Marty Becker

Keeping your dog healthy and happy involves having the right supplies, toys, and medicine on hand, knowing when to take your dog to the vet, and practicing preventive care.Photo: Alvan Nee / UnsplashThings to Buy Before Bringing Your Puppy HomeIf you plan to get a new puppy (or just did), be sure to have the following essential items either before, or shortly after, you bring your puppy into its new home.

Excessive barking is one problem that often puts dogs on the road to the shelter. What's more, it also puts them at risk from the people in your neighborhood: The poisoning of a nuisance barker is all too common. Even if your neighbors aren't the kind to take things into their own hands, a barking dog can run you afoul of the law, and not dealing with the situation marks you as an irresponsible and inconsiderate dog owner.

The label on the bag of dog food provides a guideline on the amount of food recommended for your dog. It’s just a start, though. Dogs who are highly active, pregnant, or nursing puppies have higher requirements than the average couch-potato canine. You need to feed puppies more frequently than older dogs — three or four times a day, depending on their age.

Dogs are omnivores, like humans. They like and can exist on meat or plant material — although they prefer meat. Dogs love treats of carrots, celery, or apple, but meat is a lot closer to their hearts. A lot of different nutritional elements (about 60) go into keeping your pet healthy, including: Protein: All animals require life-giving protein, found in animal products and legumes.

Terriers, developed to get into the places larger dogs could not when pursuing prey, are not lacking in self-esteem. They know what they want, they’re not shy about going for it, and they don’t look charitably on those who get in their way. Look at terriers as two separate groups: What most people think of when they think terrier: Mostly small, mostly wire-coated breeds with non-stop energy.

Rabies is caused by a viral infection of the nervous system. Most cases of rabies in the United States occur in wild animals. Because dogs share territory with wild animals, they're at risk of being bitten by a rabid wild animal. (Normally timid animals can become aggressive if rabid.) Most cases of rabies in dogs can be traced to skunks, foxes, raccoons, and bats, but any rabid mammal can transmit the disease.

There aren't many food items that some dog lover hasn't popped a pill into to try to get their dog to eat it. Peanut butter and hot dogs have always been popular, but cheese (including canned cheese), liverwurst, and cottage cheese all work well, too. Who knows, maybe your dog will even eat a pill-stuffed olive?

When people use the generic term worms in describing puppy parasites, they are usually talking about roundworms, or ascarids. That's because hardly a single puppy avoids being born infested with the pest. But puppies can also be plagued by other intestinal parasites such as hookworms, whipworms, tapeworms, and single-cell parasites such as coccidia and giardia.

Boarding kennels take some heat over kennel cough, an upper-respiratory infection that's as contagious as sniffles in a daycare center. In fact, some kennel operators even find the name a little pejorative, insisting that the ailment be called by its proper name, canine infectious tracheobronchitis, or even bordetella, after its most common causative agent.