Oh Noes!

"He may be small...

...but he sure is aggressive!"

-Lady who scared Frodo with her noisy ass garage door.

:(

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

There are going to be some ch-ch-changes around here (and by here I mean my home) with the dogs over the next few weeks.

1. I've decided to stop feeding Mollie raw as she did not do well on it, at all. Not in the least. So last night I took a crash course on home-cooked pet food as I knew I didn't want to go back to feeding her kibble. I also decided that I'm going to try Izzy on this for a bit as well, just to see if I can't get her stool to firm up a bit. So I searched the internet, talked to some people on a dog forum I belong to, and went to the grocery store last night at 9 o' clock at night. Here's what I'm trying first...

2.5 lb hamburger
.5 lb plain yogurt
12 oz pureed sweet potato

The recipe also called for 4 oz of liver, but I'm going to hold off on the liver until my next batch, mainly because it will almost certainly cause loose stools. It also called for calcium, which the dogs will be getting through raw chicken wings at least once a week to keep their teeth clean, though I'm not sure how may they will be getting yet. Instead of the recommended fish oil capsules they will be getting a squirt of the Grizzly Salmon oil I have for their Omega 3s.

The biggest thing I'm really going to try and work towards is variety, both because it's good for the dogs and because Mollie gets sick of food very quickly. The amount of food that I made with the above recipe I'm thinking may last around 3 to 4 days or so, depending on how much Mollie and Izzy need to have per day.

I am also going to need a meat grinder. Turkey alone here is $5/lb when it's ground O.o I can't afford that! It'll be so much cheaper to grind my own food. They'll be getting stuff like squirrel, deer, etc too. Everything I feed raw that I can get off bone. I found last night at the store that they sell a lamb/veal/beef ground blend, it's only like $3/lb, so they will be getting that for sure too. I also looked at some of the fish they had set out (the actual fish counter was closed), and there was nothing under $8/lb sitting out! Again, O.o I'm hoping they sell cheaper fish at the actual counter.

I really do not think that dogs need vegetables and dairy products, but if they will eat it and are healthy and feel good on it, then so be it.

2. Frodo is driving me insane. He has started to be a real jerk towards Izzy and Mollie. Pushing Mollie around and starting scuffles with Izzy. So Mr. Jerkface is back on a stricter NILIF program, will be on a leash that's attached to my belt when he's awake, and sleeping in his crate at night.

Okay, so that's really all the ch-ch-changes that I have planned for now, but you never know when more will pop up and I will have to add them to tehlistofdoom!

"bigger than his head"

This morning Frodo had his first "bigger than his head" meal. He loved it and was very sad when I took it away. The pork shoulder (I think that's what it is anyway) is 5.12 pounds, and he usually eats somewhere between 7-10 ounces a day, so this puppy is going to last us quite a while. I planned on taking it away when he had consumed roughly that amount of meat, but I found out it's really hard to keep track of how much they are taking off of a piece of meat this size, so I just took it away after a little while.

He stayed away from the skin part for the most part, which made me happy as I'm sure it will give him loose stools. I thought about taking all the skin off, but I really don't want to take the skin away from his diet as I know it is important. I figure tonight he will just get a chicken gizzard and tomorrow morning he can have at the shoulder again. Rise and repeat until it's gone.

I made a video of him eating...


Some pictures from the video...

The Pork.
Waiting to be released.
It haz a heartbeet? :p
Uh...nom?

Mini-Nom.
Renegade Earz.
And my favorite picture of the day...

And last, but certainly not least, a very sad Izzy who had to be sequestered in the living room because she thought she should be able to eat the ginormous pork too.

Dis. bees. abuse.

Hopefully she will one day be able to eat big meals like this, but I'm not holding my breath. Her stomach is just so tempermental. Right now I'd just like to be able to feed her something other than chicken!

Flyball 10/3

Had flyball tonight, woot!
Started of kinda bad as I was running late and then when I got to the non-public parking lot for the training club, it was packed. Because apparently high school football night trumps the fact that it is non-public!! So I ended up parking in about 6 inches of mud, which I had to wade through the get Izzy out of her crate in the back of the car.

Like so...

So I spent the night with muddy shoes and sweatpants, worrying about whether I would be able to get my car out of the ginormous amount of mud it was parked in. Didn't make for a happy owner.

Then my trainer worked on some ball work with Izzy, which of course went...not so well. I've been instructed to go back and begin back-chaining the whole sequence again. My response...

:(

Anywho, after that we did some hurdles and Izzy did decent. I'll just be happy when she has enough ball drive to get the ball off the chute, then we'll be getting somewhere!

