I have received some questions about dog nutrition; in particular, what I feed our 3 furkids. Luna and Mouse are fed Wellness Super5Mix Large Breed Adult Health Recipe and have been eating this for a couple of years now. They eat once a day – at night – and their food is sometimes supplemented with raw meat & bones, egg yolks, an occasional tablespoon of high quality oil, cooked oatmeal, raw veggies, fruits, brown rice and warm water to mix. Mouse eats 4-5 cups daily and Luna eats 2-3 cups daily, depending on their level of activity. They are not on any dog vitamins or powdered supplements. They are never fed from our plates – and thus do not steal or beg for food EVER – and we do not give them scraps. They get Interceptor once a month and are not vaccinated. Instead, our vet administers vaccine titers yearly to ensure that they have not been exposed to any disease. Orso is fed Wellness Super5Mix Large Breed Puppy Health Recipe and has been on this food since he was old enough to consume dog food. As of today, he is being fed 2 times daily, down from 3 times daily. His breakfast is 3 cups of food and his dinner is 2½ cups of food. We occasionally supplement his meals with cottage cheese, raw ground turkey or Gerber baby food (beef, turkey or chicken ONLY – no veggies or fruit!!!). Orso also is given 2 different supplements with his feedings – Prevention Plus Complete Nutritional Formula and Nupro. Since we are working a lot with him on training and developing his food drive, we are constantly giving him training bites. We use Wellness Just for Puppy Mini Soft Treats or Bil-Jac Liver Treats, both high quality training treats. Orso has been getting his required puppy vaccines and will soon get his rabies vaccine. However, going forward, Orso will not be vaccinated unless mandated by local ordinance (such as in the case of rabies, and even then it’ll be the 3-year vaccine) and will be administered vaccine titers annually. He has already been started on Interceptor once a month. All 3 dogs are fed using elevated feeders to aid in digestion and avoid any undue stress on their joints. Orso is also using a Durapet Slow Feeder to slow down how fast he finishes his meals. We have made our decisions about our dogs’ wellness routine, which includes nutrition, vaccination and supplementation, based on research. Vaccines and disease have been linked. Traditional commercial pet food and disease have been linked. Low quality supplements and disease have been linked. All of our decisions are driven by research. There is a plethora of information on the internet, which makes educating yourself very difficult and confusing. Also, the marketing dollars spent by most of the big-name commercial dog food companies, such as Iams, Purina & Science Diet, make it very attractive to believe that your pet is receiving top quality pet food – research and investigative reporting strongly indicate otherwise. For a glimpse of what really goes into commercial pet food, including “4D” meat, which means the animals used in the food are dying, dead, diseased or disabled (this also includes the use of household euthanized pets), consider reading this book: Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food, by Ann N. Martin. If dog nutrition and holistic wellness are topics that interests you, The Whole Dog Journal is a publication that is very informative with regard to proper care for pets, including annual recommendations of near-human grade dog food. This publication and the folks who put it together are doing their best to educate dog owners on proper and holistic care. Below is the cover photo of The Whole Dog Journal’s 2010 list of approved and recommended dog foods.
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Orso’s thoughtful veterinarian, Dr. Robert Pane of South Kendall Animal Clinic, was kind enough to save for us the December 2010 issue of Dog Fancy Magazine, where the Cane Corso breed is featured in its own 3-page article. The article doesn’t seem to show up anywhere online, so I tore it out of the magazine (sorry, Dr. Pane!!!) and scanned it in. To read the article, see below or click here and an Adobe file will open up for you in a separate window.
The Dog Fancy website does have a cute 5 question quiz on the Cane Corso breed that you can check out by clicking here or go to http://www.dogchannel.com/dog-quiz/quizpage-4424.aspx. This is an event announcement! Orso is having his first puppy match this Sunday, October 31st, at TY Park in Hollywood. He is not old enough to show for points, but this will be a great experience for all of us nonetheless. He will be showing in the Junior Puppy class, which is for puppies 3-6 months old. It is an AKC sanctioned match, so he will be showing in the working group. Sheila will most likely be taking him in the ring for me because we prefer that his first show experience be a positive one. For more information on the event, see below.
