I recently adopted a beagle who suffers from mild separation anxiety. I want to buy some good chew toys or stuff-able toys, like Kong, and I would like to know where to buy them at the best price. Any ideas?
Sort out the SA first, toys will not resolve this.
If your dog suffers from separation anxiety don't give him free access to every room in your house when you leave him.. If you allow him free access you are doubling his burden. As well as having separation anxiety he will think that he has to guard every room in your house.
If he is restricted to one room he will not see you leave. You could also con him into thinking that you are always at home by carrying out the following procedure.
Try to do this when you are at home all day, or in the evening when you are there. After your dog has had a long walk, put him in a room with his comfortable bed, this should be a room where you will leave him if you need to go out and where your dog will sleep at night.
Walk out of the room and close the door. Open the door immediately and go back into his room, close the door behind you and try to ignore him. Pretend or actually do something which excludes your dog, for example if he is in the bathroom you could do a bit a cleaning for a couple of minutes. Then walk out of the room, go back again immediately and continue with the pretence. Keep doing this to ensure that your dog won't feel isolated and eventually leave a small gap before you go into his room again. Eventually, increase the gap before going back into his room. When you know that your dog is asleep stop going into the room, however you MUST try to go onto the room before he wakes up and starts to cry . If you carry out this procedure for a couple of days, your dog will always think that you are at the other side of the door. I do this when I get a new puppy and this PREVENTS separation anxiety.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com Don't neglect his long walks and playtime in the garden whilst you are re-training him, he needs his fun
When you are leaving your dog on his own please don't make a dramatic exit, or this will give the game away. Simply put him into his room and walk out. When you come home don't give him a big hello, just walk into his room and let him out for a pee. You can then play with him and give him cuddles.
Try to get a friend or a professional to take him out for pees and poos, if you need to leave him for any length of time ... Until the Separation Anxiety is resolved, he should stay in his room at night, after you have done the door routine.. Although you may enjoy cuddling him in bed, this will add to his dependency.
You could make some toys out of socks, or check out your 99 cent store. BUT, be mindful of imported toys that come from CHINA (lead). You might do well do invest in a hard rubber KONG, or a BUDABONE. It really depends on what kind of chewing or playing your dog is into.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com Even if pet toys cost more at PetSmart or PetCo, or CostCo, they are usually of better quality. Even some roast bones can safe or not, depending on how energetic your dog gets while chewing. Make sure that if you allow your dog to chew large bones, that he/she doesn't break off pieces small enough to get lodged in its throat. every dogs throat will take things larger than you might think it can, and can quickly kill your dog by cutting of fit's air supply.
Those larger, twisted heavy rope toys are usually safe, but still, monitor your pets chewing and never leave your pet gnawing on something which may even possible get into it's throat.
Now I am going to say a kong I would say you will have to go to walmart or Meijer or Kmart.
I wouldn't go to pet-smart or pet co or anything like that because they are more expensive.
Now if you are looking for just toys go to the dollar store. I find if they tear it up then your only out a dollar not 5 to 20 dollars. I had to learn this the hard way with my lab. She would kill the 5 dollar toys but would treat the dollar toys better. Just a helping hand: D
I would be careful buying the cheapest toys. You need good quality toys so parts don't come off and choke the dog. Ebay would probably be your best bet. Please make sure to see where the manufacturer of the chew toys are and please don't buy anything from China.
If it was -23 today then you are not in the UK, though your question is showing up on the UK site with supposedly questions only from UK and Ireland. That being the case any answer from UK is not going to be of much use to you.
Go to Amazon, you can get anything what you want:
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?i ...
Buying online saves you a lot in the market price as well and you have a choice to have it delivered right in your doorstep so thats added convenience. I bought mine from amazon
http://amzn.to/cQfMLJ
