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Posted on October 3, 2010
I just saw the Pottawatomie County Calendar for the first time today and I LOVE IT!
Here is a sneak peek of Cody, our Mr. January! And when you are ready to order just download the order form here or stop by any of the humane society’s adoption days to pick one up. They are $15 if you pick them up, $20 to have them shipped and only $12 if you are a member of the humane society. That is a steal for such a georgous, good quality piece of art! But I’m also a bit biased…
Posted on September 10, 2010
I have been photographing dogs adopted from the Pott County Humane Society over the last few months for their 2011 calendar. A few weeks ago I sent everything off the lovely designers of Imagemakers, Inc. and now the calender is about to be printed. Stay tuned for an announcement of where and how to order!
Posted on June 15, 2010
I am in love with this new DVD I got. It is about dogs’ body language and what they are trying to tell you. I have been reading about it (much by Patricia McConnell) and tried to see it in my dogs but I guess I am a visual person and it’s not as easy for me to translate my theoretical knowledge into practical knowledge. At least not in this case. So I found this DVD by Sarah Kalnajs, a dog trainer and behavior consultant. It is a recording of a seminar she gave (for shelter staff, I believe) in which she goes through each and every body signal a dog could give and backs it up by examples on video, which she gathered from mainly dog assessments in all sorts of environments. I am in love with it! I think I am just going to keep it in my DVD player for a few weeks and play it over and over again to make sure it is imprinted into my brain 
I absolutely recommend it for anyone dealing with many dogs, shelter staff, foster parents, humane society volunteers, or anyone who visits the dog park frequently and would like to know when to back off. That DVD cleared up some signals I see in one of my dogs that majorly confused me. Now I know for sure that she has got some major fear issues. Sarah Kalnajs gets four paws up from us!
*EDIT Sarah Kralnajs website also has some good resources for further information on anything training and behavior related!*
Posted on April 27, 2010
My freezer is full of pork necks and chicken parts. Because for almost a week now I have been feeding my dogs raw meat. And I am excited. And my dogs are even more excited!
Just a few perks this has already: 1. I don’t even think about what kind of chew toys I could get them next, because the bones left from their meals keeps them plenty busy (and their teeth healthy). 2. I don’t dread picking up poop anymore, it became small and ODORLESS! But I still have a foster that is being fed “vet recommended” food and her poop still stinks. Literally.
After two weeks, I am supposed to notice a significant mental and physical change in my dogs. I will keep you posted. For now I wanted to review a few books I have read on the topic. If you are interested, all of these books are rather thin. I think I read each of them within one or two days. And I am not the person who usually reads books within days. More like weeks… or months
My favorite is called “Work Wonders” by Tom Lonsdale. It is my favorite because it is easy and written by a vet. My second favorite is also easy and straightforward, but not by a vet and I can’t help but trust someone with credentials a bit more. Although concerning nutrition my trust in vets in general is shaken. But this one is great! He is not afraid to tell you that raw meat will reduce your vet bills. Makes you wonder if other vets recommend crappy food to make sure their patients keep coming back!? Anyway, as I said, it is easy and straight forward. Don’t be put off by the silly cover. Read it and start making your dog happier! (Right now it is actually on sale at sitstay.com)
The second book, which I also like very much is called “Raw Dog Food” by Carina Beth MacDonald. She write from years of experience with raw feeding her own dogs and because she wished she would have had a book like that when she started. And it really is what she wants it to be. Simple guidance to feeding your dog better.
The third book I am not too excited about. It’s called “Pet Food Nation” by Joan Weiskopf. She is a nutritionist and I have an affinity for nutritionists. I LOVED my (equine) nutrition professor and I love the topic of nutrition in general. And if you are looking for a book to tell you what is wrong with commercial pet foods than I would almost recommend to read her book. Almost, because in my opinion she goes a little far in the alternative she suggests. She does not recommend feeding raw but cooked meat and veggies. And I’m sorry, but I don’t even cook for myself every day. I am still looking for something that is not too time consuming while healthy for my dogs. And I find her reasoning against raw food pretty iffy in light of the many people who successfully feed raw.
So that’s it so far. I will keep you posted on my experiences. Feel free to comment with questions or your own experiences!
EDIT 1: Lexi asked about my budget. To be honest, the only thing that held me back from trying raw food in the first place was that I didn’t want to spend more money than I am with my dry kibble. So after reading the books I made some calculations and figured I need to spend no more than $1 per pound of meat on average. And that is what I am doing, I am looking for sales and often the kind of meat you feed dogs (with bones) is the cheaper kind anyway. So no, no dent in pocket. I think with my two 50lbs dogs I am going to spend about $60. Not more than most premium kibble. Actually less.
