June 30th

Yay, relatives are here!  Mom and Pop (grandpa) were just arguing about... something pertaining to younger-taller brother and I.  Probably about how useless and lazy we are since I "caught" Pop out in the backyard cleaning.  I didn't know he was out there, nobody told me to get up a clean, and honestly?  I'm not gonna set an alarm and wake up to do something I thought was already done.  Plus I'm not gonna set an alarm to get up regardless, especially if I didn't even stay up late and if I did it was due to people (relatives and Mom) making noise until 2 in the morning.


In other news... Conker was smelling a bit funky and I guess I was too so we took a shower last night!  I have discovered that my camera is fine with water but not with steam and fogged up every time I tried to take a picture even if it wasn't anywhere near the shower.  Oh well, I did get one semi-funny shot of a wet Shiba.

Skinny shower Shiba does not like crate that rains inside.

Conker spent most of the shower on the floor away from the water.  I angled it so he would have some "dry" area while down there.  He didn't like it, but he wasn't pissed off.  His tail stayed up the entire time, even when I briefly held him under the water then put him back on the ground to give him a nice massage.  He dried off a lot quicker this time since he has almost no winter fluff anymore and a good thing too since I hit the sack right after that.

Mom's friend Jill who owns Lucky and Star stopped by to pick up a fax (who uses those anymore?) and asked me about the dog park down the street.  She seemed interested in it, so hopefully I'll see her down there sometime.


Today Conker got:  Bone-in chicken breast with chicken heart and liver, beef kidney, lamb scraps.

Yesterday

Okay so Blogger is stupid and wouldn't let me post entries or comments on anything yesterday so I'm writing yesterday's entry today.

The relatives plus one arrived yesterday.  They were supposed to arrive today but they underestimated an entire day's worth of driving and somehow made it from Phoenix Arizona to Mt. Shasta in Northern California in one day.  Mom got a surprise call from them starting that they'd be here in three hours.  She flipped out since the house was still a wreck and got my brother and I up to do some super-fast cleaning.  We did and made the house look a bit better before the relatives arrived.

So far Conker's doing good with them.  I don't think he even really cares.


Yesterday Conker got:

Turkey back scraps, meat and half gizzard, chicken meat, heart and liver, beef kidney, lamb scraps, egg.  And his weekly Vitamin E.

Random Dog: Leo

Leo, named after Leopold "Butters" Stotch from South Park, is the only Pug I have ever met that I have actually liked.  He is somewhere from 7-8 months old, is in amazing shape and has an owner who is trying very hard to keep him healthy and fit.  Leo is a dog park semi-regular.

Leo and Conker get along very well.  Most of the time Leo or Conker is the smallest dog at the park.  Though Leo is a bit smaller than Conker the two are matched perfectly for playing since Conker tones down his intense play to match Leo's level.  Leo is very tolerant of other dogs too, even the slobbery Juneau who decorated his back when she first met him.

It's somewhat hard to see in this picture but Leo's back is completely wet.  Juneau will obsess over small dogs and follow them very closely often getting post-fetch drool on their backs.  Fortunatly for Leo neither he nor his owner cared.

Leo doesn't bear much resemblance to the pedigree Pug, probably because he came from a sub-par breeder. He is a light version of brindle, has a noticeable and functional muzzle, isn't shaped like a barrel (he has a chest and tuck!) his eyes don't bug-out and his tail isn't uber curled.  In my opinion, Leo is a better looking Pug than any pedigree Pug out there, not to mention he's a lot healthier.

All in all, Leo is a great dog.  He gets along with people and dogs well, is very loving and is fun to watch.

June 28th

In a couple days some relatives will be coming up from Arizona for the Fourth of July.

Hopefully, since they will be staying at our tiny house, the relatives will be willing to follow my rules with Conker.  There are going to be six additional people in the house: My grandparents and my uncle, aunt and their two kids.  Conker hasn't met any of these people yet.  He's been really good about strangers coming into the house lately but it's never been more than three people at a time. 
Grandma and Pop are getting here on Thursday, the other four on Sunday, I think. So it's not going to be everyone at once but in a period of four days, six new people will be in the house and won't go away for a while.  I hope Conker doesn't flip out.

