Changes, They Are a Comin'!

Well, I've had my blog up and running for a little over a month now. I still totally love doing daily blog entries. I'm a total addict and check the blog multiple times a day to see if anyone has posted a comment and just to look at it (I know, I'm a total dork!). I've kept up with my original monthly goals so far and don't see any problems there. However, there are a few changes that I want to make that will at least make the blog more entertaining for myself (and probably expose more of my neuroses in the process!).;O)

Since I've started my own blog, I've been searching out other blogs and have gotten totally addicted along the way! Do you have any idea how many freaking awesome blogs there are out there???? Highlighting only one blog a month just isn't enough. However, in keeping with not wanting to over commit myself and thus burn myself out, I needed to come up with a manageable frequency. I've decided that show casing one blog a week is the ideal way to go for several reasons. I'm going to give you those reasons and hopefully not entirely bore you along the way.;O) 1)As already mentioned, I don't want to over commit and burn myself out. 2)I originally wanted to have a weekly running theme with the blog, but there were too many recurring things that I wanted to highlight and not enough days of the week. 3)In reading other people's blogs, I really like the ones that have weekly themes, even if it's only one weekly theme. 4)I need something that is quick and easy to write about on a Tue. night because I'm trying to cram so much stuff in on those days with work, Heffner's agility class, eating at some point, my daily workout, and writing the blog. The daily workout has gone out the window a few times because I've gotten a little too caught up in the daily blog entry. Oh well! In summation, because I'm really taking far too long to get around to the point, I'll be highlighting one blog every Tue.!

The other change I want to make also involves a weekly recurring theme. In addition to the Tue. Blogs, I'll have the Wed. Whys! It'll be in the form of some why question regarding dogs that I'll ramble on about. Oh joy! Won't you be the lucky reader if you tune in that day!LOL

I would also like to start this weekly trend ASAP and also make up for not starting it yesterday, even though I only thought about this today.;O) So my Tuesday Blog pick is Team 3 Dawg Flite! And I hope you'll notice that I FINALLY figured out how to add the link into the actual word instead of including the whole web site link separately! I'm kind of going with a DockDogs theme for this month! I find the Team 3 Dawg Flite blog a lot of fun to read. It's interesting reading about the dogs' exploits and see all the action pictures. I love hearing about their competitions and how they're doing. And just about the sport in general. Having a commentary from someone very active in the sport gives you an inside look at the trials and tribulations of training and competing. I definitely recommend this blog!



Now for Why Wednesday! Why is having a female dog so great? Because you get to throw the word bitch around whenever you want! Things like "she's a sexy bitch," are regularly thrown around my house. Or my favorite "she's a crazy bitch!", usually said in some sort of weird accent, is also a recurring phrase in my house. 'Cause seriously, if you've really seen Bess fully in her element, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about!LOL

Site of the Month

My pick for the web site of the month is the Cascade Dock Dogs! http://www.cascadedockdogs.org/ This is a club that we recently joined. We've only been able to make it to one practice so far due to conflicting schedules with other dog stuff. This is a really fun group of laid back people. The web site is great to for local information on the sport of Dockdogs. It's kind of exciting for me to see pictures of the dogs on the web site under the members page and for the practice that we were able to attend. Plus I think it's just really cool to see all these other dogs (who will actually jump off the competition dock!) in action. It's very cool!!

As of right now, I'm still not having any luck getting Heffner to just out right jump off of a dock. At the one practice that we've been to, he's STEPPED off of the puppy dock, but the water was shallow enough that he really couldn't swim. So we tried the competition dock and I tried getting him to go after his toy from the up ramp. He did go into the water and swim a little bit and actually look like he might retrieve his toy, but he changed his mind. I'm bound and determined to get him jumping off the dock this summer though. He really enjoys swimming, especially when I'm in the water. And it would be great to have a summer sport to do with him since he's taking the summer off from agility. AND it'll keep him cool!

Bess is still only willing to wade up to her chest, but that is further than she was willing to go the first few months that we had her. At that point she wold barely put her feet into a puddle. So that's really a huge improvement!

There's a practice at the end of the month that I'll be attending with at least Heffner. If our practices out at the lake go well enough, I would like to bring Bess, but if I can't get her to swim of her own accord, there isn't much point in bringing her to the practice.

