Out of the Blue

Yesterday, we had an unfortunate incident that was bound to happen.  If you have been following our adventures, you're probably well aware of the fact that we run/walk around our neighborhood a great deal.  You're probably also aware of the fact that we have had issues with other dogs in the neighborhood coming out to 'greet' us or even advance aggressively towards us.

We hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yesterday one of those random incidents turned into a very bad situation.  During our morning runs, we usually end up running up a 30-35 degree incline for the last quarter-mile.   At the end of one of these courses, two old beagle dogs live in a house on the very corner of the top of the hill.  Sometimes, the beagles are tied up on a railing in front of the house so they can 'do their business' while their owner tends to other things inside of the house.

Usually, when we pass the house with the beagles and they're outside, the dogs bark at us (and we bark back at them) as our owner pulls us past the house and towards the finish line.  Yesterday, the dogs were able to reach us as we passed and chaos ensued.  Both of us (Rocky and Desi) tusseled with the two beagles, which turned into an all-out dog fight.  Our owner, exhausted from the 5 mile run (we were literally less than 100 yards from our finishing point and were in a dead sprint when we met the beagles), was diligently struggling to separate us.  Even worse, the collars slipped off of two of the dogs (one of us and one of them), so our owner was having even more difficulty separating the two dog packs.  With nowhere to tie up either of the dogs that were leashed, the owner grabbed Rocky by the collar as he tried with one arm to pick Desi up and carry her away.  This did not work.  After about 90 seconds (it seemed like 90 minutes to our owner), a neighbor ran up and helped him.  The neighbor grabbed one dog while our owner secured Desi and put her collar back on.

At this point, the beagles' owner was outside.  After getting everyone separated, our owner checked with the beagle owner to see if her dogs were ok.  They were.  The owner then asked our owner if he was ok and if he needed the paramedics called.  He said no because besides physical exhaustion, the only damage to him were severly scraped knees and legs (from trying to separate the dogs on a sidewalk).  For the rest of the day, our owner was not happy with what had happened.  He did not yell at or punish us because we're just dogs and we were only reacting, but he was more upset with the fact that people continually leave their dogs outside with no supervision and then act surprised when incidents occur such as today (or when the little toy dog came running out after Rocky and our owner grabbed it and moved it, which caused a confrontation with the toy dog's owner).

Please, please, please make sure that if you own a dog, you always supervise the animal when it is not confined to your house where it cannot physically get outside to harm a human or another animal.  And if you know of anyone who does not supervise their dog while it's outside, please pass this message onto them.  Luckily, no dogs or people were hurt yesterday, but for a few seconds, it seemed like that was not going to be the case.  We don't want anyone ever having to break up a dog fight, let alone having to tend to a dog injured in a fight or even worse, killed in a dog fight.  Just use a little common sense and precaution with your canine friend and stuff like this will not just happen 'out of the blue.'

Employee of the Month

Are you one of those dog owners who praises a dog for a job well done?  If not, you should.  And if you do, remember to be consistent with your praising.  If you're wondering where we're getting at, of course we're going to explain ourselves! 

You see, one of our owners taught us from a very early age to protect our home and surrounding area.  We learned that if we barked at strangers and/or strange sounds around our home, our owner would praise us and give us a treat.  Being intelligent, dashing canines that we are, we took full advantage of this 'job offer' and barked at strange people who passed our house because that was what our owner taught us. 

Now, you may think that barking at every person who goes by may be going a little overboard, but remember that we are just canines and we do not have logic, so even if the person passing by is not a threat, we do not know this.  All we know is to react, which means we bark.  However, we do have a sense of smell, so when that person who comes by our house and/or up to the door is 'familiar' to us (meaning, we recognize their scent), we probably will not bark, but will become extremely excited (ex: when one of our owners walks up the sidewalk and we recognize them and start wagging our tails excessively and knock over a fan, etc).

We wanted to bring this type of scenario to your attention because last night, we heard strange sounds outside of our house and we sounded the alarm (Rocky howling and Desi barking in high-pitched, short barks).  One of our owners (not the owner who taught us the personal protection/guarding skills) became very agitated with our alarming noises and told us to stop it.  This really confused us...weren't we supposed to alert our owners if unfamiliar sights and sounds approached???  Since our other owner recognizes canine behavior a little better, he calmly proceeded to get our attention, thank us for alerting them, and then practiced our 'down' techniques that we learned with grilled chicken bits a few months earlier.  Once we heard the down command, we immediately laid down and remained calm.

We may not be perfect (even though we think we are), but we are smart, loyal, and passionate towards our owners.  Whether you teach us good habits/tricks/commands or bad habits/tricks/commands, we will always be consistent in our behavior, so please remember this before punishing us and/or reacting in a negative manner after we did something that we more than likely were taught or learned from our owner.  We may just be dogs, but we deserve your respect and to be treated fairly because everything we do, we do in our owner's best interests.

Happy Birthday to us!!

Sometimes, good things come in pairs.  For us, this past weekend was a 'double the fun' weekend.  Of course, we had a lot of fun celebrating the 4th of July (minus the loud, scary fireworks that numerous goofballs set off around the neighborhood).  However, the real excitement was our third birthday celebration!  For those of you 'not in the know,' the black dogs of the Toes N' Tails Gang (Rocky and Desi) turned 3 years old on June 30th.

How did we celebrate you're probably thinking?  We celebrated by taking a trip north to enjoy our birthday with our brother Murphy (also born on June 30th).  Not once, but twice, we enjoyed dog bone sundaes (if you haven't had one, it's vanilla soft serve ice cream with 3-4 dog biscuits mixed in). 

To be completely honest with you, the process of us enjoying our treats did not go as smoothly as our owner's imagined.  For our first sundae treat, we escaped from our owner's clutches and took off into the woods searching for small animals (or whatever else we smelled).  Our owner had to get in the car and drive about a mile away to come pick us up.  Knowing that our dog bone sundaes awaited us, we jumped right into the car so we could get home ASAP!

Our second sundae treat went much smoother, however for the second treat, Desi had some real issues with the hardwood floor that the treat was placed on.  Desi scooted and scooted the dish around the floor before finally wedging the dish into a corner, where she then made quick work of the sundae.

So, we're finally 3 years old (that would be 21 in dog years).  No, we didn't celebrate 21 years like many humans do.  However, we'd much rather have a good romp around the woods and a tasty treat than anything else, so I'd say our day was pretty 'doggone' good (sorry we really couldn't resist).  Even better, we got to see our big, chubby brother Murphy, who hasn't changed one bit.

Some people covet expensive material items or trips to exotic locations for their birthdays wishes.  But for us, it really couldn't get any better than enjoying the simple pleasures such as spending time with our family, eating ice cream, and chasing squirrels around the woods.

Hot Under the Collar

We know taking car rides with your dog is an extremely pleasant experience.  You love your dog's company and the dog REALLY loves being out and about with the ability to take in so many smells and sounds.   However, there are a few precations that you should take when your canine friend is riding along with you.

First, never, ever, ever let the dog ride in your lap as you are driving.  If you don't do this and wonder how anyone could drive with a dog in your lap, well it does happen and we've seen it.  If you do do this while driving, stop immediately!!  This is dangerous for you and your pet!  What if the pet hits the steering wheel and you wreck?  What if the pet distracts you and you wreck?  What if the pets leg gets caught and twisted in the steering wheel when you turn?  None of those are desirable options, so please keep your canine in the back seat.  The back seat will still allow him to sniff, see, and hear everything around him and your dog will be quite content to have 'their own space' in the car during the trip.

Secondly, if you stop to run errands while your dog is with you and the temperature is 75 degrees or above outside, please do not leave your dog in the car for more than 3-5 minutes at a time (not 35, but only three to five!!).  Dogs have a body temperature that is higher than humans and with the permanent fur coats that we carry around (yes, thinning hair/bald guys are jealous of us), it gets hot FAST when dogs are stuck in a hot car.  Even with the windows cracked, the temperature to a dog is extremely uncomfortable as well as unhealthy/unsafe.  If you truly care about your dog, you will take this advice to heart!
Lastly, do not let your dog stick his head out of the window when the car is traveling at high speeds.  Most vets will tell you to never let your dog stick his head out the window (because of eye safety issues with the wind affecting the eyes and/or flying bugs/objects getting into their eyes).  However, our owner lets us put our heads out the window if we're just puttering around the city or neighborhood as we're really only averaging a speed of 10-15 mph (with all of the stopping), so they think that is ok.  But if you are unsure, err on the side of caution and crack those windows only enough so the dog can stick his nose out.

We hope these car tips are suggestions that you really take to heart.  Not just for the dog's safety, but for your safety as well.  Now if you'll please excuse us, we're about to pile into the the car for a nice long car ride north.  We can wait to see what smells, sights, and sounds are in store for us on the way!!!

