To add a better "purpose" to my page, I started a "pet tips" page.  I hope that you find these few tips helpful and that you can contribute to my page by sending any tricks you may have found to me.  Enjoy!

To help reduce shedding in dogs, mix about a tablespoon of olive oil in your dog's food.  My dog has dry skin, so I have been using corn oil to help soften his skin.  After seeing this tip about the olive oil, I ran my fingers over Pooch's back (usually I get enough hair from one swipe to knit a sweater) and very little hair came out.  So, corn oil may work just as well.

If you have a long-haired dog, you may have a problem with the hair getting matted.  Try putting peanut butter on the snag and rubbing the snag out.  Another thing peanut butter works great for is administrating oral medication.  Pooch is on antibiotics right now, and he has to take these HUGE pills.  I just hide the pill in a spoon full of peanut butter & he gobbles the pill right down.

Garlic in the dogs diet will help keep fleas away.  Garlic juice in the dog's food works well, or, if you are fortunate enough to have a very strange dog (like my mother's dog, Daisy), it might eat whole cloves of garlic as a snack!  Another way to repel fleas is to put yeast in the dog's shampoo.  Or, if the dog already has fleas, try dusting the dog with boric acid powder.

Mixing orange juice in the dog's shampoo (about half & half) can help soften dry skin.  As I mentioned earlier, I have been using corn oil (which also works for constipation), but apparently orange juice on the skin works well.  If you ever use corn oil an animal's food, be careful not to use too much!  I had a horse who was given too much corn oil one time, and he was sick with diarrhea for about a week.  We had to monitor him and keep him hydrated.