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Posted on April 6, 2010
Thanks to the discussions we had lately on my facebook page I have done a little experiment with dog chews. Nothing that requires a lab, just my dogs and many different kinds of dog chews. My goal was to find one that is no health concern, is not mainly made of fat, one that the dogs like and keeps them busy for longer than 5 minutes. Preferably longer than 10 minutes, too. And that is no easy feat! At least if you disregard a filled kong or a nylabone, which I both love and are my first choice, but I also like to give my dogs something… organic you could say, I guess.
A little background on why I even started this: The common dog chews you can find in most local grocery and pet stores are rawhides, hooves, bones and pig ears. All of which are not necessarily the best products for your dogs to digest or chew on. I won’t go into detail but in general I’d like to warn you that raw hides can obstruct your dog’s bowel by expanding, if they are cheap and not made from one piece they can splinter and basically tear their guts. Hooves and bones, although I like them, are supposed to be too hard for them, so they can chip a tooth and pig ears are mainly fat.
So I ordered a load of “healthy chews”, which you can get from places like k9cuisine.com or sitstay.com
(and no, I don’t have any affiliation with sitstay other than I like them). They are mostly dried muscle or tendon. I orderd cow ears, bully sticks, braided bully sticks, twisted bully sticks, spiral flossies (tendon), and bully springs. Unfortunately quite a lot of other things I wanted to try are out of stock in several stores. Like I wanted to try achi
lles tendons or lamb pizzles. Anyway, so all of these products usually have a description that tells you the size of them, but even though I read them 6 inches on my ruler looks a lot bigger than some of the six inch chews I got. My bad, I guess. Just let me tell you, if you have a 50lb. dog, you probably don’t want to get the 6 inch chews. I hardly have to make any differentiation here, almost all of them were gone within minutes that I gave them to my dogs. I’d actually love to hear other peoples experiences, because maybe I have some crazy chewers on my hands, but I don’t think so. I think my dogs are pretty average. They go to town on a rawhide but they don’t destroy a KONG. That is my definition of average.
So out of all of these chews there is only one that I will order again. It’s the normal bully sticks. I think they lasted at least half an hour and those where the 6 inch one. So my conclusion: I am going to stick with Nylabones, KONGs and the thickest and longest bully sticks I can find
(Pictures courtesy of sitstay.com)
Posted on April 2, 2010
Now how cool is this??? (Click on the picture for more info)
Posted on March 30, 2010
I’m not sure if the smell in my kitchen last weekend would have given you the same back flashes it gave me, but it wasn’t pretty! I grew up in Germany (in case that matters) and every so often at school they would offer liver for lunch. It wasn’t the only choice of meal and most certainly I always chose whatever else they offered, no matter what it was. But still, we had to enjoy our lunch with this distinct smell in our noses and if you know the smell you probably know that it pretty much ruins even the best dish.
Yes, this post is not pretty, but it made the dogs happy. And isn’t that what we all strive for? So since I finally ran out of my vast treat and cookie supply this weekend it was time for some more baking. And although I have stayed clear of any recipe containing liver so far, I decided to give it a try this time. Liver treats are pretty expensive, liver however is not. I think I bought two pounds of chicken liver for $3.50. I tried to recipes. One was to make Liver Jerky by basically cooking it for a few minutes and then letting it dry in the oven for about 2 hours. And that smell! I’m sorry, but I am not going to make that one again! I was extremely grateful for the good weather so I could leave all doors and windows open. Otherwise I might have just passed out. I just don’t think that something that is considered food should smell this badly. So I don’t consider it food. It is an organ that collects toxins for gods sake! It has the weirdest texture, too. I couldn’t even tell what size the pieces were that I cut it into, since it just kinda sinks into a blob along with all the other blobs looking like a slimey blob of organic waste.
I do however, recommend the second recipe I tried. Mainly because it didn’t require touching the livers and it didn’t smell as badly. All you do is puree the liver (1 lb.) in a food processor and the mix it with 1 cup of tapioca flour or starch. Then you spread thinly onto non-stick foil on a baking sheet and bake it for 70 minutes at 250 degrees. Once its done you can cut it with a pizza cutter into as large or small pieces as you want and use it as training treats. Your dog will thank you!
