Archive for the ‘Dog Products’ Category
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
#dog #dogs #pets — I was in the Buffalo, New York area yesterday for a day trip since I had a speaking engagement to do at Daemen College which is in Amherst just north of the city – for information on my speaking, see Clint Cora Speaking Programs. Whenever I go across the border over there, I try to stop over at either a Petco or Petsmart to stock up on Purina Second Nature dog litter which is unfortunately not available in Canada.
I ended up at the Petco store that I’ve been to a few times before on Niagara Falls Blvd off the I-290 near Tonawanda. Almost got confused with another Niagara Falls Blvd further north of I-190 closer around Niagara Falls. But anyway, I went to the dog litter section at Petco and looks like they don’t carry Purina Second Nature anymore. During the last trip I went there in April, they had already replaced the Second Nature litterbox with their own Petco brand litterbox, which I bought.
This time around, they had their own Petco dog litter on the shelf which replaced the Purina Second Nature brand. They had a 12 pound bag as well as a 20 pound bag. The smaller bag was see through and I can see that the Petco pellets look very much like the Second Nature ones in shape and size. Petco is obviously going after the same market as Second Nature. The larger bag was not see through but I assumed it was the same pellets. I ended up buying two 20 pound bags at $13.99 each.
I probably should have bought more bags to stock up but I still have a full large bag of Purina Second Nature at home. I figure that the three large bags along with some of the smaller pellets from Yesterday’s News mixed in will last me several months.
This morning, I compared the pellets of Second Nature and the Petco brand. They look identical except the Petco brand is a lighter gray in colour and doesn’t have the shiny coating that Second Nature has. I hope the Petco brand will be just as absorbent as the Second Nature pellets. The Petco brand does have a lower price than the Purina brand does.
Next time I go down to New York state, I’ll probably stop in at a Petsmart as well to see if they adjust the prices of Purina Second Nature dog litter to compete with the Petco brand.
photo credit: Ed Yourdon
Tags: dog litter, petco, purina, second nature
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Saturday, July 24th, 2010
#doghealth #dog #dogs – So I put a call into my vet clinic yesterday to report the great news that the cherry eye on my dog Chester regressed after only one application of the BNPH ointment. They called me back and said that instead of four times per day, I should decrease it to three times per day (eight hours apart) for three days, then to two times per day for the next two days. After that, it’s once daily until Chester is brought back for reassessment in two weeks.
The BNPH ointment by the way is very easy to apply on dogs. It’s just a matter of holding the upper eyelid up while squirting a line of ointment across the eye. Then close the eyelids and gently massage the eye for a few seconds to distribute the ointment throughout the eye. I’m assuming that this was able to reach the cherry eye just fine.
The BNPH has three different antibiotics which the BNP stands for and the H is a hydrocortisone anti-inflammatory. I’m not sure which part, the antibiotics or the anti-inflammatory, was responsible for the quick regression of Chester’s cherry eye. I know that at day six, his cherry eye looked pretty big and maybe even too big to go back under the eyelid. So I think the anti-inflammatory did shrink it enough to regress it back under.
BNPH ointment is made by a vet pharmaceutical company called Vetoquinol. The vet clinic charged about $28 for a 3.5 gram tube which I’m sure included a dispensing fee. I checked with my usual online pet pharmacy to see if they carried this product and they do at just under $19.97 for the same tube.
If Chester had to be on this ointment long term, I could easily get BNPH through my online pet pharmacy. I would order a few tubes either make the shipping charge worthwhile or beat it altogether.
Tags: bnp, bnph, bnph ointment, cherry eye
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Sunday, July 11th, 2010
#dogs #dog #pets #doghealth #pethealth
I’ve been trying out the oral pet product Petzlife for over a week now and although I missed the odd night, the product does seem to be making a different on my dog’s teeth. My boy Chester was starting to show some tartar buildup especially on his second last molars on both sides.
I wanted to give this product a trial especially when I have already been hearing glowing reports from both a neighbour as well as from my local pet supply store. Although the product is not cheap (average $25 to $30 for a small bottle), I would much rather use Petzlife than resort to even more costly dental cleaning at the vet clinic which will required general anesthetic. By the way, I got a deal on a bottle of Petzlife peppermint gel on eBay.
The Petzlife combined with daily teeth brushing and dental treats hopefully will do the job for my boy. My girl Roxie on the other hand, has perfect teeth with no tartar at all. It seems that brushing and dental treats are adequate for her. If you haven’t seen my video on brushing dog teeth, check it out at the link.
Actually on my boy Chester, it was just those single molars (two in total) that really had any tartar buildup. The rest of his teeth were quite clean. So after about three weeks of daily usage of Petzlife, I’ll take the frequency down to every few days as directed by the product instructions.
Both my dogs will be seeing our vet this coming Friday for their annual checkups so after a few more nights of daily Petzlife, I hope the vet will be impressed.
