The Dog Diary

Dexter was such a great puppy and a cute puppy. He slept all night, every night, from Day 1. I put him in this huge cardboard box in my bedroom from the start, determined I wasn’t going to let him sleep on the bed, but I didn’t want to isolate him altogether at that point. After all, he was only 8 weeks old and had just left his mum and his little siblings, so he’d had the company of others all along.

His potty training wasn’t too bad either. I had some puppy pads by the back door and he did his stuff there for a few days then always went outside. The only problem I had was when it was raining…he’d always pee on my expensive rug then, as he hated getting wet, something which, to this day, is a problem for him. This is the dog who walks AROUND puddles and hates getting his feet wet! Even when I let him out in the morning after a long night, if it’s raining, he won’t go out, but he’ll let his little iron bladder get to work and hold it in until the rain stops!

Such a cute puppy, he was so tiny when he first came home with me. He was shorter than the height of one of the stairs and I was always worried that he’d fall downstairs while he was upstairs with me as I was working from my home office. So, I placed a step ladder on it’s side and strategically positioned it along the top of the stairs so he couldn’t fall down the stairs.

This worked well for a couple of days until the day I tripped over it and the ladder came crashing down on my poor little 9-week old cute puppy! Well, have you ever heard a dog scream? Scream he did and then shot straight under my bed, yelling like I’d tried to murder him!

I coaxed him out and he was wimpering like mad, holding one of his front paws up in the air as high as he could. I thought I’d broken his leg - I felt sick!

So, a quick call to the Vet followed and I took him there straight away. We saw the vet and the diagnosis was…..nothing wrong with him, but of a bump, that was all! The vet gave him a painkilling shot and I sloped off home, a bit embarrassed about my panic. To be fair to the pup, he did get a bit of a shock and slept for the rest of the day, but that was when I learned how clever he was!

You see, dogs are the single, most successful species on our planet. Why? It’s their ability to manipulate, to be a pack, to fool you into thinking that something is one way when it really is something else quite different.

My 9-week old puppy had managed to make SUCH a song and dance about his little injury, that he had me running around him like a slave, pandering to his every whim, giving him lots of attention and not letting him out of my sight, which all had the effect of giving him his spot as centre of attention, of leader of the pack, which was exactly what he wanted.

I didn’t realise this at the time, and unfortunately it did store up some problems for me, which I’ll come on to, but believe me, dogs can make such a fuss when there’s nothing to worry about, and they can play you like a fiddle! So BEWARE!!!

Poor injured puppy?

I want to talk about how I came to have Dexter, my Miniature Schnauzer, now 4 years old.

Back in September 2004, life and work had changed for me somewhat. I had changed employers and now, instead of working in an office with lots of colleagues, I was largely working from home, which did have it’s advantages, but got lonely now and then. A friend of mine, who had gotten herself a puppy fairly recently, suggested I got myself a dog.

I had always adored dogs and we’d had dogs in the family but for me, being single, career minded, and taking on the responsibility of owning a dog, was huge. I already had 2 cats, but owning a dog was a different ball game altogether! Anyway, I gave it some careful thought, and decided it was a good idea.

Within a week, I had researched costs, equipment required, my working hours and how they would affect a dog, particularly in it’s early puppyhood, and I’d trawled the internet for available puppies, but not before looking at what breeds might be suitable for me first.

This is the mistake people make. Owning a dog may be a good idea, but different dog breeds suit different lifestyles. That said, ALL dogs need TIME from their owners, and I would never in a million years have decided upon dog ownership if I wasn’t working from home a lot of the time.

So, I’d decided I wanted a small dog, but not too tiny. I wanted to own a dog with spirit and character. I wanted a breed that was a little bit different too! A dog that didn’t suffer from separation anxiety was necessary, although I knew the most I’d have to leave it would be 4 or 5 hours at a time.

After doing hours and hours of research, mostly on the internet, trawling the dog adverts, and making many phone calls to reputable breeders to ask about their dogs, their temperaments, their personalities and their needs, I settled on my Miniature Schnauzer, who I discovered when he was 6 weeks old. He was with a breeder in London, one of a litter of 5, all of whom had been sold but his prospective owner had changed their mind about owning a dog at that point in their life.

I drove over 100 miles from Bristol to see him at 6 weeks, fell in love with him (as anyone does when faced with a puppy!)and spent the next 2 weeks preparing for his arrival and making plans and itinerarys for what he would need and when he would need it, such as his innoculations, training classes, sleeping area, food, collar and lead, toys, etc!

It was a dark, rainy Thursday night in October that I made the journey once more to collect him, complete with cat box for him to sleep in while he was in the car. I had my puppy!

We got home after 10pm, exhausted. The poor dog was terrified and obviously very unsure of his new home, so I left him in the box until he was ready to come out. It took a while and some scrambled eggs, but out he came eventually, introduced himself to my cats, and my journey of dog ownership began!