From the 93 Rock website: 93 ROCK, The Gulfstream Rottweiler Club, and Gulfstream Guardian Angels Rottweiler Rescue invite you to TY Park in Hollywood, Sunday October 31st, for the 17th Annual All-Breed K9 Oktoberfest to benefit dog rescue. Join a great crowd of well-behaved/well-socialized leashed dogs, their families and other dog lovers for day of music, showcases, demos, activities, doggie races, pet adoptions, prizes, and the yearly $1,000 raffle. The event is from 10am until 4pm. Admission is only the standard park fee of $1.50 per person. All dogs must wear their rabies tag. Planned Activities Include: Canine Good Citizen testing American Kennel Club sanctioned matches Vendors Flyball exhibition Dog games & activities Pet costume competition Rescues & adoptions Children’s bounce house Raffles Cookout Parade Of Rescue Dogs …and more! Here is the link to the AKC Sanctioned Match being hosted by the Fort Lauderdale Dog Club: http://fortlauderdaledogclub.webs.com/eventsactivities.htm. Overnight, the mole foam we had on Orso’s ears to help reshape the front flaps fell off, along with all his fur on the tips. This meant that he could finally get wet and have some swimming fun! He goes out with us almost every day to run errands and have lunch or dinner, but we had not been able to take him back to my parents’ house to go swimming because his ears are always either taped or mole-foamed or stitched up. With his new “ear freedom,” we were free to have a beach day with him, Mouse & Luna.
We diligently packed all our necessary items – water toys, towels, flip flops, treats and most importantly, the camera – and loaded everyone into the Jeep. We spent almost 3 hours at my parents’ house! All 3 dogs were running around like maniacs in and out of the water, racing around the palm trees, jumping off and onto the dock, it was awesome! I took 433 photos! When you are shooting action and you have 3 moving subjects (Orso, Mouse & Luna), it is impossible to get the perfect shot without taking numerous sequential photos, thus the hundreds of photos taken. One of these days, I might get lucky and someone else will handle the photo taking so I can come out in a few too! Below are a bunch of my favorites from today and a gallery of most of the photos! Orso and I went to Pet Costume Party today, which was hosted by Sabal Chase Animal Clinic. Sheila invited us to come along so she could see how he behaves around other dogs; in this case, all the dogs there, except for Orso, were in costume and it was chaotic! We kept telling people that he was dressed up as a show dog. Below is a video clip that shows a few of the dogs that were there, including a Mexican Hairless that looked hilarious in her costume! Enjoy! It’s official, Orso has the jaw strength of a baby dinosaur. There are photos of Orso in the manager’s office of the local PetCo. Every week, I go through the mission of purchasing toys for Orso to keep him engaged and his toy drive fresh. This is great and all, but the toys don’t last more than 20-30 minutes, at best. It goes something like this:
Yvonne: Look, Orso, a new chewtoy!!! Orso: Wags tail with enthusiasm. Performs tricks to obtain desired new toy. Yvonne: Good puppy! Don’t break this one!!! Orso: 15 minute lapse. Hmmmm, if I chew from this angle, I can tear off chunks of the industrial strength toy. Yvonne: Watching intently to make sure there are no signs of toy debris. Orso: Got it! Broke it! I won! Yvonne: Orso! Give the toy back before you cause yourself an obstruction and $5,000 in vet bills! Next day, we have to walk ourselves right back into PetCo with receipt, toy, original packaging and any debris we managed to salvage, all collected neatly into a grocery store bag. We don’t really have to say much to the cashier anymore, they just call the manager, who already knows why we are there. We have literally gone through almost every toy PetCo sells! In the spirit of saving other puppy owners some chewtoy grief, the ONLY two toys that are still in one piece are made by Nylabone and are pictured below: Tonight was Orso’s first conformation lesson with Sheila Lieberman of Loving Obedience Dog Training. We were supposed to head out to the weekly conformation class that is hosted by Sandy Herzon and the Miami Dog Club in the FPL parking lot, but Sheila thought we would be better off starting him one-on-one at her house. I totally agreed, especially since I didn’t want to make a complete fool of myself in front of all these Miami show people!
