Dog

Categories Apollo, Dog

I’m so glad Apollo LIKES kids…..

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….cause otherwise I’d have had a really horrid (last) Friday afternoon instead of a less than great one.  And it would have been totally my fault for not paying attention.

He really does like kids too, he gets upset if they’re yelling and screeching (those guardian instincts kicking in, he thinks they’re in danger), but he honestly LIKES kids.

Friday afternoon was a slightly rushed trip to the vet after it occurred to me that morning that the oddball symptoms I’d been seeing for the last couple days were probably the result of him having a UTI.  In my rush to get out to door, catch a urine sample to bring, and make sure I had everything I forgot to grab the credit card to pay for the visit with.  I’m not normally that scatterbrained, but it was Friday, and I was tired.  I realized about halfway through talking to the vet that I’d left the card at home.  Dammit.  So I get to the counter, and explain to the lady that I was an idiot, but I had $60 in my purse I could give her now and I could call her when I got home with the credit card number?  (Or alternatively I could leave Apollo with them as hostage while I ran home for the card, I was informed that option was really tempting, but I might not get him back in that case)  She said that was fine.  During all this Apollo is doing his absolute best to drag me out the door so he could go pee (again, typical UTI symptom).  While we’re talking a mom & son move up to the desk on the other side of me.  They were polite, they didn’t approach my dog, and stayed on the far side of me from him, so I basically ignored them as I apologized to the lady at the desk.

As she hands me the paperwork, and the receipt for the cash I gave her, I realize that Apollo is no longer attempting to drag me out the door.  I turn around and instead of attempting to open the door himself Apollo is sitting on the feet of the boy (who was MAX 10yrs old, and probably younger), leaning up against the kid, all the while stretching up to try to lick his chin without breaking his sit.  All the while with the biggest doggy grin on his face.  The kid in turn has his arms wrapped around Apollo’s neck, hands buried in his ruff, and is asking his mother “can we get a dog like THIS??”

I had to laugh at my goofball puppy, I really did, but inside I had to shake a bit, best I can tell Apollo approached the kid rather than the other way around, but still.  Thank god he LIKES kids!

(his UTI is responding to the antibiotic and it looks like he’s going to be fine)

Categories Apollo, Dog

Apollo just weighed in

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at 90lbs even.  At 9.5 months thats about where he should be no problems.  One of his litter mates seriously won the genetic lottery though….Aslan just weighed in at 129lbs and measured a shoulder height of 30″.  Thats one big dog, and he’s not done growing yet!

Categories Apollo, Dog

A discovery about my puppy

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Last night, Husband and I were watching Mythbusters, when Apollo asked to go out.  Not unusual.  Paused the show (LOVE my DVR), took him out, and when we came back in he bounced up onto the couch, plopped his butt into Husband’s lap, and flopped.  Husband leaned over to cuddle the big puppy in his lap, and I grabbed my phone to take a picture of the cute scene.

None of which is usual.  But then I looked at the photo…..and discovered the horrifiying truth about my puppy….

Click to go below the fold to find out what!

My Puppy’s an evil robot!!!

   I promise the only photoshop involved was to black out Husband’s face.  Cool huh?

Categories Apollo, Dog

Ever so proud of the puppy!

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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).

Categories Apollo, Cats, Dog, Food

Dog food

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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!

Categories Apollo, Dog, Nothing Much

The Sunset, cleaning out the camera’s memory, and other stuff

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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…..

Categories Apollo, Dog

Puppy pictures!!

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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.

Click to enbiggen

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)