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)).