Kiryn asked to go out at 7am this morning (Saturday), and instead of returning to bed, I picked up the camera and ventured outside. It was a gorgeous warm morning and I didn’t need to don anything warmer than my PJs. Perfect weekend weather!
^ Yeah, that’s how I felt about being awakened at 7am (after he’d already asked to go out at 4am to boot).
^ The pup can yawn and stretch at the same time. Quite the multi tasker.
^ Even Shady was a little groggy, at first.
^ But that didn’t last long.
^Tuckered out after a long day of playing.
One last treat: A video of Shady chasing her tail:
This is how Kiryn makes it known that he would like re-admittance into the house. It’s just a short clip, posted here because clowns like publicity, even if they’re 4.5 month old puppies.
My Mom used to make gyros out of pork tenderloin, spicing it with some sort of fancy spice mix from Germany that we’d have relatives bring over when they visited. I decided to try making gyros when I saw pork tenderloins on sale, 2 loins for only $8. That’s quite inexpensive for such a tasty, tender, low fat cut of meat! I used a spice recipe online that tasted just like Mom’s… no fancy spice imports required! We used store-bought tzatziki (yogourt sauce), but I included a recipe for it if you’re ambitious enough to make it from scratch.
For 3-4 “wrapfuls” of meat:
Ingredients:
1 lb thinly sliced pork tenderloins (roughly 1 tenderloin)
1 tbsp water
1 1/2 tbsp Greek seasoning
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 pitas (we used the medium sized ones)
Chopped cherry tomatoes
Sliced Red Onions
Tzatziki (if you don’t just buy it outright… best made a day in advance)
6 ounces plain low-fat yogourt
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 seedless cucumber, shredded
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1. Marinate the shredded pork in the lemon juice, water, Greek seasoning, and olive oil for 30 minutes. If you don’t have time to marinate (too hungry) that’s ok, it will still taste great.
2. Flash fry the pork in 1 tbsp olive oil.
3. Pile on a pita bread with tomatoes and onions. Serve with plenty of tzatziki sauce.
4. Enjoy!
As a side note, the puppies were fast asleep while we were working on this… good puppies!
We laugh at how the hair on Kiryn’s butt forms a “T” shape. That’ll disappear when his “pants” grow in, and I think it’s already starting. Shady’s butt had two little hair whorls on the points of the hip.
I’ve been pining for a new hobby for a while, and entertained thoughts on a few different crafts. I’m already into digital painting, and the hours feel like minutes when I’m in “The Zone”. I’m sure a lot of artists can relate to that feeling, and it’s difficult to describe. It’s when the painting fills your mind, and you’re simultaneously working on tiny details and the whole image in your mind the entire time. It’s when you get the “feel” for exactly what colours and shades to use, and exactly where and how to place them. Almost like someone is painting through you, and your image is creating itself. The Zone is THE place to be while painting, but mind your back as you won’t know until it’s way too late when your posture is poor.
One little problem with that though… The Zone is easily broken. One little interruption and that scatterbrained muse wanders away. Another little problem… puppies need a LOT of attention, and I find myself hanging around the main floor living room and kitchen all day so I can release the little critters when they ring the bell (sometimes a few times an hour… crazy doggies), watch for inappropriate chewing, train intermittently, and of course, play. So I’ve been looking for a hands-on craft to play around with. If I’m interrupted, I can sit back down and see exactly what tool I was using and what stage I was at. Crafts are usually very methodical, unlike painting.
So I dabbled in homebrewing; making our own mead (honeywine) and hard cider. Okay, now the jugs are set up and all that’s left is to sit around and watch them bubble for a few months. Hm. Next!
Sewing dog collars? Pfffft, I can’t even sew on a button. Using a sewing machine doesn’t really appeal to me, and I don’t really want to drop a few $100s on something I *might* use. Next!
Soapmaking? I love essential oils, sounds like fun! So I made some homemade hand lotion using beeswax, sweet almond oil, and shea butter. It was fun, but I already made more than we can use. Making real soaps? Too many toxic chemicals. Next!
Beaded jewelry? I love pretty things as well as the next girl, but I rarely wear jewelry, and my sense of accessory fashion is sort of nonexistent. Kind of pointless, now. Next!
Stained glass? This is promising! Actually, this is still a craft I’d like to try someday. Glass is heavy to ship, so I’d have to find a local glass craft store.
