On Stinky Dogs

I was having a conversation with Thelma and Rocky’s mama about how her beautiful white German Shepherd is, well, stinky. Thelma has a lot of fur and a thick undercoat that she likes to leave a trail of everywhere she goes. And apparently it smells bad. But not only does miss Thelma have a less than pleasurable smelling coat, her breath also leaves something to be desired. And her little bro Rocky has the same problem with his mouth.

 

If you are a dog parent you are probably are also no stranger to the “doggie smell” and “doggie breath”. It’s not the most glamorous part of having a dog, but it happens to the best of ‘em. So I was asked to share any advice I have on this stinky subject.

Ares and Chaos have very short hair and generally don’t develop the “doggie smell” too often. But when they do our first preference is to give them a bath. We are lucky that we can bathe them both in our bathtub. Chris installed a detachable shower head to spray them off and make doggie bath time easier. We also used treats and praise to try and convince them that bath time is fun. So far this has worked very well with Chaos but Ares is yet to be won over.

Of course sometimes they do start to smell and a bath isn’t the most convenient option. I also realize many other people aren’t able to bath their dogs in their home. So a temporary solution until they can be bathed at home or taken to the groomer is waterless shampoo.

This is the equivalent of dry shampoo for humans. Ladies, you probably know and love this product. I certainly own a bottle I use between washes for that extra lift and scent boost. I don’t recommend using human products not okayed for use on pets so Ares and Chaos have their very own products. We found this bottle of Pet Head waterless shampoo for dogs at Target and also a mitt for application. It’s very simple to just squirt some of the solution onto the dogs’ fur and use the bristle side of the mit to rub it in. Since our dogs have short fur we use the towel side to soak up any excess but for dogs with long hair like Thelma, this step probably isn’t necessary.

Waterless shampoo isn’t a substitute for a bath since you aren’t actually washing the dog but, it helps to freshen them up if you have company on the way and no time for baths. Or maybe your week is hectic and the groomer appointment has to wait until next week but you can’t stand the smell yourself. Some dogs won’t like the fresh scent and immediately try to rub it off but it’s already soaked into the skin so you can let them roll away.

As far as “doggie breath” is concerned, we are often told our dogs don’t have it. While they may not be minty fresh, an up close encounter from them won’t leave you gagging from the smell of an open mouth kiss. What’s the secret? Yogurt.

We learned a while ago that both our dogs have fairly sensitive tummies. To help with digestion our vet recommended adding some yogurt to their meals. It worked like a charm and we also realized it has the added bonus of the active cultures neutralizing bad breath. This goes for humans too! But make sure to keep it plain nonfat yogurt and stay away from the fruity flavors for your pups.

Our dogs actually love the yogurt mixed in with their dry food, but to their dismay they only get it with their dinner meal. While yogurt is good for their breath, the soft, wet consistency isn’t great for their teeth if they have too much. We eyeball the amount but it’s no more than a regular spoonful.

There are products out there made specifically for canine dental health, like Dentastix and Greenies. We do also give these to our dogs on occasion but the yogurt seems to do the trick for the “doggie breath”. Ares and Chaos also have had their teeth brushed but they like to try and chomp on the toothbrush or just lick off the bacon flavored toothpaste. We haven’t given up on it yet but the yogurt in the food combined with their constant chewing on hard toys and buffalo horns has kept their mouths pretty healthy and “doggie breath” free so far.

Anyone else have other good tips for minimizing the “doggie smell” and “doggie breath”?

Happy Fall Y'all

It’s officially the first full day of Fall! Here in NKY we have the 4 seasons pretty distinctly. Fall means football season, beautiful changing leaves, cool crisp air, bonfires, sweaters and pumpkin and apple scented and flavored everything. It happens to not be only be favorite season but all the other members of my household tend to second that.

Chris loves football. He’s a diehard Michigan fan and loves watching the Bengals, regardless how good his teams happen to be. He likes being outside without sweating or freezing and hanging with friends by the fire. He doesn’t care much about the rest of it but he certainly won’t turn down a homemade breakfast of apple cinnamon pancakes.

Piper will always be an inside cat but she still enjoys it when fall rolls around. The AC goes off and the windows and back door open. There isn’t much she loves more than lounging on the windowsill or near the open back door with the sun on her face and the breeze through her fur.

Ares and Chaos get a little pep in their step when they feel the air change. No more panting through the whole walk and taking water/shade breaks because it’s hot. The air is cool but not too cold for their short coats and they both love cinnamon and pumpkin flavored treats.

