I take my Pointer out hunting as often as I can during quail season. Unfortunately, it’s easy for him to pick up some fleas or ticks when he’s working his way through the underbrush and tall grass. Well, let me tell you what I’ve learned about the dangers of one little flea.
Panting helps keep your Pointer cool in two different ways. For one thing, the saliva evaporating from his tongue and inside his mouth cools your dog off the same way sweating cools you. Panting also helps exchange the warm air inside your dog’s lungs with the cooler air outside his body.
I’m a veteran show dog handler. People have been paying me to exhibit their dogs in breed conformation shows for more than 30 years now. I think in all those years, I’ve probably come close to showing just about every dog breed the AKC recognizes, or at least it seems that way. Some breeds seem to have a better chance of winning the big prizes than others. I guess that’s because they’re so popular with the public and the judges.
10k runs/walks can be a lot of fun, they raise a lot of money for charities, and those long walks or runs are good for you, too. But have you ever considered bringing your Pointer along with you, to walk by your side while you’re raising money for charity?
I train and board dogs for a living. I own my own boarding kennel, and I’m here to tell you I’m always thrilled when one of my boarding clients walks through the door with a Pointer. These dogs are the best when it comes to boarding, whether they’re just staying with me overnight or they’ll be here for a week or two.
If you own a Pointer, you probably already realize that some of these dogs can be a bit difficult to housetrain. It’s not that they don’t want to please you, because they most certainly do. If you housetrained your dog as a puppy, it probably just took a little longer than expected because of his short attention span and the way Pointers can get distracted by birds and so forth. At any rate, you finally got through it, just like I did. The funny thing is, now that my dog is fully housetrained, I’m wondering how he can “hold it” for so long!
I’m not a hunter, but I sure can’t convince my Pointer of that. Let me explain, because I guess that sounds kind of weird … My husband and I live in a golf community where new homes are still being built. In addition to our homes we have two golf courses and a number of other activities on the grounds to keep us residents busy. In fact, the golf courses are why we moved here a few years ago. But in addition to these amenities, we also have a lot of birds in the area.
My husband and I live in a gated retirement community. We’re “old but not cold”, as the saying goes, and we like to stay active. In fact, that’s one of the reasons we own a Pointer – he’s always ready to go for a walk, and that keeps us going. At any rate, about 5,000 people live in our community, which is big enough to put out its own weekly newspaper. The paper consists mostly of articles about upcoming events (shows being held, club meeting schedules and so forth) but it also has a few local news articles and an editorial page.
I’ve been around dogs – including Pointers – for so many years now I feel like I’ve seen just about everything. That’s what happens when you’ve owned and shown dogs for as long as I have. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of dogs get sick over the years. I guess a certain amount of that is inevitable, but sometimes it could have been prevented. Take my friend whose dog almost died because of heartworms as a good example. He didn’t think giving his dog a heartworm preventive was necessary.
We all love and enjoy our dogs, and so we should. But owning a dog carries certain responsibilities, and making sure our dogs receive the veterinary care they need is one of the big ones. Yes, most people make sure their Pointers get the basics – an annual exam, shots, heartworm preventives, worming and so forth. It all adds up, though, and owning a dog can mean several hundred dollars a year in vet bills. And that’s just for the routine stuff.