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14 posts about care basics.
Three injections for a puppy, then one more at six months. It is not the vet being cautious. Why the early ones can fail, why the one at 16 weeks matters most, what every dog and cat needs, how often adults need boosters, and when a puppy can go out.
The first seven days decide a surprising amount, where the kitten toilets, what it thinks hands are for, whether the carrier is a monster. A calm plan for the week, the shopping list that matters, and the mistakes almost everyone makes on day one.
The first meeting gets all the attention, but it is the easy part. What actually keeps a baby and a dog safe is what you change in the months before the birth, and how you read the dog in the two years after. A plan, and the signs to watch.
More than half of dogs and cats are overweight, and most of their owners think they look fine. A thirty-second check with your hands, why the feeding guide on the bag is too generous, and how to take weight off without a diet food.
A dog or cat that has been sick once and is otherwise fine can usually wait. One that has been sick three times, or is retching and nothing comes up, or is a cat that has stopped eating, cannot. The signs that decide it, and what to do in the meantime.
Nearly eight in ten owners underestimate what a pet costs over its life. Here is the honest arithmetic for a medium dog in Europe — the routine lines, the first-year extras, and the three costs that never make it into anyone's budget until they arrive.
A dog that chews the door and howls for an hour is not being naughty — it is having a panic attack. Most "separation anxiety" is not that, though, and the difference decides what you do. How to tell, and the slow method that actually works.
House soiling is the number-one reason cats lose their homes, and it is almost never spite. The first call is the vet — and for a male cat that is straining, it is an emergency. Then the box itself, and it usually is the box.
Most lost cats are within a few houses of home, and a frightened dog will not come to its own name. The first day decides more than any later one — what to do in the first ten minutes, where a found animal actually ends up, and the text message that is a scam.
It is the most googled dog question there is. The short answer is that most dogs do it, most are perfectly well, and the "they do it to make themselves sick" story is mostly wrong. What the research found, and the four cases where grass-eating is a symptom.
The dog you collect is not the dog you will have. What is normal in the first seven days, the mistake that loses the most dogs, and the four things genuinely worth doing straight away.
The handover text is never the useful one. Ten things worth writing down before you go away — including the one that decides whether a vet will treat your animal while you are on a plane.
Most pets are looked after by more than one person, and most of the friction comes from not knowing what's already been done. A few habits that fix it.
Most pet care isn't hard, it's just scattered. Here's a light weekly pattern that keeps the routine, the health checks and the admin from piling up.
