Chillin with ma peep

I know it's a Penguin and not a peep but anyways. 

I'll have to record myself saying Penguin someday since I say it very strangely.  Just saying Penguin like that will send Conker into a frenzy if he isn't already.

In other news... I bought some beef liver, chicken livers and gizzards and some vitamin E for Conker at a grocery called Ray's today. Guess what the total was?  $8.00 flat. What are the odd of that happening?  I thought it was pretty neat.

Sleeping

I like to take macro shots with both my digital point-and-shoot and film SLR.

I found something VERY interesting.

But first a few dog park photos.

Conker watching Leo (brindle Pug), River (Catahoula mix), Midnight (Lab) and Zeke (Husky Terrier mix) head towards Teddy (little boy with game thing). 

River playing with Leo.  That little Pug was the coolest Pug I've ever met.  He WASN'T fat, was full of energy, played great with the bigger dogs and didn't overheat/hyperventilate or whatever Pugs do.  That was neat to see.  River is a neat dog too.  He's a very very dark blue merle and tan (like black and tan?) with white markings.


Anyways, onto the interesting thing.
Canine Genetics.

Oh my GORSH that is so interesting!  I've been reading snippets on canine genetics here and there over time but today I found an article a Boxer guy wrote about his experiment on trying to introduce the bob-tailed gene from Cogri's into the Boxer as a way to skirt the docking ban in the UK.  Wow, what was a fun read!  See, my view on breeders isn't like that of a lot of people.  I am NOT all for keeping the breed pure no matter what blah blah blah.  If your breed has an issue like, lets say Dalmations, then yes, a cross could be useful in preventing it.  And it's been done in Dalataions with Pointers.  Can't even tell there's Pointer blood in them Dals that's how well it worked.

Anyways, this is defiantly something I'm going to read further into, maybe even take some classes on genetics and such.  I'm now going to try to find some good canine genetics books to read since reading on the computer (as helpful as the internet is ) is somewhat obnoxious and boring after about 10 minutes.


Note: White it most certainly is very interesting that this dude put the Bob-Tail gene in Boxers, the gene is a leather semi-dominant and is NOT a good one so it wasn't really the best idea since it was based purely on cosmetics. So really, don't mess with the Bob-Tail gene, the effects are not pretty.

Shiba eating habits

When first given his food Conker will lick it to death.  This is probably due to the salmon oil and glucosamine/chondriotin/MSM stuff I squirt on top if it, but even after it's gone he'll lick lick lick the meat then start to grab it with his teeth.

Depending on the size of the meat he'll either "toss" it into his mouth, where a dog grabs something then jerks their head back or whatever.  I personally HATE this behavior, it drives me insane.  Anyways, if the meat is big enough or somewhat frozen he'll chew it a few times but for the most part he just swallows it.  I can't tell you how many times I've had to fight with him while trying to get a piece that was too big to simply swallow out of his throat.  Mom always wonders why I do this but I'd rather have a living and not choking Shiba.

Cutting Conker's meat into smaller pieces only promotes him to eat faster.  I tried, he inhales it, and I hate doing it.  I don't like it when he downs an entire meal in five seconds so I give him a few smaller pieces and a few bigger pieces. Bones are always big enough that he has to chew them and if they are chicken bones I take most of the meat off so he won't just crunch and swallow hole.  Since for some reason he'll actually take his time to do that with non-meat covered bones.


So the other day I was downing some soup when something hit me.  I eat very similarly like my dog.  I take several spoon/fork fulls of whatever I'm eating at the time, chew a little then swallow.  I've almost chocked on pizza before, even rice.  Hmm, I really hope I didn't teach Conker to eat that way...  The only difference between us is that unlike him, I actually do chew EVERYTHING that goes into my mouth instead of just swallowing whole pieces.  And I don't thrash my head from side to side and throw chunks of food everywhere like he does.  I hate that behavior as well.

I've been meaning to go for a walk but lately the rain has been... constantly present.  I'm gonna try later on today though. Probably won't be very successful.  I hate this Northwest weather.  It sucks big time.

Snazzy Collar

I made something for Conker today.  It started out as this:

And ended as this:

Kitty

This is what happens when you say "Kitty!" in my house.

Lack of fun

It's looked like this outside for... a long time.  I'm so sick of it.  Rain, constantly.  And not even cool rain like thunderstorms and wind and such.  Boring barely-more-than-a-drizzle rain.  I really don't like the northwest.

Because of this stupid weather I haven't done anything fun or even remotely interesting.  Conker is getting on my nerves since we don't go for walks when it constantly rains like this.