Tags: dog, dog teeth, dog's teeth, dogs, petzlife
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Friday, July 2nd, 2010
#dogs #dog – My neighbour and I were discussing prices of various dog products yesterday. We talked about retail stores like Walmart that has a pet supply section as well as the Bulk Barn retail chain here in Ontario. It’s a known fact that some items at the bulk type of retailers are in fact not cheaper than other stores like Walmart or grocery stores. So since I had to go out to pick up a few things anyway today, I decided to do a quick price comparison of Milkbone dog biscuits.
The 800 gram box of Milkbone dog biscuits I bought the other at Walmart was $3.77 while the price at the Bulk Barn across the parking lot is 44 cents per 100 grams. So the equivalent price for 800 grams of biscuits at Bulk Barn (not including the weight of the retail box of course) would have been $3.52, a difference of 25 cents.
I wouldn’t really bother to go to Bulk Barn just to get dog biscuits if the price check revealed only a 25 cent difference. But another interesting observation today was that I went into Canadian SuperStore across the street to pick up a few groceries and they had an 800 gram box of their own brand X dog biscuits for about $2.75 or so.
So that’s just some local info for the dog owners out here in the local Toronto area but others in other areas should be advised that the bulk stores are not always cheaper. In fact, one honest cashier at Bulk Barn even mentioned to me that some items are in fact priced higher than grocery stores while some are cheaper. So when it comes to dog biscuits or anything else, you would just have to do some local price comparisons.
Tags: bulk barn, dog biscuits, milkbone, milkbone dog biscuits
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Saturday, June 26th, 2010
#dog #dogs #pets #doghealth #pethealth
There are now some interesting oral care products on the market in addition to pet toothpaste. Some involve adding solutions to the drinking water for your dog or cat but I find that impractical since I tend to change the water for my two dogs daily. There is another product which comes in the form of an oral get which caught my interest lately. It’s under the brand name of PetzLife.
Although my two dogs have pretty clean teeth due to daily brushing, my boy Chester does have some minor tartar buildup on two of his back teeth – I assume the equivalent of our human molars. I’ve been reading about this oral care gel product for dogs and cats called PetzLife which one of my neighbours uses on his Maltese with great success. He is very happy with the results he’s had with PetzLife.
The folks at my local pet supply store also reported good feedback from customers too. I thought the price was a bit steep for a 4 ounze bottle at about $30. But I did find the same thing at eBay for about half of that retail store price.
So I decided to buy a bottle on eBay to try out and just received it this week in the mail. I’m going to use their prescribed directions of applying the gel just before bedtime and see if there are any noticeable improvements in Chester’s teeth in a couple of days.
I’m not sure if I’m going to use this on Roxie yet since her teeth are really clean and tartar free. I might try a bit to see if there are any differences in her breath which is another claim that the makers have.
So after maybe a few weeks, I’ll do a full report here on my experience with PetzLife oral care gel on my two dogs.
Tags: dog, dog tartar, dogs, oral care, pets, petzlife
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Saturday, June 5th, 2010
#pets #dogs #cats — I already got my heartworm prevention medications for both of my dogs through the online pet pharmacy I use for this year. I’ve been buying my heartworm meds online since I save about 30 to 35% and this is significant especially given the costs for two dogs. I was talking to a neighbour yesterday about it and he had concerns about the shipping costs since having only one dog himself, he didn’t meet the minimum purchase level for free shipping. Then he told me about these other products he uses on a routine basis for his dog and I thought about a strategy to help him meet free shipping at online pet pharmacies.
I told him that if he’s going to be using these other products anyway on a regular basis (for example, he uses certain products for his dog’s ears), I mentioned that he should check with these online pet pharmacies to see if they carry these items as well.
If they do, he can simply add some of these products to his order for the prescription heartworm prevention medication for his dog so that the overall purchase total will meet the minimum level for free shipping. The price of these other items will likely be less expensive compared to a retail outlet anyway so he saves in two ways.
He said that he never even thought about this idea. It makes sense since one might as well take advantage of the cost savings offered online. Usually, even with shipping costs, the overall cost is generally lower than buying at the vet clinics for prescription medications for your pets. But with free shipping along with potential savings of other products too, one can really take advantage of purchasing on the internet.
To see full details of my past experiences as a consumer, just go to my article on using online pet pharmacies.
Tags: dog medications, heartworm prevention, heartworm prevention medication, internet pet pharmacies, internet pharmacies, online pet pharmacies, pet medications, pet pharmacies, pet pharmacy
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Thursday, May 13th, 2010
#pet #pets #drugs #pharmacy #dog #dogs —– I took my two lhasa apso dogs into the vet yesterday to get their heartworm blood tests and once again like the previous two years, I requested written prescriptions from the vet for heartworm prevention medications for the upcoming season. I need written prescriptions in order to get my heartworm meds at the internet pharmacy I have been using. Once again, I will be saving money at online pet pharmacies this way.
