Welcome to the site again. It has received some alterations more in keeping with the subjects discussed, that is, the management of all things animal in Brazil, and particularly the very extreme environmental conditions found in and around Cuiabá. Future pages will focus on presenting and clarifying facts about animals, both domestic and wild, in an effort to improve welfare of domestic animals and raise awareness about wild species. This is done by bringing together the sciences of field biology, conservation biology, habitat management and veterinary medicine. Today the focus is cynology, the study of dogs.
It is necessary to pay special attention to rearing puppies in the Cuiabá Basin, or indeed anywhere in the World as hot as Cuiabá. When you have a puppy, you have a unique opportunity to get it accustomed to - to condition it - to the care you wish to provide for it. This includes tooth-brushing and crate training. You should brush your puppy's teeth after its meal, just like humans do. Regular brushing prevents tooth decay, just as it does in people.
You may find yourself presented with a bewildering array of toothpastes in Brazilian pet shops. Some, I was told recently, can be used after each meal, some just once a week. The former was just to clean the teeth, the other contained therapeutic properties. It is better to get the daily use one. You can condition your puppy to daily brushing.
The one this vet uses on my dogs contains calcium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. Calcium carbonate is "a common form of supplementary calcium for dogs on meat-based diets because of its high concentration of calcium (40%)". Source:
Saunders' Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary by Blood, DC, Studdert, V and Gay, CC, published by Saunders-Elsevier, London. Note that there is a Portuguese-language edition of this available. We have it at our library here.
Choosing your puppy.
The Cuiabá Basin is a hot environment for obtaining, and raising, puppies. Two popular sources of obtaining puppies are a web site where people whose bitches (cadelas) have had a litter (ninhada) can advertise for free, and pet shops. The purchaser should be wary to obtain a puppy that is alert, playful, neither overly dominant nor subservient, has the conformation of the breed's (raça) standard, as published by the coutnry's kennel club, has been well socialised, had three vaccinations and been wormed.
In practice, it is very difficult to obtain dogs meeting such standards. If that is what you want, go to a breeder. One of the best breeds is a Pastor Alemão de Capa Preta, the Black and Tan German Shepherd. But it has to be your choice.
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