Our Favorite Spot

When you were training your dog, do you remember the exact details of the training session?  Where you were, what time was it, what were the surroundings?  You may or may not, but the chances are, your dog familiarized itself with those details and those details helped your dog make it through the training session.

We mention training surroundings because someone recently came to one of our owners with a question.  What was that question, you may be wondering?  The question was "why does my dog go find a carpeted area of the house to get sick on (or even worse, to eliminate (use the 'restroom' to you humans)) instead of going/staying on a hard (easier to clean) surface such as hardwood/tile/laminate flooring?

The reason that canines may search out the carpet or rugs for these occurances is largely due to the fact that when you're training them to go outside, you take them to eliminate (potty) or get sick on a grassy surface.  Since the dog uses this surface successfully and is reinforced with a treat and/or praise for using the grassy surface, the dog files that rough surface into his reaction database for a later time period.  Reaction you are saying to yourself?  Yes, reaction is what we call that.  You see, dogs really don't "remember" things in their life, they really just react to situations and individuals.

A dog has no logical thinking skills, no way to track time, and no way to remember specifics.  A dog's present and future behavior is based largely on feel, smell, and sound.  Feel meaning if the ground is rough and that is where the dog goes to the potty, than that dog will usually always go in the grass (or on gravel, etc).   If you train the dog to eliminate on concrete or a hard, smooth surface, than that dog will usually always go on concrete (or a hard, smooth surface).  This is why a dog heads straight for the carpet (rough) when inside if they have an emergency where they just can't hold it until the door is opened for them.  Please keep this in mind when reacting to what your dog did....they are just doing what you praised them to do!!!  Also, please keep in mind that if you do not catch a dog in the act of a negative activity (going inside, biting/chewing on something it should not, etc), you have to catch them in the act (yell loudly 'NO') or else you might as well not even say anything at all.  If you come home to find that your dog has chewed up your shoes and they are not currently in the act of chewing, the dog will have no clue whatsoever what you are talking (or yelling) about if you decide to react towards them, so you may as well save your breath.  When our owners were trying to train us to not chew on stuff or to not potty inside, they would 'bait' us (put stuff out for us to chew on and then hide) into that behavior so they could catch us in the act (and yell 'NO') so we would file that behavior away as something that we should not do.

We can also give you a few examples of smell and sound.  Smell meaning that they can identify other dogs or people or places based on the smell of who is around them/where they're going (dogs can smell a great distance away, so if your dog gets excited when you're not that close to the destination it's because they already can smell where you're headed (if they've been there before)).  Sound meaning that they can identify if a situation will be positive or negative based on what they're hearing (if you have ever been around a dog that is scared of men, it's not because (well, it's hopefully not because) of the current male in their life, but probably because of a past experience with a male that was not kind to them.  Dogs hear the deep voice of a man and react to negative experiences based on that deep voice.  The same holds true for vaccum cleaners or whatever other crazy noises scare your dog.  And just remember, if you chase the dog around playfully with the vaccum once and the dog doesn't find this funny, the dog will probably be hesitant around a vacuum for the rest of his life.

We hope this rambling information helps you out.  Remember, in training sessions, it's not the dog who is usually the problem, it's more than likely an incompetent training (and that includes some 'professional' trainers).  We're headed to a nice shady spot to cool off, so we suggest that you find one as well!

Dog Treat Olympics

Like most dogs, when we were young pups, our owners attempted to train us to do certain functions necessary to our behavioral development (stay, sit, down, etc) as well as specific 'tricks' for their enjoyment (speak, shake, etc).  Throughout these training sessions, our owners were consistent in their praise as well as their reward method.  The reward method which we speak of is treats.

Now, for the novice dog owner, 'treat' is basically the same thing, which would be any sort of reward that a dog seems to enjoy (dog biscuits, dog bones, human food are just a few).  However, some dog trainers feel that classifying treats on different levels and rewarding those treats based on the degree of difficulty of a function/trick/skill that a dog has accomplished.

Since you're reading with intense anticipation, we're going to let you in on these levels just because we're that darn thoughtful of our human companions.  The three levels of treats that we receive from our owners are gold treats, silver treats, and bronze treats.  Examples of bronze treats would be pieces of dry dog food (seriously, some dogs cannot tell the difference between what they eat for meals and what they get for treats), carrot sticks, Milk-Bone biscuits, or any hard dog biscuit that you buy at a store or make at home (check out the internet for many easy, cheap, and quick to make/bake dog treat recipes that are more than likely a lot healthier than mass-produced dog treats you find at major retailers).  Examples of silver treats would be meatier/smellier treats such as 'Snausages' or something along the lines of that, peanut butter treats (store bought or homemade), or pieces of cheese (they can be slices or small cubes).  Examples of gold medal treats would be pieces of cut up hot dog, pieces of cut up chicken breast (small cubes), or small pieces of sliced steak (our FAVORITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).  Dogs are natural carnivores, so when you bring out smelly animal flesh, we're probably going to do whatever is necessary to obtain that piece of meat.

How you reward these level of treats is subjective to your individual training situation.  For a new pup, any sort of acquired training (potty outside, sit, down, etc) deserves a gold treat at the beginning stages of the dog's life.  However, as the dog develops into an adult and needs more advanced challenges (stay, fetch, etc), you can then start to work with the different levels of treats.  When we were young pups, we received all sorts of treat levels for potty breaks and for sitting down.  Once we got a bit older, we strictly got bronze treats for those actions and our owners focused on more advanced training (stay, down, leave it) for the silver and gold treats.  Once those were mastered, our owners moved on to the most difficult challenges (tricks or training in front of distractions (other people, other animals, other dogs (we didn't group 'dogs' with animals because we believe that we're somewhere in the middle of the two....not techincally people, but definitely not just an 'animal' of some sort)).

Keep in mind that the more distractions around the dog, the tougher it will be to train the dog.   This holds true even if you have gold treats for the dog.  When Rocky was a pup, our owners could have been holding a raw piece of New York Strip in their hands and he would not have cared if there were distractions around him (squirrels, open/unfenced areas, etc).  When you're just starting to train and/or are moving onto more difficult training routines that the dog has not mastered, please be sure to try to limit the distractions by training in your own home, then in your own backyard, and then finally in more public areas such as parks.

If your dog is very smart and very good at easily/quickly picking up any and all training and tricks, you may want to consider moving onto stuff like agility training or water sports (retrieving, etc).  We canines love a good challenge and there is nothing that can get us in trouble faster than not being challenged (ex: staying at home all day bored and unexercised while our owner is at work/out at a restaurant, etc).

We hope these training tips and treat classifications help you out!  As always, if you have questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section and we'll address them.  In the meantime, happy training!!!

The First Day of Summer

While the recent warm weather has definitely caused a little discomfort to us canines (while don't you try walking around all day in a permanent winter coat), we are excited to announce that we have a new favorite appliance in our owner's home.  No, it's not the vacuum cleaner and no it's not the dishwasher (both of which could disappear forever and we would not miss for a second).  Give up yet?  Well our new favorite household appliance is none other than the fan that our owner brought up from the basement a few weeks ago.

Since some strange guy came to our house a few weeks ago and told us that the metal box that sits outside the house isn't working that well, our owners have been using fans around the house.  Have we taken full advantage of these machines that cool the rooms?  Of course we have.  Being loyal fans of the Toes N Tails gang, you should be well aware of the fact that anything/anyone/anyplace that remotely benefits our lives and more importantly, our comfort level, will be held in high regard when it comes to our views on the matter.

Whether the fans are in the living rooms (during the day), the kitchen (during the times when those self-centered owners leave us at home), or in the bedroom (the evening/nighttime), we are usually parked right in front of one of these 'cool' machines.  Are you wondering if we block the airstream from our owners?  If you are wondering (and even if you aren't), the answer is yes.  Why do we care if our owners can feel the breeze or not as long as we're comfy?  Just like when we take a walk and we end up jerking our owner's arms out of their sockets when we see an attractive target (squirrel, other dog, ice cream cone in some kid's hand, etc), we take our needs/wants/desires into consideration well before we take our owner's needs/wants/desires into consideration.

Is that the correct way to go about living?  Probably not, but then again, we're just dogs, so we really don't know any better (or at least that's how we spin any situation in which our 'optimal living' may be in doubt).   Enjoy the first day of Summer and whenever you have a day where it's really hot and you long for a cool, shady spot or a spot in front of the fan, just imagine us spread out in front of one of our fans and hopefully that image will cool you off a bit.

A Shoulder To Cry On

If you've been reading this blog for quite some time, you're probably aware of just how spectacular us canines are here at the Toes N Tails gang. And if you have the opinion that we're not that spectacular, hopefully you've at least benefited from a few of the tips/suggestions that we have provided in hopes of making your daily experiences with your dog as optimal as possible.
Today, we're not going to give you any tips or suggestions on how to make your dog's life better. Today, we're going to give you a suggestion on how to make your life better. To be specific, we're talking about a resource to turn to when one of life's unexpected, unfortunate happenings rears it's ugly head and decides to happen to you. This could be a job loss, a health issue (yourself or your friends/family), a financial issue, or any other issue that causes the smile on your face and the joy in your mind to disappear. If for some reason you experience an unfortunate event that really affects you, we suggest that turning to your dog can and will be a big help in easing the pain.

