Leaving...

Next week I'll be out of town for a 5-day stint. This will be a reunion with old friends and I am looking forward to it. Lots of catching up and comparing faulty memories! Some of the women I have not seen in nearly 40 years.

There will be a difficult side to this trip, however. Leaving my girl. I realize this is not earth shattering, nor do most people see it as an issue. Yet Bella is connected to my heart and it will be quite difficult to leave her. My husband will stay home, so she won't be alone or in a foreign, strange place. But I will. A girl without her dog isn't a very pretty sight.

Mountain Biking on the Teanaway

It's been a long, hard run up the mountain.

We spent a wonderful three days exploring the different forks of the Teanaway River this past weekend. The crowd level was almost non-existent and the weather east side of the Pass was warm and sunny. We've had such a snow pack this year and the weather has remained cooler than normal—both factors which I think may have dissuaded other campers. I'm all for it!

Our typical mode of camping (non-campground) was easy to accomplish and the spots we found were spectacular. The rivers (whatever fork we were on) were raging. Lovely noise to sleep by.

We did a ride or more a day. All of them climbed quite steeply from the valley so provided great workouts. Usually before we chose to chuck our bikes in favor of hiking (because of incline), we were stymied by snow. Bella had a blast. She hasn't had a lot of exposure to snow, so she really enjoyed the cooling aspects of snow cones, not too mention the natural ponds she found in the streams. What better place to cool her belly and have a sip?

Mountain-biking girl-dog cooling her jets!

As always, she ran many miles beyond what we biked as she would tear down to the water for a drink and back to the trail to keep up with us. Back at camp, she was game for any fetch and retrieve games with balls or sticks. She has an uncanny capability of finding  balls in the least likely spots. This trip was no exception. She found three. In one camping spot. I saw zero. Poor dog that lost them, but fair game for our girl. We left all three for the next lucky hound who frequents the spot. Perhaps a coyote?

Dog Food—What do you feed yours?

I'm sure some of you have read this article by now. Information like this seems to circle through the dog community fairly rapidly. The article isn't strictly about food, but the pet industry in general. However the part I took notice of was the food. I don't know about you, but what I feed my pup is a big issue for me and I've discussed it before. (Just search this blog for "food" and see how many posts show up!)

Now things like super gourmet food, fancy dog coats, or heaven forbid—"neuticals"—is not my style, but making sure I'm keeping track of what's going on in the dog food market is in Bella's (and my) best interest. So although the fashion trappings don't rock my boat, I was stopped dead in my tracks when I read this section in the article from a professor of veterinary nutrition:

Are our pets healthier for all of this? Tony Buffington, a professor of veterinary nutrition at Ohio State University, says his students have studied the diet history of thousands of animals and have not yet determined that one pet food is better than another.

“We have been unable to distinguish an outcome in healthy animals eating a wide variety of foods,” he says. Asked about the variety at megastores like Petco, he says, “I don’t even go in there anymore. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

He adds: “If you put them all in a plain brown bag, you’d probably be fine with any one of them.”

Huh? There's got to be some missing information here. What pet foods are they studying...just premium or all foods? Is he saying they studied dogs who ate a wide variety of foods (meaning their diet changed regularly) or the dogs they studied were all eating a different diet?  (I had read something similar in the past stating that any dog food would be adequate for your dog; that basically ingredients were the same.) I don't buy it. I am not a scientist, but it doesn't add up. And all ingredients are not the same.

With my first dog, Suzy, I noticed a rapid decline in the shine and silkiness of her coat when I switched to a less expensive, generic brand. When put back on a better food, her coat lost its coarseness and once again was glossy. For Pete's sake! I know how I feel when I eat junky food. (Just watch the movie Super Size Me and tell me a crummy diet works!) Why would I expect or want less for my dog? This of course is one of the selling points in feeding (home-made) raw to your pet—you have control over the ingredients.

Bella has had a bout of (sorry) diarrhea lately, so I immediately cooked up a bland organic chicken and organic brown rice diet for her (which she loves). If I eat organic foods, it makes sense to me that I would also feed my dog organically if I could afford it and find it.

