If you are think­ing of get­ting a dog or puppy, you have to remem­ber that this is a life­long com­mit­ment. Prepar­ing your­self for the respon­si­bil­i­ties of dog– own­er­ship is the begin­ning of a happy and reward­ing time shar­ing your home with a pet. If you treat a dog well, you will be repaid with a life­time of unques­tion­ing devo­tion. With train­ing and care, a dog will obey your com­mands and be a valu­able part of the family.

But what are the con­sid­er­a­tions? As this is a part­ner­ship and not a one-way rela­tion­ship you have to con­sider whether you are suited to your cho­sen pet and vice versa.

When you are con­sid­er­ing whether to offer a home to a puppy or dog, you need to think about:

Is a Dog Right For You

Look care­fully at what you would want from a dog, and what you could give. This applies equally whether you are think­ing about get­ting a tiny toy Poo­dle or a large adult Bull Mas­tiff. Remem­ber, a tiny puppy can grow into a very big dog!

Your needs;

Lifestyle

Dogs, like small chil­dren, need time and atten­tion. They like to be loved, and leav­ing them alone for long peri­ods of time can be very upset­ting. If you work long hours full-time, then a dog is prob­a­bly not the pet for you at this stage in your career. If you have just had a new baby, or have very small chil­dren, again con­sider care­fully about whether this is a good time to have another new fam­ily member.

Facil­i­ties available

Have you a large house and gar­den that would suit a bois­ter­ous, ener­getic type of dog? Are you the seden­tary type who lives in a small flat, where maybe a small lap­dog would be ideal? Dogs can vary in size from the chip­per Chi­huahua to the stately St Bernard, and in energy lev­els from the sprightly Springer Spaniel to a placid Pekingese. Remem­ber the needs of a cross­bred may be more dif­fi­cult to pre­dict. Your local library usu­ally has plenty of books about dif­fer­ent dog breeds, so it is worth­while get­ting a selec­tion to read about var­i­ous dogs before you make up your mind.

A dog needs

Time

PDSA esti­mates that a dog will need about 5 hours a day of your time and undi­vided atten­tion. That would include rou­tine ‘main­te­nance’ such as groom­ing, den­tal care and feed­ing, as well as play.

Money

Dogs will cost you money as well as time. Not only are there the ‘one-off’ items, such as buy­ing the dog, beds, leads and col­lars, but there are the reg­u­lar expenses such as food. Again, the amount eaten depends on the breed and the activ­ity. For exam­ple, a work­ing dog will need a high energy diet, and a puppy will need a diet spe­cific to its grow­ing needs.

The Basics

Collar

There are lots of dif­fer­ent col­lars around, and it is impor­tant to choose the cor­rect one for your dog. A puppy should have a very light one, with room for growth but an adult can have any sort, fit­ting well so that there is no chance that the dog will slip out of it. A metal ‘check chain’ must be put on the right way round, as it can ‘lock’ if not, caus­ing great distress.

The col­lar must legally have the owner’s name and address on it, and a con­tact tele­phone num­ber is use­ful. Think about an ‘iden­tichip’ that can be pain­lessly inserted under the skin by your vet. This pro­vides unique indeli­ble identification

Lead

Again, there are lots of dif­fer­ent types. A young puppy can have a light-weight nylon lead, but an adult dog should have one that will not break when pulled. There are extend­able leads, which may be suit­able for one small dog but are best avoided where more than one dog is being walked.

Food and water bowls

These should be easy to clean, although they should always be washed sep­a­rately and never with your own crock­ery. Stain­less steel bowls, or heavy pot­tery ones with no chips, are fine. It is also impor­tant to throw out any uneaten food after your dog has fin­ished eat­ing and to make sure there is fresh water avail­able at all times.

Dog Bed

A cosy, eas­ily washed bed is impor­tant for dogs. This will be ‘their’ res­i­dence! Make sure you choose one that can be cleaned thor­oughly, which is espe­cially impor­tant in the sum­mer when fleas are at their most active.

It should have no sharp cor­ners or poten­tial splin­ters that could cause injuries.

Toys

These are a vital part of a dog’s life. Not only do they make walks fun, but they make sure that the dog ‘socialises’ with the fam­ily. They can help clean teeth, they exer­cise the brain and can be used for train­ing purposes.