Your dog? Yes, your dog. No matter how how bad it hurts or how tragic the event, your dog will be there for you to help you ease the pain.  A canine may not be able to solve your problem or reverse your tradegy, but they will be able to comfort you and give you an outlet to release your pain.  We at the Toes N Tails gang have been there for our owners in times of need and we're quite certain that your dog will be there in a time of need for you as well.  Pet us, hug us, hold us, talk to us, cry if you need to....whatever it is, we'll be there for you to comfort you. 

We make joke around about hogging the bed, chasing squirrels, and eating your unattended slice of pizza when you're not looking, but our true goal in our lives are to loyally be there for our human owners.  We want to protect you, we want to bring joy to your lives, and we want to be there for you in times of need.

If your someone that has recently been affected by life in a negative manner and could really use a pick-me-up right now, go find your dog and pet them, hold them, talk to them.  We guarantee that you'll feel at least a little bit better about your current situation.

(Not) Pleased To Meet You

When you first meet someone, you're (hopefully) very excited and/or pleased to meet that person.  Whether it's a new family member, a first date, a first day at a new job, a friendly face at a party, or any other social setting, meeting someone new is fun and exciting!  For the most part, you're quite certain whether or not meeting a new person is going to be a positive experience (exceptions would be when that first 'meeting' is someone knocking at your door trying to sell you something or when someone tries to rob you or when you meet your husband's/wife's/boyfriend's/girlfriend's significant other (yikes!)), but even in those bad situations, you have a good handle beforehand of whether or not the experience is certain to be positive or negative.

With canines, the certainty of a new meeting going well is everything but certain.  Even though we're lovable, huggable, extremely cute companions to you, your family, and your friends, we are still animals and that needs to be kept in mind when introducing us to unfamiliar humans as even more importantly, when introducing us to unfamiliar fellow canines (and even worse, unfamiliar cats).

You see, many of our canine ancestors were either bred or trained to be guards or protectors of our pack members (that includes humans, who dogs consider a part of their pack) and territories (the dog's residence, whether that is inside the home or the perimeter of the property).  With this in mind, you can probably figure out that even though we want to be friends with everyone, there is a chance that we can't be just because generations of breeding and training has instilled in our inner wiring that protection/guarding is our job, so there is a possibility that confrontation is just second nature to us.
We're not trying to scare you away from wanting to own a dog or to try to befriend a dog, we are just trying to educate you in hopes of preventing any sort of accident due to not taking these points into consideration.  When you think about dogs that may have issues in a social setting, also keep in mind that just because a dog is friendly with humans doesn't mean that it will be friendly with other dogs (and vice versa).  Some dogs are great around all humans and all dogs.  Some dogs struggle to interact with other dogs.  Some dogs are great around certain dogs, but not strange dogs,.  And some dogs are great around some humans, but not unfamiliar humans.  This doesn't mean that the dog is a 'bad dog', it just means that for some reason, this specific dog just has it's own reasons for reacting as it does.

How do you prevent an 'incident' between your dog and a human and/or other dog?  You prevent incidents by being responsible dog owners and taking every measure necessary to ensure that the interaction between your dog and another person/dog is comfortable/the least bit stressful in the beginning introduction.  If you're trying to introduce your dog to an excitable dog or an excitable child, maybe wait until that dog or that child has calmed down before continuing with the introduction.  If you're trying to introduce your dog to an unfamiliar setting (a new dog park, a home the dog has never been in, etc.), try to introduce the dog to that settle with the least bit of distractions possible (early morning when few folks are at the park and/or when the unfamiliar home is empty/quiet).

For a 'real-world' example, we're going to our owner's Mom's house today to hang out and what our owner does to prevent any sort of issues with his Mom's dogs are to take us in the house and let us sniff around for a second and then go outside and sniff around before they let his Mom's dogs out to play with us.  This way, every dog has a chance to settle in for a few minutes knowing that we've arrived to visit instead of just opening the front door and having chaos ensue with four big, excited dogs greeting each other instantly.

We hope our comments help you if you have struggled with canine interactions in the past and/or are concerned about interactions in the future with your dog and other people/dogs.  As always, if you have any questions or comments, please post them and we can address them because as you know, we're very intelligent canines and there is really not any question that you could come up with that we cannot answer in a satisfactory manner.

Now go out and enjoy the day!!

Punching the Time Clock

Earlier today, someone asked our owner if we sleep all day.  As we sat there thinking of whether this person deserved our attention or not (or course they deserve our attention), we also thought about whether this was a valid question or just a sarcastic jab at our energy level, we started wondering how do we really spend our days???

After about ten minutes or serious, deep thought, here is a percentage breakdown with we came up with:

50% sleeping
20% begging for food/eating
20% working (home security/personal security/canine duty (sniffing trees,flowers,etc))
10% exercising

Usually, from about 6-7am (depending on when we get up) until about 9am, we take care of the exercising and begging for food/eating, but that time is also usually mixed in with some work (either indoors from a window sill or outdoors in our yard/a neighbor's yard). 

From 9am until 4-5pm, we usually get most of our sleeping in.  To be fair, our owner says that we spend a percentage of this time begging for his lunch and/or working (usually, this is where we take care of the indoor home security (mailman, garbage man, people on the sidewalk, squirrels, etc). 

From 5pm until about 6-7pm, we either are begging/eating or exercising (depending on whether or not we were exercised in the AM).  On a good day, the exercise is combined with a car ride (YES!!), but those are definitely not an 'everyday' occurance.

From 7pm until 10pm, we mix in naps with a little bit of home security.  Then from 10pm until 6-7am, we're in a complete slumber as we take advantage of the dark, cool room to get our REM sleep in for the night.

Not a bad life, huh?  Included in this post is a pic of us caught in one our daily acts.  We hope you enjoy!

Poker Face

In our last post, we told you how much we like 'gold' treats.  Yesterday, we decided that we like gold treats so much that we went ahead and helped ourselves to a few.  I'm sure you're just sitting in your seat in anticipation waiting for the story, so here it is.

One of our owners decided to cook up some chicken breasts yesterday afternoon.  To be exact, he grilled up 1.65 pounds of chicken breasts.  The whole time he cooked the chicken, we made it known to him that we were definitely available if and when he needed a taste tester.  Being the self-centered guy that he is, he had the audacity to taste the chicken himself without giving us any!  The nerve of that guy!

After the chicken was cooked, our owner took the chicken off the grill and put it on a plate to cool down.  Before he cooked the chicken, he cut it up into small chunks (so he could shake them up in wing sauce and have homemade boneless chicken bites....mmmmmm!!)  As the chicken cooled, our owner decided to go outside and take care of a few chores, which took about 10 minutes.  10 minutes is plenty of time for us to take care of something we're interested in.

As our owner worked outside, he wondered to himself why his two loyal canines were not at their usual post (back bedroom window with a full view of the woods and driveway behind the house where the could clearly see their owner).  Giving us loyal companions the benefit of the doubt, our owner decided that we were just taking it easy in the living room.  WRONG!

Upon entering the kitchen, our owner noticed that his plate of chicken had disappeared (well, the plate was still there, but no chicken was present).  As he turned around, no one was to be found, so our owner went into the living room where both of us looked at him with our best poker faces.  We didn't blink, we didn't move, we didn't wag our tails, we didn't open our mouths.....we just sat their looking straight ahead at him.

To give him credit, our owner didn't react negatively at all and instead just said to us, "whichever one of you it was, nice magic trick in making the chicken disappear."  Now, our owner's Grandpa used to call Rocky "the bandit" because Rocky had the knack of taking things he wasn't supposed to and making a game out of trying to recover the lost items.  But with the calm, cool, and collected way that we both played our hands (card hands...it's a metaphor because we don't have real hands, we have paws), our owner has no idea whatsoever as to who ate that chicken and that's the way we like it.

P.S.....the chicken was delicious!!!

Treat Time!

As loyal followers of the Toes N' Tails gang, we're quite certain that you spoil your dogs just as much as we're spoiled by our owners (we take that back...I doubt there is a dog on this planet that lives the life of luxury that we enjoy).  And as spoiled dogs, you probably give you dogs treats every now and then as a token of your affection for your canine companion.

However, do you know that depending on how you give your dog treats, he may actually be taking your genorosity for granted?  Yes, that is correct....your loyal dog may be turning into a dog with a sense of entitlement just because of treat time.  How can you prevent your dog from turning into a furry version of Paris Hilton?  It's actually quite easy!

