feed your dog several smaller meals a day, rather than one large meal. This will help to increase the digestion of nutrients, and reduce the amount of partially digested food reaching the large intestine. Less fermentation means less gas production.

2. Encourage your dog to eat slowly by putting an appropriate sized clean rock in his dinner bowl. He’ll have to dig around the rock for his kibble, and he won’t be able to quickly gulp his food. This will reduce the amount of air he swallows.

3. Change his diet to a highly digestible, low residue prescription diet. Your vet can recommend a suitable food for your dog. This too results in less nutrients reaching the large intestine, and reduced fermentation and gas production.

4. Digestive enzymes can help. These can increase the breakdown of nutrients in the diet and help improve digestion and absorption. The result is again less fermentation.

Dog Smog Remedy attacks your dog’s bad smell from both ends. It can be sprayed in your dog’s mouth, just like a breath freshener,and the peppermint and fennel will stop bad breath in its tracks. It also contains digestive enzymes which help break down food, and reduce the amount of noxious gas your dog produces.

Try these steps to wipe out your dog’s smell, and you’ll be cuddling on the couch again in no time. Better still, your friends and family won’t avoid you any more.

Let’s face it. Dogs don’t always smell good. Whether the smell is from their front end, their back end, or just their whole body, the result is the same. Sometimes they’re not all that pleasant to be around.

Here are five quick steps you can take to eliminate that funky dog smell, and avoid being knocked out when your dog wants to sit close to you.

1. Dental disease is a common cause of bad odor around your dog’s head. Have a look inside his mouth, and check for reddening of the gum line, and any build up of calculus on his teeth, particularly those at the back of his mouth. A study has shown that 85% of dogs over 3 years of age have some degree of gum disease, so even if his teeth and gums don’t look so bad, they may still the source of the stench.

Have your vet check your dog’s teeth, as he may need a professional clean and polish. Otherwise, consider changing his diet to see if it improves his breath, and give him a regular spray of Dog Smog Remedy . Its peppermint and fennel botanical extracts will freshen his breath in no time. And then be sure to make brushing your dog’s teeth at least a weekly activity to avoid tooth decay.

2. If your dog has that strong doggy smell and is itchy, he may have skin infection and inflammation. This can be secondary to allergies, hormonal disorders or nutritional deficiencies. The end result is the same - an overgrowth of bacteria and fungi on the skin.

Treatment is straightforward - your vet will help you diagnose and correct the underlying problem and will prescribe antibiotics to kill the secondary infection. In the meantime, you can minimize the smell by washing him in Comfy Dog Shampoo . It will gently cleanse his skin and coat, and its colloidal oatmeal will ease the inflammation and relieve his itching. For days that you don’t wash your dog by Fido is smelly funky, use a dry shampoo like Dry Dog Instant Clean . It’s ingredients capture and eliminate foul smells so you can breathe!

3. Now to a less pleasant topic. Dogs have two little anal glands at each side of their anus, and they contain a foul smelling fluid. Every time your dog ummm poops, a little of this fluid is expressed to leave a little of your dog’s scent behind. Similarly, when two dogs meet and sniff under each others tail, they’re smelling each others unique perfume. Don’t you wish they’d just shake hands?

In most cases, dogs don’t have too many problems with these glands. However, they can become blocked and infected, and in extreme cases, they may abscess. As you can imagine, this doesn’t smell very good at all. If this happens, your dog may need veterinary treatment to resolve the problem, but you can avoid it happening again. Feeding your dog a high fiber diet can make his feces bulkier, which will put pressure on the glands, and keep them drained. To learn more about this problem, click here.

4. We’re all familiar with the unpleasant odor of dog flatulence. There are many causes, but most cases of foul smelling flatulence are associated with poor digestion of food. Changing your dog’s diet to a highly digestible, low residue food can help. Whatever diet you choose to feed him, it’s a good idea to add digestive enzymes to his food to improve digestibility. Again, Dog Smog Remedy will come to the rescue. It is simply sprayed in the mouth, and contains digestive enzymes to help break down his food and reduce the bad odor at the other end.

