More Wrestling!

The big shocking news at our house this week is that Salinas has decided that she likes to play with Gorky. You have to understand Sal to know why this is so shocking. While she is quite playful with her toys, tossing them to herself and chasing after balls, when another dog tries to engage her in play she gives a slight curl of her lip and walks away. It's weird because more than any of my other dogs she does best having another dog around, but she just likes to co-exist with them - no playing.

But for some reason she has decided she loves wrestling with Gorky. Unlike her sister Chima, Gork isn't so vocal and intense in his play so Sal doesn't get nervous that this might end up being dangerous.

Taking a break

It started with just a few short matches to try it out but now, a few days later, and they will spend a good 20 minutes wrestling, giving themselves short breaks when they get tired or the wrestling gets too intense. It has been a joy to watch them.

Chima and Frodo are a bit irritated by it, but they are always a bit irritated if they aren't the ones having the most fun.

Frodo on fun patrol

And the result of so much wrestling? A very tired Sal and Gorky.

Sleepy Sal

Salinas' decision that she likes Gorky still doesn't apply to when she's resting and he wants to hang out next to her. Although after he used her head to kick of the couch to chase a ball, I can't really blame her for that.

Apologies for all the leaves on the carpet. The dogs bring them in when they whoosh in the door from outside and there always seem to be a few more, along with fir needles recently.

Walk For A Dog!

I do lots of walking with dogs - foster dogs, my dogs, client dogs for my work doing pet sitting/dog walking...

So boy was I excited when I learned about this app where I could be earning money for New Rattitude each time I head out for a walk with a dog. The app is called Walk For a Dog and using money from advertising it pays out a certain amount of money per mile walked. The more people we get walking, the more money raised for New Rattitude.

I've been using it for a couple weeks now. It's super easy to use and beyond just raising the money, it has some cool features. It tracks your total mileage or you can see what each of your dog's total mileage is. You can click on past walks and it brings up a map of the walk and the details of the walk - total time, mileage and your average walking speed. If you like to run with your dog or bike, there are settings for that too.

To get started on a walk all you have to do is tap on the photo of which dog you are walking and tap the button to start walking.

Once you're walking if you want to stop or pause, just tap the button. 

Under the history tab there is a list of all your walks. Tap a walk and it will open up the details of that walk. You can also tap on the photo of one of your dogs and it will list only the walks you've done with that dog.

Here's a detail page for an individual walk

If you look under the "about" tab it will list the total mileage being walked for New Rattitude by all the people walking as well as the total miles you've walked for New Rattitude. 

To get the app go to www.wooftrax.com to learn more. Click on the "get the app" tab when you want to download the app - it's available for both Android and iPhone. When choosing the rescue group that you want to walk for it will ask you to look by state. Open the Michigan list (we are a National group and the New Rattitude post office box is in Michigan) and then click on New Rattitude. Then get out there and walk your dog!

Snow Time for Gorky!

The snow is mostly gone now but the dogs sure enjoyed it. I will never understand why Chima thinks that being outside in rain is like taking an acid shower but being outside in snow and wind that cuts right through you is no biggie.

It was likely Gorky's first snow and like all things in life, Gorky approached it with excitement and wild abandon. There were many rounds of zoomies in the yard followed by a lot of snow snuffling and "catching" snowballs that I threw.

Baking - For the Dogs

I used to work at a small natural pet product store and one of the great things about that was I got all my dogs' treats at half price. Before leaving that job I really stocked up but recently I finally ran out of most of the treats I had purchased. I made it 5 months so that is pretty good!

I've been buying some bulk crunchy treats that are affordable, my dogs like, and that work for reinforcing things like coming back inside after a potty break when I call, or going into their crates, but I needed something with wow factor. You know, the meat loaded treats that your dogs go crazy about but that also empty out your wallet when you buy them. So recently I've been trying out some different dog treat recipes. The bonus of making your own is that you know exactly what is going into them, you can adjust recipes for dogs with allergies, and they haven't been sitting on a shelf for months.

Here are a couple of the recipes that I've tried lately:

Muttly Meatballs

If an oatmeal cookie and a Thanksgiving feast had a love child, it would be these meatballs. With the oatmeal, cinnamon and honey, you get the cookie, but then you throw in turkey, parsley and sweet potato.

