FEEDING RITUAL - We Walk

I know I've typed it a jillion times already, but here it is again. We walk.

I see walking together before eating as a primal connection between my dogs and I. In another lifetime together, my dogs and I would migrate and hunt in a territory. We would have to work to find our food. In our life together now, even if it's a short walk, walking together before eating is a ritual within our feeding ritual. It just feels right.

FEEDING RITUAL

I've got a thing about food. I feel it is one of the most loving things I can provide for my family, and I enjoy taking care of my family by feeding them the highest quality food I can afford. Of course this includes my dogs. I have researched dry commercial foods, designed and implemented a home-cooked menu, as well as fed my pack a combination of commercial and home-cooked foods plus nutritional supplements. Through all of the meal plans, I have maintained the same feeding ritual. Meals, the assembly of them, and even the eating, all have a rhythm, and some rules.

Meal time at our house is exciting. Our dogs are highly food motivated, but it is also a calm, stress-free, manner-filled experience. I love giving my dogs exactly what they need, and I love the respect they have learned to show the humans who provide for them.

I've been using this food for nearly one year since discovering Luna's allergies are tremendously helped by feeding her virtually no grains. Foster likes it too!

SAFETY - The Heat

Warm temperatures make it seem so easy to get outside and be with my dogs...because they do make it easy! The only thing I put on my dogs is tea tree oil spray (for mosquitoes, fleas and ticks) and out we go for hours of walking, weeding, picking up sticks, whatever. My dogs still have needs though, and I think I'm prepared for the "whatever" of the outdoors in the heat.

Having Labrador Retrievers, I learned they are prone to heat stroke. I've had a Yellow Lab and a Black Lab. This does not mean they had to stay indoors in air conditioning. This means I had to provide ways to keep them cool and safe, and yes, sometimes limit their activity because they don't know when to stop!

Satchel was over 90% Yellow Lab and he LOVED to be outside for any landscaping activity. While he was severely car sick, and hated being in a moving car, he LOVED tooling around the yard in the John Deere cart. To safely be outside, Satchel needed just a little bit of sunscreen on his nose and some shade. To be happy, he just needed his Jason.


Adorable, right?

For Luna and Foster, a Black Lab and a mix of dark dogs, they need just a bit more cooling opportunity. We provide a pool for cooling off! Foster doesn't love the pool as much as Luna, so I put what is called a "Cooling Collar" on him. It has some kind of gel inside that when soaked and frozen remains cool around his neck for about 2 hours. We also keep the garage doors open so the dogs can lie down on the concrete in the shade, and that is where their outside drinking water is kept. They get to participate in whatever we're doing (we were setting up for an outdoor party on the day these photos were taken), and I know that they're safe from the heat.


Luna LOVES her Puppy Pool


The actual temperature was over 90F with over 90% humidity. It was HOT.

We are fortunate to have access to a lot of lakes and boats, and people know that I will want to be with my dogs, so we are invited to bring them with us. With boats, comes my boater safety training, and that makes me think of life vests. Yes, my dogs have life vests.


Once again, Luna is ready to go!

I have been told that my dogs, my Lab in particular, can swim. This I know. I also know that accidents can happen, and even dogs can be knocked unconscious, or our kayak could flip while out on Lake Michigan and it's a long swim to shore. We have life vests for our outdoorsy life, and I'm not embarrassed to wear one, nor to have my dogs wear one.

I will "confess" that when Luna and I canoe on the Crystal River we don't wear our life vests. We love canoeing there. People yell from shore that Luna should have a paddle, and we smile and wave. It's so easy and relaxing. I know that you can drown in inches of water, but the Crystal River is like 2 feet deep in most areas so even if we "capsized," the canoe wouldn't even sink. I can't find the picture of my sweet canoe mate right now, but here's one of my tired girl with her favorite life preserver after a day of wave jumping on Lake Michigan.

SAFETY - Winter

We like to be out in any kind of weather. Well, Luna and I like to be out in any kind of weather. Since meeting Foster, and divinely integrating him into our family, I've learned not everyone is like Luna and I. Foster doesn't love variations in weather. While Luna and I are barely fazed by rain, Foster sniffs the air and seems to say, "Um, you do know that it's raining, right?" With a few supportive gear elements, Foster has learned to enjoy the Winter.

Sweatshirts and Sweaters
I've never clothed my dogs. I do like a jazzy Halloween costume now and then, or a Christmas or Spring bandanna, but I don't dress up my dogs daily or anything like that. For those who do, I'm amazed at the products available! But we're kind of simple and minimalist and I flip quickly through that section in the dog catalogs I receive.