At 7pm, Sheila, Orso and I had our first conformation class in Sheila’s driveway. I had spent all week gathering different types of conformation show collars and leads for tonight. The truth is that I have no idea what he is supposed to wear in the ring, so I came with a box full of different things, including a couple of collars that Mary Majchrowski from Bravo Dog Training mailed me. Thanks, Mary! I also came armed with treats, or “bait” as Sheila likes to call it. Orso is just learning the stand command and I haven’t been very successful in getting it to stick. He LOVES the sit command and seems have taken quite a liking to the down command, but the stand command needs a lot more work. Orso’s lesson was about 10 minutes long and I am not sure which one of us learned more – him or me. I definitely know that Orso has a ton of respect for Sheila. He was acting up at the beginning and she straightened him out real quick! It sure is! Well, sort-of. Orso turned 4 months today and he celebrated in style with a new “going out” collar and leash, a bag full of 6 different Kong toys, 4 boxes of training treats and his first visit to the dog park in Coconut Grove. His birthday events started yesterday with a visit to his Auntie Adriana, who has a big, grassy yard that we played fetch in, a shopping spree with me at PetCo followed by Pet Supermarket and a long late lunch at Casavana, a local pet-friendly Cuban restaurant. Along the way, he met lots of nice people and showed off his wonderful manners and obedience skills. Today, the day started bright and early at 8am with a drive to Coconut Grove for breakfast at Greenstreet Cafe. We then went to the dog park on Shipping Avenue for 2 hours! It was his first time at a dog park and he did great. He was confident, but respectful of all the other dogs. Funny enough, he had no interest in playing fetch or any other games. I think he was just taking in his surroundings; I am sure it was overwhelming, especially with 20-30 different dogs all around him. Below are a few video clips from the park. After going home for a few hours to recharge and feed lunch, we took off again to Smoke’t BBQ in South Miami for the Battle of the Bands live music face-off. We stayed well into the night and Orso didn’t seem to mind. He was curled up in his travel blanket snoring away! Afterward, we headed home to feed dinner and go to bed. It was a full weekend for Orso and he was happy to escape into his crate for a good night’s rest.
Orso and I had a meeting with a wonderful young lady today, Mary Majchrowski who owns Bravo Dog Training in Broward County. We met Mary through Dee at the BBQ she invited us to back in September. Orso will be staying with Mary for 14 nights in December to reinforce all the training he has been getting with Dee and me. She also has conformation experience, so it’s a great way to bring both areas together, especially since January promises lots of dog shows for Orso!!!
I ran into a dilemma recently. We love to travel and always leave for the holidays. This has never been an issue with Mouse & Luna because Nichelle stays at home with them while we are gone. She has her own room in the house and keeps a key and gate card year-round, so we can take off whenever we want to and not stress about displacing the dogs. This year, I made our holiday plans before our breeder had announced the arrival of Orso’s litter. When we brought Orso home, we knew we would have to reconsider our travel plans because he was going to be too young at 6 months of age to stay home without us. It’s not that Nichelle can’t take care of him, it’s that we are home with him most of the day and she works, putting Orso in an unfair predicament. We are not comfortable with him spending all day crated while we are parading around the world for the holidays. So, in early September, we agreed that we would still travel for the holidays, Nichelle would still stay with Mouse & Luna, but Orso needed to be left with someone who will be with him almost constantly AND work on his obedience. This is where Mary comes in! Mary follows the same obedience training principles that we and Dee love, which is positive reinforcement and food marker training. We do not agree with the traditional “crank and yank” way of training dogs and refuse to put Orso through this. Today’s meeting with Mary was an opportunity for Orso and Mary to meet and a chance for all of us to discuss expectations and realistic outcomes from his 2 week stay with her. By the time we left our meeting, Mary had taught Orso how to stand on command! Thanks, Mary! To visit Mary and Bravo Dog Training online, click here or go to http://www.mybravodog.com/. Orso got his stitches out today! YAY! His ears look beautiful and have healed exceptionally well! Thank you, Dr. Pane! Photos to come soon! By the way, he weighed in at 53 pounds!
I played hooky from class today to go to the Stone Temple Pilots concert at the Hard Rock in Hollywood. Orso’s godmother and dogsitter extraordinaire, Nichelle, was kind enough to take him to class for us! We didn’t want Orso to miss class since we feel it’s very valuable for his social development, so we arranged to have Nichelle pick him up at home and take him. Dee agreed to work with him in class in our absence, thank you, Dee! Nichelle reported that Orso is the over-achiever in the class! That’s my boy! Nichelle also fed all three of them when she got home so they wouldn’t have to wait for us to get home and feed them. Thank you, Auntie Nichelle!!! Nichelle, in true godmother fashion, took photos and a video, see below: Orso in Nichelle’s car on the way to class: Orso sharing a tender moment with Daniella, Cupcake’s mom: Orso in Nichelle’s car on the way home from class:
Back on September 24th, Dee, our puppy class instructor, invited me to join her at a colleague’s home for a dog trainer BBQ. There weren’t really supposed to be clients there, just trainers, but because we have plans to show Orso in conformation and working and are CLUELESS about what we have to do, she thought it would be a good idea if we went. At this BBQ, we met many very nice people, including a woman by the name of Sheila Lieberman. Sheila has dedicated her entire life to the German Shepherd breed. She educates about the breed, promotes the breed, was a breeder and a successful exhibitor at countless AKC events. We immediately bonded with her and knew we had found a great partner to help us with Orso’s conformation career.