When you provide a treat for your dog, you should ensure that your dog is always 'doing something' to deserve the treat (regardless of whether that treat is a milk-bone, a carrot stick, a piece of hot dog, or whatever kind of treat you have for the dog).  We at the Toes N Tails gang call this 'working for prize' and once you start consistently practicing this with your canine, you should have a more obedient dog on your hands.

For beginners, you should always make your dog sit for any treat or desired action (going out for a walk, going for a ride in the car, etc).  Even us (extremely attractive canines) have to sit for our treats.  We sit for biscuits, we sit for pieces of turkey, we sit for 'beggin strips' (which our owner really thinks are the exact same thing as the beef jerky that humans consume).

Once you have 'sit' down (get the pun there..."sit down"), you should move on to more advanced tricks.  A few suggestions would be 'stay' and 'come' and 'down' and 'speak' and any other tricks that you can think of.  If you're concerned that some tricks may be tougher for your dog to master than others, you are probably correct.  Speaking for ourselves, we have issues with 'stay' and 'down' most of the time, but we are really good at 'come' and 'speak' (speak is something we do regardless of whether there is a prize involved or not). 

For the tougher exercises, you can substitute more desired 'prizes' for your dog (such as hot dog pieces or chicken breast pieces or any type of meat (plain meat, we want to add....do not include any sauce/condiment on the meat treats) as these more desired treats give the dog a little extra incentive to work harder for the end result.  Just from experience, Rocky (white stripe on his face) is a little more motivated to get down and stay down where there is a piece of beef in front of him instead of a carrot stick or milk-bone.  When teaching Desi and Rocky to 'come' to us, it was pretty much a lost cause until we started using pieces of chicken breast, so if you think your dog just isn't 'trainable' when it comes to tricks and commands, try out our suggestions before throwing in the towel.  You'll be surprised at how much food motivates a canine.

When you refer to these different levels of treats, you can classify them as 'bronze' or 'silver' or 'gold' treats (just like the Olympic medals...like the ones our favorite skier Julia Mancuso won in Vancouver).  Bronze treats are your standard dog biscuit/milk-bone, Silver treats are beggin' strips/snausages/human crackers/carrot sticks/celery/apple pieces, and Gold treats are pieces of steak/hot dog/chicken/turkey.

Are you clear on all of our instructions/suggestions?  We hope so!  If not, let us know and we can answer any questions you may have.  In the meantime, get to work on getting your dogs to work!!

The Fly

Now that the weather is getting warmer, we are noticing more and more intruders around our yard (you've heard all about the cat and the squirrel).  Last night, we encountered a creature that had the nerve to come into OUR house and torment us.  This creature took pleasure in teasing us for at least 2 hours and by the end of the 2 hours, we were completely baffled.  Who is this creature we speak of?  The fly.

Around 7pm, we noticed this fly in our owners bedroom.  The fly was buzzing around our favorite spot in the bedroom, which is the back window (where we station ourselves for guard duty in search of possible intruders/trespassers).  To our owners, the fly just seemed like it was trying to get back outside (it keep running into the screen), but to us (handsome & beautiful canines), this fly was just trying to mess with our heads.

How did we react to the fly teasing us?  By attacking it of course.  For 2 full hours, we chased the fly all over the bedroom and even through the house (he went in the living room a few times).  We barked at the fly, we jumped at the fly, we chomped at the fly (this was our owners favorite as Rocky's lips made a noise every single time he tried to 'chomp' down on the fly), and we chased the fly (on hardwood floors, this wasn't easy).

Unfortunately, we're here to tell you that we were unsuccessful in catching the fly.  After giving 110% in our chase, we became tired (or bored) after so many close calls that we finally said the heck with the fly and we curled up for our nightly slumber.  With the experience we gained during our first attempt at catching the fly, we're pretty certain that the next time that fly has the nerve to come into our house, he will regret it.

Permanent Fur Coats

Do you notice the four beautiful canines in the profile pic?  Do you notice what they have in common?  What all four dogs have in common are that they all have fur coats and they all have their tongues hanging out.  What does this mean to you non-canines who may be reading this blog?  This means that we were in a situation where we were trying to cool down.

Depending on the breed and type of canine, we can get very hot very quickly.  With thick fur coats that cannot be removed (maybe shaved/trimmed down, but not removed) coupled with the fact that dogs have a higher normal body temperature, the need to cool off may arise at a much faster pace than our human counterparts.  Our tongues hang out because that is how we sweat/cool down instead of through the skin like human beings cool their bodies.

Why is bringing up our body temperature/cooling techniques important today?  Because depending on where you reside, the temperature may be steadily increasing to the point of where it becomes uncomfortable for a canine.  Whether it's running, walking, working, or just sitting around the house, temperatures over 75 degrees can make life for a dog a little hot around their collar.  If the dog has a dark/black coat (such as Desi and Rocky), the sun attracts more heat to the dog's coat, causing body temperatures to rise.

How can you fix this as responsible dog owners?  The answer is simple.  Just make sure you leave fresh water out for your dog at all times, whether it's in the house or outside in a shaded area.  If your dog stays outside for an extended period of time, make sure they have plenty of shade to rest and relax under.  If you're really looking to please your dog, you can cool them off before/during/after long walks by pouring water on their coats (our owners turn on the outside faucet and use running water to cool us off....just don't turn the sprayer on 'full' or 'high' or 'blast' because that scares us....'mist' or 'shower' works just fine).

A few other treats for your dog during hot days include ice cubes (some dogs really love them, some dogs hate them) as well as Frosty Paws frozen dogs treats (we've never seen a dog who didn't like these treats!)

All of these options are fine choices and no matter how you choose to cool your dog down, just do something to make sure they stay cool.  Your dog will be thankful and will really think that it's 'cool' that you're such a great owner for watching out for them!

Hitting the Wall

As some of you know, we get exercised pretty regularly.  However, during the winter months, one of our owners (the one who runs us most often) came down with some sort of virus/chest cold that knocked him out of commission for a few weeks.  In addition, that same owner has been really busy during the Spring, so we haven't been able to exercise as much as we would like in the past month or so.  What does this mean to the Toes N Tails gang?  It means that our endurance level has taken a hit.

Desi (all black) doesn't seem to be affected by the lack of recent training as she is still quite spry during our runs.  Whether 1 mile or 10, Desi is strong throughout the run.  However, Rocky (stripe on his face), is a totally different story.  Rocky has hit the wall big-time.  During our past 3 runs, Rocky has struggled to finish each time and during our last long run (Saturday afternoon at Sharon Woods), Rocky basically said the heck with running around mile marker 4.5 (our course for the day was around 7.25 total miles).  What did this mean for all parties involved?  It meant that Desi and her owner had to continually stop as Rocky slowed down (or stopped) to catch his breath/smell the flowers/water the flowers.  We at the Toes N Tails gang can understand a pit stop or two, but Rocky has turned the runs into basically a 'stop at every exit and check things out' routine.

After some rest, some coaching, and a little encouragement, Rocky was able (barely) to finish the course as he dragged himself across the finish line behind his owner and Desi, who led the way.  After the run, Rocky guzzled a couple of bottles of water (placed in a bowl of course...Rocky can't drink from a water bottle) and was ready for the ride home (with the windows down to cool him down).

Once Rocky made it home, he took a few more drinks from his water dish, waited for his chow to be made, scarfed down his food, and then went and laid down for a nap.  I don't think anyone saw Rocky's eyeballs for the rest of the night as he was crashed out.

Looking ahead, we hope to get our endurance levels back to where they were around Christmas time (we ran 12.5 miles in Toledo one morning) before the hotter Summer days arrive.  Wish us luck as we turn it up a notch these next few weeks!

Something to Bark About

You may have recently seen an email circulating that warns of toxic mulch found at certain retailers (Target, Meijer, Home Depot, etc).  The toxic mulch supposedly contains ingredients found from chocolate (which is toxic to us canines) and has caused a few faithful companions to suddenly become ill and pass away within a few hours of digesting the mulch.  While we have not been in contact with this mulch first paw (not first hand people, we're DOGS), we do not discount the statements about the mulch causing other canines to become sick.

If you're not really sure what mulch is or is made of, mulch is shredded pieces of wood/tree bark that is processed through a shredder and then treated with certain chemicals/ingredients/dyes to make it more desirable to consumers based on their personal preferences (type/color, etc).  What we are here to tell you is that no matter the type/brand/size/color/smell of mulch, it is not good for our tummies AT ALL!!

Some of the mulch you may buy is treated with 'fertilizer' which could come from animal waste (and we have heard human waste has been used as well...seriously).  Some of the mulch you may buy is treated with dyes (to make it red/dark brown/black/brown).  Some of the mulch you buy is treated with fertilizer to help the plants/trees/shrubs/flowers grow faster/stronger/healthier.