Conker's birthday is drawing near.  He will be one year old in July.  I'm thinking of getting him a Cornish hen for his birthday meal and letting him eat as much of it as he wants, within reason. I imagine that something like that he would have no choice but to chew and would enjoy eating.
I also need to get him some more treats, I'm completely out.


Today Conker got:

Chicken meat, drum, heart and liver, lamb and pork scraps, beef kidney.

Dogs can be stupid.

I've discovered that Juneau can get along with other dogs!  If she is introduced to them slowly, off-leash, she will get along.  If she's kept on-leash or they come barreling up to her all bets are off.  I've been working with her for a while and she is good enough to take her to the dog park during slow hours when only a few other dogs are around.
She still has a few problems with smaller dogs, smaller than Conker, but for the most part she is doing quite well.  What she does with these smaller dogs is locks on with her Border Collie eyes and follows them really really closely and obsessively. Some of them don't like it and I often have to take her to the other side of the park, have her sit and try to distract her with a ball.  But once I can get her attention on the ball...

 That's all she sees.  She turns into a typical Border Collie with gottagettheball syndrome.  She will fetch until she collapses but I don't let her get to that point.  I will end the game and walk away and let her lay down and mouth the ball or lay her head on it. 

 

When asked if I can have the ball she will let me have it.  On a return if she drops the ball too far away I can tell her to pick it up and bring it closer.  A lot of the time she will put it right where I point.  Sometimes she will end the game before me and go and lay in the grass and mouth her ball.  And a funny thing is that once she picks a ball that is the only one she will play with.  There were eleven tennis balls at the dog park yesterday and she would only play with one.  If I threw another ball she would chase but not bring it back.  She would stop and sniff it then search frantically for her chosen ball, and if she couldn't find it she'd come back with a confused look on her face.  

Conker on the other hand, he fetches when he wants to, brings it back when he wants to, puts it where he wants to and will stop playing when he wants to.  He will also "hunt" Juneau (or any other dog for that matter) while they are returning the ball.  He will lay down and concentrate on the dog then rush and do his stupid Shiba growl thing at them and try to get them to drop the ball.  If they do he marches away all triumphantly.  If not, he tries again on the next return.

Juneau got fed up with this yesterday and growled, barked and attempted to correct him.  Conker took that as a personal insult against his righteous self and attacked.  And wouldn't stop.  Sometimes he is so stupid, he just doesn't know when to quit.  Juneau is two and a quarter times his size and easily put him on the ground.  Did that stop him?  No, that made it worse.  I puled Juneau off him and got her to stop.  He again kept trying to attack.  Not until after I shoved Conker away did he calm down a bit but still tried to get a bite on on Juneau.  

Funny thing was, even though he looked like he was trying real hard to rip her face off he was the one who got hurt.

I checked them both over real good and this was the only thing I could find.  And frankly, he deserved it.  He is such an ass sometimes.  I try not to let him do that stupid thing with dogs who are fetching since sometimes they can be possessive, but with Juneau he just wouldn't quit.  So he got leashed and after about ten minutes since he was still pretty riled up had to sit quietly by my side as Juneau fetched a couple more times. He didn't attempt to rush Juneau again, but I doubt he's given it up entirely.

Today Conker got:  Beef meat, liver and kidney, chicken heart, lamb scraps, turkey neck piece.

Foraging

Conker eats just about anything food-related.  He will eat dirt and mud, rotting stuff, leaves, fruit, select veggies, poop (the worse the brand the better), basically anything he can get his stupid mouth on.  The worst part?  He runs when I ask him what's up.  I don't even attempt to go after him most of the time, I just say his name or something and off he goes.  When he does that I know it's something he's not allowed to have, and he gulps it down as quickly as possible (even if I've got a tasty trade item) and it really pisses me off.
I don't think he realizes that I only get mad when he runs.  Stupid dog.

 Anyways, if I ate this kind of stuff every day:

 Beef meat, liver and kidney, lamb, turkey neck and heart.

I wouldn't touch anything else.  I'd be a snooty brat who didn't approve of anything but my regular food.  And that "regular" food is switched up every day so it's always different.  But no, Conker has to be a moron and eat stuff that's not good for him.

Oh, he also got egg soup today and is still foraging!

June 25th

Today Conker got: 

Bone-in chicken breast and a heart, beef liver and kidney, lamb scraps. 

