An 'old-style' dog....

scaredy_cat

not read all the replies but a water fountain might be good, and maybe a kong feeder toy.

Yoga_Girl

Dog beds - our dogs like to "dig" and build nests in whatever bed they have so after going through many varieties of dog beds the ones that worked for ours are single duvets, folded in half, and stacked on top of one another, which they also drag to whatever spot they want to lie in. Cheap duvet covers which go through the wash easily.

Spent a lot on a very good quality harness (Ruffwear) as one of ours can be reactive on the lead - the harness is worth every penny.

We feed dried dog food but when we can invest in a new freezer we will go back to raw feeding - our butcher will give us big bags of chicken carcasses for next to nothing.

Oh and plenty of poop bags/nappy bags

neet87

I would recomend Red Dingo dog tags. Our young dog had a tag that you have engraved by a machine in Pets at Home but after about two years the metal had worn through where the hole for the ring was and was at risk of tearing off.

She ended up with an embroidered collar for agility but our old dog who has to have a martingale collar has a tag I ordered on ebay by Red Dingo that is very sturdy and made of really thick metal. Also, they have some really cute designs! They are a few pounds more (ours cost £6.98 for a medium) but will last a lot longer.

moments_of_sanity

I have 2 Border Collies and neither of them will sleep on any sort of dog bed preferring to lay on the carpet. My 5 year old female is being naughty at night when we leave to go to bed and has taken to messing on the carpet so she is currently being crated overnight and the bottom is lined with old blankets and towels that are easy to clean.

We feed our dogs dry food and if you have a Costco nearby it would be worth popping in as the food we buy ours is about £10 a bag cheaper! :eek:

Good leads and collars are essential and I would suggest having a spare name tag as ours have lost theirs several times, the rings to hold them onto the collar aren't great. Good quality toys are always worth getting, mine love the rope toys and they last for ages.

It might be worth considering a crate for your dog, we had a Dachshund who had separation anxiety so we got him a crate, covered it with a blanket so that all he could see was through the front and then put his favourite toys in and he loved going in their, it was his special place and no one was allowed to disturb him in there (a rule made by me not him)

LameWolf

Molly41 wrote: »

However you can't put a price on the unconditional love they give you and the joy and companionship.

:T:T:T Very well said.

Upsy_Staffordshire

We have a terrier cross from a rescue centre

We feed him Royal Canin, as that was what was recommended by our dog trainer, as it is good quality food. We get it from Amazon, which is usually cheapest.

If you sign up for Pets at Home's VIP loyalty card, which is free, you get vouchers through the post and you can get their magazine for free in store, which have vouchers in and they have some useful articles in there too.

Good luck!

krlyr

Check out https://www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk

The cost of food is about more than the price of a bag. A lower quality food will be bulked out with less digestible fillers, meaning more needs to be fed of it to provide the equivalent nutrition to a better brand. If it's only 1/2 the price, but you need to feed 3 times as much, it actually works out more costly.

The above site calculates a guideline amount to feed (it will vary from dog to dog, like our calorie requirements vary from person to person) and a cost per day based on that.

Molly41

Im currently up with Poppy as she is still acting quite strangely after her op. It is normal for her so Im not worried but did have to buy her some Metacam earlier - another 9 pounds!!!

Anyway OS things I do for my dogs are:
Keep old towels for drying off and protecting the car - although I recently found my 20 year old son drying his Poppy dog with one of my best white towels:eek:

Invest in the best I can afford as quality in all shapes and forms from bedding to bowls and food to leads and medicines.

Make a doggy first aid kit and brush up on doggy first aid - like removing ticks. Might save you a visit to the vet but don't delay going to the vet as if caught early might cost less - note though small ailments won't be covered by insurance - hence our decision to save the money.

Walks and regular exercise are free and you get to meet a whole new set of friends both for you and your dogs. OS exercise.

Don't expect the show home look as dogs can be messy animals. We have not replaced our front window as it has been scratched and is covered in nose art. I used to be obsessive about cleaning but having my dogs has relaxed all that so I spend less on cleaning chemicals - bad for the environment and use to make Molly and Pops sneeze. Good for OS though!

Invest in a good vacuum cleaner though as hairs do have a tendency to stick to the carpet - but always let sleeping dogs lie - thats my excuse.

Dog proof your garden - this can be done with old pieces of wood. Go round with a dogs eye as they can and do escape under small gaps in the fence - we have rescued a yorkie off the M40 and a border collie off an A road plus three labradors (at separate times) locally who had wandered out of their respective gardens. Personally i would never trust a terrier off the lead as their breeding of chase and kill overcomes recall when faced with a small fluffy animal or cat!!!!

Dog proof your house - remove hazards and read up on foods that are poisonous to dogs - this is very important. Particularly chocolate and raisins.


Good luck with your dog - he sounds very lucky to have you as his owner and visa versa - cos they do own you really x

Hard_Up_Hester

Another dog sitter here, I don't have a mat to put under the food & water bowls, but I do put an old towel down under them. This is because I slipped on a wet patch on my kitchen floor where one of my doggy visitors had splashed his drinking water. I then got pounced on by the dog who thought I wanted to play, lol.
Hester

Honey_Bear

Good for you taking on a rescue animal - they are The Best! Anyone can take on puppy or kitten - it takes a real animal lover to adopt from rescue.


My suggestion would be don't buy anything much. You'll be spending an eye-watering fortune on vets bills before you know it. What the dog needs is plenty of walks, somewhere it knows is its bed and enough of the same food as it had in rescue so it doesn't get an upset tummy from a diet that's been changed too rapidly.


The list of things you want to buy, however, will grow exponentially the longer you have the dog. First on my list were fabric fleeces - all my dogs have learned very quickly that when we're out, if I put my fleece jacket down on the ground - that's their bed. It works anywhere in the house too. They wash out really well and dry in a flash. You will need towels, but older scuzzy ones you haven't decluttered will be perfect, or if you've decluttered ruthlessly, charity shops sell towels - very O/S. Treat yourself to new ones!


One toy is enough to begin with, and any game they love will build the bond - 'Fetch' with my first one, but the other two haven't played at all.


I swear by flexi-leads but other people don't - horses for courses on that one. I adopt older dogs so what works for me might not work for you, but all the behaviour problems and insecurities disappeared with all of mine after I walked them several times a day. It seemed to calm them down, knowing they were just going around the block on a familiar walk and they stopped pulling relatively quickly.


And finally - the current dog came with to us shortly before we were treated to a weekend away. The accommodation had a sheepskin rug in front of the fire - we let ourselves in and she marched straight over it and plopped herself down and didn't want to leave it the entire weekend. On the way home I knew we had to buy her one and she loves it. That's the kind of expense even being O/S doesn't prevent. There will be many of them and the dog will be worth every single one.