Summer vs. Winter

As beautiful and relatively nice as the summer is, I honestly prefer winter. This may seem a little weird. Winters in the northwest are generally overcast and rainy. Not exactly go out and have fun conditions. But I beg to differ!


In the summer there are more hourse of daylight. However, those hours of daylight are pretty full of temperatures that are really too warm to do anything in. You either have to get up really early or stay up really late to run around and do things like hiking. Granted, it is ideal weather for swimming, and we do take ample advantage of that. It's just not the same though!


During the winter there are less people hiking on the trails. The weather may be overcast and drizzly, but we usually manage to evade outright downpours and neither the dogs or I are bothered by a little drizzle. The temperatures also are at decent temperatures to run around and really get a workout in without having to worry about over heating. I don't have to worry about packing lots of water around with me so that the dogs stay hydrated because there are usually creeks and little pools of water that the dogs can drink from. The dogs also just get a better workout because they don't get totally zapped by the exertion combined with the heat.

It's also usually too hot to do any skijoring or scootering. Basically, it takes a whole lot more effort for me to get these guys exercised. And I'm sort of a heat wimp. And Heffner isn't great in the heat. **sigh**

On the up side, we do get to trade skijoring for swimming, which is a really good activity. If I could only get Bess to think that it's as much fun as Heffner does! I'll be posting more about one of our newer summer time endeavors throughout this month!!

We're back!

Well, we made it back from Las Vegas in one piece! We had a great time and the dogs were very well taken care of! It's always a HUGE relief to me when we can have someone we know and trust STAY in our house with the dogs the whole time that we're gone. It just makes for an easier transition for the dogs and gives us piece of mind.

The dogs were VERY happy to see us when we got home too! Heffner was doing his little puberty barking through the front window and Bess was a total wiggle worm. It was very cute! However, now, they are incredibly pent up and I'm just to beat and in need of unpacking to really take them out and do anything with them. I'll just have to put up with them taking terms coming up to the desk and pestering me for loves!

When we went down there I decided to sort of scope the area out (Adam had no idea) to see what it would be like for dog shows that get hosted in the area. I figured that it might be a fun way to get Adam to go to a long distance dog show where he would actually enjoy the venue. He could go off and play some cards while I did dog stuff. My consensus is that I don't think it'll be one that we're visiting. The conference centers and all of the casinos are just MASSIVE, but getting the dogs exercised and figuring out where to stay with them AND keep them cool enough (depending on the time of year) would be a huge pain in the arse. Vegas is definitely a people kind of city and not really some place that I would happily jaunt around with the dogs, or even just one of them!

I did want to pass along some information regarding Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy Mutation. I'm on a few different email lists and this one came out last week. It's a disease that is predominantly found in boxers, however, it never hurts to be aware of these things for rare cases in other breeds. Danes are more prone to dilated cardiomyopathy. Here is the information that I received:

