Safety First

I've realized lately that lots of our training, and lots of our equipment, has to do with safety.

Elka is on a collar and leash when we go outside, to make sure she's safe. She can't decide to run into the road, or chase something and get off our property, anything like that. On our walks, she's on a harness and collar, with liberty's attachment to make sure more than one thing will have to fail to put her in danger; not that I'm sure she'd just hare off somewhere the instant she had a chance, but better safe than sorry. See, there it is again.

In the car, she has a harness which hooks to the built-in child seat anchor vehicles have. In the case of an accident, it will hopefully protect her, and also the humans in the car, preventing the 75 pound dog in the back seat from becoming a missile within the vehicle. It also keeps her from just jumping out when a door is opened, so her exit can be controlled to a safe place and situation.

XL Fleece Jammies auction (Benefits the Doberman Assistance Network)

So, I don't know about you guys, but we've been freezing our tails off here. Such as we've got them.

We had several days in a row where 12 degrees (Fahrenheit) was a balmy heat wave, and as of this writing, it's 24 degrees and sunny and I just went outside with Elka in long sleeves and a hoodie because my coat was too warm. Comparatively.

So, as a result, Miss Elka has wanted her hoodie on every day. And we've also put her fleece vest on over her harness, so that she was toasty in that. Elka loves frolicking in the snow, which brightens things up a little, but frigid days of grays are not happy making.

So! If your dog is XL, and requires something to keep him or her toasty warm, you might consider fleece. Fleece pajamas, specifically. There's an auction on eBay right now, running until February 2 (That's Saturday), and the proceeds benefit the Doberman Assistance Network. I think my fiance, or Elka, or both would slay me if ever I put her in jammies, but that shouldn't stop me from making you guys aware of them, right? Right.

So here you go. Share the love!

September 27 is Train Humane Day

On Twitter one night last week, I saw that DogTipper was one of the sponsors for Train Humane Day.  I of course said to myself (or maybe to Elka) "Hey, what's Train Humane Day?"

From the Train Humane site:

Train Humane’s Mission:Our mission is to make the world more humane for dogs through the use of humane training tools and education.Raise the bar on the tools we use to train all dogs and puppies to ensure that they are humane, safe, respectful and cause as little stress as possible without choking.

Sounds pretty good to me!

Dobermans in Vogue Italia September 2012 Face the Future by Steven Meisel

So, because my interests are varied and broad, I found myself on the Haute Macabre blog, which, in a nutshell, is for Gothic fashion. There are a lot of really awesome pictures on there all the time, if you're into that sort of thing, and frequently clothing and jewelry that I would enjoy were I to be in higher income bracket.

A recent post was on the Face the Future (shoot? Theme? I'm unclear. Perhaps also gauche and unfashionable) by Stephen Meisel for the September 2012 issue of Vogue Italia. The last picture in the shoot? Dobermans. I unfortunately can't read the caption, but I had to do a double take. I really wasn't expecting them.

The Park in November? You Betcha!

Today was a beautiful, sunny day. Far too nice to stay inside and work on my novel instead of taking Elka to the park. So out we went!

Currently, I have an EZ Dog Harness, sent to me by the company, to review. It has a seatbelt attachment that I haven't used yet, but that was a primary reason for me wanting a harness for Elka.