For a bit there Conker was doing good with the chicken.  He was chewing off smaller bits but then he decided to be an idiot again and attempted to swallow it whole.  It was still a good size.  That's it for him, no more big chunks.  As soon as I can I'm buying a frickin meat grinder.

WHY

Why am I still awake?  This sucks real bad.  I was uber tired at 11pm but guess what?  After I did the bedtime routine and suddenly wasn't tired anymore.  That ALWAYS happens and it really sucks.
For some reason no matter when I get up or fall asleep, I don't actually get real sleep until the middle of the morning and early afternoon.  No matter what I do to try to "correct" this, it always fails and I'm back to being awake during the afternoon, evening, night and late night/early morning and sleeping the rest of the time.  WTF gives man.

And this guy doesn't help my problem one bit.

Look at him sleeping.  He sleeps all the time.  He's fallen asleep at the dog park.  He even sleeps through freakin thunderstorms!  Back in St. Louis when the tornado warning sirens were going off he woke up and trotted around the apartment going "Bruh bruh BRUH!"  For about ten minutes then guess what?  He fell asleep.  Lazy sleeping dog who's able to fall asleep wherever and whenever he wants. 

I'm starting to be convinced that I'm supposed to be nocturnal.  I am a desert creature after all.

Mid-afternoon walk

I decided to go for a walk in the middle of the afternoon today.  It was in the mid 70's, not too hot compared to recently, so I took Conker with me.  We stuck to the shade and went slow and he did fine.  We stopped in at the local petstore and picked up something for Juneau and Sasha.  It must have looked kinda funny to people as we walked by with this on my shoulder:

A fifteen pound bag of kibble is heavier than I initially thought.  That or I'm still horribly out of shape.  It wasn't hard, just awkward since the kibble moves around in the bag.  Conker kept looking back at me, probably wondering when the kibble was gonna fall and land on him.


When we got home I gave Conker a quick slicker brushing to get some loose fur off then looked at him as he lay on my bed.  I've slowly been noticing something but now it's really apparent.

Where did that gray ring of fur around Conker's neck come from?

When Conker was a little pupish he has a somewhat darker ring of gray fur around his neck. Wherever this gray undercoat was, black and black-tipped guard-hairs grew in.  When he blew his puppy coat it vanished beneath a thick carpet of white.  Now that the undercoat has lessened quite a bit, the darker ring is now very noticeable.  There are several other spots like this on Conker and I will try to get some photos of them next time I brush him (tomorrow).


Today Conker got:

Pork! With part of a chicken back and heart, beef liver and kidney, a piece of lamb and some crumbled sardine mush.

Random Picture

I told Conker he was dirty.  He did not agree.

June 23rd

 Today I cleaned a rug.  With a power washer.  The rug is now really fuzzy.


Today Conker got:

Chicken meat, back piece and heart, pork meat, beef liver and kidney and a turkey gizzard.

A long post about a pool day

Today the youngest siblings and a friend went swimming.  I took some pictures of them jumping in while Conker ran around the pool barking in an obnoxious high-pitched sound very similar to the uncanny scream his breed is capable of producing.
After a short while I got him to come over to me and sit in the shade for a few seconds so he could cool off.  It got to around 85 degrees today.  Nothing compared to yesterday's delightful 92 (seriously, it was awesome) but enough that Conker got hot rather quickly while he ran around barking at everybody.

Conker didn't like being restrained in the shade but it was for his own good.  It was either that or he would join the three monsters in the pool.  He didn't like that option so he stuck by me when I told him to.

(If you enlarge the picture and look just below my thumb joint you can see a scar I got from welding)

Conker decided just standing around getting scratched wasn't good enough so he began to play hand-wrestling.  A game where he tries to bite my hand and I try to hold his mouth shut.

(In this shot you can see my obnoxiously long thumbnail)

Around this time I noticed that Lindsey's friend didn't know how to jump off the diving board very well so I got up there and showed her.

Stand at the end, bend your knees and...

 Get the top of your head cut off by the photographer. 

Sorry, no shots of me jumping into the pool wearing sunglasses, a hat and SWAT boots.  I had work to do, and those boots take two days to dry.  (I know that from previous pool-jumpings while wearing them)  I'll see if I can get any next time I decide to not wear my boots for two days.