Leathercraft? This craft never occurred to me until I saw the collar Kiryn’s father (Bond) is wearing. It was a tooled (embossed) leather limited-slip collar in a rich brown with glittery crystals embedded in it. Turns out, his breeder made it, and she showed us an assortment of other collars (and even a guitar strap) that she made. I was impressed! Later, I was looking into dog show leads for the pups’ conformation class. The nicest ones are made of braided kangaroo leather (strong, thin, making it the best leather of all for braiding), and some even had beads and crystals strung on them. Now, I’m a master friendship bracelet knotter from my childhood, so I figure I can pick up this project without too much frustration. I ordered some lace, and also a beginners leathercraft kit from Tandy.
Tooling a belt
I haven’t started braiding show leads yet (actually I think it will be a bit harder than I first thought), as I’ve been having a blast with the tooling projects that came with the kit. The wallet was my first project, and soon after came the belt. While Jeff was working on computer setup in the library room, he says he eventually tuned out the taptap taptap of the mallet on the embossing tools. I was able to work at the kitchen table, so I’m only steps away from the yard door to let the dogs out. 4 hours of tooling felt like an hour. I ordered more dyes, leather, and tools from Tandy to experiment. I feel like a kid at Christmas, I don’t know which toy to play with first!
Barry visited with Deuce the other day, and mentioned he was looking to get Deuce a “normal” collar as he was outgrowing his old chain. I took up the challenge of making a Deuce-themed collar, which you can see in the middle of the picture. I had to cut and punch it myself, even without having all the right tools, but I think it turned out okay for my first attempt. In my next Tandy order, I’m picking up a set of number and alphabet punches so the digits look more professional. Hopefully I’ll be able to sell some leathercraft projects online to offset the costs, as starting a new craft hobby sure can get expensive!
Jeff had a hankering for this one evening. I’m not normally a huge fan of dishes highlighting onions, but I’ll make an exception for this one… it was delicious, and so easy to make! It was an instant hit with Jeff, who basically demanded that I blog it for future reference
Makes about 4 bowls Ingredients:
2 large yellow onions, peeled and chopped
1 large red onion, peeled and chopped
3 shallots, peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp butter
3 oz. red wine or sherry (about 120ml, or 1/2 cup)
1.5 L beef stock
3 bay leaves
2 sprigs of thyme
2 sprigs of rosemary
1 tsp black pepper
salt, to taste
4 slices of baguettes (or any bread you have on hand)
4 slices of gruyere cheese (nice flavour and melts well)
Instructions: 1. Melt butter on a medium sauce pot on medium heat, and add onions, shallots, and garlic. They key is to brown them SLOWLY, so don’t be disappointed if this takes 30 min or more. We’re building flavours by taking it SLOW. Remember to stir regularly, until everything is evenly golden brown.
2. Add wine/sherry (and maybe pour a glass for yourself, while you’re at it) and allow to reduce a bit
3. Add beef stock, herbs, bay leaves, and pepper, bring to a slow simmer, and reduce by one third
4. Add salt as you like and remove the herbs and bay leaves (if you used whole sprigs you should be able to pick them out).
5. Preheat your oven to broil
6. Place the soup in an oven proof bowl, and top with baguettes and gruyere (we skimped on the gruyere because of calories, but a nice thick slice would taste heavenly).
7. Melted under broiler until nicely browned, around 1-2 minutes
Kiryn, (10.5 weeks old), play fights with Shady (7 month old) over a Bully Stick. What you don’t see is that there are 3-4 of them lying on the floor. But nooooo… he wants THAT one! Seconds after I stopped filming, both settled down with their own chew.
The noises he makes really crack me up!
To a non-dog person, it might look like they’re fighting in earnest, but there are a lot of behavioural clues to show that this is play. The most noticeable one is the frequent breaks where both dogs don’t look at each other.
Although I learned about raw feeding in pet nutrition in undergrad, I hadn’t really given much thought to it for my own dog. Kibble is supposed to be balanced to have everything your dog needs, and there is a fair amount of science behind commercial kibble formulations. I even had a professor that was working on nutrition studies with Beagles for Purina. In researching the best kibble for Shady, I decided on a high quality grain free kibble. I won’t go into the details as to how to read pet food labels, but for kibble, it received top marks among reviewers and had the right proportion of the good ingredients without the problematic or controversial bad ingredients. After trying two varieties, I found one that Shady digested really well and is doing well on.