Having mostly Labs in my adult dog ownership experience, and outside dogs as a child, I wasn't familiar with dogs who actually require clothing to be comfortable. Enter Foster Dog. Fosse has about 4% or less body fat, and he gets chilly in the Winter. We keep our home pretty cool, and I noticed FD curling up particularly tight to have a nap, and I noticed him burrowing into a down comforter on the bed at night. It occurred to me I should feel his feet. My Fosse's feet AND ears were cold as he curled up in his Barkalounger in the house! A remedy was soon found.


Monogramming was free. Had to do it.

Jackets
Several years ago while walking in the woods with Luna and Satchel, I realized we needed to be visible to hunters who could be in the area. I purchased outdoor coats...and paid extra for monogramming. Had to do it.


Foster wears Satchel's hand-me-down, and I wear the jogger's reflective thingy that's in the middle

I chose these coats because they are waterproof, have some warmth, have reflective accents, and are bright orange. Luna doesn't need hers very often, but it was really helpful the last time we went to the kids' soccer game when it was POURING buckets of rain and the school wouldn't let us enter the covered area around the field.

Their Feet
There are booties with various names to protect your dogs' paw pads in snowy areas, rocky terrain, waterlogged areas, etc. I canNOT keep them on my dogs' feet. I have them, and I keep trying them, but usually we lose them within 20 yards of the car and have to turn around and pick them up.


It's hard for me to believe I still have a complete set



We buy Bag Balm at the grocery store

What does work for us is Bag Balm. There are several similar products available. Musher's Secret is a really nice alternative, but it's quite a bit more expensive. We have Bag Balm, and it works, so we use it. Bag Balm, or a product like it, protects dogs' feet from salt and de-icing solvents as well as from chapping. I put it on before we go out and I wipe off the residue with baby wipes when we return. It doesn't prevent them from getting a cut from an ice shard or something buried in the snow, nor does it prevent frostbite, but I hope I'm looking out for my dogs in enough ways that we will continually avoid those hazards.

SAFETY - Traveling

I've written about traveling with my Pack, and here, I'll mention a few of things I do to increase the safety of my dogs when we're traveling. They're easy to do, and even though I am once again teased about some things, I keep doing them because they help us enjoy our travels completely. This is what works for us.

Seat Belts
I seat belt my dogs whenever we get into the car. We may be going 3 miles down the road or 1300 miles across the country. Each dog has her and his seat belt and each dog waits patiently to be buckled in.


Luna is always up for an adventure

The comments that are made are generally about how the person doesn't need to do that for his or her dog because his or her dog is so well-behaved in the car. I generally don't respond because my dogs are very well-behaved in and out of the car, but I still seat belt them. I seat belt my dogs because I don't want them to become projectiles if we are in an accident or if we have to stop short to avoid one.

When driving 35mph, a 60-pound unrestrained dog can cause an impact of 2700 pounds slamming into a car seat, windshield or passenger. (Bark Buckle UP, the leading research team on pet travel safety. http://www.barkbuckleup.com) I seat belt my dogs whenever we get into the car.


Fosse nearly asleep as we wait for Js flight to arrive from SF

Microchipping
I'd never considered microchipping until Foster came into our lives. He runs a bit, and since he looks like a Pit Bull to many, I envisioned people being unsure about bringing him into their homes to call me. Kind people might call Animal Control who hopefully would scan him and reunite us. Ideally, we will build our relationship so he doesn't run, and so far, he's run into the woods and then back to his yard. Luna has run away once her life; the very first time I left her in the care of someone else. She hasn't walked further than 60ft from me since. Still, I asked my vet about microchipping and she told me this story.

A client of hers has two dogs. They are each microchipped with the owner's information as well as the vet's. The owner and her husband, and their dogs, were driving to a wedding and were in a terrible car accident not far from home. The restrained-in-crates dogs were thrown from the vehicle which broke the crates open. Accident witnesses saw the dogs run into woods adjacent to the highway. These Good Samaritan witnesses coaxed the dogs out of the woods and took them to a local vet who assessed their injuries and scanned them for microchips. The dogs' vet, who is also our vet, was contacted and the dogs were transported to their vet's office for further assessment and boarding. The owners were unconscious following the accident, but when they regained consciousness, they asked about their dogs. They were told their dogs were safe and being cared for at their vet's office. I walked out of our vet appointment with TWO microchipped dogs.


Foster LOVES being on the road

Meds
I always have a car first aid kit (jumper cables, fix-a-flat, etc.) and a dog and people first aid kit. For the dogs, I have wound care items and medicines like buffered aspirin, a prescription anti-inflammatory and antihistamines. We've only needed the prescription anti-inflammatory once when I let Luna overdo it on Lake Michigan, but I feel that if I'm prepared, we won't need anything!


I have the best traveling companions. Ever.

There was that time in our neighborhood when Luna and I stepped onto an underground yellowjacket nest...we needed the Benadryl out of the first aid kit that day...