Fun fact!  I wear this "style" of clothing all the time.  I'm always seen with a hat, shades, guy clothes and boots or flip flops if I'm going barefoot.  (Flip flops are for inside buildings and the dog-park)

Conker decided chilling with me was boring so he ran into the bushes and began to dig a hole.

I don't know about your Shiba or other dog, but when Conker digs he gets super excited about it and gets this insane look on his face (that is extremely hard to take a picture of) and will digdigdig frantically then run around like a madman then digdigdig some more and so on.  It's really funny to watch.

Conker did get to have some actual fun while people were in the pool. The girlies were screwing around and trying to throw each other, Teddy and Conker were having a tug-of-war game over a kickboard.

Unfortunately Teddy was unable to pull Conker into the pool.

When I was growing up we were part of a pool club called the RONS Club.  Not "Ron" as in a dude's name, Retired Officers of the Naval Services RONS. It was founded by a bunch of retired Navy officers and that's where we spent out summers. Sometimes it would get to be about 120 out when we'd walk, barefoot, to the RONS and swim.  Then we moved to Peoria and built a hugass pool that is about four times the size of our current one.

While it all looked like fun, I'm generally glad I didn't join them.

Or they all might have tried to ride me instead of Lindsey.

Today Conker got: Pork meat with part of a turkey back and the usuals.

Craigslist can be pretty funny

Just go read this.  I hope it stays up for a while.

Today Conker got:

Turkey neck piece, chicken meat, heart and gizzard, beef liver, kidney and scraps and a small piece of lamb.  First time having lamb.

What is that?

It's a Schnauzer!  Not my Schnauzer though, the neighbor behind us's Schnauzer.  His name is Pepper and he is going to be staying at our house for a couple days while his owner is in Portland.

So far he's gotten along with the Girls and Conker alright.  Sasha has been ignoring him since he got here.  Juneau doesn't quite know what to think and will follow him around then run off when he tries to sniff her. Conker though, the second he saw Pepper he tried to get him to play.

I'm hoping Pepper won't bark at all while he's here, since when he does bark he sounds like he's being killed.  And that's just how he is.  The only barks he's done have been low not-getting-killed barks and only one or two at a time.  I hope he keeps that up and doesn't switch to the obnoxious kind.

It's been a while since I've seen a Miniature Schnauzer and he's a couple inches shorter than Conker.  I didn't realize that Pepper was so small until he was standing next to Conker who now looks like he's a medium-sized instead of small dog.

Pepper, unlike Conker, gets along with the people great.  He had no problems going with Mom and I from his house to ours.  I know Conker would have objected the entire way and turned into a mess when he got into the strange house.  Not Pepper.
Unfortunately he is just like Juneau and Sasha.  When he wants to be pet he'll lean on or touch you.  As you may or may not know, I HATE that, but Pepper isn't going to be sticking around for long enough that it's going to seriously bother me.  I hope.

So now instead of one annoying little dog following me around I have two.  Or three or even four, depending on what Juneau and Sasha are doing.


Today Conker got:  Beef meat, liver and kidney, turkey back chunk, chicken gizzard and heart and an egg.  He also got an additional chicken breast bone (with a bit of meat) and some skin.

Shiba Shedding

Shibas Shed, it's a part of life.  Today on the Nihon Ken forum someone askeds to see pictures of a Shikoku shedding but I figured a Shiba was close enough.  So I got out the bag of Conker's fur that I've been hoarding for some ungodly reason, spread it out on the bed and took a couple photos.

Shiba, fur and Furminator knock-off.  The fur is kinda wadded up so if it were "fresh" it would cover more than half of my bed.

The small pile at the very bottom of this shot is freshly brushed fur. See how it's looser than the other stuff?  And that was only from a small portion of Conker's neck.

The fur was about three inches deep on the bed, so there is a lot more than appears in the other pictures.


And today was somewhat exciting (frightening) for Conker.  While I didn't get any pictures of it, today was his first official swimming lesson!  He was NOT happy do be in the pool however, but I'm going to keep taking him in and letting him swim around until every time he heads to the stairs instead of the side.  He can't get out of the pool if he tries from the side, so I take him in about halfway then let him go and walk backwards ahead of him towards the stairs so he knows to go that way.
And thankfully since he's lost almost all of his winter fluff, he dries off really quickly.