Pooper scooper

It is essen­tial that own­ers play their part in clean­ing up after their dog. As part of pet owner respon­si­bil­i­ties, always carry a ‘pooper scooper’ or a plas­tic bag with you to clean up any mess pro­duced by your dog. This not only makes the envi­ron­ment cleaner, but pre­vents any seri­ous dan­gers to chil­dren from canine par­a­sites, such as Tox­o­cara canis, a par­a­site that can cause blindness.

Groom­ing items

A long-haired Saluki will need more coat atten­tion than a short-haired Jack Rus­sell, but all dogs will need atten­tion and reg­u­lar bathing to keep their skin and coat well main­tained.
You will need a brush and comb suited for the hair type of your cho­sen pet. A long-haired York­shire Ter­rier needs to be combed and brushed at least once a day, but a short-haired Boxer will prob­a­bly only need a vig­or­ous brush­ing twice a week.

Canine tooth­brush and toothpaste

Reg­u­lar brush­ing of your dog’s teeth and den­tal check-ups should be a rou­tine part of dog care. Spe­cial canine tooth­paste and brushes are now widely avail­able from vets and pet shops, but avoid­ing sweet things is also impor­tant for den­tal care as well as weight control.

Make your pet com­fort­able when start­ing to brush, and approach them from the side rather than the front. You can begin with a flan­nel folded over a fin­ger, or a spe­cial ‘fin­ger brush’, but these are not as good as a proper canine tooth­brush. Dogs don’t like human tooth­paste, as it foams too much. It is much bet­ter to buy spe­cial ‘pet tooth­paste’ which doesn’t foam and tastes far nicer to the dog! Start with a few teeth, and grad­u­ally increase it so that you can do the whole mouth in one ses­sion. Brush just the gums on the out­side sur­face at first, as these are the ones that most need the care and attention.

At the end of this brush­ing, make sure you give a treat such as a rawhide strip (not choco­late or other sweet­ies!) so that your pet feels it’s all been worthwhile.

Look­ing after your puppy

Preparing

Now you have cho­sen the type of dog that you feel you can get along with, what is the next stage?

You want to get a pet that will fit in with you and your fam­ily. It can be a pure bred puppy from a breeder or it can be a cross-bred from a friend. To help you choose, it is bet­ter to have a good idea of what you will get. It is bet­ter to see the puppy with the mother, or if pos­si­ble both par­ents, to give a good idea about the final size of the dog. You’ll know then whether the puppy comes from a good home and what the dog’s per­son­al­ity is likely to be. A healthy pup will also be inquis­i­tive, alert and play­ful with a glossy coat. Remem­ber, it is bet­ter to wait for the ideal canine part­ner rather than to choose impul­sively, so you may have to save up or be on a wait­ing list for an expen­sive pure bred dog.

One way that every­one in the fam­ily can get involved is in choos­ing the new pup’s name. Remem­ber, you may be call­ing this out across a park in the future, so choose one that every­one feels com­fort­able with, and which suits the dog.

Arrival

The best time to take on a new puppy is when you have time and there is not too much going on in the house­hold. This is one of the fac­tors why Christ­mas is not a good time to get a new dog. Two weeks of care and atten­tion ini­tially will pay off in the end. If you have older school-aged chil­dren, the school hol­i­days are a good time to get that new fam­ily mem­ber. If pos­si­ble, the pri­mary ‘carer’ should be with the puppy for the next cou­ple of weeks.

Make sure that you have got every­thing ready for the big day. Buy all of the equip­ment you need, and reg­is­ter your pup with a vet. Make sure that the day of arrival is as ‘nor­mal’ as pos­si­ble — the puppy is going to be scared and con­fused, so lots of peo­ple around mak­ing a fuss will only add to the dis­tress. Make sure you have all of the things you would need for the new dog to make them feel as loved as pos­si­ble. Remem­ber, they are going to feel anx­ious and over­whelmed, so give them space and don’t worry too much if there are ‘accidents’!

Feeding

Feed­ing your puppy cor­rectly is a big part of respon­si­ble pet care. Obe­sity is one of the biggest prob­lems for pets, as dogs are nat­ural glut­tons and their bod­ies utilise a wide range of foods very effi­ciently. It is impor­tant that they get the cor­rect diet for them, and a puppy’s diet varies accord­ing to age.

Pup­pies are ready to eat solid food when they are about 7 weeks old, although this does vary. It is best to feed them on a spe­cial tinned ‘puppy diet’ you can get from the local super­mar­ket or pet shop. Ini­tially, they will need four meals a day, but this can be reduced to three a day at about 12 weeks old. By the time they are 6 months, they can have two meals a day. This regime can con­tinue for the rest of their life, or else it can be cut down to one meal daily, accord­ing to their needs.

