Oct 022013
 

Dog Grooming Tools

I am often asked the question about grooming my dogs and my reply is “seldom”.  I do bathe them to keep them smelling sweet and their hair soft, but I don’t do much in the way of grooming except to keep down the straggles and to get ready for  the show ring in which case I sometimes use a professional groomer.  Aside from the above, I keep my dogs’ nails clipped regularly for a couple of reasons.  First, I have hardwood floors and secondly, long nails are actually a detriment to a dog’s stability on their feet and can even be painful.

I found some neat videos on YouTube to share and I have practiced on my dogs and like the recommended techniques.  The two areas that I try to keep neat are the ears and pantaloons and watching the demonstration made clipping these areas easy.   The videos are in five parts and I am linking to each one.  Enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

 Posted by at 6:13 pm
Jul 082013
 

Link to a quick video from our morning adventure:  Out for a Walk

I like to take Fancy and Ike, my “big” little dogs around the two mile neighborhood loop at least once a day and morning is preferable for their walk.  They think they are out for a hunt and it’s all business to them from start to finish.  After the exercise, their day is much more relaxed as is mine.

I am fortunate to live in an area where we can walk with the dogs safely.  We have leash laws and our Animal Control facility is diligent about picking up loose or lost dogs and helping them to find their way back home, occasionally with a little reprimand for the owners.  Plus, our traffic is minimal and we can make the loop with very few stops if we time it right.

Today my thoughts were totally random, as they typically are, but as we were walking I had my headphones on and had chosen a station on my Iphone from the TuneIn Radio app.  I don’t know why this appeals to me, but I think it is fun to listen to stations from around the country and this morning the call was 96.3 The Wolf. When I kept hearing “Anchorage”, I thought..hmmm…that’s not far from me, maybe 15 miles.  But, when they gave the high temp today as 63, I realized, the music in my ear was being broadcast from Alaska which was a surprise.  Isn’t technology amazing?  I know that is a trite saying, but it really is amazing what information and media we have so easily at our discretion.  The younger generation expects it all to work, the older generation is still amazed that it does.

The pooches and I had a pleasant walk with the sun starting to shine after several days of gray skies summer and rain.  The dogs probably could hear the beat of the country music from my ear buds and we were in step in more ways than just our feet.  They didn’t care that a human + computer thousands of miles away programmed the music itinerary for this morning, but it gave me random food for thought.  Walking for exercise and relaxation is good, life is good and dogs in step make it better.

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 Posted by at 10:05 pm
Dec 222011
 

I know you new puppy parents are perusing my Blog to not miss a moment of your new friend’s life so I took another video this morning.  It’s with my Iphone and not high quality, but has a good view of the little ones.  They are eating really well, as is Momma Dog, and their little bellies are starting to pooch out.  I love the time when they start to turn from newborns into puppies.

At this point it is very very important for me to keep Fancy healthy with as many calories as I can get down here.  She’s currently eating Orijen Fish dog food because it is very high calcium and  very high calorie (600+ kcal per cup), a six star food, the very best rating.  That is much higher calorie count than I would like to feed my dogs normally because when not whelping I like to keep them just a tad lean.  Fancy loves that particular food and I’m adding some hot water to make a stew because her intake of fluids needs to be maximized as well.  This morning early, she ate about 1 1/2 cups of dog food covered with hot water.  At lunch she got another bowl of  1 1/2 cups mixture of cottage cheese, rice and chicken that I had cooked earlier and frozen for her and a little puppy food.  The extra calcium in the cottage cheese and the protein again will help her milk supply.  With five nursing puppies, a female dog can lose a lot of her body fat and sacrifice her own health just as nursing skin mothers do.  Tonight she’ll get another meal and perhaps a chunk of cheese if she’s still hungry.  To compare, when not with puppies, Fancy eats 1 cup of food per day and maintains a healthy weight.

I’m not seeing a way to link to my video on my version of WordPress, so if necessary, you may need to copy and paste the url into your browser:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vpBTrynYPM

 Posted by at 6:09 pm