Thursday, April 16, 2009

Containment System

Molly had started chasing cars on our road and  I was concerned for her safety, and really dislike that habit in dogs... then Carl wandered off to the neighbors the other day - so we decided to go ahead and try out a wireless containment system.  It is working great!

The base unit just plugs into a wall and sends a signal out in a radius.  The area it covered is perfect for our needs.  Molly can go half way up the drive and into the woods a bit to each side, then all the way over the whole back yard.  Our house is the center of the radius and it also covers the gardens and chicken house.  She learns very fast and I think soon I can put the collar down to only beep a signal, not needing to shock and then eventually remove the collar and use it to train Carl (when he's a little bigger).

I am happy with the way it has worked this week and thrilled that our dogs can be easily trained to stay in the yard for their safety and ours.  The best part, it was SUPER easy for the kids and I to set up, took only about an hour to lay out the flags at the boundary.  :-)

The system we got was a PetSafe Containment System.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Warning: Dog flea/tick treatment

Yesterday I gave Molly a flea/tick treatment, Sargeant's Gold liquid drops that are applied to the dog's back and are effective against fleas and ticks, etc...  After becoming fairly certain that we lost our dog Morgan to Lyme's disease last year, I have tried to be more consistent with treating our dogs and the ticks have become quite active again this year.  I applied the drops and within a couple hours noticed that she was looking a little weak/shaky and was drooling.  It was late and she had just been outside barking at deer, so I thought maybe she had just worked herself up.  We went to bed and this morning noticed that she was drooling more and was having obvious difficulty swallowing.  I hopped on google and found some information here from others who have had the exact same reaction.  I saw that when they called the vet he said to wash the dog with dish soap, so I did that twice and we left for church (she was acting fine otherwise).  She rested and ate and drank while we were gone and was back to full health by the time we got home.  I am SO thankful!  I tossed the rest of the treatment in the trash and will never buy it again.