Those sound activated ones have always driven my nuts. Now I have another reason not to like them. They scare the living daylights out of Apollo. I think thats the first time I’ve actually seen him outright run from something!
Apollo
Ever so proud of the puppy!
One of the hardest things we found in trying to teach manners to our pup is to teach him to drop or otherwise leave an interesting item. This was especially hard because the most common methods for teaching this involve giving the dog a “high value” treat or toy in place of the “bad” item. I know, that doesn’t sound hard at all right?
But see, Apollo, like most Tibetan Mastiffs, isn’t especially food or toy oriented. Sure toys are cool, especially when they squeak, and cheese and peperoni are awesome treats…..but only till something CATCHES his attention, then I can wave peperoni in front of his nose all I want and he’s going to just ignore it. Honest. The lady who did our puppy class tried to tell us we must be doing something wrong if he wasn’t being attracted to the peperoni, the look on her face when she did it, and he ignored her and headed in the opposite direction was priceless. To be fair to her she recovered nicely, and was able to help us cope and come up with alternative methods for most of the training regimen. So sometimes offering him a treat in place of the “bad” item works really well, other times not so much.
Now over time (and remarkably quickly really) he’s learned whats his to chew on and what isn’t, but we’ve still struggled with getting him to “leave it” when something really tempting/tasty hits the ground or catches his eye. Getting him to NOT steal cardboard or paper out of the box of burnable trash has been an on-going argument, and god forbid you drop something tasty food wise. But over the last several weeks he’s headed for the burn box, grabbed something and attempted to make off with it, and I’ll tell him “no, thats not yours” and he’ll drop it and come over to me a bit sheepishly. That all by itself was a HUGE improvement in that behavior, but then just now, I had a couple chocolate chip cookies on my plate, and I somehow managed to drop one on the floor. Apollo lunged, and I said “no”, and he stopped and looked at me! I’m so proud of my puppy! (and yes, he got a couple slices of peperoni for that one).
Dog food
Now I know I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been making my own dog treats. The reasons for this are a couple, first he’s on a gluten free diet and that all by itself cuts out over half the treats on the petstore shelf. The other reason is concern over where the products IN the treats came from.
Did you know that a company can import partially processed meats and other ingredients, complete the processing here in the USA, and legally put “Made in the USA” on the package? And unless the package specifically says SOURCED in the USA that is likely whats happening. Now not all imported ingredients are bad, the only country you REALLY have to watch out for is China, pretty much anywhere else in the world is fine as a food source. But the problems with products from China never really went away, they just got relegated to “old news” and thus are rarely talked about any more.
Needless to say these concerns didn’t take long to make it over to what he was eating regularly. Now he was already eating a gluten free kibble specifically recommended by his breeder. So first off to do some research on them…..and no information on the package or website telling me where their ingredients comes from. Not cool. Now true, I can’t find any record of them being involved in any recalls either, BUT their parent company has a reputation for not always handling recalls well with some of their OTHER petfood brands. Not cool.
So a bit more research and digging around. I’d prefer to feed a raw diet but worry about making sure he’s getting the right balance of “stuff,” especially since he’s still a growing boy, not to mention the need for someone else in the family to feed him on the occasion we’re on vacation. Ran across a company called The Honest Kitchen, they make a dehydrated raw dog and cat food. Hey, they list where their ingredients are from! Even better, they’re FDA certified for producing food for HUMAN consumption. Thats right, unlike every other dog food company out there when they say their food is human grade they can prove it. Thats really cool. And cost wise, volume for volume its actually a bit cheaper than the equivalent amounts of Taste of the Wild canned foods and kibble. Thats really cool.
Been feeding The Honest Kitchen’s Embark and Zeal foods for several weeks now and he quite enjoys it. I’d been supplementing them with raw ground turkey or chicken for variety, when I ran across this post by Heather over at Raised by Wolves. Now Apollo certainly doesn’t need the extra fat and whatnot that those babies do, but I like the concept of the “meatball” format, make ’em up, freeze ’em, pull out as much as you need for a meal. Takes a bit more time cause they have to thaw, but not as much as if I was making it from scratch each time. So I modified the basic recipe to fit my needs:
2lbs ground turkey or chicken
2lbs 90/10 ground beef
2 cups whole oats
a small splash of olive oil
a small dash of molasses
4 eggs
plus whatever else I feel like throwing in (sprinkle of ground dried garlic, a 1/2 cup of grated peperoni, left over cooked turkey, etc)
Mix it all up, use an ice cream scoop to make into meatballs and place onto a parchment or freezer paper lined cookie tray, place tray in freezer till meatballs are frozen (several hours, I just usually leave them over night), move meatballs into ziplock bags, and presto easy, predone supplements for a growing puppy. And since I was usually making his food several hours ahead of time anyway due to the need to rehydrate it, adding in a meatball or two to thaw isn’t a huge deal.
I have to add, cause someone’s sure to wonder, I’ve tried REPEATEDLY to get my cats onto a raw diet, I highly suspect that it would help Janie’s health problems immensely, but they steadfastly REFUSE. I keep trying!
Nut case of a puppy
Thats one of my end tables…..
(taken with my cell phone, so not up to my usual standards)
The Sunset, cleaning out the camera’s memory, and other stuff
I guess one nice thing about a storm like this is a stunning sunset. I had the wrong lens on the camera, but you can at least see the color I was seeing:
In the process of getting those pictures to the computer I ran across a bunch more than I’d taken over the summer and never processed:
On an unrelated subject, anyone know where to get a liquid (not softgel or gel cap) Omega 3, 6, & 9 oil? I can find liquids of that contain one or two, but not all three…..