5. Dogs love rolling in smelly things. In fact, the smellier the better. It can be hard to stop him doing this, particularly if you like to take your dog for a walk and let him run free. All you can do to get rid of the smell is to give him a bath. The problem is, if you’re going to bath your dog frequently, you do need to be careful in your choice of shampoo. Many shampoos will dry his coat, and this can lead to scratching.

If you’re going to bath your dog often, then Bubbles’n Beads is the product to use. It’s a gentle, all natural shampoo but more importantly, it contains micro beads full of conditioning vitamins, which break open at skin level and deliver their conditioners right to the root of the hair. The result is a soft luxurious healthy coat, no matter how often you bath him.

If after all this, you still find your dog a bit too fragrant a quick spray of his cost with Fur Breeze will have him smelling delightful in no time!

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Are Your Dog’s Anal Glands Causing a Stink?

It’s a delicate matter but something all dogs share. If you’re lucky you may never have to worry about them, but if you’re not so fortunate you may become more acquainted with your dog’s anal glands than you ever dreamed.

Just saying hello

All dogs have a small gland located on each side of their rectal opening. Under ordinary circumstances these little sacs never give any problems. Actually, your dog uses them all the time. Every time he potties or meets another dog and raises his tail in greeting the pressure releases a little of his own personal scent from the glands. That’s why dogs are always so interested in sniffing another dog’s tail area. And why dogs seem obsessed with smelling where another dog has used the bathroom. These little anal gland excretions are full of important information about the other dog.

This exchange of information goes on all the time, right under your nose, so to speak, and most of the time you never have a clue that your dog is surfing the doggy super highway of information. Us humans can’t smell any of these scents (thank goodness).

Some dog’s have to have their anal glands "expressed" every month, and other dog’s may never have it happen. What did dog’s ever do in the wild?

The butt-scootin’ boogie!

There are times when the anal glands become a problem. They can become impacted, abscessed or infected. When this happens that’s when you’ll see your dog doing the classic “butt scoot.” You know the move. Your dog sits in the floor, usually on your clean carpet, and scoots along dragging his butt. You may think he’s trying to clean something off that was left behind when he was pottying but he’s actually feeling a problem with his anal glands. He may have impacted anal glands — they may be too full and they are not properly “expressing” when he goes to the bathroom.

There are other signs that your dog may have a problem with his anal glands:

• Your dog does the butt scoot
• Your dog may lick or chew around his rectal area
• Your dog may have soft stools
• The rectal area is red and swollen
• Your dog may have a bad odor coming from his rear

When you notice some of these signs it’s time to take your dog to the vet. Believe me, you do not want the job of expressing your dog’s anal glands yourself. There are few things that smell as bad as the fluid from your dog’s anal glands. What’s more, it’s not very pleasant to poke around in your dog’s rectal area! If you do try to express the glands yourself there is always the chance that you could injure your dog or make an infection worse.

Once your vet has expressed the glands you can use a good waterless shampoo like Dry Dog Instant Clean to help your dog keep the area clean. Dry Dog Instant Clean is also good for getting rid of unpleasant odors which can be a problem if your dog has recurrent troubles with impacted anal glands. It can also help sanitize your dog’s anal gland area — and your hands when you are cleaning the area.

Meat’s for dinner

The best way to keep the anal glands working properly is to make sure you’re feeding your dog the right food. If you are feeding your dog a food that has a high vegetable or cereal content, such as corn, wheat, oats or rice, then you should look for a food that has more meats. The best way for dogs to express their own anal glands is by producing firm stools. It’s believed that foods with higher vegetable and cereal content cause dogs to produce softer stools. When stools are too soft your dog isn’t able to express his anal glands when he potties so the sacs can become impacted and even infected.

Whether you feed kibble, canned or even homemade food, looking for foods with more meat content should help your dog produce firmer stools so he can express his anal glands himself when he potties. That’s good for everybody! The less you see of the butt-scootin’ boogie in your house, the better!