Social­i­sa­tion and training

Any puppy ben­e­fits from con­tact with humans and other dogs, but you will have to be care­ful that the puppy is pro­tected by vac­ci­na­tions before it comes into con­tact with other dogs or pet own­ers. The vet­eri­nary prac­tice you have cho­sen may run ‘puppy par­ties’, which can give you advice, but in any case it is worth­while get­ting the pet checked out by the vet as soon as you can. Make sure you tell the recep­tion­ist when book­ing an appoint­ment that it is a young puppy.

Train­ing should start as soon as pos­si­ble, so that your dog fits in well with society.

One of the first things you will con­cen­trate on is toi­let train­ing. Find an area indoors that you can clean up eas­ily, and use that in the first stage. Put down plenty of news­pa­per. Your puppy will give you a clue that it needs to go to the toi­let by sniff­ing around and being a bit rest­less. Pick up the puppy, one hand under the chest and one under the hindquar­ters, and trans­port it to the paper. When it per­forms the task, praise it and if it moves off the paper, rebuke it with a firm ‘no’. As soon as your pup is pro­tected through its vac­ci­na­tions, you can let the puppy go into the gar­den. Put down news­pa­per, and use the same tech­nique you did inside — praise for suc­cess, rebuke if not. Grad­u­ally do away with the paper.

Puppies

When your dog is out, it will prob­a­bly want to go to the toi­let. As a respon­si­ble pet-owner, it is vital that you remove the solid waste from the pave­ment, or train your dog to use the gut­ter as its lava­tory. There can be heavy fines for dog foul­ing, as well as being unac­cept­able for other peo­ple. ‘Pooper scoop­ers’ are avail­able at most vets and pet shops, but good old plas­tic bags are just as good. Parks have spe­cial bins for dog waste, so make sure you remove any debris away from the pub­lic!
Social train­ing is also impor­tant. Any behav­iour that can be amus­ing in a puppy may be fright­en­ing in an adult. The puppy that nips is eas­ier to deal with than the dog that bites! Every time your pup does some­thing that is unac­cept­able, a firm ‘no’ will usu­ally work. Don’t get angry with your puppy, but make sure it knows what is OK, and what is not.

You also have to make sure that your pet is not a dan­ger to other dogs, pedes­tri­ans or the actual dog walker. Cor­rect train­ing from an early age is essen­tial, so research where the local dog-training school is located. Try and find out from other dog-owners or your local library as soon as pos­si­ble about any local classes.

Exercise

Again, this varies accord­ing to the breed, but it is vitally impor­tant. It helps the owner keep fit as well as the dog! You have to be very care­ful when exer­cis­ing your dog, and numer­ous shorter walks a day are bet­ter than one long walk. When out for their exer­cise, dogs should be on a lead in a built up area, and only release your pup when you are absolutely sure your dog is safe. Not only are there dan­gers from traf­fic and other dogs which may not be as nice as yours, but tins, glass and other haz­ards can cause injuries.

Remem­ber, as well, if you are get­ting a puppy, it can’t be taken out until the vet advises that it is pro­tected by its vac­ci­na­tion programme .

Look­ing after your dog

Older Dogs

Preparing

Now you have cho­sen the type of dog that you feel you can get along with, what is the next stage?
If you have decided that an adult dog is the one for you, con­sider get­ting a res­cued dog from a shel­ter, per­haps think­ing about a ‘trial period’ to make sure the two of you will get on well.
One use­ful con­sid­er­a­tion is that a rep­utable shel­ter, dog-owner or breeder will want to check you out as the prospec­tive owner. Don’t be put off by this — any respon­si­ble re-homing organ­i­sa­tion or breeder would want to make sure their dogs were going to a car­ing home.

Arrival

The age of the dog affects the way you use the time allo­cated to your pet ini­tially. An older dog may need help in adjust­ing to a new home, depend­ing upon its past back­ground. An adult dog will need just as much atten­tion as a puppy would to set­tle into its new home.

Dietary advice

Dogs eat mainly meat, but still need a bal­anced diet with some car­bo­hy­drate, vit­a­mins and min­er­als. Com­plete diets are avail­able and will pro­vide all of your dog’s dietary needs, as will tinned food with bis­cuits. With all dietary regimes, it is impor­tant that dogs do not eat more food than they need. They are nat­u­rally quite greedy, and will often eat more than their calorific require­ment. This leads to obe­sity, which is seen in over 50% of the dogs that come to PDSA. Most dogs are fed once or twice a day, and when they are young and active have very few prob­lems if they are fed a good diet, with few tit-bits.

