Smart Mommy Pet Stuff

Archive for the ‘pets’ Category

I am always on the lookout for an easy way to give our dogs water.  We have two dogs, and they go through the water so fast.

Those big sparkletts looking self waterers like the Petmate Le Bistro Waterer worked well for us for a while.  I kept one outside, but had to refill it every other day.  The biggest one could last almost a week.

Being outside though meant that it grew algae inside of it quite efficiently.

Another solution that is pretty good is the dog fountain thing like the Petmate Deluxe Fresh Flow Pet Fountain .  It has an electric pump and the water flows through a filter to keep it fresh.  The big one has a big reservoir.  We keep this inside, and I like it because it can go longer between cleanings due to the filter.  Our dogs are the sloppiest drinkers with floppy jowels.  Their water gets gross fast, but with the flowing filtered water, it takes longer before it needs a full cleaning.  The big one can last a full day before needing refilling.  So far, this is my favorite watering solution.

I have also tried a motion sensitive dog waterer called the Water Dog Automatic Pet Fountain that pours out water when the dogs come up to it.  I thought that this would be the final solution, but we have some personal problems with it.  One of our dogs is afraid of it, so she won’t even try to drink from it.  She is not a fan of getting water on her skin.  Our other dog absolutely loves water.  Another problem is that it has to be on all the time, so our hose is hooked up to a double spout, and the hose leaks if the water is left on all the time.  Bummer.  The waterer does not leak, just our hose.

I now have a drip line with a sprayer attached and pointed into a bowl.  That way the bowl fills up every time the sprinklers come on.  The bowl stays full during the summer when the sprinklers come on frequently.  During the winter though, when we aren’t watering as much, I have to go out and fill it up.

We currently use a combination of fleece bedding and aspen /CareFresh in boxes.  This works the best for us.  When we first got the guinea pigs, we used the aspen/carefresh through the whole cage, but with the cage being so big, you couldn’t just take it out and dump it, you had to shovel it out (or scoop it out).  It was a pain, and used a lot of the bedding.

To do the fleece bedding, I cut up a quilted waterproof mattress pad as the bottom waterproof layer, then I put a towel down, then a piece of fleece cut to the right size.

The idea behind the fleece is that when the guinea pigs pee, (which they do every couple of seconds), the fleece will wick the moisture away to the absorbent towel layer beneath, and the waterproof pad will keep it from going farther down.

The all fleece worked well, but a combination of the two turned out to be the best.

I made coroplast boxes to fit the spaces where they spent most of their time.  One was made for the kitchen area, one under their main hidey spot, and one under the second story kitchen.  Now I can fill the removable boxes with aspen and CareFresh bedding.  This worked like a charm because now the majority of the mess is in the aspen/carefresh bedding, and the boxes can be taken out and dumped, then refilled.  I do think that it keeps the smell down.

Our pet rat was named Rosie and she was a great pet.  Of all of the rodent pets, I think that rats are the best.  In my life I have had hamsters, mice, a rat, and guinea pigs.  Rats are the friendliest and want to hang out with their people.  Oddly enough, they are fairly clean too, except that ours had an untreatable sinus infection that made her sneeze blood.  That was the only big problem though, so if your rat is healthy then it isn’t a problem.

Our rat Rosie would get excited when she saw us, and she liked to hang out on my daughter’s shoulder.  She never tried to run away like hamsters do.  When she would get free, she would always come to us if she saw us because she liked to be with her people.

We had her in a cage like this cage and used the aspen shavings with carefresh as her bedding.  If I were to do it over again though, I would get a bigger cage with the different levels like this.

Rats do need attention and stimulation, so having two of the same

sex is best so that they have a friend.  Obviously you don’t want two different sexes or you will have way too many baby rats in too short a time.

They need to have space to run around in and they like to climb.  They can squeeze through small spaces, so their wire cage needs to have small holes.

Rats will eat just about anything, so they are easy to feed.  Rat food is best for their basic food, and they love to have fresh veggies and fruit and other healthy table scraps.  They are omnivorous which means they eat both meat and vegies.

We are an animal loving family.  At one time we had two dogs,two guinea pigs, five frogs, and five fish.  We have also had a pet rat, which is a very sweet pet.  My daughter would love to have a snake, but I think that we have enough to take care of right now, although I do love snakes.  My favorite pets are the ones that we find and keep for a few weeks and then let go, that way it is not a huge time commitment in raising them.  The animals that we have done that with are lady bugs, caterpillar into butterfly, tadpoles into frogs, and a mouse.  The mouse only lasted a couple of days before we set it free in a field because it was not a good pet.  Wild mice are really wild.