Today, Sheila hosted a 4-hour workshop at her home where she taught the basics of canine structure & movement, how to understand your breed’s standard and how dog shows work. Her family of gorgeous German Shepherds served as eager assistants! So was her Champion Pharaoh Hound, Amber! What a lesson this was for me! I walked out of there realizing that I have TONS of learning to do. Everything from the big picture down to the details is foreign to me. Wow, thank God for Sheila’s selflessness and desire to educate dummies like me! Orso got his 4th set of shots today with Dr. Pane and what an ordeal this was! Dr. Pane is the coolest vet on the planet and always has been. He comes into the exam room and the first thing he does, besides giving me a smooch, is throw himself on the ground to play with Orso. Orso, who is generally not timid EVER, is a bit skeptical about this interaction with “Uncle Pane” since the man usually comes armed with injections and puppy torture tools. After a deluge of treats, Orso is suddenly Dr. Pane’s best friend! He weighed in at 49.8 pounds and started on Interceptor today. We finally gave him his lepto shot, which was the only shot he got today. He is still on hold for the rabies vaccine until 6 months of age, although he may need to get it sooner due to AKC rules when you participate in dog shows. Dr. Pane also checked out his ears and proudly expressed his contentment with how they look – we agree they look beautiful! To visit Dr. Pane, click here or go to http://southkendall.com/.
Today was our appointment with Shelly & Jimmy from Doggy Studio & Boutique to pick the photos from our family photo shoot on the 28th. She had taken almost 400 pictures and we had already had the chance to see them all the day of the shoot. This was good since it gave us a chance to let the images settle into our minds. I swore it would take us hours to get through all the photos and make ordering decisions, but it didn’t. Shelly has a great system in place to help you choose in an efficient manner. We and Orso were in and out in less than 2 hours! We ended up ordering a 12×12 album! We also ordered a couple of portrait enlargements and our holiday cards. We don’t have any low res images to share with the blog, but as soon as we do, they will be up! Now comes the fun part – WAITING! Ugh! The suspense is going to kill us! 8 weeks until we get our album and counting! To visit Doggy Studio & Boutique, click here or go to http://doggystudio.com/. Below is a photo of Shelly and Jimmy that I lifted from their website…
Puppy class tonight was quite the challenge for me! I was there alone with Orso, so there are sadly no photos with the exception of one that was taken and shared with me by Daniella, Cupcake’s mom, see below. Thanks, Daniella! The main reason this particular class was a challenge was because it appears that Orso – who is fully house-trained since the first week he came home – decided to have a pee-pee-party the ENTIRE class! It was awful. Orso had 8 accidents in a one-hour period. He even pee’d on Dr. Pane when he came out to say hello to us at the beginning of class. Dr. Pane and I laughed about it and made joke about Orso taking revenge for him re-cropping his ears last week, but the truth was that I was sooooooo embarrassed! By the end of the night, almost everyone in class had helped me pick up pee at some point. Dee and I started to think about it and came to the conclusion that it might have to do with the meds he is on from his surgery a week ago. I suppose it makes sense, especially since he is on 3 different medications – Clavamox, Rimadyl & Tramadol. The vet tech that stays for our class also confirmed our suspicion. He’s off his meds tomorrow, so let’s see if he returns to his normal, continent self! Everyone except Bongo was at tonight’s class. We worked on getting our puppy’s attention and calling him over while in the middle of playtime. This was not easy. Not even my super duper fancy puppy treats can compete with puppy playtime. I am pretty sure that Orso did not come even once to me when called! I think the only puppy in the class that actually did this exercise correctly all the time was Brinkley. On the other hand, when we worked on keeping your puppy’s attention on you, Orso did great. Once he is engaged, he is very easy to work with, but getting him engaged can be a challenge. It’s definitely something for us to work on. Like always, the puppies had their playtime together off-leash, which is always a riot, but tonight I was definitely a little stressed with Orso’s stitches. I debated even going to class tonight, but considering the WWF matches that continuously go on at home with Mouse and Luna, this would be a walk in the park. WRONG! By the time the night ended, the vet tech had to snip a couple of stitches that had come loose on Orso’s left ear. Thankfully, he is healed enough where it didn’t make a difference. Another treat tonight was that Dee brought Marty McFly, her one and a half year old Australian Shepherd, to class to use as a training tool for the puppies. It was interesting to see the dynamics among Marty and all the puppies. Interestingly enough, Orso was pretty shy and continuously looked to all the humans in the room for reassurance. I thought that was funny since he is always the bold one in the group. I suppose he was being respectful of his elders! See below for a 2 minute clip of Marty and all the puppies in class. |
YVONNE
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