You can scroll through the photos to get an idea of my method.
After going through all the toys I took the keep pile in the box and washed all the toys and the box.
I just used hot soapy water and a scrubber (not the same one I use for the dishes!) to wash all the toys. Now I didn't have many plush toys but if you do you could put them through the washing machine (if you do this I would recommend that you put them in a wash bag).

After washing, I left them on the side to air dry. I was actually really grossed out by how clean they looked! It just goes to show how dirty they really were!

Now I just had to take out the box of old toys, but as I should have said at the beginning, you should probably do a quick whip round before you start shorting or may have a similar experience to me as I detail in the slide show below!

Dental care is for everyone.
This week is about dental care for dogs and cats, as dental health for rabbits and rodents is a different bale of hay all together.

If we’re being honest, there aren’t many of us who are on the ball and in the know when it comes to our pet’s dental health. When it comes to dogs, many owners feel that they can just give them a ‘specially designed’ dental chew every day and they all good, right?

Well, maybe not. Good oral hygiene is an important and often overlooked part of your pet’s overall health and wellbeing, whether they’re a little nipper, golden oldie, cross breed or top-notch pedigree.

Think about the last time you had a tooth ache, I try not to myself, but my point is you were probably miserable. Luckily for you, you are a human with thumbs and the ability to decide to take some painkillers or tell people to watch out because you’re not in a bad mood, you’re in pain; and you have reluctantly booked into the dentist this afternoon.

Now imagine you’re a cat or dog suffering the pain of a tooth ache or sore gums. This not only has health and welfare implications but can also lead to serious behaviour problems. A good example of this is a condition in cats (particularly noted in Burmese cats) called ‘Feline orofacial pain syndrome’ quite the mouthful I know; but this is where dental problems are causing the cat so much pain that they paw at their own faces over and over and over again, until it is so raw that it often bleeds!

There are some other signs that your pet could be suffering for dental discomfort such as:

• a reluctance to having their face or mouth touched.
  
• Dropping food when eating
  
• Not as excited or willing to eat
  
• Eating on just one side of the mouth
• Struggling to pick up things in their mouth, such as toys
  
• Not grooming themselves as much, or at all

If you recently welcomed a young kitten or puppy into your home you should start getting them used having their mouth examined from the beginning. Start small, stroking around their face, lifting their lip gently. Keep it short and regular. Reinforce your pet with a calm happy voice and lots of fuss.
For an older cat or dog, it can be stressful for both you and your pet to take a look at what’s going on. I know the only way my cat would let me see her teeth was if she was going to plant them in my hands during play time!
But there are some early warning signs to watch out for:

• Bad breath
• Tartar build up
• Red gums
• Fur staining from saliva, particularly around the muzzle and front legs

Some of the behavioural changes that we put down to pet just being old, like being bad tempered are often a sign of pain and discomfort.
Even the saying ‘getting long in the tooth’; this apparent growing of upper canine in old pets is caused by periodontal infection forcing the tooth out of it socket.
 
A dental infection can also have affects on other body systems, if there is a high bacteria level or if the pet is immune compromised or suffering from another illness. So as any dentist will tell you, prevention is better than cure and maintaining regular oral hygiene routines will help keep those tails wagging.
 

Here are the things that I do for my dog’s Dental health:

1. I brush their teeth twice a week, on the same the days and they love it!  I use Beaphar toothpaste and toothbrush for cats and dogs. I can only brush one side at a time before they have had enough but they do get super excited when I get the tooth brush and the tooth paste off the shelf.
2. I use a natural water additive in their drinking water, a great passive way to help with their dental health. You just need to remember to put it in every time you fill the bowl and it doesn’t help when they decide to drink out of the rabbit’s water bowl instead!
3. Raw bones a few times a week, I don’t have a routine for this but they definitely know when I’m opening the bottom drawer of the freezer! I mostly use duck necks and duck wings and I don’t generally defrost them first.