Dietary advice

At the ‘post-maturity stage’, which usu­ally begins when smaller dogs are about eight years old and at five years for the large and giant breeds, they may have dif­fer­ent dietary require­ments. In this ‘post-maturity’ phase, the tis­sues, organs and sys­tems of the pet are grad­u­ally becom­ing less effi­cient. This is quite a nat­ural pro­gres­sion, but it can be well man­aged, hope­fully mak­ing sure that the pet has a good level of activ­ity and well­be­ing for the remain­der of its life.

The rate of pro­gres­sion is depen­dant on many fac­tors, such as the envi­ron­ment the pet lives in and its genetic make-up. How­ever, by far the most impor­tant com­po­nent is the pet’s nutri­tion, both in the past and how it is now. A pet that is the opti­mal weight and has had a good diet through­out its life will enter this phase with few problems.

As soon as you notice any ‘age­ing’ signs, such as grey­ing around the muz­zle or a bit of stiff­ness after rest and a grad­ual slow­ing down, you should start con­sid­er­ing your pet’s diet, and how you can make it more suit­able to its needs. You need to take account of the changes that are hap­pen­ing in your pet’s body. For exam­ple, the amount of skele­tal mus­cle in the older pet will decrease with age. This loss of skele­tal mus­cle means that not only is there less phys­i­cal activ­ity, but the pet’s abil­ity to repair dam­aged tis­sues and pro­duce energy from food is reduced.

Older dogs have var­ied dietary needs; ask your vet for advice about the one suited for your dog.

Social­i­sa­tion and training

A well-trained dog is a plea­sure to have around, and begin train­ing as early as you can. It is pos­si­ble to teach an older dog, but it is bet­ter to start when your dog is as young as pos­si­ble. Start off with sim­ple tasks, such as get­ting your dog to respond to its name. Then grad­u­ate to train­ing around the house and in the gar­den using the lead. Train­ing before a meal is a good time, as you are sure your dog will pay you full atten­tion! The train­ing peri­ods should be short, about 15 min­utes per ses­sion. Rein­force ‘good’ behav­iour with a treat which can be grad­u­ally replaced with praise alone. Unac­cept­able behav­iour should be cor­rected with a sharp ‘no’.

Exercise

The amount of exer­cise needed varies accord­ing to the age and breed of a dog. A small lap­dog may need less exer­cise than an active hound. How­ever, each dog has its own exer­cise needs, and as age creeps on it may pre­fer a more seden­tary life. A respon­si­ble owner will still make sure his/her dog’s life is enjoy­able, with exer­cise per­haps replaced by toys for men­tal stimulation.

Remem­ber, as well, to fol­low any vet­eri­nary advice you have been given about exer­cise. For exam­ple, a dog after surgery will need to be rested, espe­cially if it has had an orthopaedic operation.

Vet­eri­nary care

Choos­ing a vet

Either just before or as soon as you have got your new dog, you need to reg­is­ter with the vet you have cho­sen to look after your new pet. Choos­ing the vet who will look after you and your ani­mals is as dif­fi­cult as select­ing the right pet! Mak­ing a visit to a prac­tice wait­ing room and chat­ting to dog-owners can help, but the ini­tial visit to the vet should give you enough information.

Make an appoint­ment as soon as you can for a check-up, and the vet can then devise a care pro­gramme for your dog. Write a list of the ques­tions you want to ask, so every­thing you want to know can be covered.

When to con­tact the vet

A vet would rather see healthy pets than sick ones that should have been treated ear­lier, so if you are wor­ried about your pet it is always best to con­tact the prac­tice. If your dog is unwell, there will have been a change in behav­iour — it may be sleepier or off its food. They may be gen­er­ally ‘off colour’. Own­ers should use their com­mon sense about when to con­tact their vet; it will not make an owner pop­u­lar to use the emer­gency ser­vice in the early hours of the morn­ing for a triv­ial complaint.