Picture FAIL

This is what happens when I try to take a picture of Conker while getting out of my computer chair which results in me crashing to the floor, waking him up and thus ruining the funny pose I initially wanted to take a picture of.

Boycotting Shiba

Conker suddenly decided, out of the blue, that he was going to boycott organs.  Up until this point organs were his favorite part of the meal.  He always ate them first.  Now all he'll do is licklicklick then not touch them.  I tried covering them with salmon oil.  Licklicklick the salmon oil and leave the organ.  I don't care how badly he wants his chicken, he's not getting it until he eats that damn liver.

Bikejoring.

That's a terrible picture but it gives a good impression of what it's like.

Juneau loves to run.  Run run run!  I decided to try something with her a few days ago.  It's called bikejoring.  I've attempted biking with Juneau before but it's been a while so I re-introduced her to the bike.  She didn't think much of it so I went to the next step, walking with her beside the bike.  She eyed it but didn't try to run away so I rode it slowly.  But she didn't want to walk, she wanted to go!  

So I put on her harness, took an 8 foot length of rope and tied it to an old bike inner tube (shock absorber) and looped that to my sister's purple mountain bike and off we went!  She needs a bit of work with her "leave it" command but is learning the turns quite well.  I think she'll make a good bikejoring dog if I work with her enough.

Update on the biscuit event

Conker barfed again at 4:30 in the morning.  I figured he was over the biscuit thing and had given him his dinner around 7 PM.  Bad idea.  Partially digested meat feet from your face is RANK.  Cleaned that up and put him in his crate.  He puked again at 9 AM but it was nothing but bile.  He was fine for the rest of the day but as a precaution I didn't feed him.  He was bugging me for food all day; whining, following me into the kitchen, sitting next to me and barking...  I wasn't going to take a chance no matter how much he annoyed me though.

We'll see how things go tomorrow (today...) but if he barfs again in the middle of the night I'm going to bug Mom for money so I can take him to the vet to get whatever his issue is checked out.  Hopefully he won't and will be fine.  I'd rather not have to deal with a vet right now.

A box of biscuits.

While most people would think that a dog with it's head stuck in a box of biscuits happily munching away was cute or funny, I find it completely horrifying when that dog happens to be mine.
Conker is intolerant to the first five ingredients in those biscuits.  Wheat Flour, Poultry Meal, Ground Wheat, Ground Corn, Wheat Bran.  The rest of the ingredients are things I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.  Why people feed this shit to their dogs is beyond me, but we had a box that was about 1/4th full of that garbage.  I say had for a reason.

After letting Conker out of my room like I do every morning and went to sleep again, I heard this odd sound a few minutes later.  I figured it was Mom out in the garage but the more I listened the more I realized that whatever it was was right outside my door.  So I opened the door to see my Shiba with his head stuck in that damn box eating the biscuits inside.
I flipped out.  Probably a little worse than I should have.
I promptly took the box and remaining bits of biscuits away from Conker and kenneled him.  Mom asked me as she came into the house why I was making such a racket and why I was putting Conker in the kennel.  The reason surfaced about 15 minutes later.

First it was just white foam, then it was the mushy remains of a large handful of soggy crap biscuits.  I pointed out the foam to Mom (who missed the biscuits a few minutes later) and told her in an annoyed tone "THAT'S why he doesn't eat shit biscuits.  And THAT'S why I put him in the crate instead of letting him run amok in your house."
She agreed on the kenneling thing and was again not present when he barfed up another HUGE pile of the shitty biscuits.  This one was equal to about two and a half huge handfuls of biscuits.

I examined the box of biscuits to see that there's only about 10 left.  It's kept on the floor in the pantry with the Pedigree shit that Mom feeds her dogs.  Someone left the pantry door open and it wasn't me.  That's how he got the box.

His stomach was really solid after eating the biscuits but was somewhat normal after he threw them up. 
I really hope Conker doesn't have anymore biscuits in him.  If he does it might fuck up his digestive system since he hasn't ever eaten that shit before and all my hard work on getting him settled on raw would have gone out the window.
He looked distressed for a while but after the third batch of biscuits he looked better and eventually fell asleep.  I'm not taking any chances though and he's staying in the crate until he's 100% pre-biscuit Conker again.  He's also pretty pissed at me since I yelled and took the box away, and he didn't and won't be getting any breakfast.

I'll admit that I overreacted and are probably more upset over this than I should be.  However, since he's allergic to the biscuits and has a history of a sensitive stomach, I think I have the right to be mad about it.

Shiny Red Fur

Zuke's Hip Action treats and trachea chews

I picked up some Zuke's Hip Action treats at the petshop today.  I also got a trachea chew since I'm almost out of chews for Conker.
They had beef, peanut butter and chicken flavors.  I went with peanut butter since I've already got beef flavored Jerky Naturals treats and I'm still unsure if Conker's allergic to cooked chicken.

