Your happy and healthy dog

Maybe you are currently thinking about becoming a puppy owner for the first time in your life. Maybe you already own a puppy or an adult dog and just want to double check, if you are already doing all the good stuff. Either way, this post is intended to provide you with information on the basics of a happy and healthy dog – Bull Terriers included, because apparently they are dogs as well, although sometimes they behave more like little clowns. 🙂

The basic principles of a balanced nutrition, proper care, hygiene and exercise apply to any dog, no matter the breed.
In addition, there are often also some breed specific aspects to consider. But for now I will mainly cover information that applies to dogs in general.

Bullterrierfun - Your happy and healthy dog

 

I have prepared a cartoon style chart for you that shows the essentials of the happy and healthy dog. I am giving away the printing file for this poster for free. Contact me, if you want to have the file.

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Dog Dental Problems

Like in humans there are dog dental problems as well

Despite practicing dog dental care, problems can still occur. Here are two common examples:

Dog Dental Problems: Dental Malocclusions

Dog Dental Problems - Malocclusion

Lower corner tooth is tilted inwards.

Dental malocclusions are a common dog dental problems not only among English Bull Terriers, but dogs in general. In Germany this is an exclusion criteria for using the dog as a show dog. Actually this is what excluded Fancy from becoming a show dog in the first place. But that did not bother us at all. We were only looking for a companion and a pet, not a show dog. We loved her to pieces anyway.
Plus the malocclusion was one of the few things, she actually never did really have any problems with in her life.

Weather the condition needs treatment is always a case to case decision. If the malocclusion does not bother your dog, doesn’t cause pain in it or restrains the regular food intake and if you don’t have a show dog, I don’t see much reason to temper with its teeth by surgery or other “medical procedures”.
However, other people and especially vets may have different opinions about that.
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Dog Dental Care

Dog dental care is part of the basic dog hygiene

Dog dental Care / Tooth brushing

Dog Dental care - Mila brushing

Mila during tooth brushing

Brushing your Dog’s teeth frequently is a good idea. Like for humans it is advised to do it at least twice daily. This is because basically the same rules of nature apply for a dog’s teeth as for human teeth.
To support your teeth cleaning efforts, there are a lot of chewy treats available that will not only entertain your dog, but also help with the dog dental care by mechanically cleaning the teeth during chewing.

However, please note that neither kibble nor chew treats are able to replace proper dental care! That would be the same as just chewing Xylitol sweetened chewing gum as a human and believing that this replaces all of the brushing, flossing and use of mouthwash we do every day. It doesn’t!

Also just in case, I’ve sparked some strange ideas here: NEVER feed Xylitol to your dog – it’s toxic for dogs! Chewing gum is not made for dogs either.

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