Vet­eri­nary costs

While most dog-owners can con­sider the reg­u­lar rou­tine needs, such as vac­ci­na­tions and worm­ing, it is the out-of-the-ordinary expenses that a dog-owner may not be pre­pared for. The treat­ment asso­ci­ated with a road acci­dent can run into thou­sands of pounds. Most dog own­ers are now con­sid­er­ing pet insur­ance, which helps cover the unex­pected. There are plenty of organ­i­sa­tions around that offer this, includ­ing PDSA, so shop around for the best pol­icy for you. Third-party insur­ance is included in most poli­cies, and this is essen­tial to avoid large pay­ments should your dog be involved in an acci­dent.

Essen­tial vet­eri­nary care

A Vac­ci­na­tion Programme

This varies accord­ing to past his­tory and the age of your dog. Pre­ven­tion of infec­tious dis­eases through vac­ci­na­tions is an essen­tial part of car­ing for your dog. Your pet can be vac­ci­nated against killer dis­eases such as dis­tem­per, infec­tious canine hepati­tis, Lep­tospira cani­cola and ictero­haem­or­rhag­i­cae, par­vovirus and the more uncom­mon canine parain­fluenza and Bor­datella bron­chisep­tica. Your dog will also need annual boosters.

If you are plan­ning to take your pet abroad, remem­ber your dog will need addi­tional vac­ci­na­tions and health checks.

Neu­ter­ing Programme

Get­ting your bitch neutered, unless you are intend­ing to breed from her with absolute cer­tainty of good homes for the pups, is essen­tial. The aver­age num­ber of off­spring is between four and six pups per lit­ter, though it can be many more. Other ben­e­fits include a reduced risk of mam­mary tumours later on in life, and avoid­ance of pyome­tra, a womb infection.

Neu­ter­ing a male dog will decrease the ten­dency to roam and be aggres­sive. When your dog should be neutered, the ben­e­fits and small risks can all be dis­cussed with your vet at the ini­tial consultation.

Neutered ani­mals of both sexes also tend to live longer.

Home Care

Coat care

Apart from gen­eral groom­ing with a brush and comb, your dog will need bathing. The num­ber of baths your dog needs depends on the cir­cum­stances. For exam­ple, a dog should be bathed quite soon after rolling in the mud, so it doesn’t solid­ify on the coat. The sham­poos avail­able con­tain dif­fer­ent ingre­di­ents, and if you just want a gen­eral sham­poo, don’t use human prod­ucts. These can be too dry­ing for a dog’s coat; so get one with a mois­turiser from your vet or a good pet shop.

The best way to bathe your dog is to use a ‘whirlpool’ type bath, but shower attach­ments work just as well. Don’t use the gar­den hose, as this can upset a dog as well as mak­ing your life a mis­ery. You don’t need to pro­tect your dog’s ears or eyes, as shak­ing removes the water from the ears and the eyes can be rinsed out eas­ily. The coat should be rea­son­ably clean to begin with; as any mud or debris can inac­ti­vate the sham­poo. Wet the coat with luke­warm water, and mas­sage the sham­poo in the coat for 5–10 min­utes. Sham­poo­ing can dry the coat due to water loss through the skin, so it is a good idea to use a mois­turiser. You can apply it after bathing, or use a good mois­tur­is­ing sham­poo. Gen­tly towel dry your dog; the ‘towel bags’ you can get to com­pletely enclose your pet are excel­lent. Don’t use a hair dryer as this can cause burns.

Diar­rhoea and vomiting

Dogs some­times get upset stom­achs after eat­ing some­thing unusual whilst out. As long as the dog is well in all other respects, don’t offer any food for 24 hours, just sips of cool pre­vi­ously boiled water. If you allow the dog to drink too much at any one time, it may be sick again. If the diar­rhoea and vom­it­ing stop, intro­duce food — again small amounts. White meats, such as chicken or fish, should be fed with plain boiled rice and grad­u­ally intro­duce the dog’s nor­mal diet. If the symp­toms per­sist over a cou­ple of days, or if there is an obvi­ous turn for the worse, don’t leave it too long before you call the vet.

Eyes and ears

Nor­mally a dog’s eyes are well lubri­cated but con­junc­tivi­tis causes the eyes to pro­duce more tears than can be drained away and the eyes become red­dened. In the mean­time, before you can get to the vet’s, clean away any dis­charge using a piece of tis­sue or cot­ton wool soaked in warm, pre­vi­ously boiled, water. Use the piece of tissue/cotton wool just once, dis­card­ing after use and wipe from the inside of the eye area to the out­side. Your pet’s vet should be con­sulted if the symp­toms per­sist for more than a day.

Long-eared dogs are par­tic­u­larly prone to ear infec­tions, but all dogs should have their ears inspected at least once a week. Any red­den­ing or dis­charge needs a trip to the vet’s.