Today Conker got: Pork meat, turkey back piece and gizzard, beef kidney, chicken liver and heart.

Information Dump

Ignore this post if you want.  It's a general layout of Conker's diet and whatnot.

Boring lasts forever

There is NOTIHNG FUN to do around here.  I now remember why I didn't like Grant's Pass when I was here last year.  Very boring, less to do than Vancouver Washington.


We found another snake yesterday.  That makes three snakes in the backyard and one elsewhere.  All have been Northwest Garters, harmless little dudes that look pretty neat.
I knew a snake was near when I looked over at Conker and saw him doing this.

Hunting Shiba is hunting.

Like all the times before I have gotten the snake before the Shiba hunter has.  And every time he thinks I'm going to give it to him.  These little snakes have only been about a foot to a foot and a half long and aren't very fast.  I don't know why Conker hasn't gotten any of them first, but the general rule is if I get it before he does it goes free.  If he happens to catch one, I'm gonna let him kill it since I wouldn't want to take it away only to see it's got bite wounds and would suffer if I let it go.

Conker was determined to find a snake even though I took it and released it on the other side of the bottom chain-link fence.  He found an old wood thing and dug out a hole in it and found some holes that he dug out even more.  But no snake appeared.
And today I spotted him sitting near the ivy where the snakes usually are.  He would get up and sniff through the bushes a bit then return to the concrete by the pool and wait.  I guess he wants to get the fourth backyard snake before I do.


And...

Finding Nemo sheets!

Conker got beef meat and kidney, chicken leg, heart, gizzard and liver.  And he again demonstrated today why I want to get a meat grinder.  Conker decided to crunch up the bone in the chicken leg but not to chew the meat apart and attempted to swallow the whole thing mostly-whole.  I said no to that and pulled it out of his throat so he could at least chew it in half first instead of gag on it.

For a while I'd forgotten why I wanted a meat grinder then today I was reminded of the very reason.  Because my dog is a dumbass.

June 16th

Ugh man, there's something I really want to write about but I'm not going to unless I actually do it.

In other news...
Today Conker got:

Pork meat with beef scraps, liver and kidney, turkey neck half and gizzard (turkey gizzards are HUGE!) and a chicken heart. 

Since it's basically the middle of the month...

Conker's doing great with all his body stuff.  Fur is great, breath is great, poop is... normal, eye boogies have reduced a bit, don't know why, but everything is generally good.

Surprisingly Conker's LP has gotten better.  When I first posted about it the right knee would go out every day, usually more than once.  Now it only goes out once or twice a week and goes right back into place after a few seconds.  Before Conker would have to move it around a lot or I'd have to put it back in for him and it made the worst click sound if he did it wrong. 
I wonder if this has anything to do with the joint supplement I'm giving him?  I know it doesn't treat LP but can it make it... betterish?  Since the joint is getting more lubricant than before is it holding it in place better or makes it able to slide back in more easily?  I have no idea, but whatever it is I hope it sticks around for a while.

Sasha's progress

Conker got: Pork meat with piece of turkey back, chicken wingtip, heart and liver, beef kidney.

It was sooo good.

Sasha has been making some slow progress.  She weighed 70 pounds when I got here in February, but I didn't put her on any serious diet regime until they were switched to Taste of the Wild some weeks back.  Sasha now weighs 65 pounds, so she's lost 5.  She needs to loose at least another 10 for me to be happy, preferably 15, but I'll take what I can get right now.

I try to take Sasha on a walk at least every other day.  Today she got to go to the dog park (Juneau didn't come) and with the exception of a couple small growls and rushes, she did very well with the other dogs.  She only got riled up when Conker was being chased by a superfast red merle Border Collie.  

Sasha is beginning to get a bit of a waistline.  It's not much, but at least you can see it now.  Hopefully she'll continue to be good with other dogs at the dog park so I can bring her along more often.  That will help her loose weight more quickly since she would be going on more and longer walks.  Plus she can run around and go swim in the creek before we go in and after exiting the park.

Conker the Almost Hunter

Today I was chilling with Conker in the backyard since there is a great lack of anything else interesting to do.  First we chilled by the pool, then on the diving board, then in the shade and lastly by some ivy-bush things.
Conker suddenly dove into the ivy, nose going a mile a minute, his eyes glued to the twisting vines under the leaves.  He jumped around rapidly, ears alert, in a stiff but limber stance.  He was hunting.