I was tempted but haven't yet tried one myself. Really! They smell that good. The dogs will do just about anything for these meatballs. I make them as small as I can but they are still pretty big for Rat Terriers so when using them I break them in half or even in 4.

ingredients

1 lb cooked shredded or ground Turkey

1 Egg

1 Sweet Potato, baked

1 Cup Quick Cook Oats

1 tsp. Cinnamon

2 tsp. Honey

2 Tbsp. Fresh Parsley

directions

1. Bake punctured sweet potato in 400° oven for 35

minutes or until soft

2. Remove skin and place soft potato in a bowl

3. Combine parsley and egg and add to sweet potato

4. Add turkey, oats, cinnamon, honey and parsley, mix

with your hands until well combined

5. Roll turkey mixture into balls, slightly smaller than a

golf ball and place on greased cookie sheet

6. Cook at 350°for 15-20 minutes

Crumble-Free Bow-Wow Brownies

This recipe scared me at first. I am very much one to follow recipes exactly as written, so this whole idea of just throwing in whatever you have lying around, and mixing according to texture turned me off. But I took a leap of faith. I mean, if I am honest with myself they could taste like cardboard and my pack of terriers would happily eat it. They are by no means connoisseurs of fine baking - they eat poop and cardboard so I would say they aren't real picky. I've made this recipe twice now - once with salmon and once with canned chicken. Both times it turned out really good. Using the tapioca flour gives the treats the texture of a gummy bear with a crunchy outer layer. They get hard though when left out so I put a days worth in my treat dish and keep extras bagged in the refrigerator or freezer.  These make great treats for Nose Work because they are soft treats but won't mess up your search area with crumbs.

Puree in a food processor:

• 1 cup raw or cooked protein (see some suggestions below)
• 1-2 eggs, depending on the moistness of your other ingredients

Put the puree into a bowl and stir in 1 cup tapioca flour, or a mixture of tapioca and other flour. You may need more or less, depending on the water content of your protein sources.

Mix well. It will stay a little sticky, but if it is too sticky to handle, add more flour.  Toss it between your hands to make a patty and plop it into a greased pan or onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 350F for about 15-20  minutes. Longer if you used raw ingredients. Cut with pizza cutter while warm.

Fall Photo Shoot

In late November each year our Japanese maples drop their leaves in an amazing shower or orange-gold beauty. I hate to rake them up because they are so gorgeous and so they blanket our rock path for a week or so until they start to turn into a gloppy mess.

And because I love them so, I always try to get a photo shoot of the dogs standing in the leaves. The color looks so striking contrasting with their coats, or in Frodo's case, blending with it.

Of course this never goes especially well since the last thing the dogs are interested in when they are outside is sitting still and looking at me, even when I have great treats.

This years session was no different. Chima wanted to hunt under the ferns, Gorky wanted to eat the fern, Sal just wanted to watch the commotion but not look at the camera and Frodo and Tilly just wanted to go inside. "Pleaaaassssse let us go inside."

We did manage a few good shots and a few funny ones. Here are some pictures to document our morning of photographs:

Tilly was the only one who would sit still. Of course, it takes 13 years for a terrier to learn this so the others still have years to go until they master that skill. 

While I made silly noises and jumped up and down to catch their attention, the girls had other interests.

Chima had caught the scent of some critter who had wandered under the fern the night before. 

Of course, everyone had to check it out as I called their names and waved a treat bag in the air.

 I finally got this great shot of Gorky. He was standing still for once.

 Why was he standing still? Because he was busy chewing on one of my ferns.

 Gorky says "sword ferns are delicious".

I took about 15 shots of Sal in this pose, hoping in just one of them she would look up at me to see why I was making the weird noises and give me one of her adorable floppy eared head tilts. Nope.

After all critter trails in the yard had been inspected thoroughly, Chima humored me and let me take a couple pictures of her.

And Frodo finally looked my direction, probably in hopes that it would shut me up and get me to finally put my camera away.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and takes the time to get their dogs out for a stroll through the autumn leaves!

Gorky Chills

I'm not going to lie to you. Gorky is a busy boy who likes to go, go, GO! He regularly has us laughing as he tears around, chasing after a ball he has thrown for himself or bugging one of the dogs to play with him.

But after he's played, and played and then played a little more, he does choose to hang out and snooze on a lap or just the couch if there is no lap to grab. Here are some photos as proof that this silly boy does slow down. 

A lot of Gorky's initial energy that we were seeing was nerves and the stress of getting used to a new environment but the more he settles in, the less busy he is, making him better able to enjoy moments of "chill" such as the ones pictured in this post. 

Leash Learning

I don't think that Gorky has ever been walked on a leash and he probably hasn't spent much time outside of a backyard so another thing we've been working on is putting a harness on and taking it off, and also walking around while leashed.

Heading out on his first "walk"

Because so much of the noises, sights and smells of our suburban neighborhood are new, I'm not starting out actually attempting to just "go for a walk". I want this to be a positive thing for him so to begin with I attached a treat bag to my belt, harnessed and leashed him up, and then I let him sniff around our front yard and practiced walking on the sidewalk in front of our house and the neighbor's house.

Gorky set the pace and we walked around the yard while he carefully sniffed each shrub and plant. 

For the most part he didn't do a lot of pulling and stayed close so loose leash walking shouldn't be too tough to teach

Gorky was a little nervous but he is starting to understand that this is safe and fun and before we know it we'll be working on longer walks. For now we end our walks with a fun off leash romp in the back yard which is something that he loves to do. You always want things to end of a good note so that next time the leash comes out they are going to associate it with fun, and not something negative.