Let Dogs Grow Up Healthily

       For families raising dogs in older neighborhoods, you may witness scenes of "dogs catching mice." Some owners find it amusing and never intervene, but this is actually not good for either the dogs or the family. The bacteria carried by mice may threaten the health of dogs and family members, so owners must never treat dogs catching mice as a trivial matter.

       To ensure dogs’ health, owners should first vaccinate their dogs and also regularly administer deworming medicine once a year. This is because harmful insects or mice may be encountered not only at home but also when walking the dog. Once the owner notices the dog chasing or even swallowing these animals, they should promptly scold and stop the behavior. Doing so can immediately halt the chasing and, through repeated training, teach the dog that such behavior is not allowed.

       Not just mice, cockroaches are also very likely to appear in houses in older neighborhoods. Cockroaches often carry a large number of bacteria and easily cause various diseases. Because cockroaches are very active, dogs naturally become restless upon seeing them. To keep dogs “out of sight, out of mind,” owners are best to keep the doors of kitchens and bathrooms, where cockroaches often appear, closed. However, to fundamentally solve the problem, owners must keep the home clean—such as promptly cleaning food scraps in the kitchen, not letting garbage bags sit for long, wiping away water spills (cockroaches are tolerant of hunger but not of thirst), and so on. If many cockroaches have already appeared, owners should find ways to eliminate them.

       Owners often encounter a troublesome problem during rodent and cockroach control—how to ensure the dog does not get poisoned in the process. Since physical methods are difficult to solve rodent and cockroach invasions in a short time, veterinarians typically recommend owners use non-toxic or low-toxic substances such as baking soda, lemon, or soapy water as insecticides. However, these insecticides are not very effective. If you want to thoroughly eradicate pests, it is best to move the dog to another room and then use stronger toxic insecticides to prevent the dog from ingesting or inhaling too much harmful gas and getting poisoned.