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.