Besides providing your dog with nutritious diet and regular grooming and exercise, there are manyother small gestures which go a long way in ensuring that you have healthy and happy pets. A routine visit to the veterinary is part of a proper care for a dog. The yearly vaccinations and regular check ups are an essential part of pet care and all this costs money. As a responsible owner, I am sure that most of us plan out a monthly budget keeping the dog’s needs in mind; however, emergencies and unplanned expenditures do happen. A well planned dog insurance can then save the day for you and definitely for your pet. Some basic pointers, however, need to be paid special attention to, while selecting an appropriate dog insurance policy for your pet.

Whenever you approach a pet insurance company for a dog insurance plan for your pet, make sure that you have completed your background research about the company. Existing clients of the company or interaction with past customers can be a good way to judge the service and product offering of the insurance company. Once you’re confirmed about the reliability and credentials of the company you can go ahead and plan the right policy for your beloved pet. Dog insurance plans will be decided after keeping the age, gender and breed of your pet. Make sure that you find out about all the diseases covered under the plan, as some of the hereditary or genetic diseases can beCostlyto cure.

A secured dog insurance plan should also cover the regular veterinary expenditures and unplanned medical emergencies. Some insurance plans also have provisions for special circumstances like a lost pet scenario or perhaps injury to a third person by your pet. Carefully weigh all your options and selectthe plan most suited to your pet’s requirements. You will find that the nominal premium which you pay on a dog insurance turns out to be much less than what you would normally pay from your pocket for the same expenses. So, get your dog an insurance cover and both of you can rest simple for life.

Many breeds of dogs are rarely seen without a docked tail. To comprehend why docking a dogs tail became acceptable, one must comprehend why the practice started in the first place.

For many dogs, such as the Cocker Spaniel, a docked tail as a puppy was prudent to the life and health of the dog. Cocker Spaniels are a sport dog and in the past were used to retrieve or flush birds or other small prey. During this activity, many adult Cocker Spaniels would injur their tail while running in thick brush, weeds and brambles. The tail became infected and the dog suffered great pain and even sometimes died.

Docking the dogs tail as a puppy, when the majority of the tail is mostly cartilege, became an accepted practice and is no worse than having an ear pierced. As a dog gets older, the tail becomes bone. So, waiting until the dog was older and hurt to remove a portion of the tail, meant that the dog had to undergo major surgery. Thus risk of infection and death increased with the age of the dog.

Other breeds of dogs, suffered the same types of tail injuries due to size, structure and hair cover of the tail. These dogs commonly had their tails docked as well. Other dogs, such as the Laborador Retriever, have a thick tail with much more hair protecting it and have a much less chance of injuring their tail. It isn’t common practice to dock the tails of these dogs.

The same reasoning can be applied today, althoughmany people commonly have their puppies tail docked because of looks. It issuperior to dock a puppies tail, who may fall into the category of likely tail injury risk, than to wait until the injury occurs. The same dogs who are only companions today, still play in the same manner that they hunted, flushed or retrieved in the past. The unlucky pet can find themselves with a tail injury quite easily.

When there are health concerns to consider, docking a puppies tail is not cruel. It is prudent. It is no more cruel to dock a puppies tail than having that same puppy spade or neutered to avoid the health risks of leaving them intact and to avoid over-population.

However, docking a puppies tail isn’t the same as cropping a dogs ears. Ear cropping became popular in breeds of dogs that were inhumanely used in dog fighting. Most associations and many locations have banned ear cropping, in order to disuade irresponsible owners of some breeds from engaging in these inhumane activities. Ear cropping was and unfortunately is used to prevent a dog in the fight from grasping and ripping the opponent’s ear. Ear cropping serves no purpose in today’s society.

A dog’s ear does not turn to bone as he ages. It is cartilege. The risk of infection isn’t great if the dog injures his ear at any age. A dog does not likely have to have major surgery if they injur their ear flap.

Docking a dog’s tail at an early age is not cruel.