Review: Clik-R

When I was younger, our family dog was a Chihuahua named Mickey, and we did everything wrong with him! He was an aggressive little terror that we spoiled to no end–and it was little surprise that my friends soon dubbed him, “The Devil’s Spawn.” But he was our little spawn, and our family loved him to pieces, and we all mourned when he finally crossed Rainbow Bridge after an amazing 17.5 year run on Earth.

As an adult, I knew I wanted to raise my own dogs, but I vowed do things differently. I read books, I talked to trainers, I watched countless YouTube videos, and then I set up (and stuck to) ground rules for my pups.

However, clicker training wasn’t something I was on board with right away. It certainly wasn’t that I had any objections to it or doubted its efficacy. I just never really got around to it. I suppose part of me also had the misguided notion that clicker training was for professional animal trainers, not for ordinary people like me working with my issue-ridden rescue dogs.

Dig This! Digging Holes~~

Webby LOVES to dig holes—I saw her try a few times in the dirt around our apartment building, but it’s pretty hard-packed and she never managed more than an inch or two (and as a considerate neighbor, I always made sure to fill the hole back in).

Winter Wonderland!

Doesn’t their expression say, WHOOPEE?! Here are Hoochoo and Webby having a blast at Bokha Riverbank during the winter. They are decked out in their PawZ boots and Petco mesh harnesses as they frolick around in the snow.

A Doggy Knot

Webby loves to sleep in a tightly-curled ball–and I love to see the various kooky configurations she gets her front and hind paws into~~ And here she seems to have her paws in knots!

Blast from the Past!

Here’s my darling Webby as a puppy during her shelter days, and a picture of the beautiful adult dog she’s grown up into!

DIY Leash Set-up: Is your dog pulling?

This post is dedicated to Erica, who is having trouble with a dog that keeps pulling at the leash. My dog, Webby, was also quite the leash puller when I first brought her home from the shelter, and very headstrong to boot. Having spent her life in shelter cages (with a walk once a week at most) I could completely understand her urgent desire to just go, go, GO!  Still, I didn’t appreciate the feeling of having my arm constantly pulled.

Luckily, I came across the Freedom No-Pull Harness by Wiggle, Wags & Whiskers. This harness featured a long leash that connected to the harness in the back and the front. My 9kg dog uses the XS harness, which is the smallest size they have. When I rescued my 4.5kg foster dog , Hoochoo, I was shocked to find her an even worse puller! She’d been living on the streets for such a long time that she was totally used to walking anywhere she pleased. But alas, there was no Freedom Harness option for her…

Mama’s home cooking: chicken and sweet potato stew (and Orijen dog food)

I remember the first time I really read the ingredients of my dog’s bag of kibble. Oh, the horror! Fillers, meat by-products and waste, corn and wheat, food coloring and chemical additives…the list goes on. It gets worse, though. This is the dog food my vet’s office suggested when I first brought my shelter dog home. Further internet research revealed that nutrition is generally NOT covered in-depth at veterinary schools. In fact,  many vets receive nutritional “education” from the pet food makers–an obvious conflict of interest. Dr. Karen Becker states it well, “Unfortunately, veterinary students don’t learn much about nutrition in their coursework. They graduate, go into practice, and become easy targets for pet food companies eager to fill their reception areas and storage closets with inferior quality ‘prescription’ diets for dogs and cats.”

Review: PawZ dog boots

Have you heard of Pawz boots? They are disposable/reusable/biodegradable dog boots that look like little balloons. You give the opening a little stretch, and then slip it over the paw. Tada~~ all done without the fuss of zippers or straps! I’ve been pretty pleased with Pawz boots for a number of reasons: it’s waterproof, easily replaceable and it protects my dogs’ feet from snow, salt and mud.

Dog Shaming!

“My foster sister and I destroyed a potted plant. Then we ate the entire contents of a 1 pound bag of salmon snacks, and had lots of diarrhea afterwards. And I mean LOTS… (My foster sister ran away when Jenny saw the mess…I feel betrayed…)

Sigh— What’s with my girls, lately?! It’s only been a week since the death of the Blissful Bookworm, and then I come home to something even more dogshaming.com-worthy! (By the way, I did submit the picture above, so we’ll see if it gets published).

Anyway, the potted plant would have been bad enough…they even managed to track the dirt into their crates, and inside the empty plastic bottle they have as a toy! But then I noticed the bag of salmon snacks…

They had completely chewed it open, and ate every single snack inside. Mind you, this bag lasts me about 2 months or so, and they polished it off in a day.  They must have worked up quite a thirst as well (the salmon snacks are partially dried), since their water bowls were bone dry…and lastly, the result of this mess was a bunch of diarrhea in the house~~~

When I leave the house, I’m pretty good about clearing out any problem items, but it looks like I need to up my game… Bad dogs! Or perhaps, Bad Jenny! for not outsmarting the dogs this time….

R.I.P. to the Blissful Bookworm

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post! The Blissful Bookworm is one of the many knitted creations I’ve featured on my other blog, Knitting Nandu–and certainly one of my favorites. I proudly showed him off to a visiting guest, and was not careful about putting him out of Webby’s reach once the “show and tell” was over. I returned home to find my dear bookworm totally EVISCERATED…and how sad is it that his glasses were also totally bent out of shape? Oh the carnage!!!

When I showed my cousin the pictures (she was one of the Blissful Bookworm’s biggest fans), she was also horrified…but upon further reflection, she said that there were signs that Webby had “marked” the bookworm for assassination! She then showed me the following pics she had taken months ago when she visited my home.

Sigh–these pictures certainly makes it clear that Webby has had her eye on the Bookworm for a long time~~~ To my dearly departed Bookworm—I’m sorry I didn’t do right by you!