Chaos, for some unknown reason, has a great love of fallen leaves. He jumps on them, rolls in them and chomps them up like the hungry, hungry hippos game.

Ares likes to break out his stylish fall hoodie and impress everyone as he struts through the park. He also enjoys meeting the wooly caterpillars that come across our path.

Little O actually agrees with Piper that open windows and doors are awesome. However instead of just lounging, he loves to watch everything going on outside. It’s like his own personal TV but now there is sound.

As a kid I loved summer because it meant school was out and I could spend my days swimming at the pool, visiting the zoo or the park and hanging with friends. We could stay up late and have sleepovers during the week. There was always a big 4^th of July party with a grill out and fireworks and trying to slurp down ice cream before it melted.

Now that I’m older I’ve come to appreciate the Autumn season much more. Pumpkin spice lattes, burnt marshmallows, cozy sweaters and my happy furbabies give me the joy that all the fun of summer once did. Are you a fall lover like us?

Nature vs. Nurture: On Living with Cats & Dogs

We I tell people I have both dogs and cats I often am asked how in the world they all live on the same floor without bloodshed. Well, I can’t speak for anyone else’s situation, but I can tell you why I think ours works out pretty well.

The theory in our home leans heavily on the side of nurture in the nature vs. nurture debate.

Piper came to live with me when she was about 6 months old. She was the only pet in the house and enjoyed her role as only child for nearly 9 years. As an indoor cat she didn’t have much socialization with other animals so I knew brining Ares into the picture was going to be a big adjustment.

As a 6 week old puppy, Ares was essentially a blank slate as far as socialization goes. I kept Piper and him separate for the first week or so and let them get to know each other through scent on the other side of doors. When then did meet face to face, Piper still wasn’t exactly welcoming. She had not had to share her space with another animal for so long that she wasn’t too tolerant of an excited, bouncy puppy. But Ares learned (for the most part) to respect her space and be submissive to her. It didn’t matter that she was a cat because this was all he knew.

When Chaos came around, introductions were a little smoother. Piper had been living with a puppy for a few months and had grown accustom to his behavior and her role as the dominant creature. Since Chaos was only 7 weeks old and we had already been socializing Ares, the boys bonded almost immediately. As pack animals, dogs take to pack order easily and Chaos quickly learned that Piper was queen and Ares, although his playmate, was also boss to him.

Little O was born into rescue. He was fostered with 4 dogs and a half dozen rats for the first 4 months of his life. When I brought him home I kept him in his carrier and sat it on the floor for the other kids to sniff. I was shocked at the good energy they had and how calm everyone stayed. As soon as O got to meet his new siblings face to face it was funny to see how comfortable he was with the dogs. He had grown up thus far with dogs so he knew dogs. And the dogs had grown up with a cat so they knew cats are friends not food.

Piper actually took longer to make nice with O than she did with the dogs. He wasn’t up on his cat social skills since he hadn’t been around cats, but he learned he could hang with Piper and play with the dogs.

As far as nature is concerned, my dogs are both part of the terrier family. They are hard wired to give chase and pick things up with a hard mouth. Sure from time to dogs the dogs will chase the cats. Usually they know better than to bother Piper but if they do she reminds them. Little O doesn’t view being chased as a predator/prey act. He goes along with it as play and won’t take off and try to hide. Instead he generally allows himself to be caught. 

I’ve read that a prey drive can be ignited even in dogs generally docile around smaller animals if the animals starts to run and tries to hide or makes noise when they put their mouth on them. I’m of a mind that because my dogs were raised with cats as puppies and the cat they most often chase thinks he’s a dog, there is no prey drive going on, just simple play. If they use a hard mouth on him he meows or stops playing. This is what puppies do when they teach each other not to nip. If one puppy nips the other too hard  he will lose his playmate so he learns to lighten up. The same principle seems to have worked with O and the dogs.

 

Dogs and cats can live harmoniously together. Piper may have already been set in her ways when the boys came along but because we gave her time to get used to them before shoving them in her face, she has learned to live (mostly) peacefully with them. Ares and Chaos learned early on that cats are not prey and being raised with dogs, O learned that he doesn’t need to act like prey.

We’ve never had any bloodshed among any of our furbabies. They get into squabbles once in a while, but don’t all siblings? They’ve learned to work things out without anything ever getting out of hand. And that’s more than I can say for many human siblings I know!