Puppy pictures!!
Photos taken yesterday.
I’ll put them below the fold so folks who don’t want to see them don’t have to wait for them to stop tying up the connection.
He’s dragging a 30ft leash as his recall isn’t solid yet (and frankly may never be, typical Tibetan Mastiff), and in the first photo he’s carrying a Kong AirDog squeaky tennis ball. He LOVES them cause they squeak, he does not, however, retrieve very well: in that photo he’s running AWAY from my husband……last photo is a shot of him cooling off in his kiddy pool, he’d just taken a mouth-full of water when I called his name, hence the drool!
(disclaimer, I bought all of the above mentioned items with my own money and am receiving no kickback for mentioning them or anything about them. For folks looking for the Kong balls, Petco & Petsmart carry them, but I recommend looking elsewhere, as my local Tractor Supply carries them for $0.99 to Petco’s $1.99, considering how quickly Apollo kills the squeakers (and then won’t play with them cause they don’t make noise) this makes a difference)
Gripe, Grumble…..
This post will be basically a “why me” whine, don’t read if that bothers you…..I’m hoping to get it out of my system.
This post will contain discussion on unions. Do not turn the comments into a political discussion on “those evil unions,” I don’t have the energy to deal right now, I’ll delete them.
The job my husband does, for the company he works for, requires him to belong to a union. Their contract is up as of Midnight August 6th, tonight.
Now, neither of us was entirely thrilled about being part of a union when he got the job in the first place as its not really possible to tell from the outside whether the (private, not public) union in question is decently run or badly run, but the pay and position was a massive step up from where he was so we decided he’d take it. Barely a year after he took the job the contact came up for renewal, and all things considered the renewal was relatively painless. The union threatened to strike, but didn’t cause they reached an agreement without to much fuss or bother.
Fast forward 3 years. We’ve known since January that this contract renewal was probably not going to go nearly as smoothly. With general public opinion running against unions in general the company decided it was going to stand its ground, and started issuing proclamations as early as January as to what it was going to do in the coming year, regardless of the union stance on those things.
We started setting aside some extra money, basically the puppy was our only big splurge, we’ve bought a couple new books, and a couple new games, and other than that most “extra” money (is there really such a thing when you own a house and have pets?) went into savings. This has meant delaying several projects on the house that we’d planned to do this spring/summer. It meant that the grand we had to spend on my root canal and crown after I broke a tooth hurt. It meant when Apollo turned out to be a much more social dog than is usual for the breed, and his breeder recommended we consider getting a 2nd dog as a companion for him to help with some of his issues (and then offered us a 2yr old bitch that had been just returned to her due to the owner’s health, at no cost to us other than transportation), it was something that we couldn’t even consider. And when just in the last two weeks I had the opportunity to possibly consider 3 other dogs (from three different sources, all either rescues, or otherwise in need of a “forever home” asap) as possible companions for him I had to close my eyes and explain that I couldn’t seriously consider it till we knew what was going on with my husband’s job.
Now unless they end up striking for an extreme length of time we’re not in any danger of loosing the house, though if they end up striking for more than a week my husband already has a temp position lined up to supplement our savings. My job is not capable of supporting us alone, though its possible I could pick up a 2nd job if needed (I’ve done the two job thing before though, it sucks and if I can avoid it I’d prefer too), but managing such a schedule around the puppy’s needs would be a bit problematic. It does mean that my application for a pistol license is going on hold till further notice. That $100 isn’t much, but in the event of the extreme side of things it’ll pay for a couple weeks of groceries, or several weeks of animal food. And even if it had already been spent spending the money on a gun would be out of the question.
The union has made it clear it plans to strike, but can still call of off any time between now and midnight, so maybe I’m over reacting, but maybe I’m not. Arg.
Apollo and the wildlife
He’s been fascinated by the birds since he first saw them. His attempts to stalk up on the robins are totally worth the laugh.
He saw his first wild bunny a couple months ago and was very puzzled “wth is that? Hey! It moved! Does that mean I can chase it? Cool!” By this time he no longer hesitates when he see’s the wild rabbits, he just takes off after them. So far they’ve always gotten away, but I have to wonder for how much longer, he’s FAST!
Yesterday he saw his first baby bunnies, and was very peeved when I wouldn’t let him give chase. The babies are to cute, and he might actually be able to catch them.
Today he was so busy searching for baby bunnies that he completely missed the turkeys at the back of the yard in the shade near the stream. To bad, I’m looking forward to the mutual reactions when he spots his first wild turkeys. I can’t promise video though I’ll try, I suspect I’ll either be laughing to hard, or running to save him from the big birds!
More Puppy Videos
I promised a while back to try to get video of the puppy interacting with the cats. This wasn’t quite what I wanted (Janie can STILL drive him across the house….) but I was able to grab the camera in time to catch this so I’ll take it. In this case Trouble started it by grabbing (with claws) at the paws that passed by her, but she doesn’t appear to be actually upset by the results.
(please ignore the grubby carpet, I’m behind on vacuuming)
Made a 2nd batch of puppy cookies today
Couple changes, used ground turkey instead of duck cause its easier to find (Duck will stay a special treat), added a little bit of garlic, then, instead of mashing little balls flat, I rolled out the dough inbetween two sheets of parchment paper, then used a pizza cutter to seperate them into squares. They ended up more like crackers then cookies this time, but he doesn’t care, and it was much easier.