What does this all mean to you dog owners/dog fans?  This all means that you should not allow your dog to chew on and/or consume mulch.  "Fido, fetch the stick" is so 1950's because in present times, vets and dog professionals will tell you that wood/bark is not at all good for a canine's stomach/mouth/throat/digestive tract.  Would you chew on a tree branch and swallow a bunch of pieces?  No, because it would make you sick!  Same with us canines.

Buy us a chew toy or two (we have one that we highly recommend, so ask our owners about it) instead of allowing us to chew on wood/bark/mulch.  At the end of the day, we really don't know what we're chewing on, so you cannot trust us to steer clear of mulch....this means you have to take control of the situation and watch out for us yourselves (are you listening dog owner???)

While it may be an inconvenience to watch us around mulch/bark/wood, we are certain that it will be much more of an inconvenience to take us to the vet if we become sick and/or even worse, have a fatal occurance due to digestion of mulch/wood/bark.  You love us enough to make sure we that we're not the next subject of the mass email going around warning about toxic mulch digestion, don't you?  If you even hesitated with answering that question, you should not have and if you did, go back and provide the correct answer.

Enough 'barking' at you for now....go out and enjoy the fine weather today (we already have during our sunrise run!!)

Burrito Eating Contest RESULTS!!!

A few weeks ago (well, like we've said before, dogs can't keep track of time, so we really don't know how long ago it was) we posted information regarding the upcoming burrito eating contest pitting Rocky "The Fat Man" against Desi "The Pig" in a no holds barred food consumption marathon. After making our initial post, our owners decided that maybe Chipotle burritos were not the best thing in the world for us to be eating due to the amount of spices/seasonings that some of the ingredients include. Did these mean the competition was cancelled? Of course not! Our owners are pretty smart people (they picked us out, didn't they?!?!), so they brainstormed for alternatives that would better suit our tummies.

After considering a few options, our owners decided on a homemade burrito-type meal to use for our contest. The homemade meal consisted of rice, mixed veggies (carrots/peas/beans), grilled steak, and a small amount of our regular chow (we run with one of our owners, so we need those vitamins). After making up the ingredients, our owners filled the bowls and then weighed each bowl to compare. Rocky's dish weighed in at 2.2 pounds of food and Desi's dish weighed in at 2.0 pounds of food. That would be around 8-9 McDonald's quarter pounder patties in each bowl!

Once we were in our crates, our owners each had a stopwatch and they simultaneously put the bowls in our crates and started the timers. The race was on!

Not to anyone's surprise, Rocky took a quick lead as he started scarfing down the steak pieces (Rocky is obsessed with any type of steak/chicken/pork) as Desi slowly munched away. After a couple of minutes, Rocky seemed to be shooting himself in the paw as he basically buzz sawed his way through his bowl, shooting bits of rice/meat/veggies all over his crate, which would make the clean up process take some time. Desi, in the other crate, was deliberately and consistently eliminating the contents of her bowl with a much cleaner and conservative approach.

At the 5 minute mark, the contest was anyone's to lose. In the next minute, Rocky started to clean up around his bowl and the majority of the food inside of the dish was gone. Meanwhile, Desi chomped away (laying down of course, like she does every time she eats). Rocky seemed to be losing valuable time as he messed around with cleaning up the food that he had thrown all over his crate.

At the 7 minute mark, we had a winner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In an official time of 7 minutes and 1 second, Desi "D-Wiggy" had defeated Rocky "Rock Star" in a major upset of competitive eating. Not since Desi's early days (ages 4-9 months, when she was nicknamed "Pig") had Desi beaten Rocky in finishing a bowl of food. As Desi licked her chops, Rocky finished his bowl (enough to the satisfaction of the judges) in a time of 7 minutes and 50 seconds. Desi's owners were shocked that she beat The Fat Man, but nonetheless, they were proud of their little girl.

Desi then celebrated with her grand prize (a "Beggin' Strip") while Rocky wasted no time in accepting his consolation prize (also a "Beggin' Strip"). No one told Desi that Rocky and her both received the same prize even though she just smoked him in the competitive eating competition, but with a full belly of steak and a mouthful of Beggin Strip, I really don't think Desi minded that much.

Rocky handled his defeat as his owners expected, which meant he just walked into the bedroom, climbed up onto the bed, and took a nap as he laid in the sunlight coming from the back window.

These dogs really do lead a tough life....

Piggy Back Ride

As you may know, us canines in the Toes N Tails gang love treats.  No matter the time nor the place, we are very, very, very interested in earning treats for various tasks or exercises performed.  Yesterday, one of our owners spent a few minutes working with us and during that time, we were rewarded with treats.

During the end of our training session, we have an embarrassing story to tell you.  As one of our owners decided to give us one more treat, he asked us to 'speak' for us, which we did.  However, as our owner tossed us our treat (a piece of ham), Rocky fumbled the exchange as the treat hit his nose instead of his mouth and bounced over Rocky's head.  Where did the treat land?  On Rocky's back (hence, the 'piggy back ride' title of the post).

For the next 5-6 minutes, Rocky searched all over the kitchen for his treat.  Rocky searched the floor near the refrigerator, the washing machine, the stove, the cabinets....and the whole time, the piece of ham was sitting on Rocky's back.  Rocky then went into his cage to eat his dinner while the piece of ham was still sitting on Rocky's back.  After eating his whole bowl of food, Rocky left his cage and FINALLY the treat fell off of his back and Rocky was able to woof down his piece of ham for a trick he performed nearly 15 minutes ago!

While we may be incredibly good-looking, smart, loyal, and physically fit canines....we are also not perfect.  Controlling our noses during treat reception is something we definitely need to work on.

Party All Night, Sleep All Day

Now that Winter is over and Spring is here, our owners have done us a HUGE favor by opening some of the windows in our house.  Why is this such a big deal to us?  Because we're suspicious canines and with open windows, we can see all the evil, smell all the evil, and hear all the evil that goes on around us.  When you're classified as personal protection and/or guard dogs as we are (well, at least Rocky and Desi are classified as those types of breeds), then you're going to do all that you can to ensure the safety of your home and the people inside your home.

Since we have open windows both during the day and at night, we take full advantage of the opportunity to sound off at all hours of the day and night.  What does this mean to our owners?  It means that we get to party all night because we spend half the night staring out the window or whining at the sound/smell of something or just moving from room to room trying to get a better view of what we're in search of.  For our owners, this is horrible news because they have to actually get up and go to work every day.  Every second that they are awakened by us sounding the alarm is a second that they lose in sleep.

As for us losing sleep?  Not a chance.  For every extra second that we spend guarding the house at night, we make up by sleeping through the day.  Now that we mention it, right about now sounds like a good time to curl up on the couch and catch a few Z's.

That Darn Cat

A few days ago (actually, we have no idea how long ago it was as us canines have no concept of time) we mentioned that our arch-rival, the squirrel, was back in town.  We have already made our feelings known about this horrible creature, so we'll address another concern that has crossed our path.

The other concern?  A cat that has decided to take up residence in our neighbor's back yard.  Now, since we're just dogs, we don't have any sort of animal medical training, but something is wrong with this cat.  The cat makes some sort of noise at all hours and this noise is driving us CRAZY.  One of our owners told our other owner that they think the cat is in heat, but we can't take that as fact as our owners have zero veterinarian training either.

Whatever the issue is with this darn cat, we do not care.  All we are concerned about is letting this cat be fully aware of the fact that we do not appreciate it shacking up in our general smelling area.  Does this cat not understand that not only our yard, but the whole area surrounding our house (as well as our neighbor's houses) is OUR area?  Who does this cat think he is to be able to just move into the surrounding area that we have designated as our personal protection area and just set up a make shift living arrangement?

It's bad enough that we have a squirrel outside of our house to concern ourselves with these days.  Now, in additional to that ugly squirrel with the bushy tail, we also have to deal with 'MEOW, MEOW, MEOW' all day and all night.  You would think our lives are easy since we appear so fabulous and relaxed in our profile pic, but let me tell you, that is not the case.  Being a canine (and especially being part of the Toes N Tails gang) is no easy task.  Besides dealing with the daily interruptions of the mailman/neighbors/FedEx guy, we also spend plenty of time setting off alarms/warnings to these other creatures who have invaded our personal space. 

When you factor in other dogs/birds/squirrels and now a cat, it's apparent that we're much more valuable around here than we're given credit for.  I wonder if there is some sort of union for working dogs?  Maybe we should strike?  We'll look into this and get back to you. 

In the meantime, if you have a dog, give them an extra pet and let them know how much you appreciate them for all of their hard work, dedication, love, and loyalty.  As a dog owner, you probably aren't aware of just how lucky you are.

Almost Famous

If you haven't heard through the grapevine, we were invited to audition for a Purina commerical last week.  However, even though we were all invited, only Rocky made the final cut and was allowed to audition.  Since Rocky claims to be the best looking dog in the pack, it only makes sense that he was the one who made his way to the production studio.  Some of you may be wondering why Desi didn't get the call, but Desi's track record around other dogs isn't exactly spotless, so once her owners found out that other dogs may be present in the waiting room, they decided against taking Desi into the studio.
From the moment Rocky strutted into the studio, he had the crew in the pad of his paw (instead of the palm of his hand....since Rocky doesn't have any hands).  Of course, instead of introducing himself to the strangers, Rocky took the opportunity to check out the studio for foreign smells, open doors, and unattended treats.  Once Rocky made his rounds, he was ready for lights, camera, and action.