"Screening test will soon be available for boxer breeders. WSU veterinary cardiologist Kathryn M. Meurshas discovered a mutant gene in the Boxer breed that causes a type of heart disease that can be fatal in animals and humans. Well known in the Boxer breed community, the disease is called Boxer cardiomyopathy. The more formal term is arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy or ARVC. This is the same type of heart disease that can cause the sudden death of humans, including young athletes. In Boxers, the disease can be fatal and frequently occurs when the animals exercise or become excited. Occasionally, they perish from the disease while at rest, too."Dr. Meurs' discovery of both the gene and its location is a tremendous achievement in the cardiology of humans and animals," said Bryan Slinker, dean of WSU's College of Veterinary Medicine, and a recognized cardiac disease researcher. "This achievement not only helps Boxer breeders avoid this disease but it also provides an extraordinary advancement for the study of human heart diseases resulting from electrical conduction defects and the resulting heart muscle changes that occur."The disease is well known in Boxers because the breed has the highest incidence of this form of heart disease. ARVC is also known to be an inherited disease. Breeders sometimes avoided breeding certain lines of Boxers, but they were never completely sure if those lines had an increased risk of disease. Additionally,the disease tends to vary in severity between different dogs—a key indication that the disease had a dominant genetic origin. Meurs began looking at the disease as an extension of her work with inherited heart disease in cats and dogs. This work is somewhat similar to her work with breeds of cats that also suffer heart disease and for which she has also discovered mutant genes. Her lab developed a molecular probe for these mutations so that cat owners now have a mechanism for screening for the disease and breeding away from it. Using an extremely powerful gene screening mechanism based on a massive computer chip at the Broad Institute at MIT with investigators Kerstin Lindblad-Toh and Evan Mauceli, Meurs looked at thousands of regions of boxer dogs' DNA simultaneously. The samples were collected with participation by members of the American Boxer Club and the American Boxer Charitable Foundation and were segregated into groups of dogs with the disease and those with no evidence of the disease.Once computer analysis identified a specific region of interest, Meurs' lab evaluated thousands of DNA sequences in affected and unaffected dogs and identified a mutation in a gene that normally codes for the production of a key cellular adhesive protein. Subsequent studies done by WSU veterinary cardiologist Sunshine Lahmers demonstrated that the cellular adhesive proteins were located at the junction between cells in the heart. Theoretically, the conduction defect is in some way responsible for a rapid, irregular heart beat that does not pump blood efficiently. When blood is not pumped efficiently, there may not be enough circulation maintained in the brain and other organs. This can lead to fainting episodes or sudden cardiac death. Over time, the right lower chamber of the heart, called the right ventricle, begins to be infiltrated by a fibrous fatty tissue and often has decreased contractile ability. This change in the heart's tissues can spread to the wall between the heart chambers and the left ventricle. The structural changes that result in functional impairment is the hallmark sign when a postmortem examination is performed on the animal's heart. Under the microscope, normal muscle appears solid and dense. The affected heart muscle tissue is riddled with holes where the fibrous fatty tissue has infiltrated, stretching it like unorganized lace. Meurs' laboratory is now close to obtaining a patent on her discovery and is perfecting a genetic testing probe for the gene mutation that will be used as a clinical screening device. Shortly, Boxer owners will have the ability to take a simple cheek swab of their dog and know whether or not it carries the mutant gene. Cost of the screening is expected to be about $70 and available within the next 1-2 months. "In many cases, after the disease is diagnosed it can be managed with medication for a long enough period of time in a dog's life that other diseases such as cancer will be the cause of death," said Meurs. "The medications are not very expensive and there are generic forms available, too. Average monthly costs are probably less than $100." Meurs said that, with her lab's service, Boxer owners and breeders will be able to identify dogs with the mutant gene and are likely to breed away from the disease. Source: Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine
http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/deptsVCGL/Boxer/test.aspx

Vegas Baby!!

Tomorrow morning, my husband Adam and I head off to Las Vegas with some friends for some good times!! My sister came up to stay with the dogs while we're gone, so I am very much relieved. I had stuff to do this morning at work, but once that was done I high-tailed it out of there to finish up my preparations for the trip. I did some last minute grocery shopping so that my sister would actually have food to eat while she's here. I also had to pick up some last minute travel stuff, then it was off to home to get the dogs squared away and the house!

I curried the dogs and Heffner is blowing coat like CRAZY! I wish I had the camera out there with me, but he lost more than enough hair to make a coat for a small dog! Bess is shedding a little bit, but not really all that much.

Then we all went back inside because it was crazy hot outside! I started making up some Kongs for them to have while we're away.


I like to fill the Kongs up with different concoctions and freeze them. That way it takes the dogs longer to work their way through them! Today I decided to do a mixture of canned dog food and plain yogurt. The canned food that I prefer to use is Evangers or Wellness.

I put an entire 13.2 oz. can into a tupper ware container and add about 5 large spoonfuls of yogurt. This makes it fairly creamy and smooth.

Once it's good and mixed, I fill the Kong most of the way up (I tape the bottom hole with very durable sticky tape like duct tape so that nothing oozes out before getting frozen).

I top each of the Kongs off with some of the yummy natural peanut butter that we picked up at New Seasons! The peanut butter is so sticky that it actually helps keep the oozier yogurt/canned dog food mixture from seeping out the top if the Kongs aren't sitting properly when getting frozen.

While I'm making up all of the Kongs I set them up on their ends along the back of the stove until I'm ready to baggy all of them and put them in the freezer.

I had a little bit of the filling left over and the dogs happily got that with their dinner!

Once my sister got here later this afternoon, we took the dogs out to run around a little bit and get some last bits of exercise. One of them can be a bit to handle when you're not used to it, but both of them together is a whole lot to ask of someone. So I told her to not even worry about trying to get them exercised. They'll be fine having a few days off (we're only gone for four days) and they thankfully have each other to play with! Then she had the fun of learning how to feed the dogs their yummy raw meals! I've got a whole thawing process set up between two of our refrigerators. I think she's got the hang of it!

And now I'm off to dremmel their nails since I won't get a chance until next week and I HATE going more than a week without doing their nails! Here's a final shot of the dogs who were SUPER bored while I was doing stuff around the house.:O)

I'll be sure to post about how the dogs did while we were gone and how our trip was when we get back on Sun.!!

Sit or Stand?

Yes, to have your dog sit or stand at the start line for an agility run, is the question. It seems kind of trivial until you really think about it. It can really help or hinder depending on your dog. If you have a dog who may try and cheat and start before you release them, having them in a sit or even a down could give you an added second or two to adjust to the fact that your dog has just started the timer! Or maybe they're even less likely to break their stay if they're in a sit.

Having your dog stand at the start kind of has them ready for motion. It's one less obstacle, so to speak, in their way for starting the course. If your dog is getting a little tired, it's warm out, or they're less motivated, a standing stay may be the way to go.

I've been thinking about this more specifically this weekend. As with many things, I handle my dogs differently. I've decided that having Heffner in a standing stay really works better for him (I used to always put him into a sit stay). He's not prone to breaking his start line stay and he just seems to perform better from the standing position.

With Bess, I definitely get her started in a sit stay. She is really good at holding her stays, so I'm not concerned about her breaking. What I do want is a little more delay with her so that she doesn't just go tearing around the course without me!LOL It also seems to make her think a little bit more and focus a little more on me.

That's just my two cents! Anyone else have some pearls of wisdom for how they handle their dog(s)?

I also have to brag a little bit about Heffner tonight at his agility class.:O) He's doing soooooo well handling working around dogs that he used to react a whole lot to! It's now rare that I ask anyone to move their dogs for fear that Heffner might fixate on them. He's working REALLY well in really close proximity to other dogs. He acts as though they're really not worth his time to pay attention to. This is a HUGE change!! He was even better at the trial as well. Acting like he really didn't care about all the other dogs around him. He just did his thing and that was that!

Book of the Month

Woo hoo! It's the start of a new month!:O) My book pick for the month is "Dr. Kidd's Guide to Herbal Dog Care" by Randy Kidd, DVM, PhD. As you can tell I'm definitely interested in looking into alternatives means of taking care of my dogs and making sure that they're as healthy as they can be. I was interested in this book, but wasn't entirely sure whether the subject matter was going to be really dry and just kind of a listing of different herbs and what they're good for. I am very happy to report that this book is fantastic! The Dr. Kidd does a fabulous job of bringing his enthusiasm for the subject out in his book. I found myself getting excited to see what little kernels of wisdom I was going to pick up next. He mentioned herbs that could help in ways that I hadn't even thought about!

The first section of the book is an introduction to herbs for health care in dogs and the author's holistic approach to solving problems. He defines various terms that he uses throughout the book so that you're prepared ahead of time and can soak up what he's saying. He also gives a little background on how he got started into his holistic practice and got hooked on herbs. I just really enjoy the way that he writes everything!

The next section of the book takes up the majority of the content. Dr. Kidd goes through the various organs and systems of the body, listing the various herbs that are helpful, why they're helpful, and how to administer them. He also talks about using various herbs to prevent problems and not just wait until something goes wrong. That was definitely my favorite part and I will be slowly starting my guys on different herbs as time progresses.

The final section of the book is basically a listing of the individual herbs that the author talks about with their active ingredients, what they're used for, any side effects, and any general comments that he has.

I do have to say that the part of the book that sticks with me the most is his idea for an Herb of the Month club. It's not really an actual club, but basically you pick one herb a month and do all the research you can on it so that you become really well versed in all aspects of that herb and what it can be used for and with. It's a really neat idea and one that I also plan on trying out!