Hi Everyone,

I am Chaitanya from Hyderabad (India) and I have lurked around these message boards for quite a while though I have never posted here before. I have learnt a lot from the e-books, DVDs and forums on this website and am quite grateful to Ed Frawley, his colleagues and the other members of these forums for the excellent information they provide.

As for my experience with dogs, I have volunteered at an animal shelter for a while and had a really gentlemanly dog who I had adopted from the same shelter. Quite unfortunately, he passed away from illness a couple of months ago. I then, decided to do something to help others who had a dog as a member of their family.

My vet often used to say that I was someone who really took good care of his dog and no one else who came to her clinic did as much for their dogs as I did. It surprised me and disappointed me a bit to hear that because I thought I did what any responsible person would do after adopting a dog. Later, I realised that it was not that people around here were not responsible, but many were not aware or educated about what it takes to care for a dog and how one can relate to a dog.

I can't say I have much experience with dogs, but from what I do know, I thought I should write a bit to help those who face problems with the most basic issues of dog care. I have started a simple series on how one lives with a dog. I will be writing more every now and then.

What I have written is here:

Walking, Grooming, Cleaning the eyes and ears: http://childsplay.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/daily-care-for-adult-dogs-walking-grooming-cleaning-eyes-and-ears/

Feeding: http://childsplay.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/daily-care-for-adult-dogs-feeding/

Resources on Dog Behaviour and Training: http://childsplay.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/dog-training-and-dog-behaviour-resources/

Please have a look at these and feel free to give any feedback or suggestions that you may have. I shall be quite thankful for any such feedback or suggestions coming my way. If you think they are helpful, do pass them around to those who may be able to make use of such information.

Thanks again folks.

- OSK

It's a rather simplistic guide that is missing a bit of the clarifying detail I feel required. For instance in your section about grooming you mention tools but not which tools are appropriate or how to correctly use them. A great example of this is the slicker brush. About 99% of people I have met use one incorrectly and on the wrong dog coat styles.

It would be good to have an idea of who your target audience is. It would help in my ability to critique it.

Thanks Melissa for taking time out to read and review them.

My target audience is people who have adopted a dog (or wish to adopt one) but have not yet learnt how one should care for a dog and don't know where to begin.

It is not targetted at experienced people looking for something like a reference. The chief reason for that is that I am not qualified to write something like that - for instance, I don't know what a "slicker brush" is. It may be possible that I have seen one without knowing its name. However, I can't bank on that being likely.

Ok now I understand a little better. Is this going to be left in american english or another language?
Also you may want to write to Ed about direct linking to some of his E books. It's considered bad net manners to not ask first.

The main critique I have is the over all simplicity of it even for beginning information. Presenting choices like in your feeding section would help it immensely. I'm not sure if they have kibble brands where you are at but I would cover options a bit more concretely rather than glossing over them.

Thanks for pointing out the direct-linking issue. I wrote to Ed. If he doesn't like it, I'll keep the list and make it plain-text list (without direct links) since there is a link to the e-books page anyway.

I will keep your suggestions in mind and try to think of the kind of detail I can add to it to make it more concretely useful.

Oh, also I intend to leave it in English. I do know a couple of other languages - but I can't write clearly in one, and can't write in the other.

Thanks again for your time (-: