EVERYDAY DOGCARE

James and Barbara Reed of Rockport, Massachusetts, are trying to get their 11-year-old shih tzu to accept a toothbrush. They adopted Wylie recently from an ailing female friend who has since died and report that he was in good shape except for decayed teeth. “We took him to the vet for an oral surgery that involved cleaning and extractions, which he tolerated well,” Mr. Reed reports. Since then, Mrs. Reed has attempted to get Wylie used to toothpaste from the pet store by putting it on pieces of meat. That worked well, but Mr. Reed is anxious about going the next step — getting Wylie used to a toothbrush.

It’s people with cats who frequently say their pet can’t settle in for the night and keep them up with their weehour wanderings throughout the house. Those with dogs often just complain that their pet hogs the bed. But there are plenty of dogs who experience nocturnal disturbances, too. Unlike with cats, the reasons for their difficulty staying calm at night can be quite serious, requiring your intervention. Here are four possibilities to consider for a dog’s late-night anxiety.

Are you readily able to understand the expressions your dog makes? The answer is more likely to be “yes” if your dog has a plain face of a single color rather than a face with more than one color or a lot of markings. So say the results of a study of more than 100 dogs and their people called “What Is Written on a Dog’s Face?”

Unless a dog is still a puppy, most veterinary visits tend to include little to no discussion about diet. Sometimes, however, what a dog eats becomes of paramount importance, perhaps because she has put on excess weight that could compromise her health, mobility, and even her lifespan. Or maybe she has developed an allergy that the vet suspects might be a food allergy, and it needs to be determined which ingredient could be causing the allergic reaction.

Q: Are dogs lactose intolerant? My dog gets tiny bits of cheese for doing  tricks, but I wonder if I’ve been rewarding him with the wrong food.

Q: Why does my dog always take her food far from her bowl before eating it?