There is a product that I’m going to start using next week- Beaphur tooth gel.

This product is suitable for cats and dogs, and cleans teeth without the use of a brush. The gel contains enzymes that fight the bacteria that cause bad breath and breaks down plaque. Any plaque that’s not brushed away would combine with calcium to form tartar, but this gel has ingredients that bind to calcium, to prevent further formation of tartar.  This product can be used 2-3 times a week, so I’m hoping that it will be an easy addition to the pet’s routine.

I’ll let you all know how it goes!
A special thank you to Beaphar Uk training for the graphic and teeth pictures

Why worming your pets regularly is important as a preventative and not just a treatment.
I’d like to tell you about a friend of mine and her little dog, we’ll call her dog Daisy for this story. When Daisy’s owners went on holiday, their daughter, my friend was looking after her when she noticed kept shuffling her bottom along the floor. She contacted her parents to find out when Daisy was last wormed but as they were on a long-haul flight she didn’t hear back straight away. After we had a chat about Daisy, she decided to give to give Daisy a one does wormer and soon after Daisy’s poo revealed a rather large worm burden. Unfortunately, Daisy was still fussing around her back end and seemed uncomfortable. So, having still not heard back from her parents, my friend decided to take Daisy to the vet. Upon examining her the vet found that during her bum shuffling episodes Daisy had caused cuts and grazes to her genitals and anal area. She had been licking them and making them even worse. In addition, she also needed to have her anal glands expressed, antibiotics and a cream which had to be applied twice a day. When the parents were able to get in contact, they simply said that they only gave Daisy a worming treatment when they saw that she was itching her bottom.

Unfortunately, this treating worms, once symptoms become noticeable, rather than preventing them seems to be quite common. A lot of owners seem unsure about how often they should be worming their pets or why it’s so important.
The most common parasitic worms are round worms and tape worms. All dogs and cats are susceptible to worms through out their life and they can pass them on to other animals and even people!

There are three main reasons that pet owners must treat their dogs and cats against worms regularly:

1. Protect the pet – Keeping pets healthy, roundworms are especially dangerous for young animals, when an infestation can cause weight loss, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, anemia and dehydration and even death. In older animals, the symptoms are often not noticeable, so owners my not even realize their pet has worms but it doesn’t mean they’re not there. Although older pets only need to be treated every 3 months their treatment cannot be neglected.
   
2. Protect the environment – Treating pets reduces the risk of re-contamination of an area and the infection of other animals.
3. Protect People – regular worming helps avoid risk of human infection.

You may have seen a few weeks ago I did a blog about plastic pollution, particularly plastic waste in the pet product industry. Here at the Pet hotel I often find myself trying to reduce our waste, not an easy task when you consider how many pets live here as well as the humans!
But really we all know that waste and over consumption is a problem and what I feel (and I think other people do too) is that we are tired of hearing about all the problems, all the shocking images of rubbish strewn beaches. What we really want now are solutions!

There are my top 3 things that I have already done here at The Pet Hotel, that I think can be helpful for every pet owner. There are loads more but it's easy to be overwhelmed and it's much more achievable to make small changes stick. Some them will actually save you money as well as reduce your impact on the environment.

1. Compostable poo bags- There's really no reason now why you should not be using biodegradable or even compostable poo bags. Big, strong and home compostable. These poop bags are made from natural plant based materials. They are extra large and extra thick, they cater for almost all poop sizes and will break down once disposed of. Now these may seem more expensive than the all most see through tiny black bags you get from the pound shop (the RRP on theses is around £5.99 for 60) but I really do think that it's worth it. More than just its green credentials, These bags on rolls fit most poo bag holder, so you wont need to buy a new on. The size is large enough to deal with any dog poop I've had to deal with! And as any one who has used the very cheap poo bags will know, the horrible feeling that your fingers will go through the bag as your picking up a fresh poo, is no problem with these strong bags. There are several different pack sizes and even bags with handles which are available at my market stall and will soon be available from my web shop too.
   