Granted, I have not switched to raw yet. (I don't feel confident enough yet figuring out the essentials.) I also realize many people with limited budgets can't afford a better grade pet food—and that's okay. We all do the best we can within our circumstances. But to say that the students at Ohio studying pet nutrition haven't determined one food is better than another seems downright silly. Better food is to going to make for a stronger, healthier body.

What's your opinion?

Beyond Exhausted

Ball-catching water baby.

I think Bella is setting up a theme for the summer. I'm realizing if she doesn't set limits for herself, than I must. I haven't heard of a dog working themselves to death, but I was watching her very closely this weekend for over-exhaustion.

The weekend was wonderful. It was a true taste of summer—each day broke sunny and warm—and was quite the contrast to our year to-date. We were visiting friends at their home on a small Puget Sound island. It began with a girls' weekend: the owner, another friend, Bella and myself.

Getting there is a bit of a chore as there are few ferries and those run infrequently. The ferry that you catch takes people only, no cars. If you have your own boat, you can go at any point, but that wasn't the case for us. We had to bring not only our own suitcase, but all the food for the weekend (and there would end up being eight of us). In addition, I was schlepping Bella's bag as well Bella. The ferry requires all dogs wear a muzzle. Luckily I had one from Lucy, but because the trip was rather spontaneous, I had only a few days to work with her on it.

I came across this video that I think is truly fabulous and wish I had had more time to do this to acclimatize Bella. Fortunately for me, my Bella-girl is quite accommodating and although she tried a couple of times to rub it off, was basically nonplussed by it. This will work well for Baja next year!

When we reached the island, we unloaded all of our things to a cart which we could wheel to the car our host leaves there. It was truly wonderful to have 24 hours by ourselves before the others joined us. Girl Time! We walked around the entire island. Bella was thrilled to be able to run loose. It took her no time at all the jump into Puget Sound and paddle around! The only accident was that she took quite a chunk out of a toe on her back left paw. It didn't seem to slow her down and I felt bandaging it would be futile considering she was in and out of the water. I left it to the salt water to keep it well rinsed and always hosed her down when she came on shore again.

She also had the opportunity to ride in a motor boat. I was concerned she might try to  leap out (too much water around her inducing dive in to swim), but she stayed put. She got plenty of  "fetch time" with us, but when the six other guys arrived, she was in heaven. Eight people throwing things on the beach and in the water makes for one tired puppy!

The last day we were there, I was watching her quite closely. I could tell she was flagging at the end of the day, but if people tossed, she continued to run. One of the guys kept throwing a ball out into the water and though I was on the deck, I kept my eye on her to see if she was slowing or having trouble swimming. She was also ingesting large amounts of salt water. She didn't get sick, but I was worried she wasn't getting enough fresh water down her gullet to flush herself out.

Last night when we finally got home, Bella crashed. She no sooner got out of the car than laid down. Got up for dinner, than down again. And she couldn't see to settle—that disturbed me. She groaned frequently and wasn't able to find a comfortable position. I finally gave her a baby aspirin. I'm sure her muscles are sore and I think her toe is very tender.

Next time we're in that situation, I will moderate her activity (and her enablers!) before she gets so worn out. She has barely moved today and tomorrow, I expect more of the same. I'm sure she'll be perky by tomorrow evening and rambunctious by Wednesday, but right now she's just dog-tired.

Great Weekend

Bella joined us down at the Gorge for a wonderful weekend with friends. As far as she was concerned, with the Columbia River and a myriad of "ball tossers" at her beck and call, life couldn't be better. We got in several desert hikes to which she added a LOT of swimming and fetching, new dog buddies to play with and much more freedom to roam than she normally gets. All in all, a great time.

So it was no wonder when on our last morning we stopped to help some friends stain their deck and get their garden ready for summer, she crashed. She didn't want to be far away, but the fun of the weekend finally took its toll.

Can't get much closer, but...

...it's definitely time for a snooze!