The 8 week old Dexter

Saying Hi to Floyd

So, where to start in feeding our dogs the healthy way? There is much research one can do and there are lots of arguments for and against various feeding regimes such as the BARF (Bones And Raw Food) Diet, to mention a prime example.

I wanted to give you an example of an easy and extremely economical way to feed your dog some natural treats. I use these all the time and honestly, you’ll find that not only will your own dog be begging you for commands in order to show you his repertois of skills to earn some of these little beauties, but you’ll also feel like the Pied Piper on your dog walks, as all the surrounding dogs will be after these….

Liver Treats

Ingredients:- Ox Liver - as much as you want to cook!

Take slices of the liver and fry it off gently in a non-stick, dry frying pan.

Once fried, cut the slices into small cubes, small enough to use as training treats, large enough so as not to disappear during cooking!

Spread the cubes out onto baking sheets, in single layers.

Cook in a warm oven, around 150 degrees Celsius, for anywhere between an hour and an hour and a half, turning occasionally.

Once cooled, portion the treats in small bags and freeze for future use. They will keep in the freezer for a few months and should be used within a few days once thawed.

Word of warning…your kitchen may stink while cooking this….best to cook a lot of it at once so you don’t have to do it too often!

A word about liver….Liver is a highly nutritious food to feed your dog but, when raw, should only be fed in very small quantities as is a very rich food and may cause a temporary stomach upset. When liver is cooked by the method above, because it is dried as it cooks, a larger quantity may be fed. As with all food though, don’t overfeed!

To follow on from this recipe, which I absolutely swear by, please click here and be introduced into a whole new world of home made food to keep your dog healthy.

These are my thoughts on dog nutrition. Now, I’m no qualified expert, but I’ve done a lot of reading and research over the few years I’ve owned dogs, a fair amount of trial and error and I have a few theories.

There is far, far more to feeding our beloved pets than opening a tin of the most well advertised dog food which is spookily placed at eye level on the shelves of your favourite supermarket.

Take a closer look at the ingredients……any tin or packet or bag of food that you see with the words ‘meat or animal derivatives’ on the ingredients panel….my advice is this….put it back on the shelf and stay well clear! You will probably see words similar to ‘minimum meat content 4%’. Ask yourself this…what on earth makes up the other 96%? The answer is this - waste products from slaughterhouses, feathers, entrails, ground up hooves and bones….the list goes on. Do you really want to feed this stuff to your dog? Not me! Some of these dog food companies are very clever, mixing all this stuff up and adding a specially concocted blend of EEC permitted flavourings, colours and preservatives to make it smell nice and look good.

Now, not all companies are the same, and there are those companies out there who actually look at the quality of ingredients they put into their dog food and adopt a more ‘holistic’ approach, including such things as high grade chicken, chicken fats, glucosamine, minerals, brown rice and herbs in their food. You might think that it’s enormously expensive to feed your dog in this way. I’ve worked it out and believe you me, it’s comparative, if not cheaper per day to feed your dog a good diet.

I personally believe that sub-grade dog food contributes to many illnesses, including cancers, which our canine friends suffer from and it’s well worth a little careful thought with regard to what to feed your dog.

Check out this nutrition report - it speaks for itself!

My Dogs…

Dexter is a 4 year old Miniature Schnauzer who I got at the tender age of 8 weeks from a reputable breeder in London, while I was living in Bristol.  It’s fair to say that he’s had his issues, not helped by my ignorance of dog ownership when I got him. We all think it’s easy to look after a dog, but believe me, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye! Dexter was incredibly cute as a puppy, and it was SO easy to take on the ‘cute puppy’ approach and treat him like a helpless little soul, carrying him around everywhere and pandering to his every whim. Big mistake, as I will explain throughout my blog. As a result of my ignorance, he became nervous and uncertain, was under-socialised and displayed nervous aggression, which is never a good thing. With the help of my good friend and dog trainer and behaviourist, Paul Connolly of WolfSpeak, we more or less ‘fixed’ him…..I’ll explain in due course!

Meet Dexter

Conan is my 19 month old Northern Inuit, bought from a Scottish breeder in the summer of 2007, a handful of a puppy indeed, but who has becone the most adorable, well-balanced dog that one could ever wish to meet, even if he did grow a fair bit bigger than he was supposed to and he looks like a mad wolf! Why is he well-balanced? Really because I didn’t make the mistakes with him in his doggy ‘upbringing’ that I made with Dexter. It helped in a strange way that he was indeed the puppy from Hell in comparison with Dexter who was in fact, an easy puppy to handle. I can honestly say I seriously disliked Conan as a puppy and wondered why I had brought this ’son of Lucifer’ into my life! I stuck with it, with the help of Paul and my friends and the odd glass of wine and I’m happy to say it paid off handsomely! Again, throughout the course of my blog, I’ll recount my experiences with Conan, good and bad, both hilarious and worrying!

Meet Conan