It is vital to consider all these tips when choosing the right dog that will fit into your family and lifestyle. This will help the family be happy with the choice of dog and it will also help the puppy or dog feel happy and content living with a certain family.
For example - a Siberian husky is a beautiful dog but if you are looking for a dog to sit in your garden and look beautiful, a husky is not the one for you. Most huskies make amazing companions but they are very high maintenance. They need daily grooming, lots of exercise and a huge amount of mental stimulation.
They can be very noisy and love to sing however they are not quite as noisy if they are constantly stimulated. They are also huge wanders and literally get out of everything so it is imperative to have ''husky proof fencing''
One of the things they excel at is landscape gardening. I was once told I could have a garden or a husky. I chose the husky and yes I have I do have LOTS of holes all over my "garden" We call them "booby traps"
A husky needs a very special kind of person to live with.
It is also vital to take into account your lifestyle and garden size as well as the busyness of your home how often you are at home and weather there are children around.
Hopefully this link below will give you all the advice you are looking for before choosing a specific dog for your family.
http://www.pedigree.com/all-things-dog/select-a-dog/BreedMatch.aspx
Appropriate stimulation for your dog
All dogs of any breed needs stimulation of some kind. Imagine if you have a child and you leave your child outside only to be fed and given water to twice a day. Your child will become very lonely, bored and destructive.
The same applies to dogs or any animal for that matter. Taking on a new puppy or dog is a huge responsibility and needs a lot of thought and consideration. Exactly in the same way you would if you were considering adopting a child.
A dog needs a lot more than just food and water. They need emotional attention, fun, games and generally a lot of loving care. They need to become part of the family and be treated as such with the same amount of respect, consideration, love and care.
This next link will provide you with some ideas of how you can stimulate and have fun with your dogs.
http://www.activedogtoys.com/nina_ottosson_dog_puzzles.html
One of the tips I can suggest is to use your dog's senses and your imagination to create the perfect game. We all know that dogs have an extremely good sense of smell. Use this sense and hide things for him/her to find. Make it fun and allow YOUR imagination to run wild "thinking of games to play with your dog"
When you think of it you need to "play" like a dog. Go down on hands and knees and play tug-of-war with a rope toy.
Another game could be to set up an obstacle course in your garden. If you have a small home with a small dog you could even set one up inside then give your dog a treat once he/she has completed the obstacle course. Again your imagination will be needed here. You can use a few empty boxes or tyres or literally anything you can think of that YOUR dog will enjoy.
The best thing to do would be to think of what YOU would like to do if you were a dog.
Some tips for stimulation of cats
These tips are especially good and necessary for cats who live indoors but can also be applied to outdoor cats. One of the most important things to consider when working with cats is to make their environment as close to what it would be if they were in the wild.
For instance in the wild they will have to "hunt" for their food. If you place their food in different rooms or areas of the house every couple of days, this gives them the feeling of having to "hunt" for their food. It brings them back a little to their natural instincts and can be very beneficial to the cat living indoors.
Cats also love to climb and hide so it is vital to have enough places for them to climb up and even some empty boxes for them to play or hide in.
Cats also need a huge amount of stimulation on a daily basis but remember they also sleep a lot during the day and love to roam at night. As with dogs it is very necessary to go back into the general natural behaviour of cats and use your imagination to think about and develop interesting and different things for your cat to do to keep him/her content and happy.
Never underestimate the power and importance of a cats "scenting" abilities. They have an extremely keen sense of smell so it is vital for all cats to have the opportunity of smelling different scents. This can be achieved by bringing in a branch off a neighbours tree, a rag that has been rubbed on a dog or other cat. Again it is important to use your imagination to find way of bringing in different scents for kitty to smell and explore.
In my experience most cats are very happy being only cats and bond quite strongly with their human. However if you introduce a new cat into the family it can take anything up to and even over a year for your first cat to accept the new comer. For the cat it is exactly the same as us getting home one day to find a stranger eating out of our food bowl, sleeping in our bed and taking over our house.
These are just a few suggestions so please use your discretion when working, playing and interacting with the cats who share your home.
