Choosing A Veterinarian For Your Puppy

Choosing a veterinarian – it’s important to find the right one, as they will play an important role in your puppy’s life. If you haven’t chosen a vet for your puppy, now is the time to find one. Here are a few tips to help your vet visit go as smoothly as possible:

• Make all visits – especially the first one – a happy experience for your puppy.

• Arrive early, so you don’t feel rushed, and take time for your puppy to relax in the vet’s office.

• Take some small treats for the staff to give to your puppy to help start things off right.

• Discuss your puppy’s future health care – set up a vaccination schedule and stick to it… missing an appointment could compromise your puppy’s immunity.

• Ask a staff member if they can call or email reminders regarding upcoming appointment.

• Your vet may give you a health record to keep for your puppy. If not, start one for your puppy.

• Have your vet check for internal parasites (worms), or tests for congenital problems.

• Talk to your vet about the best time to spay or neuter your puppy.

Each outing to the veterinarian’s office is also a chance to monitor your puppy’s body language. Is he fearful of the new surroundings or is he just happy to meet new people? His body language will tell you a lot about himself!

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How to Clean and Neutralize Pet Urine Stains

This is not just helpful for labradoodle owners, but for everyone if you keep indoor pets or have had to bring your outdoor pets indoors for any reason, you have probably encountered an issue with pet urine on your carpet before. Pet urine can stain your carpet and leave behind an unpleasant odor that, over time, can penetrate through your entire house. It is important that you take the time to clean and neutralize any urine stains you find within your home.

Reasons to Properly Clean Up Urine

• Fresh urine will rarely have a strong odor. Within a few days, however, bacteria will begin the process of breaking down the urea within your pet’s urine. This process gives off a strong, unpleasant odor.
• In addition, other pets will see the urine stain as an animal’s attempt to mark its territory – even if the animal urinated out of excitement or because it could not wait to be let out of the house. It is instinctual for animals to cover up the smell of another animal’s urine by urinating in the same spot themselves. Thus, your failure to properly clean and neutralize pet urine on your carpet could easily result in repeated incidents.
• Damage to your carpet is another factor you must take into consideration when dealing with pet urine. The alkalinity of urine is very high. This can cause discoloration to your carpet. The darker your carpeting is, the higher the risk of noticeable discoloration due to pet urine.
• And lets not forget about diseases and nasties the pet urine is harboring!

Cleaning and Sanitizing Your Carpet

As soon as you notice that your pet has had an accident, begin the task of blotting up as much of the urine as you can. Your goal at this point is merely to make sure that as little urine as possible leaks through to the carpet padding beneath. Get several washcloths or paper towels for this job.

Once you have blotted up the excess pet urine, saturate the stain with club soda. Not only does club soda serve to dilute the remaining urine within your carpet, it naturally neutralizes the odor. If you do not have any club soda handy, you may use water. The important thing is that the urine gets diluted. Once again, blot the liquid up with several dry washcloths or towels. Do not use the washcloths or towels that you used to clean up the initial stain. If you do so, you risk reintroducing urine into the carpeting.

Pour baking soda over the soiled area after you have soaked up as much moisture as possible. The baking soda will help neutralize the odor and absorb residual urine from your carpet. Vacuum up the baking soda after an hour. Make sure to keep other pets away from the soiled area until it dries completely and you are satisfied that the smell is gone.

Although household products are usually sufficient for cleaning pet messes, in some cases you may need extra help. Multiple brands of pet urine neutralizer exist on the market to help you not only further sanitize your carpet, but neutralize the smell of pet urine. If you do not discover the urine stain until it has already seeped through your carpeting, these products may be necessary in helping you to clean up the mess and avoid future odor.

Remember, especially you puppy owners, BE PATIENT with your puppy/dog!!!!!

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