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Additional
information:
We believe that is important for you to take your newly
adopted dog to your vet withing the first 10 of bringing him/her home.
We believe it is important that your vet get a "baseline" condition
of the dog when it comes to your home. This offers your vet the opportunity
to have a baseline exam to compare future exams against. We try to make
sure all dogs are healthy before going to a new home. However there
are conditions that present in periods ( Ie some worms will only show
on a fecal exam after a certian gestation period) and do not show on
our initial vet exam.
We suggest obedience classes for all adoptede dogs.
The dog you are adopting may be well behaved, there is still much benefit
that can come from obedience classes. Obedience classes can offer you
and your dog an invaluable experience to learn each others limitations
and abilities. It is a great opportunity for bonding. Dogs ( and people)
learn much more than just sit and stay from obedience classes. We believe
obedience is a benefit for all dogs and owners.
What you will need for
your dog.
You will need the basics. Crate, bowls, toys, food,
leash, collar, etc. We like to see adoptive parents to have with them,
at the time of adoption...a collar, leash, and name tag with their contact
information.
Food
There are many opinions on food and what to feed your dog. We
believe, while important to the health of your dog, your food choice
is not the "be all to end all" for the health of your dog. While we
prefer you would feed a good quality holistic food, there are MANY variables
in the health of your dog. Some of these are Genetics, environment,
exercise, access to or presence of toxins and cleaners, and so on. Food
is just one variable. Food can positively or negatively effect of dog's
health depending on any one of the other variables. For this reason
we offer only general advice on food choice.
We offer this:
Choose a price range you are comfortable paying. You can get food that costs anywhere from $0.50 a pound to $2.50 ( and more)a pound.
Once you have chosen that price range, do a little research on the ingredients of dog food, and choose a food that comes closest to what you feel like your dog should be eating.
Our general idea about dog foods is as follows: If there is something in the most important ingredients ( typically listed in order on the dog food bag) that reads like you need a chemical engineer to explain to you or sounds like something
you would not feed your children, then you might not want to feed it to your dog.
There are many benifits to good quality food, but it is also entirely
possible that for YOUR dog, a high quality or moderate quality food
just will not make much difference to the dogs health and longeviety.
So we say that it is not so much a matter of choosing "the best" food,
but more the food that is "the best food for your dog". Regardless of
what food your are feeding your dog ( and how much it costs), if you
recognize chronic health issues with your dog...like dirty ears, dry
skin, scrathing and itchiness, soft stool, anal gland problems, weight
control problems, bad breath... (all of these can be genuine health
problems AS WELL AS problems caused by something in your dogs food)
then a vet visit and a food change may be in order.
Your adopted dog and what to expect.
You and your newly adopted dog will likely experience a "honeymoon" period. It will take some time for the dog to adjust your home and life. We suggest, when bringing a dog home, that you
resume your life as normal. Many wish to take time off work, or to get a dog while on a long vacation, to get the dog "time to adjust". However, the real goal is for your dog do adjust to your life as it normally is.
Making these accomidations for the dog only delays the adjustment period your dog will have to experience once you reutrn to work etc.
The duration of the "honeymoon" period differs from dog to dog just as it differs from breed to breed. Since you are adopting a Hound, the hounds typically adjust fairly well. We suggest that your dog may take as long as 30 days to adjust to
your home. This is just a generalization and, having a generally adaptive and cooperative attitude, most hounds settle into their new environment quicker.
We temperment test each dog. The dogs are either evaluated by the sending organization, ourselves, or a foster provider. We do most of the things we feel a 3 year old child would do. We pull ears, tails, poke and prod. We check for food assertiveness, resource guarding, and other "bad" behaviors.
We try to insure the dogs leaving our organization are patient, well tempered, and will not be a risk to anyone in your home or neighborhood. There are always situations when and where ANY dog will defend itself, and we ask that you closely supervise your dog at all times.
If your dog shows any behaviors you find questionable, please contact us immediately.
We also try to assess the "drive" of the dogs. Hounds are a hunting breed. Different dogs have differing intensities of hunting drive. Some are VERY driven, others you could not get them to chace a critter
if it had a Milk Bone taped to its back. We try to assess this in each dog and inform the potential parents of anything we expect might be related to a dogs "drive". However, being hunting dogs, all hounds should always be treated as though
the next critter they see could be THAT ONE CRITTER that is going to make them act out.
We say that "you may be able to completely trust your hound 99% of the time, but you need to manage your hound by that remaining 1% where
your hound could act like a hound".
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