The Hip Action treats are bigger than the Jerky Naturals by a little bit.  Lamb flavor is on top, beef on the right, peanut butter on the left.  I gave him one right after dinner.  Conker was confused when I handed him such a big treat, I usually cut them into smaller pieces for training purposes.  After I told him he was fine he munched away and dropped a lot but slurped it up soon after.  He wasn't as enthusiastic about it like he is with the lamb flavor but he still enjoyed it.

I cut the trachea into four roughly 2 inch pieces and gave one to Conker before dinner.  He LOVES these and was bugging me to give him the other three for a while.  I'm probably going to order a 50 pack of 3 inch trachea chews from bestbullysticks.com for him, as well as a few bully sticks since I'm out of those. 

I'm going to give him a Hip Action treat every other day  and a trachea chew every other or every three days.  He gets plenty of the Jerky Naturals treats during the day and still has a cow hoof to chew on so he doesn't need too many extra things or he might begin to put on a few unwanted pounds.

Conker has Luxating Patella.

He occasionally dislocates his knees when he runs fast over rough terrain, changes directions rapidly and plays really rough with other dogs.  It's happened while playing with me once.

I can manually move both knee caps when his legs are fully extended.  He doesn't notice so I'm sure he's not in a lot of pain.  I'm pretty sure the right one is worse than the left and is the most common one to slip out of place.  Sometimes he'll sit and it will go back into place, I can hear a pop when that happens.  If I extend his leg and slip the patella back into place it doesn't pop.  He always tries to keep playing but will come over to me when it happens if it doesn't go back into right away.
He doesn't limp, cry or really notice except for the fact that he can't use his leg all of a sudden.

 His knees aren't luxated in this picture.

I'll take him to the vet if he ever whines or can't fully walk on it OR if Mom is willing to foot whatever bills might come out of such a visit.  But right now, I simply cannot afford to take him in to diagnose a condition I know he has.  I don't know the severity though, that is the biggest problem, and if he needs surgery for it or not.

But for the time being, until I run into some money, I will double his salmon oil and get him a Glucosamine/Chondroitin supplement and monitor his play.  He's not going to like it but he's going to get shorter dog park visits and longer walks.  Less rapid direction change and more straight line stuff for now.

Spiffy

I didn't think my camera was capable of taking good pictures anymore.

Yesterday's dog park visit = 15 dogs!

Not all at once, but during the three hours Conker and I were there, 15 dogs including Conker went to the park.  The most at one time was nine, that was really fun.

When we first got there there was just one dog.  A four month Kelipe/Border Collie/Lab/whatever mix.  I was sure she has some type of bully breed in her but the guy was adamant she was his mish-mash of dogs.  She was pretty cute and those two played for a good hour before more dogs showed up.

First it was Setson, a red Siberian husky we'd met before and Midnight, a black Lab we'd also met.  A few minutes later the Westie lady and her three West Highland White Terriers showed up.  I think their names are Bruno, Max and... something else with a B.  We'd also met them a few times before.

Then a guy I've seen but not talked to arrives with his fat six month Lab and his older retriever mix of some sort.  They always do stuff on their own.  Not long after someone with a Doxi/Chi mix showed up but they were only there for a few minutes then left. 
The Westie lady left but another person came with an older Australian Shepherd and a six month old Pit Bull.  The guy with the mix puppy doesn't like Pit bulls even though her puppy was loving playing with the Pit and he left.  Whatever dude, it's a dog and yours like it.  The Aussie/Pit girl kept coming and going, then leaving her dogs there and leaving the park and doing other things... that was somewhat confusing.  I hate it when people leave their dogs in the park without telling you where they're going. (It's not allowed if you read the damn rules.)

A Husky/Shepherd/Terrier mix came in next then shortly after another husky named Sitka.  She wasn't too fond of the number of dogs in the park and kept jumping on the table.  River the Catahoula Leopard mix came in next and he brought a ton of energy to the park.  Sitka and the Husky mix went off to the other end while the younger dogs romped around their people.

The last dog to arrive was a young Boxer mix named Cleo.  She was a bit intimidated at first then joined in playing rough-and-tumble with River and the Pit Bull.  By then Conker and I had been there for about three hours and he was just lying near me watching everyone else play.

The dogs and people began to leave and eventually it was just Conker, Stetson and Cleo.  We all decided to call it quits since our dogs were tired and Conker was getting after me to give him food.  It was a great day, no fights, a tuckered out Shiba for the rest of the night, I hope today's dog park excursion is something similar.