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.

Really, Time Magazine? The Problem With Pit Bulls?

Time Magazine, on June 20, ran the article "The Problem With Pit Bulls". I only just read it, and haven't really heard it discussed in my usual online watering holes. Go read it; I didn't watch the video or anything, so can't vouch for that, but otherwise it doesn't have any terrible pictures or language or anything.

It's hard to read things like that, because they aren't wrong. This is Time Magazine here; they're able to present a compelling argument and back it up with sources. It's what they're for.  But they aren't right, either, and I feel leaning on PETA for citation weakens their case. "Even PETA, the largest animal-rights organization in the world, supports breed-specific sterilization for pit bulls" says Time magazine. Well, PETA thinks it would be best if this convention of keeping pets never existed. We all probably know by now about PETA's high euthanization rate of animals surrendered into their care (that one's from Time, here's one from The Washington Post).

But what does a leash really mean?

This bit of mischief does not involve Elka, as I was work.

Somebody came into the library and said there was a brown dog running around in the park with no owners in sight.

So I grabbed my phone and went outside, figuring I could assess whether the dog was approachable and then either catch the dog and call the owner (provided said dog was tagged appropriately) or call the police to come and do their dog wardeny things.

Freedom? Or Negligence?

Take a moment and read this article: Hold Tight? Or Unleash?. Don't worry, I'll wait.

Finished? Do you feel kind of ambivalent? Perhaps a little disgusted?

The article, should you decide not to read it, is written by a woman, Lissa Rankin, whose 6 month old puppy was struck and killed on the  road out behind her house, because (to paraphrase), said dog hated her leash and clearly wanted to be a country dog. The property is not fenced, and the author was inside preparing for a teleclass, when the poor man who struck said dog with his car called her, remorseful.

The author continues on, talking about how the dog, Bezoar (which I found to be a strange name, as "A bezoar is a ball of swallowed foreign material (usually hair or fiber) that collects in the stomach and fails to pass through the intestines." [PubMed Health]) could have been kept inside that day, much like how parents of the children at Sandy Hook might have kept their children home from school that day.

WHAT?

Celebrations that Bother Dogs

Midnight is not an unusual hour for me to see; I've been a night owl since college, the first time it was really possible and permissible for me to do so. Back in high school, there were times in the summer I stayed up later writing, but not often. Now, it's odd if I'm in bed before midnight. I must say, though, the fireworks at midnight on New Year's Eve tend to startle me. We celebrate midnight now? Oh, that's right. Auld lang syne.

If fireworks startle me, though, how do dogs feel about them?

Thanksgiving is coming!

This happens to me every year, perhaps because of National Novel Writing Month, but Thanksgiving has snuck right up on me!

Last year I posted about this lovely holiday play set that Target had. I don't think Target has brought it back, unfortunately, but because I've carefully guarded it, we've still got it! But, I also talked about food safety, and things like that bear repeating.

One thing that we've noticed at holiday time with Elka is that sometimes, when somebody *coughnotmecough* feeds her things like turkey skin, she has the runs after. I guess this is a good indicator that she has just enough fat in her diet, and doesn't need more of it in "lump sum" quantities. We've never given her what seems to be a massive amount of turkey skin, but we won't be doing any of that this year. Pancreatitis is one of those things you have to watch out for, and I've seen other blogs and web sites caution against loading your dog up on high fat things at any time. There are other ways to give them treats, they don't need to be greasy and fatty!

I've discovered this year that Elka really loves sweet potatoes. Mostly because every time I have sweet potato, she sings at my plate until I give her some. I tend to just bake them, with some butter or some olive oil, and find they don't really need much more than that. I didn't used to like sweet potatoes; add it to the list, I guess.

So, safe and happy holidays, folks!

Travels with Elka

You may have noticed that some of the pictures lately are showing a somewhat different background. That's because we went on a vacation to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina!

It was Elka's first time at the beach, and she had a blast! More pictures of that will be forthcoming. She didn't swim, but she did splash around some, and enjoyed the new sights and sounds.

It was her first car ride that was quite so long (12 hours!), her first time at the beach, her first time seeing kites, and her first time seeing a pool!

Product Review: EZYDog Chest Plate Harness, Part One

Back in October (wow, that was two months ago. How did that happen?), Brady from EZYDog contacted a number of BlogPaws bloggers to see if they would like to review one of their products. This was a bit of kismet, as I was looking for a harness for Elka, that would function in the car with a seatbelt, and the EZYDog Chest Plate Harness is the one that I had sort of settled on (that, or getting a mucho expensive leather tracking/Schutzhund one, on the rationale that it would outlive us both).

So, delighted, I emailed Brady back, heck yes I would like to review! Could I get it in red? Of course!