Since we only had about 10 minutes to audition, Rocky decided to pull out most of his tricks.  In a matter of seconds, Rocky had everyone laughing as he spoke a few times, gave his owner a couple of high-fives, and retrieved a ball.  Not completely satisfied, Rocky then took off for the camera and gave the cameraman a 2-3 second close-up shot (basically, Rocky was sniffing the camera lens).

For all of his hard work, Rocky left the audition with a couple of bags of treats and two vouchers for free bags of dog food.  All in all, it was a great day for the Toes N Tails gang!

He's Back

The last few months around our house have been peaceful. Since we're classified as personal protection and/or guard dogs, we take great pride in making sure that both our home and our property are not intruded upon by uninvited guests. During the winter season, there are limited opportunities for us to show off our protection skills. Yeah, the mailman comes each day (who even brought dogs treats in an attempt to make peace with us (it didn't work)) and every now and then someone else randomly appears (meter reader guy, FedEx guy, Santa Claus). However, for the most part, there isn't much going on around our place while it's cold out.

Now that Spring is here and the trees/flowers are in bloom, all that has changed. If you're still wondering what us brilliant canines are referring to, it should be no surprise that we are solely focused on our arch-enemy....the squirrel. It's bad enough that the squirrel has the nerve to prance around neighboring roofs, trees, and even power lines, but to frolic around in OUR yard is non-excusable. Who does this squirrel think he is? Does he not smell our scent around the trees and bushes? Does he not understand that the green space around our house belongs to only us?

Our only explanation for this blatant disrespect is that the squirrel is deaf. How could he not have hearing issues? Does he not hear us going berserk when he stands in our yard eating things off the ground as we stand in the window sill just a few feet away sounding our alarm? Everyone else in the surrounding houses (and probably 2-3 towns away) can hear us voicing our displeasure. We think at times, the ground shakes during our fits of rage as we can only watch from inside as the squirrel does what he pleases outside. Does the squirrel see us and know that we cannot get through the door to chase after him, so he is allowed to come and go as he pleases?

Squirrel, you have been warned. It may take a little longer than we would like, but you will face the consequences from invading our personal space. We do not know the specific time that you will face our wrath, but when it happens, it will be long overdue.

Automatic Nail Trimmer!

I can assure you that we're not alone on this topic.  It's something that we do not enjoy in the least bit.  It's something that our owners tell us that no dog enjoys, but has to be addressed.  The dirty job we're speaking of?  The trimming of our nails.

If you're having issues with trimming your dog's nails, we may have a solution for you.  Stumped?  Well, the answer to your problem may simply be walking your dog.  During the warm weather, we walk much more than we do when it's cold outside and our nails get just as much of a workout as the rest of our bodies.  The end results of our walks are that we're both exercised AND our nails get worn down.  Don't believe us?  Try a few weeks of daily walks (more than just around the block) and check out the results.  From the months of April-October, we have not had our nails trimmed since our owners adopted us due to our daily walks during warm weather.  A dog's nails will wear down on both asphalt and concrete surfaces (please be sure that the surface you're walking on is not too hot for your canine's paws as mid-Summer weather can cause surfaces to become dangerous to the pads of a dog's feet).  Walking your dog on grass may not be as beneficial to wearing it's nails down, but walking on grass is better than not walking at all.  If you dog pulls (which is another post in itself), the nails should file down much quicker/easier than just relaxed walks.  However, even with the more preferred relaxed walking, your dog's nails will wear down (just as car tires wear down even if you're a careful driver who drives normal roads/expressways).

We promise that not having to deal with trimming your dog's nails (or even worse, paying someone to trim their nails) is a desired lifestyle that you and your dog both would like to take advantage of.  And to think that all it takes is a few minutes a day of walking (something your dog will LOVE you for) is just icing on top of the homemade dog cookie!

Fourth Meal

Some of you humans probably don't give us dogs that much credit, but you probably should.  While we're laying at your feet (or in some cases, on your laps) as you're watching TV, we are taking very meticulous notes on what we see during shows and commercials so that we can keep up with the latest trends (mostly, what new dog treats are being introduced onto the market and/or what dog treats are being advertised on the TV).

One of our favorite commericals is the Taco Bell "fourth meal" commerical, because like the people in the commercials, we love to eat as much as possible and any reason to fit an extra meal into the day is a superb idea if you ask us.  Being a slick character when it comes to obtaining treats/food, Rocky decided to put the 'fourth meal' idea into play one night last week.

After Rocky's owner fed him (Blue Buffalo with a dab of yogurt on top), Rocky went into the living room to sleep off his meal while his owner cut the grass outside.  About 30 minutes later, Rocky's other owner came home and walked into the kitchen.  Immediately, Rocky went to his cage and sat.  Rocky's owner, clueless that he had just scarfed down a bowl of food, saw his empty bowl and decided to go ahead and feed Rocky since his other owner was outside.  Without saying a word (or barking), Rocky proceeded to eat the additional meal like he hadn't been fed in a month.  Keep in mind, Rocky had already eaten breakfast, a small lunch (a bowl of rice), and dinner just a few minutes prior to his second owner's arrival.

Rocky's other owner walked into the kitchen as Rocky was cleaning out his bowl.  Owner #1 communicated to owner #2 that Rocky had just been fed.  They quickly threw a game plan together that consisted of going to Rocky's cage, taking his bowl, and keeping it until the morning.  Rocky had other ideas though and as his owners came for his dish, he was putting the finishing touches on his fourth meal of the day, leaving nothing but an empty, shiny stainless steel bowl for his owner to pick up.  Rocky had his own gameplan that he executed perfectly to receive a 'fourth meal', which capped off his night.

Rocky 1, his owners, 0

Final Four

Well, it definitely looks like our talent of picking football games does not carry over to basketball picks.  To recap our picks, the Toes n Tails gang confidently jumped on the bandwagon of Kansas and picked the Jayhawks to win the NCAA tournament.  Sadly (for Kansas fans), the Jayhawks were eliminated early by Northern Iowa and knocked the Toes n Tails game out of the race early.

However, the NCAA tourney did shed some light on the Butler Bulldogs, which quickly became the fav team of our dog pack.  Even better, as the team's starters are introduced before the game, each starter rubs the head of the bulldog for good luck.  We are definitely Butler fans from here on out!

During the game, the dog pack was hoping for a 'Hoosiers' type of ending, where the heavy underdog (Butler, in this case) pulls out the win at the buzzer.  The game was heavily contested from the opening tipoff and as the final seconds ticked down, the storybook ending appears to be unfolding before our eyes in black and white (we're color blind, so we can't see specific colors of course).  After a missed free throw by Duke, the Butler player dribbled down the court and threw up a prayer at the buzzer....which hit the glass, the rim, and then bounced to the floor.  Game over and the bulldog goes home without the title.

For a second, we we're pretty down about the Butler loss.  Then our owner asked us if we wanted to go out and we totally forgot about the game (although, we did not forget to make a beeline to the treat jar after we came back in from our potty break....priorities people, priorities).

Burrito eating contest

We have big news for our blog readers!  One of our owners has came up with the cool idea of Rocky and Desi having a no holds barred, burrito eating contest.  Here are the rules:

Rocky and Desi will both receive a Chipotle burrito placed on a large, white plate.  One burrito will consist of rice, beans, steak, cheese, and corn.  The other burrito will consist of rice, beans, chicken, cheese, and corn.  Each dog will be placed in their crate (where they usually eat) and each dog will receive their burrito at the same time.  One owner will have a stopwatch for Rocky and another owner will have a stopwatch for Desi.  After every piece of ingredient (all rice, corn, cheese, etc) has been eaten, the time will stop.

Tale of the tape:

Rocky: 102 pounds, male, brown collar, food motivated, spoiled and/or has a sense of entitlement, likes to sleep on his back with his paws in the air, talks (whines, howls, etc) a lot, is a ladies man, gets a lot of compliments for the stripe on his face, fast eater, messy eater.

Desi: 82 pounds, female, pink collar, food motivated, likes to sleep right next to owner, is fiercely loyal, has a deceivingly sweet appearance, but is very dominant (hence, the training sessions), gets a lot of compliments for her pink collar, likes to ride in the car with her head poked out of the sunroof, is much faster and smarter than Rocky, more deliberate eater who does not make as much of a mess as Rocky.

We will post official results on the blog after the conclusion of the eating contest.  If you want, post your predictions in the comments section!