Video of Izzy hurdling...

You can't see it all that good on the video, but she goes so fast that she slides when she gets to me and tries to stop. xD
You can also see how food motivated she is in the vid. She doesn't want to leave me (who has food), until she finds out that my trainer has good food too. And if you didn't catch it, Izzy tried to take my trainer's fingers off because she was holding food. *le sigh*

Izzy after hurdles. Being content.

That was pretty much all we did tonight, it was a short practice, which made me a little glad, I'm so tired and I'm definitely going straight to bed after I post this. There's probably a million errors in this post as it is, lol.

On another note, I went to Wal-Mart today to get sidewalk chalk (another post for another day) and a bed for the dogs. I ended up getting them a microfleece comforter, it is soooooooft. I was tempted to just keep it for myself and leave them with their old towels, :p.

The Goods.

Anyway, I thought I had picked up a twin, turns out it is a king sized sheet O.o It's ginormous.

Before I even had a chance to rearrange it for the dogs Izzy claimed it as hers.
Guess Frodo is stuck with Green Chair :/
Then she got an itch.
And looked cute.

Tomorrow on, As the Corgi Turns... Frodo will encounter his first "bigger than their head" meal. A 5 pound pork shoulder to be exact. It will be taped. And photogrpahed. Srsly, it's gonna be huge! :p

Don't wanna.

I don't wanna spend $60 on flea and tick meds for the dogs this month. :/
I could feed the dogs for over a month with that amount of money. I could buy over 30 delicious TAZO drinks from Starbucks. I could pay for the majority of a flyball class. I could buy new collars. I could buy a book for college. I could buy a training book. I could do a lot with that money, but instead I'm stuck buying chemicals to put on my dogs (and cat). Hmph.

I don't understand where the fleas keep coming from?! The dogs get them, I treat the house, and they come back. I hate it! I was hoping the raw food would make it so I didn't need to buy the chemicals, as I know it does for a lot of people, but apparently I am not one of these people. Unfortunately. I'm thinking maybe I pick them up from one of the dogs I dogsit for? Who knows...

And it's not even just the money that irks me about it. I'm trying to do things as naturally as possible with the animals, from their food to shoveling out money for titers instead of vaccines, blah blah blah. I don't like that I'm putting these chemicals on them and it's soaking into their skin, it can't be good for them! But if I don't Izzy and Inky will bite and scratch until they are bald, Frodo and Mollie aren't much better. They are miserable when they have fleas.

Exhibit A:
Miserable Frodo
(okay, so this isn't him with fleas as much as it is him wanting to go for a walk.)

I really need to go pick up some today though.

Le Purpose o' de Blog.

Now that all of you, my (non-existent) readers, have been wooed by my fantabulous picture introduction, I guess it's time to bore you now...

Training - when I originally decided to stop posting Izsheflyingyet? and start this one, it was because there really just wasn't enough information to update regularly when the focus of the blog was solely on Izzy and her flyball training. So although much of this blog will be about Izzy and flyball, I also plan on focusing a lot on Frodo's reactivity issues with people and (to a much lesser extent) other dogs. I'd like to be able to look back once we've gone as far as we can with this issue and see how far we have come. I'll be using a combination of decensitization, having him focus on me, and the Look at That! game from Leslie McDevitt's Control Unleashed (amazing book, I highly suggest it to everybody). In addition to these two main components of the training section of this blog, I will also post regularly on stupid little tricks they learn and eventually, I hope, our Rally practice sessions.

Feeding Raw - As of today Izzy and Frodo have been fed a raw diet for 43 days. I'm trying to feed as close to a prey model raw diet as posssible, with 80% meat, 10% edible bone, and 10% organ meat (with 5% of that being liver), though right now I'm feeding more bone and no organ meat as both Izzy and Frodo have sensative stomachs and enjoy making this hard on me. I've been feeding Inky raw (though it's only been cut up bits of meat for now) for 3 days, and he seems to really like it. I'm gradually going to work him up to chunks of meat and eventually bone. Mollie started her raw diet yesterday and ate like a champ, though all today she turned up her nose at it. We shall see how long this strike lasts...

Pictures - Because all good blogs have pictures! Right now I only have a Canon Powershot S3 IS, and I don't see that changing anytime soon, though I would love a DSLR. I go through phases where I take pictures of everything and then I lose interest and won't pick up the camera for weeks, so that's pretty much how it will go.

Rants - Everybody loves a good rant. I think this is pretty self explanatory.

Misc. - Like the AKC I will have a group where I just throw random stuff.

I think that is all...