Keeping Your Dog Safe When You Are Not Around

Sally and Chocolate don't mix!
Sally and Chocolate don’t mix!

One of the best things about Sally, our dog, is how smart she is. She knows what we want and obeys. She is so smart that she has learned commands in two different languages and hand signals, she can also read our body language and knows what to do when somebody wants something from her, specially with the kids. We adopted her because of my daughter Ariane, who has autism. When we saw how Sally and Ariane just connected from the first time they saw each other we knew Sally had to join our family. The way they play is amazing and even though Ariane has a hard time measuring her strenght and is sometimes rough with Sally, Sally is always gentle and patient with her. Our wonderful dog Sally alway, always behaves… when we are around!!!

Best friends!
Best friends!

When we are not around Sally is a different dog, she really misses us and makes sure she let’s us know by acting out and being a brat. She will eat whatever she can get her sneaky paws on and she will wait for lying on the sofa where she will sit and relax leaving tons of hair and dirt, the same sofa she never climbs on when we are around.

Sally the trouble maker!
Sally the trouble maker!

We usually are very careful about leaving food anywhere she can access, but of coarse there was “that time”. We had been working hard on getting ready for my son’s pirate themed party and we had all the party preparations in a table in our home office. We had to make a last minute run to the party store and as we checked the house to make sure there was no food on countertops or tables that Sally could reach we totally forgot about the party treats in the office.

When we got back we could immediately tell that there was something wrong: Sally was in her crate with her head down like she always does when she knows she did something she wasn’t supposed to, you should have seen that look of guilt in her face. We looked around wondering what she had done and noticed all of the chocolate doubloons for the pirate party where gone. The doubloons were inside a plastic mesh and wrapped in golden tinfoil, so she not only ate the chocolate which was bad enough since chocolate can be very toxic for dogs, but she also ate some of the plastic mesh and the tinfoil!

We of coarse rushed Sally to the vet, we were so worried about her as we did not know how much chocolate she had actually eaten. Luckily everything came back up after a few hours, including the tin foil and she was ok but we learned our lesson. So now we are more careful when we leave her alone at home.

Today Sally is a very healthy dog chocolate free!
Today Sally is a very healthy dog and she is chocolate free!

I want to share some of our tips for keeping your dog safe when she is home alone:
Be very careful about what we leave out for her to get into or eat.

• Crate her to keep her safe if you will only be gone for a short time during the day.

• Make sure she has enough water.

• Leave her chew toys so she can be entertained while you are gone.

• Make sure you take her out right before you leave so that she can do her business

• Watch her closely when you come back and if you see any symptoms symptoms of an upset stomach (diarrhea, bad flatulence), it’s important to take him to your veterinarian so they can get to the bottom of their GI issue.

• A great place to get answers and information about your pet’s health and nutrition is MyPetReference.com . I have found the information here so helpful and we are even looking into some issues that Sally deals with even when she hasn’t eaten stuff she’s not supposed to: she has been known to clear a room due to flatulence. We have also noticed she has been scratching a lot and on MyPetReference.com I got some answers and now we are looking into possible allergies, who knew?! Science is the best way to look at every issue your dog may have, so check out MyPetReference.com and remember that a wagging tail equals a happy dog!

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Cesar Diaz
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