NCAA picks

Well, it's been a few weeks since we have posted.  Things have been a little hectic the past few weeks with our training classes, so we've focused all of our energy on becoming better canines instead of trying to multi-task as authors and training students.  Anyways, getting down to business, the NCAA Tourney starts today and we have our picks for you!  Before we begin, we would like to disclose the fact that college basketball is not our specialty, so take these picks with a grain of salt.  Yes, we did go 3-0 in the NFL championship games/Super Bowl and we were 4-1 in BCS games, but our interest in basketball declines during the winter.

Here it is:

Sweet 16 teams: Kansas, Michigan St, Ohio St, Georgetown, Syracuse, Butler, Pitt, BYU, Texas, Wisconsin, Marquette, West Virginia, Duke, Purdue, Baylor, Richmond.

Elite 8 teams: Kansas, Georgetown (over OHIO STATE...WHAT?!?!?!?!), Syracuse, BYU, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Duke, Baylor

Final Four teams: Kansas, Syracuse, West Virginia, Duke

National Final: Kansas, Duke

National Champion: KANSAS JAYHAWKS, 77-69

Watch your step

You may have noticed that a few posts ago, we posted pictures from the recent snow and told you about our antics and enjoyment of playing in the snow.  Well, in the last few days, we have taken a different approach.  While the snow is fun and we love playing in the snow, we now are ready for Spring.  Why the sudden change?

Our owner took us for a walk late last night.  With a bunch of snow still on the ground, it can be difficult to walk in the snow with two big dogs like us leading the way (well, pulling/charging ahead).  Even worse, there are times we run across areas where other dogs 'relieve themselves' on the sidewalk or in grassy areas that we cannot see when the ground is covered in snow.  Last night was one of those times.

After our walk ended, we strutted inside our house as we were exercised and ready for our dinner.  Immediately, our owner noticed some 'dirt' on the floor of our house.  Our owner moved down to pick up the mud and suddenly had a bad feeling as what he grabbed didn't smell like mud.  Unfortunately, it wasn't mud at all, it was POO from another dog!!!

Being an impressive problem-solver, our owner shuffled us quickly into the bathroom (the whole time, we were getting the floors dirtier and dirtier).  Our owner recognized Rocky as the dog who probably stepped in the mess and put him in the shower.  After starting the shower and washing a few of Rocky's paws, his owner noticed that nothing was coming off of Rocky's paws.  He looked over at Desi and saw the floor was nearly completely dirty now as it was Desi who was guilty of the misstep!!!

Wanting to finish Rocky's shower quickly, our owner grabbed another paw to finish his cleaning.  Not sure of whether it was a sudden move or not, Rocky flipped out and somehow got ahold of the shower curtain, which ripped the rod and curtain off of the shower as the hand-held sprayer shot water all over the bathroom.  You guessed correctly, the noise from the shower rod crashing down made Desi flip out and any areas of the bathroom not covered in dog poo were now covered as she reacted to both the noise and her goofball litter mate Rocky crashing around in the shower.  To top the dog shower off, Rocky slipped on the floor again getting out of the shower which caused immediate chaos in the bathroom between our owner and us TWO LARGE and WET dogs.

With Rocky cleaned up and in his cage eating, our owner focused on cleaning Desi.  Since Desi is calmer in the shower (ironic, considering she is not the calmer dog in general), the cleaning of Desi only took a few minutes to get her paws clean.  With both dogs clean and fed, our owner worked to clean the house from the unfortunate poo incident of the evening.

About an hour and 15 minutes later, the house was clean and our owner was now ready to watch the Olympics.  While he was glad to see the winter events and all of the beautiful snow in Canada, he was also glad that snow was not in the forecast in our area for the next few days.

Fast forward to this morning....it's now snowing outside.  Thanks, weatherman.

Bathroom break

Hey there!  It's been a week since we've posted, so we decided to check in.  The past week has been a little challenging for us as there is nearly a foot of snow on the ground at our house.  While we love playing in the snow, this makes for a difficult experience when we're trying to do our daily duties after we eat breakfast and dinner.  You may think it's funny to watch us try to get down in our stance to do our thing, but we assure you that we find no humor in having our family jewels come into contact with snow and ice.  Seriously, take a second and think how uncomfortable it is for you to sit down on a cold toilet seat.  Now multiply that discomfort by about 1000 to take into consideration that we are parking it directly in the ice and snow (in addition to the fact that it's 11 degrees outside).  It's not a good feeling, to say the least.

Our owners felt so bad about our outdoor experiences that they cleared a path/area for us to use for a rest stop, which only works about half the time because we seem to be more interested making sure the area where we stop smells satisfactory to us than we are interested in the comfort of not instantly freezing our junk in the snow and ice.  That is our own personal challenge that we're trying to deal with.

However, the snow and ice isn't all bad as it has given us a chance to watch some of the Olympics and more importantly, our favorite Olympic skier, Julia Mancuso (we would consider Julia our 'overall favorite winter Olympic athlete', but we can't decide if we like her better than Apolo Ohno or Sasha Cohen, so for now, she's just our favorite skier).  If you ever see us dogs running across the dog park, we are extremely fast, but even we can't keep up with Julia, who exceeds speeds of over 70 mph when she is going downhill (http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/assetid=4789c5e1-ab5c-4e3d-840c-6562c475cdd2.html).  We still can't figure out why dogsledding isn't part of the Olympics, but we're hoping one day they change things up and give us a chance to "go for the gold" against other dogs around the world.  We thought of writing up a petition to have our fans sign to get us into the Olympics, but we don't have thumbs, so penning the inital draft is an issue for us.  Hopefully, we can figure something out...if not, we just might show up unannounced and crash the party.

Lavender Oil

For those of you 'not in the know,' one of us visited an animal behaviorist on Monday.  Even though us canines think that we are complete perfection, one of our owners (who will remain nameless) decided to take us to some unfamiliar lady, who owns a dog training facility filled with many unfamiliar smells, sights, and sounds. 

Apparently, our owner thinks that Desi has some 'inconsistencies' and is concerned about potential lawsuits if and when she gets free and makes mince meat out of some other dog or even worse, a human being.  With that in mind, Desi and her owner made the drive up to 'Postive Paws' to meet with Carla, the behaviorist.

Immediately, Desi made it clear that she was out of her comfort zone.  After nearly 30 minutes of Carla's techniques, Desi started to calm down a bit.  How did Carla know that Desi was on edge?  Desi was showing a few physical charactistics of an uncomfortable dog, which would be: ears perked up and/or drawn back, blinking her eyes, wagging her tail (yes, this can be a negative), a 'ready' stance, puffing her cheeks/lips out, and raising her hair on her back.

After working with Desi for another 30 minutes or so, Carla recommended that Desi come back for additional work in a couple of private sessions.  Desi's owner hasn't scheduled the sessions yet, but Carla gave Desi some paperwork on how to work with Desi on decreasing anxiety and increasing her calm demeanor. 

The one thing Carla gave Desi  that really surprised Desi's owner was a scarf with lavender oil sprayed on it.  Carla told Desi that the lavender oil smell should calm Desi down.  If you have a dog that is anxious or doesn't appear to be 'at ease' as much as it should, try using a scarf sprayed with a little bit of lavender oil.  Unfortunately, Desi is a 'tom boy' type of female, so as soon as her scarf is put on her collar, she has it wrapped and bunched up on her collar, which doesn't look to lady-like.  However, adding a few squirts of lavender oil every couple of days has seemed to calm her down a bit, so even if it doesn't look spectacular, it's the effectiveness that matters, right?

If your dog has a few issues with 'acting a fool' at times, maybe you should try a few squirts of lavender oil as well.  If this stuff can calm Desi down, it can calm any dog down!

Snow Day!

Have you ever watched one of those National Geographic shows that focuses on wolves living in Yellowstone National Park?  Well, we do not live in Yellowstone, but we are part of the wolf family.  With that in mind, it's not surprising that we love being outside in the snow.  We don't know whether we like playing in the snow more or just that it provides us with another substance to snack on, but none the less, we go bonkers when we see the white stuff on the ground!

We've decided to share a few pics from a recent romp in the snow.  We're probably some of the most attractive dogs who have ever walked the Earth and we're even cuter when we have snow all over us.  We hope you enjoy our pics.  If you're not a cold weather and/or snow person, be a little patient with us.  Once it warms up where we're at, we'll be shooting our swimsuit issue, which will reveil the latest in canine swimming fashion.  We don't know if we'll bother with the bodypaint suits, but who knows what surprises we'll come up with.

Super Bowl recap

After the Saints come from behind win to beat the Colts last night, we are 3-0 in our last 3 football picks.  You have to give us a little credit in picking the Saints as nearly every 'expert' picked the Colts to win last night.  With the 5 point spread, us dogs were feeling pretty good about ourselves up until the Peyton Manning interception that was returned for a TD.  Once the Saints took a two touchdown lead, we rose from the couch, stretched our legs, decided that our 19 point lead (including the 5 point spread) was safe, and headed to bed.  Funny how some people on TV claim to be football experts, but they fall for the 'hype' surrounding one team and end up looking foolish, while us normal dogs who lick our behinds, eat off the floor, and chase birds, keep on making correct football picks.  If this dog blog grows much and ESPN catches wind of our superior football prediction skills, Lassie and Old Yeller will be B-list celebrity canines compared to the red carpet treatment we'll receive from the sporting world.
 
