Sizing charts are illustrative, but they don’t do much to help you pick the right crate for a Staffy. They’re technically a medium-sized breed, yet most Staffies need a size bigger than the “medium” category suggests. Throw a Staffy cross into the mix and you’re dealing with a whole range of dimensions. A 30-inch crate…
Night walks can be one of the quietest parts of the day — fewer people, calmer pavements, and a nice way for you and your dog to settle before bed. But once the light drops, everything shifts. Shadows hide things you’d normally spot, sounds travel further, and dogs react a touch quicker. You don’t need…
Our dogs have a toy basket. We managed to train them to get toys from it, but not to put them back. That part’s left to me. More than once I’ve picked up a chew drenched in slobber and thought, surely that cannot be healthy. Dogs being dogs though, they love stinky stuff. Lemon-fresh scents,…
Finding the best dog boots — or any type of paw protection — comes down to why you need them and how you’ll use them. Different styles and materials solve very different problems — and choosing the wrong type is often what leads to discomfort, returns, or boots that never get used. When our senior…
Have you decided to give a pup a forever home? Congrats! To make that forever as long as humanely possible, a great start is a puppy proofing your home checklist. For that, it helps to hear about the occasional mishaps of those who’ve successfully made it through the puppy-training phase (in our case, Staffies, but…
Seeing dogs with their heads out the car window looks cute, but with strong, high-energy dogs, it isn’t always safe. Ours are curious enough that I couldn’t trust them not to jump. Keeping excitable dogs contained brings a few extra challenges — especially for dogs that are muscular, reactive, or easily overstimulated by what they…
Dogs that chew with purpose quickly expose how meaningless most “tough chew” labels are. With two power-chewing Staffies, I’ve learned that “tough” rarely means Staffy-proof — and it certainly doesn’t guarantee safety for aggressive chewers. Some toys fail by breaking apart, creating a choking risk. Others go the opposite way and are so hard they…
When the weather turns or an injury keeps you from walking as far as usual, indoor exercise for dogs helps keep them sane and prevents boredom from turning into destruction. Of course, when you can get outside again, there are plenty of outdoor exercises for dogs that’ll have them excited to put their winter coat…
There’s no hard-and-fast rule for what goes in a dog crate.Because what works changes with age. Some things that suit puppies stop being appropriate as they mature.Other items feel helpful at first, but end up getting in the way. The purpose of a crate setup is to encourage calm, not entertainment —and to remove anything…