2. Home made cleaner and disinfectant - This one is really easy and will save you money! I make my own cleaning spray for use for both the pets and around the house. The key ingredient is distilled white vinegar, buy the largest quantity you can manage, as this will give you the biggest saving. I buy around 20litres at a time on line, so far I have not needed to buy any more and that was over a year and half ago. I reuse the spray bottles from the cleaners I already had after they were empty and rinsed them out. For a general purpose spray you only need about 1 part vinegar to 10 parts water. Now if the thought of a vinegar smells puts you off (generally it makes me want chips!) you can add a few drops of essential oils (and really you just need a few drops) to get that nice smell. I put in used lemon and citrus peels in mine, which I collect from my local cafe!
If you're spending money on new cleaning sprays, for that "clean fresh" smell you really are just wasting your money and contributing to more plastic and chemicals being used and produced.

3. Switch to a green energy supplier -  Honestly this is one the best things we have done to reduce our overall foot print. As it turned out for us the cost of the tarif was actually less than we were paying with our previous big supplier. They supply 100% renewable electricity and 10% green gas. For every unit of or energy  that we use they make sure a unit is produced and put back into the grid by a renewable source. They source energy from solar, wind and hydro generators from across the country. The green gas they supply goes from renewable sources too, like farm and food waste.
They buy the energy from independent energy generators across the UK and where ever possible they have a direct relation with these generators to purchase their output. To cover any shortfalls, they purchase renewables from the wholesale market. Their energy sources vary from solar and wind to hydro or anaerobic digestion.
If you'd like to find out more about switching energy energy supplier please get in touch via the contact page :)

Another Friday is here already. It has been a really busy week here at R and R. On Monday I traveled up to Sandown park for PATS trade show, where suppliers, manufactures and industry professionals all get together to network, show off new products and ideas and make orders.
Its a great way to see whats going on in the pet world as a trader. I also get to catch up, all be it briefly with reps from companies that I don't get to see much of now.
There were a few products that really caught me eye and whilst I don't have pictures of them all to share just yet, I'm pretty sure that once you see them in use you will love them:

• Oat grass pots for pets- you may have seen theses in grow it own tubs, I've used them before with varying success but these pot are grown just down the road from me here, at Vitacress in Runcton! In fact I remember a year or so ago when they first started to grow them and gave me a load of pots to try! These are great and will get there own post soon!
• Beco pets silicone pet bowl mats - I've ordered one to try out and I'll let you know what I think!
• 5 litre wild bird food tubs - so I've ordered peanuts and seed in these tubs with handles, which I think will make it much easier and cleaner to store wild bird food
  

So I have a few projects currently in the pipeline for R and R, the one I want to talk about is the refurbishment and build of a multi level hutch and run for my male guinea pigs. Since Donatello passed away, it has been painfully obvious how much Raphael is missing his friend. I also have 2 other single male guinea pigs and another single boy, who comes on his holidays with us who lost his friend and is lonely too. The plan is to build a hutch and run that they can all live together in but have plenty of room and hidey holes if they want some space. I have had a few people tell me that Male guinea pigs can't live together, that they will fight to the death! But it has been my experience that it really depends on the piggies themselves, they are all unique and whilst I'm not 100% sure that it will work as I have planned ( it rarely does) I do know that I would rather give them the opportunity for companionship then not try at all and let them spend the rest of their lives on their own.
You can follow the project on my justgiving page here