And if anyone is concerned about my comment on toxicity, don’t worry. That is just my way of reasoning away disgusting food. But I did go ahead and ask Darcy of SitStay.com about liver treats, because they sell them and I trust that whatever they sell is tried with their dogs, hence good for my dogs. Here is what she said:
“Liver is rich in nutrition for both humans and dogs, that’s been know for years. Liver has brought dying puppies back from certain death, given new life to lethargic dogs, and injured dogs seem to recover faster when liver is added to their diet a few times a week. You certainly don’t want to give a diseased liver to your dog or eat one either. Think about it this way, if you think about what a rabbit is made of, what amounts of which parts should your dog be eating? The stomach contents vary, the liver is a bit smaller than than the heart and kidneys combined but not as big as the bones and the rest of the meat so if you feed your dog like Mother Nature would, you’d have all the parts in the whole rabbit in the right quantity for your dog. If you’re not feeding whole animals to your dog, give attention to how much of what foods you are feeding so your dog is getting a more natural balance of food. If you’re using liver as treats, don’t add more liver to your dog’s daily diet. Too much of anything isn’t good for us or our dogs, including liver which is high in vitamin A. If you stick to the old saying “All things in moderation”, including food, and shop only where you get safe and healthy food, you’ll be good. Remember that Mother Nature knows what your dog should eat and one of those things is liver. I suggest to people all the time to feed natural foods in natural quantities and do not over supplement, over supplementing is asking for trouble. A dog who eats a lot of liver and also gets a vitamin A supplement will be getting too much vitamin A.”
Posted on March 23, 2010
The other day I went to Kansas City and visited the Three Dog Bakery, because secretly I am dreaming of one day having a photography studio attached to a dog bakery. You know, art and cookies
Anyway, so I went to check out what kind of stuff they bake and realized that they sell a whole lot more. My husband pointed out some awesome collars to me and then didn’t buy them. How cruel is that? So now that is all I am dreaming of, the lime colored flower collar made from hemp! Hemp? Yes! Another eco-friendly find of mine. The company that makes them Pinc Paw.
So why hemp? Because it is bio degradable, super strong and non allergenic. And they are sooooo pretty!!!
Posted on March 16, 2010
You know what I totally love right now? Rubber Boots. For my own muddy feet and for dogs.
After it snowed so heavily last year and Mac appeared somewhat sensitive to snow and definitely sensitive to salt, I was looking all over for dog booties. I tried some out that were hilarious to watch on him but also made me want to take them off right away. I never ended up trying the real expensive ones, because I settled for indoor games and shorter walks until the weather got better again. Last week though, Maize stepped in glass *how she did that is a whole different crazy story*and cut one of her pads. The vet cleaned it out and gave us a huge and weird plastic bag, which we were supposed to put on her foot whenever she went outside. That seemed very wrong to me on several levels. First of all it was one of the most expensive vets in town. You’d think that for the prices they charge they should be able to take the time and come up with something more nifty. And then do they seriously believe that my dog (crazy active) will actually run around with a stiff 5×5 plastic bag tied to her foot? I don’t think so!
So I remembered these rubber booties I saw at a local pet store the other day. And I love them. Maize isn’t bothered, they stay on and her foot stays clean. That’s all I have to say. Easy as that! I’m gonna keep these babies around for the next emergency or snow chaos (not anytime soon please!) I’m sure I can even come up with more uses for them… to keep the house a little cleaner maybe???
Posted on March 2, 2010
Cover by the awesome Erin Vey
I’m not even done with this book, yet, and I cannot help myself but sing praises!
This book has been on my list of books to read for a while. I did not order it, yet, in favor of reading different ones first for one reason: the reviews. And they are not bad, but they just left me with a feeling of “that’s not the book I MUST read”. I don’t recall them in detail, I know one said it mentions lots of things we already know. But it’s not one review in particular, it’s the feeling that many reviews left in me. And boy was that wrong!!!
A friend of mine had ordered it and said she thinks it’s something I would want to read (even before she opened the book). And I am so glad she brought it over. I am absolutely in love.
I probably have to explain something first. I love science. I studied equine science and I soaked up all of the scientifical articles I could find. I set out to become a journalist to spread the news of science, because I had the feeling that there is a lack of communication between the scientific community and the press and rest of the world, namely the people that need to actually APPLY the findings. In the end photography stole me away from journalism, but I love science nevertheless. And I am so happy, that Alexandra Horowitz, a scientist, wrote this book for everyone to understand.
Usually I rather read books about training and understanding dogs than heartfelt stories about dogs. This one is somewhere in between and totally different at the same time. Horowitz uses her own dog as example without boring me. She actually writes beautifully, almost poetic, about her dog as introduction to each chapter. And then each chapter is exactly what the title promises. A look from the inside out. How do dogs see, smell, hear and taste the world backed up by scientific evidence. How do they experience us, their toys, other dogs, and themselves.
Don’t we all sort of know how dogs see the world, how they smell much better than we do and how they descend from wolfs… or not? Horowitz clears up misconceptions and takes you a step further. Into the dogs mind. What information does the fire hydrant give him (it’s like the community board or local newspaper) and why do they not find the ball right in front of their nose. Day after day that I am reading, chapter after chapter, I am understanding my dogs a little better. In small, but significant ways.
I can only encourage everyone to read it. I might get back to you about when I’m actually done. Not with a reviewed review, but with more wisdom