WALKING IN THE RAIN

It was drizzling a little this morning, and so I got into my rain coat and wellies,and then strapped Belle and Rascal into their Hurtta rain coats. Just as we were about to go out, the rain came chucking down, and there was no way we could have gone out!

Belle was completely unimpressed that we were not going out and proceeded to sulk! She was so cute!

Anyway, when the rain lightened up, I took them out and they had a grand time stomping in all the puddles! They would have gotten absolutely filthy if they didn't have their rain coats on though...

Managed to take a couple of pictures later on in the walk when the rain was just a very light drizzle! Don't they look so cool!

CLEO & LUCKY

I was rather pre-occupied with work yesterday and didn't realise it was the kids' dinner time. Suddenly I felt 2 pairs of eyes boring holes into me!

MISHKA'S NEW TOY

HEART, KIDNEYS & LIVER

The kids have been having organ meat every now and then, mainly liver (chicken or pork) and gizzard. Occasionally they get kidneys and pig tripe (stomache). So far, I have been cooking the organ meat with some goji berries as they didn't quite like these raw.

However, today I decided to try feeding them raw pig's heart, kidneys and liver, in addition to some pork steak and pork ribs.

Cleo wolfed down everything in two ticks! I had put down her food, and then proceeded to put Lucky's and Mishka's food down (while my maid went to put down Belle and Rascal's food), and when I came back it was all gone! So no pictures of her eating any of it.

Lucky started eating the liver first, then the pork steak, then the pork rib. He tried eating the heart a few times but didn't quite like it. I then cut it into much smaller pieces and he was alot happier and ate all of it. But he refused to have the kidney! So Cleo ate that as well.

Belle and Rascal did NOT like the organ meats at all!!!

Rascal ate the pork steak, ribs and some of the liver. He tried a bit of heart, and then just turned his nose up at the rest.

Belle only ate the pork steak and rib. She tried very hard to eat the rest but just could not. She was glaring at the food with great disdain and gave me a really mean look.

Both Belle and Rascal just refused to eat these strange things quite flatly.

I finally decided to blanch them and try again. Rascal ate a few pieces of liver but refused the rest. Belle just wouldn't have any of it. Sigh...

I am slightly concerned I guess because tomorrow is Sunday. And Sunday is fasting day. Hopefully these 2 won't be too hungry tomorrow.

Related Post: The Importance of Organ Meat

CLEO WITH HER NEW COLLAR!

Cleo's collar from Ruffwear arrived this morning and it's fabulous! It's amazingly lightweight and feels very durable!

It has a one-piece anodized aluminum V-ring which creates a secure leash attachment point and the silicone logo label includes a separate ID attachment point to minimize the possibility of clipping your leash to the ID tag split ring.  It also has a tag silencer to reduce tag jingle.

We hope it works cause as most of you know the license tags from our local councils are massive and the clanging from the tag really drives us nuts sometimes.

Will be getting one each for the rest of the kids now... ;-)

INTRODUCING MY NIECE TO CLEO

A few weeks ago, we introduced Cleo to my niece Rebecca... As you can see from the pictures below, Becky was uncertain about Cleo initially, but she soon warmed up to Cleo... :-)

ATTACKED!

Belle and Rascal in their Thundershirts which saved them from getting bitten

This morning, while I was walking Rascal and Belle, we were suddenly attacked by a huge, black German Shepherd!

I had stopped to let the kids have a sniff and was watching Belle (cause she has a tendency to pick up and eat rubbish) when I suddenly felt Rascal's lead stiffen! I turned to look and I saw a massive, black fur ball hurtling at us from across the road!

Playing with a German Shepherd puppy!

Before I could even react, the dog - a German Shepherd - was upon us! He basically charged us and was for some reason determined to grab Belle. He kept charging Belle and would not let up!

As you can imagine it was quite a situation. To their credit, Rascal and Belle held their own ground. In part, due to Rascal constantly trying to bite the GSD and Belle also fighting back, the GSD did not manage to really grab Belle.

And thankfully they both had their Thundershirts on this morning, so that also gave them an extra layer of protection (I normally don't put the Thundershirts on them on their walks but because they just had a bath yesterday, and it had rained heavily in the morning, I put it on them to prevent them from getting wet and dirty!). Can you imagine if they didn't have their Thundershirts on? The GSD's teeth would probably have sunk into them especially Rascal as he hardly has any fur!