Some­times dogs get grass seeds lodged in their ears and eyes. The grass seed may not nec­es­sar­ily be vis­i­ble, but the dog will paw con­tin­u­ously at the ear or eye affected.

Emer­gen­cies in the home

Some minor injuries, such as tiny cuts or burns, can be dealt with by own­ers. It is worth­while prepar­ing to deal with an emer­gency in advance before it hap­pens. There are many pet care books that cover this sub­ject, and it is also a good idea to buy or cre­ate a Pet First Aid Kit. In addi­tion, make sure every­one knows what to do in a cri­sis. Keep the tele­phone num­ber of your vet­eri­nary prac­tice by the ‘phone, together with a pen­cil and paper to note down any instruc­tions and fill out your dog’s record card at the back of this leaflet.

Gum dis­ease

Gin­givi­tis, or gum dis­ease, is one of the com­mon­est com­plaints seen at PDSA PetAid Hos­pi­tals. This can be pre­vented with good oral hygiene from an early age, but your dog’s annual check-up at the vet’s will help reduce the risk of tar­tar build-up.

Hol­i­day provisions

Prepar­ing for a hol­i­day has to be done well in advance. Are you tak­ing your dog with you, and if so have you checked out the hotel? Are you putting your dog in a ken­nel? If so, find out what vac­ci­na­tions may be nec­es­sary and book a place well in advance — good ken­nels get booked up very quickly. Are you get­ting a house-sitter? Check out the ref­er­ences, and make sure all even­tu­al­i­ties are covered.

Par­a­site pre­ven­tion care programme

A reg­u­lar worm­ing, flea and other ectopar­a­site con­trol pro­gramme can be sug­gested by your vet.

It is quite com­mon for a dog to have fleas, and every dog is likely to become infected at some stage in its life. You will either see flecks of dried blood (‘flea dirt’) in the coat, or fleas them­selves, and for every flea you see run­ning through your dog’s fur there may be hun­dreds of young fleas wait­ing to jump aboard a pass­ing pet! Young fleas can live for over a year with­out feed­ing, so it is par­tic­u­larly impor­tant to treat the house and all pets in a flea con­trol pro­gramme. The secret is to treat both the dog and the envi­ron­ment with effec­tive prod­ucts that kill both adult and imma­ture fleas all year round. As well as caus­ing severe skin irri­ta­tion, fleas play a vital part in the tapeworm’s life cycle.

As well as think­ing about fleas, it is vital to make sure you fol­low the worm­ing regime rec­om­mended by a vet. This will get rid of inter­nal par­a­sites, which are a prob­lem for dogs as well as affect­ing the envi­ron­ment and people.

Road acci­dents

Some dogs may be involved in road acci­dents in spite of every sen­si­ble pre­cau­tion a respon­si­ble owner takes. If that hap­pens to you, try and keep calm. At the scene of a road acci­dent, try and get as much help as pos­si­ble — one per­son to con­tact the dog’s vet, another to direct traf­fic. Oth­ers can remove the dog from the road if pos­si­ble, where there is no risk to the pet or the peo­ple. If you sus­pect any spinal injury, move the dog only if absolutely nec­es­sary, using a very firm board to keep any move­ment to a minimum.

Pro­tect your pet with Pet Insurance

If your pet falls ill or has an acci­dent it can be a stress­ful time both finan­cially and emo­tion­ally, espe­cially is you don’t have a Pet insur­ance pol­icy in place. With the aver­age cost of a course of vet­eri­nary treat­ment ris­ing year-on-year and now stand­ing at over £250*, PDSA urges all pet own­ers to insure their pet in case of ill­ness or acci­dents.
*Claims received by PDSA Pet­surance between 01/01/05 and 31/12/06

PDSA Pet­surance has been designed for all breeds of cat and dog, from mog­gies and cross-breeds to pedi­gree cham­pi­ons. There are three dif­fer­ent lev­els of pol­icy for the owner to choose from. PDSA Pet­surance was designed by our vets and insur­ance spe­cial­ists to ensure all sick and injured pets can receive the vet­eri­nary care they need and best of all for ani­mal lovers, a per­cent­age of each pol­icy goes directly back to PDSA to help sick and injured pets.

Read our weekly ani­mal health arti­cles at http://www.in2town.co.uk or http://www.in2town.co.uk/PDSA-animal-magazine-and-animal-advice.html

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