These are a Few of Our Favorite Things: Zack & Zoey Hoodies

The forecast for tomorrow is a high of 67 and low of 46. Around here we call that bonfire weather. How convenient that we’ve been invited to attend one tomorrow night at our friends Diesel and Chevy’s parents’ house. After summer really swooped in with 90 degree temperatures this past month, my family is ready for hoodie season.

You’ve all seen countless pictures of Ares and Chaos rocking their hoodies through fall and winter. Not only are they comfortable wearing them, they really seem to like wearing them. How do I know this? They carry them to me and sit so I’ll put them on. They even help by sticking their heads and legs through the holes.

The solid colored hoodies you see the boys wearing in many of their pictures are made by a brand we’ve become very loyal to: Zack & Zoey. I first discovered these basic fleece hoodies perusing Baxterboo.com. It’s like Amazon for dogs. They have every category of supplies and necessities for both dogs and cats from a variety of brands at discounted prices. Hoodies for each boy were one of the first purchases I made on the site and our first experience with the Zack & Zoey brand.

The website provides sizing guides based on the type and brand of product and information from the manufacturer for easy ordering decisions. I measured Ares and Chaos around the neck and down the back using a flexible measuring tape. Based on their measurements and the size guidelines, I ordered Ares a medium and Chaos a large. When they came in they were a perfect fit on both of them. I was pleasantly surprised since I had quickly learned that fitting clothes over a Pit Bull chest is often difficult and even Ares’s chest can make things with front closures fit improperly.

The hoodies are a nice weight, fleece lined and look just like human hoodies. We like that they come in multiple colors and the color choices are not limited to only certain sizes. The fact that they keep the boys warm for a chilly fall morning walk but are also thin enough to be layered under winter coats is the perfect combination.

Zack & Zoey hoodies are also priced very reasonably and are good quality. The brand can be found elsewhere but if you order off Baxterboo there are almost always sales going on for additional savings. And all of you with dogs know they tend to get things dirty even if they are just roaming around the house. I’ve washed and dried these hoodies right along with our human clothes without any issue; no shrinkage or fading so far.

I think the best part about these hoodies is that the boys look so adorable and happy in them. But then again I may be slightly biased. Happy hoodie season!

The New Ruff Life

Although I’ve grown up in a technological world, for the most part, technology and I don’t always get along. I can navigate the devices I use on a regular basis like my iPhone, laptop and the Xbox (the watch Netflix), but getting fancy with any of it is generally over my head. Sure, I can download apps, e-mail, create Word documents and Excel files, watch Netflix and blog. These are pretty standard skills for someone my age in today’s society. But when I recently decided to create my own webpage, technology took on a whole new meaning.

 

Blogger has been a great place to begin my little blog because I had no idea what I was doing. But they take out all the guesswork and need for any real web skills. You just put the information or pictures in the fields, size them and save. That’s it. Yes, there are many bloggers using Blogger who have gone far beyond the simple templates and minimal add-ons that I’ve been able to do. But the more I’ve learned about blogging, the more I wanted to have my very own site.

 

After thoroughly researching “how to create your own website” I was thoroughly confused. Buy a domain, sign up for a web host, link the nameservers. Huh? I spent a lot of time looking up terms before I could even begin to try and understand the entire concepts. But finally I got the gist of getting started, and along with the much appreciated help of a very good friend, I’m now on my way to becoming a webmaster. Okay, not really but it sounds cool.

 

That being said, I’m still learning and it is going to take some time to get my new site up and running. I will continue to post here on Blogger but I can’t promise any more than 1 post a week. It is all in the name of creating a new site that I hope you will all enjoy. Don’t worry, I’m not changing or quitting The Ruff Life, I’m just eventually going to move it to a new home. Once everything is ready to launch on the new site, I will post about the transition.

Over the past 8 months this blog has become very important to me. It started out as something that sounded fun, and it is, but it has also turned into something bigger than I ever imagined. And that is why I’ve made the decision to upgrade.

Maybe for you techies out there you think creating a new website is a piece of cake. Well, I think busting out a 5 page essay is a piece of cake. But technology isn’t quite my thing so it could take a few months for me to get the hang of this new website venture. Hopefully I can get the site up and running soon, but in the meantime, try to be patient and hang in there with me.

The furbabies can’t wait to debut their improved blog. They work so hard inspiring posts and enduring my iPhone constantly in their faces. They certainly have a ruff life.