SAFETY - The Basics

When I first thought about our most important safety item, I thought "leash," but then I thought, "No. Training my dogs is what keeps us most safe," and then I thought, "No. My energy, how I react to our surroundings and their behavior, and my ability to think ahead are really the most important ways I can keep us safe."

Leashes are really important though. Whether they are reflective or not, long or short, they don't just keep my dogs from running after deer. Leashes help me protect my dogs from other dogs that may be off leash. With my dogs attached to me, I can address an off-leash dog directly and block its approach to my dog.



Their collars and attaching flashers keep us safe too. Their collars have their identifying information so even if their tags fall off, a kind person could call us. The red flashers keep us safe during our early morning and nighttime walks highlighting our presence on the roads of our neighborhood.



Training my dogs to have leash manners, manners for meeting people and other dogs, as well as knowing the boundaries of their yard are all good ways to keep us safe outside and enjoy the time. Our neighborhood does not allow fences and I didn't want to utilize an electric fence so my dogs' learning the boundaries of our yard and not going into the road were, and are, essential to their safety. We're still working with Foster on not crossing the boundary into the wetlands because he has seen a family of deer.

I think my energy is the most important safety feature in our relationship. How I react to surprising sounds when we're outside, or how I react to Luna digging for acorns around the trees, or how I react to Foster darting off into the woods needs to communicate how I feel about it. I act like it's not a big deal when we hear gunfire from the shooting club. It would be terrible to have a dog that runs for cover any time there is an event at the club. When Luna digs for potentially toxic acorns, I need to react strongly to let her know I'm serious, and when Foster darts off to the woods, I need to be SERIOUSLY serious that running out of his yard is unacceptable.

Even better for my dogs' safety is my ability to think ahead. I can block Luna from digging for acorns to begin with by distracting her from the activity. I can direct her to another area or throw a tennis ball for a few rounds of fetch. I can keep Foster on a leash during the early morning and dusk to dark hours of our outside time so that he can't run into the woods after deer. These are just a few ways to keep us safely together because I love our outside time and want it to be smooth and stress free!

SAFETY

I do a lot of things for my dogs. They are my family members and they are pretty much dependent on me to provide them with everything they need. They are also very trusting of me and will follow me to any adventure I want to experience. And honestly, there are few things I want to do that don't include them.



For each adventure, and even for daily activities, I have safety gear. How I define safety gear is something I own or can do to ensure we are prepared for the calamities that can occur when you're experiencing the world with your dog by your side.

I have been teased and criticized for the amount of time I spend with my dogs. I'm not a weak person, I can take the hits, and I usually don't respond with an excuse or a defense. I'm not witty enough to respond with something clever, so I simply don't respond. It's not that I'm not annoyed by the judgments; they often hurt, but I've always been able to manage the critiques because I feel confident that I am doing what is right for me and my family. Look, I judge all the time. I judge what is right and wrong for my family. You do what works for you and I'll do what works for me.

The crack that irritates me more than any other is the observation that I am "substituting." Many, and I mean many, people believe that I am substituting dogs for "real children." Let me be clear: My dogs are not my children. They are my dogs. They are as much a part of my family as any human, and it is my choice to have dogs and not humans. Even if I had children living with me, I would still have dogs, and I would still take care of them as equal members of my family. Trust me. I've done it. I've lived it. I'm not "substituting" as if children are the pinnacle and I have sadly settled for dogs. I have dogs because I want dogs, and my dogs are essential members of my family.

I am not going to explain or defend my family's dynamic, but I do caution those who tell me I really need to "get going" and have some kids. I caution those who say, "I can tell you don't have kids! You're way too nice to your dogs!" or "If you had kids, you'd never pay attention to your dogs." You know nothing about me. Nothing.



The other criticisms that irk me are that I'm a worrier and over-protective. Yes, dogs live in the wild and stray dogs survive and your childhood dog never had a collar or a fence in its life and lived to be 17. I get it. My providing toys for my dogs when we go to someone's house increases the likelihood that the someone's dog's toys don't get eviscerated. I consider myself as being polite and thoughtful. My putting a jacket on my dog, who has 4% body fat, when it's below 30F ensures we'll be able to comfortably walk for an hour continuing my dogs' physical fitness while you and your dog never get out of the house for more than 2 minutes in December, January and February...Ok, that's it, I've got to stop letting these comments bother me.

So, ok, maybe you get what I'm typing. I care about my dogs' safety, and provide for it, maybe a little bit more than the average person. I am criticized and teased about it, but I keep doing it all, and most days, I do it with a smile because I'm out experiencing the world with my dogs by my side.

This week, I will show you a lot of the things I do to protect my dogs from other dogs, and from the elements of the outdoors. We are able to do a lot out there and we're limited only by me because my dogs are ready for anything!