Problem: Write an article based on this summary: Determine if your dog has allergies. Try putting your dog on a diet trial. Challenge your dog's diet. Restrict your dog's activity. Follow up with your veterinarian. Prevent ear infections.

Answer: Allergies are often the primary source of inflammation in the ear, which makes the ears more susceptible to infections. While it may be difficult to determine an allergic cause, it helps to start paying attention to factors such as if new foods or treats were introduced before the ear infection flared up. If they contained a particular protein, you may want to avoid that giving your dog that protein. Animal proteins and dairy products in food are more likely to cause allergies for pets than grains are, despite the popularity of the notion that grain free diets are better for dogs with food allergies. Specifically, put your dog on a diet trial with a novel, or new, protein, one your dog has never eaten before. New prescription diets should be fed exclusively for at least 8 weeks and ideally for a minimum of 12 weeks. Give no treats, table scraps or other food sources during this time. This may help to determine if food proteins are the problem and home in on which are culprits. The best novel protein diets are prescription formulas because they will have the least likely chance of cross-contamination with other protein sources, but they are often the most expensive choice. At the end of the trial, if your dog is not showing signs of ear inflammation or skin allergies (most commonly itchy paws and sometimes itching of other areas of the body), then you can 'challenge' your dog's diet with a single type of treat or the old food. If you notice signs of irritation near the ears, feet, or skin when you re-introduce the old food or treat, then you know that this food or any food containing this protein should be eliminated. If the ear infections tend to spring up at the same time of year every year, a seasonal environmental allergy may be causing the ear infections. While your dog has an ear infection, you should make sure he doesn't get excess moisture in his ears. Avoid letting your dog play in water, swim, bathe, or be groomed until the ear infection has cleared up. Extra moisture will aggravate the ear infection and make it last longer. Keep checking in with the veterinarian until the ear infection is completely gone. Some ear infections are mild and easily treated in 1-2 weeks with topical medications and cleaning. Some infections are more complicated and may take many weeks, further testing, treatments or procedures to treat. Follow your veterinarian's recommendations about when to check in, since the vet can help you determine if the ear infection is cleared or if more needs to be done. Once your dog has had an ear infection, he's more likely to struggle with them throughout his life. The good news is that there are several things you can do to prevent ear infections in your dog. Here are several preventative measures: avoid letting your dog swim or bathe too frequently plug your dog's ears with cotton before bathing him flush your dog's ears with a product containing salicylic acid (which helps wet ear canals dry) check and treat any allergies your dog may have frequently clean your dog's ears

Problem: Write an article based on this summary: Gather your supplies. Measure your ribbon. Hold the loop.

Answer: You'll need floral stem wire to hold the bow together at its center. Make sure to bend it in half so it looks like a U. You'll also need wire-edged ribbon. Get a spool and that way you can make the bow as big as you like. Pull about 18 inches (46cm) of ribbon away from the spool. Hold onto the ribbon with the fingers of your left hand. Now that you've made a loop, transfer it to your left hand and hold it firmly in between your fingers.

Problem: Write an article based on this summary: Own your strengths. Avoid disconfirming the compliment. See yourself the way that others see you. Boost your self-esteem.

Answer: If you shy away from compliments because you don't want to appear conceited or full of yourself, recognize that you deserve recognition. It's not conceited to accept a compliment. If someone points out that you look nice or did a great job on a project, acknowledge that you put work into it and that they are recognizing you. For example, if you put a lot of work into a presentation and someone says, "Great presentation!" acknowledge your hard work by saying, "Thanks! I worked hard on it." You might feel tempted to disagree with the comment as a way to appear humble. However, by saying things like, "It was nothing" or, "Don't mention it," you downplay your role, the compliment, and the person giving it. Besides, the person might feel rejected if you disagree. For example, if someone compliments your clean house, resist the urge to say, "I haven't cleaned in a week. It looks horrible!" This might make them feel bad or that you think they are sloppy. Take a moment and reflect on the compliments you receive. Whether you believe them or not, take the chance to see how others see you. You might learn something about yourself or the work you do and feel more positively. For example, if you often receive compliments about your job performance, that means that other people are noticing the great work you do. Understand that your self-evaluations will tend to be harsher or more demanding than other people's evaluations of you. If you find yourself constantly second-guessing compliments, maybe there is something you need to change about your self-evaluations. If you feel good about yourself, you may feel good when someone else notices something positive about you. Increasing your self-esteem can make you less resistant to compliments. Do this by thinking positively about yourself and recognizing your worth. For example, write down the things you like about yourself and think about them when you feel low.