Then I met Kiryn’s breeder (Dee), who raw feeds her Salukis. Her dogs are in excellent condition, shiny, bright, and do fabulously in shows. When I looked at their teeth, they were perfectly white, even though she doesn’t brush them. Their “deposits” in the yard were tiny and trivial to clean up. Clearly, raw feeding works beautifully with these dogs. Upon conversing with her about raw feeding, I learned that it’s not necessarily as complicated to balance a raw diet as I had previously believed, and raw feeding can be better for the dog than kibble in many ways. This was food for thought for a few weeks, and when it came time to take Kiryn home, she sent with us a few bags of the frozen meat (separate bags of chicken backs and an organ/tripe mix) that he was used to eating, to feed at his new home.
This is an overview of my experiences raw feeding so far.
I was a bit apprehensive feeding raw chicken backs at first, as they are very bony! I thought, surely those little puppy teeth can’t break that up enough to consume safely! Kiryn was unfazed, happily chewing through several backs in one sitting. I offered one to Shady, and after a few tentative sniffs, she was happy to devour a piece, also. Not to gross you out, but.. what came out the other end was small, hard, and nearly odourless, much less unpleasant to pick up than what I’m used to. Kiryn only had to go number one every 1 1/2 hour to 2 hours, which seemed inordinately long for such a young puppy, but hey, less work for me!
As I ran out, I had to switch back to grain-free kibble, and I was surprised to find that Kiryn had to go number one every 40-60 minutes. I attribute this to his drinking more water, as kibble is very dry. His stools also got bigger, which surprised me, as the kibble I was feeding was grain-free. Even if I believe that a good-quality kibble will supply everything my dog needs, I’m finding that raw feeding has extra perks that might graduate my dogs from “doing well” to “thriving”. Raw feeding purists would say to never switch back to kibble, but I don’t want to forego the convenience of it all together (I haven’t found sources that supply adequate amounts of raw meat yet). From what I’ve read, they’re digested at different rates, so feeding raw and kibble meals a few hours apart should not pose a problem.
We paid a visit to our local friendly butcher, and he sold us several bags of chicken and turkey bones with a promise of more if we come back on Tuesdays. He also agreed to save us some “pieces that people are unlikely to buy”. The bags of bones costed pennies, and while a lot of them were leg bones (that made great soup, especially since we’re both fighting off colds) there were also a lot of chicken backs, which I promptly trimmed of skin and fat and fed to the pups. Meanwhile, I’m researching raw feeding and learning that tripe and organ meats should be fed 1-3 times per week, with supplements of egg, fish, yogourt, and sweet potato (I already had made Sweet Potato Chews… check!).
Upon revisiting the butcher, we received a bag of boneless meat scraps that seemed to be mostly fat, but he gave to us free of charge. Muscle meat is one of the components of raw feeding, so I spent 15 minutes trimming it. The bowl of red meat (very tender stuff, I think they were end pieces of some very gourmet cuts of meat) fed each pup for one meal. Granted, I kept treating Shady to it as I was cutting it up… she wasn’t hungry anymore after that… but she’s so cute!
Hopefully we’ll find more sources for raw meaty bones for the dogs. For now, here’s my list of “pros” to raw feeding that are swaying me to the “raw side”:
1. Healthy teeth. As a vet clinic volunteer, I’ve seen dentals performed on dogs fed kibble diets whose owners did not brush their teeth. Sedation, anesthesia, multiple extractions, x-rays, blood, digging for broken shards of tooth left in the gums… not in my dogs, not if I can help it! While I’ve started a toothbrushing regime for Shady, with raw feeding I won’t have to worry about this detail as she’ll clean her own teeth on the bones and sinews of her diet.
2. Housetraining ease. On raw food, young Kiryn has to go to the bathroom almost half as often as on kibble, which means less potential for accidents in the house. Makes my life easier during this training phase, and I can sleep a little deeper (while still taking him out at 3-4am, he’s a baby after all).
3. Ease of cleanup. Droppings are half the size, and according to anecdotes on the internet, seem to disappear into the lawn after a few days if it’s not winter. While I don’t think I’ll ever completely get out of poop duty, this is definitely a plus!
4. Canine dining enjoyment. If the video above doesn’t convince you, the look on the dog’s face while eating raw is the same look they get when chewing their favourite chew. That “omg this is SO GOOD” look that I can sympathise with when I eat Swiss chocolate, or a perfectly medium-rare filet mignon. That look, alone, makes it worth it.