The actual heartworm medication that my dogs have been on is Sentinel and the online pet pharmacy I order from charges about 30% less than if I got the meds directly from my vet clinic. This includes shipping costs factored in as well. Actually, I don’t pay for shipping because since I have two dogs, my orders are over the $100 minimum for free shipping anyway.
My vet understands this completely and is more than willing to provide me with written prescriptions so I can save money. Since the heartworm season doesn’t officially start until June, I have time for the shipping of my Sentinel to get here. It takes about a week.
The process for buying medications and drugs through an online pet pharmacy is pretty straight forward. They have standard internet shopping carts that are secure and you just enter all the usual shopping information. The only extra step that you have to take with prescription medications is that you have to fax them the actual written prescriptions signed by your vet.
For a lot more detailed information, I have an article as well as video all about my experiences saving money at online pet pharmacies. Check it out as these internet pharmacies can save you on costs significantly.
Tags: dog, dogs, heartworm, heartworm medication, heartworm prevention, internet pharmacy, online pet pharmacies, online pharmacies, online pharmacy, pet, pet medications, pet pharmacy
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Thursday, April 29th, 2010
#puppies #puppytraining — I noticed that there were quite a lot of puppy training pads at my local Petsmart store. I personally never used any of these puppy pads but they are certainly cleaner than newspapers when house training puppies.
I think that they can be used in conjunction with dog litterboxes initially in order to help train a puppy to go into the box for elimination. However, newspapers in the litterbox works just as well.
The puppy training pad are not cheap and they can be costly in the long run if one decides to train dogs inside like I have with my two lhasa apsos. My two dogs are completely trained to use a dog litterbox indoors although they do go outside sometimes too. I will have lots of information on training dogs to use litterboxes soon.
I also heard from some dog owners that their dogs have ripped up the puppy training pads for fun which causes a bit of a mess. But puppies can also do this with newspapers too although newspapers are a lot cheaper!
The puppy training pads are suppose to attract the puppies to them for elimination. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. I personally think that it’s just as easy to use dog litter and/or newspapers for this purpose.
I’ve trained all my dogs indoors. My first two dogs were completely trained indoors on newspapers for life and they didn’t have training pads back then. And when I got my new dogs five years ago, dog litterboxes came out and it was a natural move to use them.
So overall, I think puppy training pads are a good idea if you want to use something less potentially messy than newspapers since papers can mark up ceramic floors due to the print ink. However, the puppy pads can be bypassed much like I did with my dogs. You can easily use a combination of newspapers and dog litter at first while gradually training your puppy to use just the dog litter eventually. This is the route I took and advocate.
Tags: dog, dog elimination, dog litter, dog litterbox, dog litterboxes, dogs, puppy pads, puppy training pads
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Thursday, April 15th, 2010
#dog #dogs — I was in the US for a business trip speaking at a college in upstate New York this week and since it was a road trip, I took advantage of being there to stop by Petco and Petsmart to stock up on Purina Second Nature dog litter (see my review about this product).
The package has both English and French text on it so it was definitely originally intended to sell in both Canada and the US. The fact that Second Nature is still not available in Canada is absolutely ridiculous, especially given that the product is made in New Brunswick.
So many dog owners up here in Canada could use Second Nature especially with our cold winters which doesn’t make it feasible all the time to bring our dogs outside. Their similar product, Yesterday’s News, is good but because the pellets are so small, there is a lot of tracking. This is why the larger pellets of Second Nature would be much better for the dog litterbox.
If you are a Canadian dog owner, especially of a smaller breed who can benefit from indoor litterbox training, get your local pet store to push the Purina people to come to their senses and make Second Nature available in Canada.
Tags: dog, dog litter, dog litterbox, dogs, litter box, purina, second nature
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Monday, April 12th, 2010
Since Purina Second Nature is not available in Canada, I’m now using a mix of Purina Yesterday’s News and Second Nature for the dog litter at home. This combination is working well since Second Nature and Yesterday’s News are made of the same thing, ie., recycled newsprint. Both are very absorbent.
The way I’ve been combining these two products is to use Yesterday’s News on the bottom with a layer of Second Nature on the top. This is because the pellets of Second Nature are much larger and heavier than Yesterday’s News. This will help lower the amount of tracking when my dogs jump out of the litter box. Of course, there still is some tracking but less compared to having Yesterday’s News as the top layer. The larger Second Nature pellets seem to keep the smaller Yesterday’s News pellets in the box.
I’m traveling in the US this week for a short trip so I’ll stock up on some Second Nature to bring back to Canada since it really is the better dog litter for our use with dogs.
Tags: dog, dog litter, litter box, litterbox, purina, second nature, yesterday's news
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