Problem: Write an article based on this summary: Turn everything off. Hook your amplifier and pedal up to power. Connect your guitar to the input jack. Connect the output jack on the pedal to the input of the amplifier. Turn the amplifier on first and set your levels. Turn down the effect knobs before switching it on. Experiment with the pedal. Always unplug cables when you're finished playing.

Answer:
Anytime you're connecting or disconnecting an effects pedal, you need to cut the power to everything in the chain. While the power cables can and should be plugged in to each separate unit, the units themselves should be switched off. Make sure the amp and each pedal are switched off when you connect them. There is one exception to this rule though - if you are using a tube or valve amp. In this case, you want to keep the amp turned on but put the amp in standby mode using the standby switch. Trying to connect live circuits can result in shorts, as well as loud pops and feedback bursts that will come through the amp. It'll shorten the life of all the components in your rig. Don't do it. The biggest thing to avoid is powering on a pedal, connecting it, then powering on the amplifier. This is a fast-track to a short. To make sure the pedals and the amp are off before you connect them, you'll need to have them plugged in. Connect both your pedal and your amp to power and switch them on and off to make sure. Some guitar pedals will come with 9-volt A/C adapters, while others will be battery-operated, though most feature both options. For most guitar players, batteries are nice because it's one less thing to plug in, but are a hassle because batteries die and are expensive. Most pedals will have only two jacks, one labeled "Input," and another labeled "Output." These jacks are usually located on opposite sides of the pedal's body, depending on the unit, and are built to accept a standard quarter-inch (6 mm) audio cable. Locate the input and output jacks on the guitar pedal, then connect your guitar to the jack labeled "input." All the inputs and outputs can get confusing for the beginner. Remember: the audio signal is generated by your guitar's pickups, from where it travels to the amp through the cable. So, the guitar should always be connected to the input jack of the pedal, because this reflects the direction in which the signal travels. You play a sound on the guitar, then it travels "in" to the pedal, where it comes "out" and goes back "in" to the amp. Run another length of quarter-inch cable from your pedal to your amplifier. The cable connecting the pedal to the amp should go into the same input you would normally plug your guitar into directly. To connect a pedal, you'll need at the very least, two quarter-inch cables. If you're chaining together pedals, you'll likely need more patch cables to fit everything together without much hassle, but if you're just plugging in one, two regular cables will work fine. After you've got all your cables plugged in, switch your amplifier on and set everything like you like it. In general, it's best to keep your amp relatively unaffected when you're trying out a pedal for the first time, to get a feel for how it sounds, but feel free to experiment. If you always play with the amp on the same settings, leave it how you like it. Especially if you're plugging in a super-fuzz distortion pedal or some kind of space-echo, you want to make sure you're not going to blow out your eardrums when you stomp on the pedal for the first time. Turn all the settings down low before you activate the pedal. You can adjust them as you play. To activate most pedals, you can step on a button or a lever below the control knobs on the pedal to activate it. Most of the time, a red or green light will turn on, letting you know the pedal is activated. Gently explore the features of the pedal, turning the different effect knobs up while you're playing to get a feel for the sound. Play around with different effect volumes and orientations. Have fun. To turn most pedals off, you'll step on the button or lever again, cutting the signal to the pedal and going straight through the amp. Play around with activating and deactivating the pedal to get the kind of sound you want. If you leave pedals connected, the power will be drained, making this especially important if you're using batteries to power your guitar pedals. Any time you've got cables connected to the input and output jacks, the power will be drained from the pedal. If you're not actively playing, make sure all your pedals are disconnected and switched off. They'll last a lot longer.