So this Monday was the last day of Benji’s 28 day course of treatment for a parasitic infection called E.cuniculi. Last week I went into some depth about what the condition is and how it affects rabbits. Link here. I apologies if this week’s blog seems a bit rambling, but I wanted to be as honest as possible about my particular experience. Now that Benji has made it to the end of the treatment, I wanted to share some of those experiences with you. Seeing that your rabbit has head tilt can be very unsettling, but it is by no means the end of the road. What this process has taught me is the importance of catching this illness early. The damage caused by the parasite can not be fixed but the quicker you can start treatment the less damage there will be and the fewer affects for your bunny to live with.
So, I do think it is worth getting to see a rabbit savvy vet as soon as possible and I really do mean as soon as possible, the same day, although that isn’t always possible. I didn’t notice that Benji had head tilt until late in the evening. It came on suddenly and I was able to get an emergency appointment the following afternoon.
Having said that you don’t need a prescription to get Panacur, which is the treatment used to treat this illness, so if your going to need a lot you don’t have to buy it all from the vet. I have since found it for sale online at about half the price at the vet. Luckily the medication isn’t expensive, it only cost £8.50 from the vet and in total I bought 4.
Your vet can do several other checks, as ours did to eliminate any other possible causes, such as ear infection and looking into the eyes, as well as accurately weighing them (you’ll need this to know how much medication to give). Your vet can listen to their heart and take their temperature. It could be very tempting, given that you can buy Panacure ‘over the counter’ so to speak to make your own diagnosis and start treatment; and no one will know your rabbit as well as you but I for one was very glad that we took Benji as soon as we did.
Luckily for us Benji is already living inside but unfortunately around the same time that he become sick our boiler gave up the ghost! The vet had advised us to keep him warm as his temperature was a little low. It’s important that poorly rabbits aren’t expending any unnecessary energy just to maintain their body temperature. Such would hamper their recovery. Benji has a medium sized dog crate that we leave open for him under the stairs with his litter tray at the back. we covered it with blankets and put an extra thick layer of newspaper under his mat. The old camping adage “one underneath is worth two on top” applies! If you have an outside rabbit who is poorly, I highly recommend that you bring them inside, regardless of the weather. It may not be suitable in the long term but having them in with you, not only keeps them warm and dry (away from draughts mind and not in front of a radiator) but means you are more likely to be aware of any changes and act quickly. We gave Benji a little hottie heat pack on a few of the nights though he didn’t seem too fussed.
Benji had also lost a little bit of weight, not much but we didn’t want him losing any more. I noticed that he seemed to favour the larger pellets that I gave him, usually as tip bits, although they are a complete nugget so I decided to start switching him to the science selective adult. I wouldn’t have normally thought changing food whilst a pet was poorly to be a good idea but he was far keener on them and has actually been eating an entire portion each day. The other addition I made to his diet was to add Alfalfa hay to his meadow hay. I have spoke about this product before and how it has really helped me with a severally poorly rabbit before.
Mostly Benji was easy to give his medication to. There were a few times when he kicked forward with his back legs and caught me on the arm. He also bit the syringe a couple times but that actually makes it easier to get it in his chops. One of the things I did find difficult was making sure I had put the right amount in, you need to make sure that you can see the marking on the tube as you are administering it. A couple of times he seemed to spit a lot out or it ended up on his face. On the face is ok as he’ll clean it off himself and eat it anyway.
It’s important that if you think your rabbit is not responding to the treatment or is getting worse that you get them back to your vet. I have noticed that Benji now doesn’t seem to bother going on his litter tray, he just seems to wee wherever he is. I don’t know if this will be permanent, so we may have to make some adjustments to his housing to help keep him clean.
I’ll keep you all updated as to how Benji is getting on post treatment.

So for the past 2 weeks, my mini lop Blu has been living in our front room, since he lost his friend and the n the weather got very cold. He has turned out to be a bold and confident little bunny. A little too confident perhaps, he has also developed a taste for the end of the sofa! Now I can't can't show a picture because he has gone for the end where there's a gap just big enough for him to fit between the sofa and the cabinet. So as well as blocking up these areas, I've made him several different feeders and toys to try and keep him ocupied.

Here are just a few of the things that I came up with, these were all things that I already had around the house.