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Toes 'n Tails new member!

For no particular reason, we've decided to introduce you to a new member of our gang.  This chubby fella is Murphy.  Murphy is not a daily or weekly pack member, but he is Rocky and Desi's extremely large brother from their puppy litter.  Murphy weighs in around 110-115 pounds and he enjoys the easy life in Toledo, Ohio, where he shares a home with a Toy Fox Terrier named Maverick and some mop-looking dog named Annie.  Murphy spends his day emptying his always-filled food dish and barking at squirrels who have the nerve to prance around in Murphy's yard. 

Murphy aspires to be a spokesdog for Chic-Fil-A someday as he bears a striking resemblence to Chic-Fil-A's current mascot, the cow.

Breakfast!

Us dogs know our food.  Whether it's chicken broth or a table cloth, we have tasted it or took a bite of it and we have an opinion on it.  We're always ready to eat and one of our favorite food additions is yogurt!  We know that canines may not read this blog, but some canine owners do, so we have the scoop on yogurt.  Follow our lead and your dogs will love their first meal of the day even more.

When you prepare your dog's dry food in the morning, take a tablespoon full of yogurt and add it to the food.  You can put it on top or on the bottom, but we recommend that you put it on the bottom.  Placing the yogurt on top usually means the dog will just eat the yogurt first...placing the yogurt on the bottom will both make your dog 'work' to get his yogurt as well as making sure he eats his dry food with the yogurt (even if your dog's nose pushes the dry food around to get to the yogurt, they will eat the dry food along the way).

To ensure that your dog doesn't pack on the pounds due to the yogurt calories, we recommend using low-fat yogurt (either plain or flavored).  Our favorite is Dannon 'Light n' Fit' vanilla flavor, which is only 80 calories per human serving (8 ounces), so only a tablespoon is not many calories at all for your dog!  If not Dannon, any other brand (or just the store brand) will work just as well.  The tasty treat will make your dog excited for his meal, even if it is just plain old dry dog food!

Super Bowl pick

As promised, we are here to deliver our Super Bowl pick.  While us dogs are impressed with aspects on both the Saints (Will Smith and Malcolm Jenkins) and the Colts (Peyton Manning and Anthony Gonzalez), we are having a very tough time decided on who we like in this game.  Since we're loyal dogs, we have decided to go with the game's 'underdog' pick, which is the Saints.  The Saints are getting 4.5 points, but we are even going one step further and are picking the Saints to win outright!  Additionally, the over/under is 56.5, which we think will be passed by the end of the 3rd quarter.

Saints 41
Colts 38

Fresh Water

It's been a few days since our last post, but we have a valid reason.  Our excuse?  We weren't feeling very well for the past few days.  While we're only dogs and we have limited abilities to analyze our medical issues, we think the reason we became ill is due from one of our main guilty pleasures, which would be drinking from the toilet.

Keep in mind, our owners keep a large dish of fresh water in our kitchen, which is available to use on a permanant basis.  If we're thirsty or we need to wash down that 5 pounds of chow that we just woofed (no pun intended) down, we strut over to the dish and take a drink.  You would think this water dish (full of fresh, filtered water) would satisfy is, right?  Wrong!

Just like nearly every human, us canines find enjoyment through questionable channels.  For some humans, that's going out to bars and drinking strong shots of tequila or watching reality television (did you see the 520 pound guy who lost 315 pounds?!?!).  Our questionable practice has to do with drinking from the toilet.  If you hear that slurping sound and we're not in the kitchen, we're getting our  fill of toilet water as we take part in our 'lid up, head down, mouth open' technique.  To us dogs, toilet water is like that ice cold beer that you enjoy after a long day at work....or that fresh, hot 'medium regular' from DD that some of you enjoy in the mornings (unless you live in western Florida, where that 'medium regular' is more of a chore than an enjoyable experience).

However, like some guilty pleasures, the toilet water is not good for dogs (or any human with a desire for drinking from the toilet).  Having said that, if your dog is a toilet drinker, try to keep the lid down for them.  If you do, your dog's tummy will not get upset, you won't have to pay for vet visits and/or canine anti-biotics, and you'll have extra money left over to buy us more dog treats (or human treats for yourself, such as Chipotle burritos....or Jonas Brothers tickets....or Steve  Madden shoes (well, the shoes may turn out to be a treat for us as well, but that's a whole other story in itself)).

Chocolate Salty Paws

As part of our New Year's resolutions, we decided to try to drop a few extra pounds that we have acquired during the holiday season.  While we are still extremely attractive canines even with a little extra hanging from our sides, we know that if we're ever going to catch that pesky squirrel that jumps around on the tree in front of our house, we'll need to be in top physical shape.

The problem with staying in shape this time of year is that it is freaking cold outside!!  In addition to the cold, sometimes there is white stuff on the ground.  While it's fun to romp around in and eat, the white stuff is a little slick....especially for humans (the person who walks with and/or runs with us has fallen down numerous times on walks and runs for us...and we try as much as possible to increase those occurances by pulling and/or darting around while we're out as we find it funny to see people falling down in the snow and ice...even if that person is at the other end of our leash).

Since many humans are paranoid, they go to excessive measures to counter Mother Nature's weather miracles.  In this case, we're talking about salt.  While we love salt (or at least the french fries that accompany salt), the salt is torture on our paws (if you own a car that is driven in snow, you probably have noticed the rust and damage on the car from the salt...imagine how that salt feels on our paws). 

So if you're one of those people lucky enough to live in an area that celebrates all four weather seasons (and not just hot and more hot), you may want to pay attention.  After the walk or run is over, take a small bowl or bucket, fill it with warm water, and dip your dog's paws in the bucket/bowl and gently rub the pads to remove any pieces of salt.  If you don't own a bucket (or a bowl), then you can use a warmly wetted washcloth or towel to clean your dog's paws.  Do this and we will love you even more than we already do....and we may not try to make you fall down in the snow and ice the next time we're out (well, we're still probably going to make you try to fall down, but hey, we're just dogs).

Puppy Picks recap

Earlier last week, we decided to pick the winners for the NFL championship games.  How did we do?  Perfect, of course!  With the Saints OT victory, both of our winners advance to the Super Bowl.

Pup picks:

Colts 20, Jets 6

Saints 37, Vikings 27

Actual results:

Colts 30, Jets 17 (missed the margin of victory by only 1 point!)
Saints 30, Vikings 27 (even though the margin of victory was 7 points less than we predicted, we hit the Vikings score on the nose!)

The early Super Bowl line is -4.5 (Colts).  Check back on the Friday before the Super Bowl for our "toes n tails" pick (you won't be disappointed).

mmmmmm, rice

We've mentioned in past blog entries that we love, LOVE chicken broth sprinkled on our dog chow.  What we did not tell you is that we have another topping added to our food that we 'wiggle' for.  That superb topping???  Rice!

Back when we were young pups, we had a few tummy issues.  Our vet recommended boiling chicken and rice to help calm our tummies.  Of course, we devoured the C&R, so our owners were kind enough to make this special treat for us every now and then.  On top of that, our owners love to make Mexican dishes and many times (ok...every time), they make too much food and have leftovers.  Do you know a great way of reducing some of those leftovers?  GIVE THEM TO US!!!!  Well, you can give us a few of the items.  We don't really take so well to refried beans and peppers and some of the other ingredients, but the extra rice?  We can take the rice off of your hands with no hesitation at all!

Here's what you do.  Scoop out just a small amount less of our usual food portion (or the same amount if we've had a long day of exercise/playing).  Add a cup or so of cooked rice to our food dish and stir it around a bit.  The result?  A happy canine and an empty food dish!  MMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gas Leak

For some unknown reason, every so often (daily, multiple times daily, every other day, etc.) we are instantly started by some sort of loud noise.  Since we are just dogs, we're not really sure where the noise is coming from, but as soon as we hear it, we immediately turn our heads toward the rear area of our bodies and perk our ears up.  After a few seconds of making sure the noise is gone, we turn back around and resume our nap/daydream.

While we do not find this action funny (we REALLY want to know where that noise is coming from), our owners always crack up laughing at us and make dumb comments directed towards us such as "is there's a duck in the house?" or "did you eat a burrito for breakfast?" or  "another draft beer night, huh?" or our favorite, "hey gassy, quit showing off!"

While we love showing off, these situations are much more confusing to us than they are a time to strut our awesomeness.  If you have a dog with this same type of concerns, odds are that they are probably a little embarrassed as well, so cut them some slack!