So what did I do? I basically yelled at the dog to try and get him to back off. At the same time I tried to put myself between him and my kids (which of course may not seem like a very clever thing to do in hind sight) because as far as I was concerned they were my babies and I wasn't going to let them get hurt.

I knew that I had to do something more or we would have all been finished. So I decided that I had to kick him because I had my hands full - one lead in each hand - and I knew I couldn't drop the leads cause my kids may run onto the road and into on-coming traffic.

So I kept wedging myself between the kids and this GSD, and as soon as I could I yanked both kids back and landed a solid kick into his chest! That startled him and then I yelled at him to go away! And thankfully he did. He ran back across the road and disappeared!

I just hope that he didn't attack any other dogs or anyone else for that matter.

I took the kids home quickly and looked them over thoroughly. Thankfully they were not hurt at all although they were a few small tears in their Thundershirt.

Working with a Rottweiler

The reason I am sharing this story is because I feel that everyone should know what to do if something like this ever happened to them. In this case, I had to fight the dog (because he was attacking my dogs and I had no other alternative) although I normally would never advocate fighting or challenging a dog.

Additionally, should you ever decide to challenge a dog that is attacking you, you need to be very confident yourself. If you panic or show fear, the attacking dog will be even braver!

Note that probably one of the reasons why I was able to get the dog off my kids was because I did not panic and I was not afraid of him. I have dealt with many dogs in my lifetime and I have dealt with many breeds that are deemed dangerous, and therefore have an advantage over the situation where most people would not have.

Fun time with a German Shepherd cross

In my other blog, I have written a few articles on Aggressive dogs and How to Prevent Dog Bites etc. Please do share these articles with your friends to prevent any untoward incidents.

With a Bull Mastiff - another "dangerous breed"

However, what I would like to highlight here is that this German Shepherd behaved the way that he did because his owner has never been able to control him.

We have seen him on our walks every now and then, and it's a constant battle between him and his owner. Additionally his owner is quite strange and in my opinion encourages his dog's bad behaviour.

Every time the dog sees any other dog, he would bark incessantly and lunge madly. The owner never seems to be able to control the dog, and sometimes I see the owner doing really weird things like squatting down and banging his shoe on the ground when the dog is in that heightened state. It has always seemed to me that he was goading the dog on.

I have wanted to speak to the guy for some time now, but of course I have never been able to because his dog is always in a crazed state! And whenever I do see them, I always have at least 2 of my kids with me and therefore cannot risk approaching them.

Douglas and I drove around the neighbourhood this afternoon in an attempt to locate this dog and his owner, but unfortunately we were unable to find them. I will definitely talk to this guy the next time I see him though. I dread to think what would happen to the poor dog if he did attack a person and caused injury or worse, if he attacked a child!

With an Anatolian Shephered Cross - a very powerful dog

So I just want to re-emphasise to all of you, who may be quick to judge and state that all dogs are bad or that certain breeds are killer dogs and should be banned, to understand that a dog's behaviour is usually shaped by humans. In my book, dogs are not born bad. They become bad because we make them bad.

TEETH OF A RAW FED DOG

Since the kids have been on this raw meaty bones diet, their teeth have become alot cleaner! Yet another plus point of feeding a species appropriate raw diet.

POOP OF A RAW FED DOG

As we all know, your dog's poop is one of the best indicators of your dog's health.

When I was researching raw feeding, most articles told me that your raw fed dog will produce significantly smaller amounts of poop.

They also try to describe what the poop of a raw fed dog should look like, but if you are new to raw feeding, you will still be very uncertain on what it should look like.

And so to help those of you who are new to raw feeding, here is a picture of one of my kids poop - yes I know it's gross - but hopefully it'll give you an idea of what to expect from your raw fed dog. Its a bit darker than usual cause they had red meat the day before. But as you can see it really is a very small amount which shows how well their tummies are digesting their raw food. :-)

The poop should also be very firm (sometimes even hard if they have had more bone) and is generally quite crumbly. It also degrades really quickly if left out in the garden compared to kibble fed poops which does not seem to degrade even after a few days - and this I know for a fact from all the poop (which irresponsible dog owners cannot be bothered to pick up) that litters the pathways and grass in our housing area! 

Additionally, the poop of a raw fed dog is not stinky! This is definitely a huge plus point!