What was Conker hunting?  I asked myself as I parted some of the vines.  Then I saw it.  The slick black body, slightly kneeled scales, bright yellow and red stripes.  Another Northwest Garter Snake.  This snake was a crafty one and eluded both Conker and I as we searched the ivy for it.  I with the intention to remove it and place it in safety on the other side of the chain-link fence and Conker with the intention to kill and eat.

I spotted the snake several more times as I combed the brush for it.  Conker, much to my surprise, was actually very responsive to me while we were searching.  I thought for sure if he got the snake first there would be no stopping him.  But instead he listened to every command I gave and went where I pointed. (I directed him away from the snake.)  I guess since we were both hunting the snake we were a team.  If he was the only one doing it he might not have listened to me.

After a while of not seeing the crafty snake (I grabbed him several times but I don't like pulling on them when they are tangled) I was about to give up. Conker was off sniffing another set of ivy that snakes are known to hide in.  But alas, the snake re-appeared and I was able to snatch him before he could hide again and before the now alerted Shiba did.
I carried the angry snake down to the lower yard and to the chain-link fence where I have released the other snakes I've caught.  Conker kept trying to jump and grab the snake and chased it when I put it down near the fence.  But the snake was too quick for him and he didn't get it.


As awesome as Conker catching a snake would have been, I do not want him to think snakes are fun to chase.  There are rattlers up here, though somewhat rare, and while Conker was very fast I don't think he is faster than one of them. 


Today Conker got:

Halved turkey neck and scraps, beef meat and kidney, chicken liver, heart and gizzard.

Fancy Beagle

So today at the dog park I saw a Fancy Beagle!  Buckley over at Inu-Baka is a Fancy Beagle, and this pup was the exact same mix of Beagle/Bichon.  He was a very nice dog and his name was either Travis or Tucker, I can't remember exactly but I know it started with a T.  I think it was Tucker... I didn't get any good photos but I did get some.  Here they are.

Fancy Beagle from above.

Fancy Beagle in background while Conker and Midnight mingle.

Conker and Fancy Beagle look at Midnight.

This picture looks kinda wrong... Sorry.

Fancy Beagle is tired.

The owner was kinda surprised when I asked if he was a Beagle/Bichon mix and that I got it right.  I might see him again since the owner says they come more often in the summer and now that the dog park isn't a marsh he'll be dropping by more.  He also knows the Westies who come to the park almost every day.

Homecookin

Today Conker got:

Turkey back scraps (meat and bone) with pork meat, beef kidney and liver and a chicken heart.


Some while ago when I was still in St. Louis I made some lard.  Then I made chicken lard.  I like to call the chicken lard schmaltz even though I technically don't make it correctly and it's just rendered chicken fat, but schmaltz sounds a lot better.

Anyways, I made some more chicken lardfat last night.  It took a couple hours but the end result was good.  I probably used something like 3+ pounds of chicken fat and skin I've accumilated over a period of months since I strip off half of it from Conker's chicken.
I didn't take any pictures during the rendering since I was busy watching Band of Brothers with my bro, and because I was lazy.  But I do have a couple pictures of the end product.

The rendered fatlard is on the bottom, the "fried" chicken skins on top.
For those of you who've never made lard and think it's gross, tell me that after you've had some fresh trout cooked in pork lard, or some crispy veggies sauteed in chicken fat.  Amazing.

The chicken fatlard slowly cooks off the skins and it simmers in a bit of water that eventually steams off and leaves just the lard.  You are left with two products, lard and skins.  The lard I use instead of cooking oil when I make veggies, meat or whatever in a pan.

The skins, some people just throw out.  I eat them as a snack fresh from the pan, cold or after they've been nuked for a couple seconds.  They are also great additions to salads or dishes like a veggie and meat mix I saute in a pan. 


Although the chicken schmaltzfat isn't of use to my dog since I wouldn't feed a dog rendered chicken skins or lard, the dogs wouldn't leave the kitchen or immediate area while it was being made.  They all wanted it so bad, so I imagine if you had to give them a pill just coat it in lard and they'll slurp it up right away.