Thank goodness for daylight savings! The sun comes out an hour later in the morning and sets an hour later in the evening. That’s great news for all us dog owners.

The dogs will sleep an hour later in the morning which means we can sleep an hour later (at least on the weekends). With the sun setting later, it gives us more time after work for walks, runs, dog parks, beaches and fetch.

And because of all of that, our dogs will be exhausted and their owners will be happier.

Thank the dog gods, I love tired dogs!!

In our last post, we introduced Bavu and Cali for the first time and since it went so well, this last week we took Bavu in for a week while his mom was out of town.

Overall the week went very well, but it was quite exhausting trying to keep tabs on two dogs in our small apartment, especially when one of those dogs was new to all of us. Bavu was the dominate dog in his and Cali’s first meeting, but Cali must have got a shot of confidence from the meeting, because she took control bigtime as soon as Bavu came back.

Cali was attached to Bavu’s hip, with a watchful eye, the entire week. We kept all the toys away from both dogs, except one bone each, to help cut down on any sharing problems. We also fed both at the same time, but in separate rooms. Bavu gets crated during the day, so we had his crate in a separate room while we were at work. Sleeping arrangements made for a long first night, but Bavu found a favorite spot on one of our couches and we had no problems after that.

I think the funniest part of the whole week was us walking the dogs–especially when it was only one of us with the two pups. I had never walked two large dogs together before, and I have to say it takes a great amount of flexibility, coordination, and strength. I had my arms, legs and fingers twisted in ways that I never thought possible, and my neighbors had a few good laughs for sure.

All in all it was a great, but long week. I’m glad it’s over and I’m really glad we only have one dog.

As I mentioned in my FURminator review, I come from a long line of obsessive vacuumers. I also come from a long line of Army officers. Think the two could be related? Yeah, just a bit…anyway, so my dad was in the Army, as was his dad and on and on.

Although I decided to go a different route, I’ve spent almost all my life around military people and on military bases, and I was lucky enough to inherit a few good traditions. One such tradition I grew up around was the Army-Navy rivalry. It’s for sure one of the oldest and most storied rivalries in the US, and comes to a head each year in December when the Army and Navy Military Academies meet for their annual football game.

So what does all this have to do with dogs and Cali? Well, this great rivalry brought us one of Cali’s greatest tricks: “Army Chow.” Through an intense military training regimen, we have trained Cali to tell the difference between “Navy Food” (bad, gross, smelly food) and “Army Chow” (wonderful, succulent, juicy food). It took many years of push-ups and sit-ups, but she finally has it down. Drop a burger on the floor and tell her “Navy Food” and she won’t even take a lick–she’ll just stare and think “that’s gross.”

But the second you say “Army Chow!” that burger is long gone, chewed up, and down to Cali’s stomach.

This is a family tradition with our dogs. My father and friends trained thier first dog back in their early Army days. They said their had it down so well, that they could drop a steak in front of him, say “Navy food” and the dog would leave the room without as much as a sniff. My dad passed the tradition down to my first dog Sparky (who also had a great “Army Crawl” trick), and now Cali has picked up the tradition.

It’s a great trick–I’ll try and get a video up of her doing it soon, but if any Army fans would like to know the training trips, just shoot me an e-mail.

Sorry no Navy dogs allowed!

Feebs and I were a little nervous beforehand; Cali has always done well with other dogs, but has never had a dog in her own territory. She’s a bit of a dominant dog around us and is a little possessive with her toys, so we were definitely interested in seeing her reaction.

We did some research on introducing dogs that don’t know each other and found a few good tips. We put her food up and made sure all of her toys and bones were put away. I also took her on a run as soon as I got home from work to try and drain some of that never-ending energy. We also read that we should try and have them meet outside the house, at a neutral place, preferably a place where both dogs have never been.

We had to settle with just walking Cali around the block, and meeting up with Bavu about halfway through.

Cali was a little aggressive at first on the walk, poking and nosing around Bavu as much as possible. When we got on our patio, we took both dogs off the leashes and the sniffing began. Cali was still a bit aggressive, and Bavu gave a few good barks to back Cali off. That seemed to be enough of a sign of dominance for Cali, as she took a submissive role for the rest of the night.

 They sniffed, played chase, and were both extremely well behaved overall. It was great to see Cali so well-behaved with another dog in her house.

So all went well for the test run, but we’ll see how five days together goes. It will definitely be interesting because Bavu is usually crated during the day at his house, and we always let Cali have the run of the house while we are at work.

It should be a long, non-stop weekend with two big pups running around. Updates will be sure to follow!

Dog parks are wonderful places–big dogs, little dogs, weird dogs, dog owners, weird dog owners, grass, poop, slobbery tennis balls, dirt–you really just can’t get much better than that, right?

Well, I guess not, but there are some down-sides, especially at the smaller parks.

 I’ve been to a couple so called “dog parks,” and they were the size of large patio–definitely missing the “park” part of the dog park. Well this past weekend, Cali and I checked out a park that really lives up the name “Dog Park.” It’s a place called Fiesta Island and it’s located in Mission Bay in San Diego.

We’ve got quite a few dog parks out here in SD, even a few beaches. Dog Beach in particular is a great place, but Fiesta Island tops even that one for us. It has beaches, hills, trails, rocks, and even more beaches. It’s pretty much this large island of sand in the middle of the bay and there is one, one-way road going around the whole thing.

The whole place is supposedly leash-free and not fenced, and there are some restricted areas that people or dogs can’t go, but there is a specific dog-park fenced area on the southwest side of the island.

We stuck to the somewhat fenced dog-park part and it was still awesome. We walked around for over an hour and never doubled back on our tracks once. There was a good 20-25 minutes where we didn’t even see another dog or person. And the views around Mission Bay were of course gorgeous. Quite a change from the typical dog park out this way.

Definitely bring water for your pup, as there are no water fountains. And beware in the summer, because they often hold different events out there and it can get quite crowded on the weekends from what I hear. But if you want a great place for a quiet, non-typical dog park, check it out for sure.

While writing this post, I unfortunately just found some articles saying that the City of San Diego has some not-so-dog-friendly plans for the island. Not cool in my view, but to check out the details visit www.FIDOsd.com–it’s the Fiesta Island Dog Owners Web site and they are fighting to save at least some of the island for dogs.

Good on ‘em for standing up for the dogs!

So I bring you a great potty-training tool: The doggy doorbell. It’s worked extremely well on my last two dogs, and Cali took to it right away. The premise is just giving them something to make a noise when they need to go outside to use the bathroom. It’s really most effective in apartments, but really can be used anywhere. We have a setup on both our back and front doors, and whenever Cali needs to go outside, she paws at her doggy doorbell to let us know it’s time.

You can probably set it up in a number of ways, but the cheapest and most effective tools we’ve found are:

1 twisty tie (we use the thin color pipe cleaner thingies you can get almost anywhere)
3-5 bells
A shoelace or about 3-4 feet of string.

Simply run the twisty thing through all the bells, then wrap that around the old shoe lace and tie a small knot to keep in place. Then tie the other end of the shoelace around the door knob and make sure the bells hang about eye-level to your dog. If you have a sliding-glass door with no knob, you can also buy a small suction cup to hang the bells from.

Once it’s set up, you have to get the dog to ring the bell. I suggest using the typical potty-training methods (newspapers, puppy pads, etc.), but whenever they go in the house, tell them “no,” then lead your dog to the door and take their paw and hit the bells, and then put them outside.

Obviously, it works best to get them in the habit when they are puppies and you can still pick them up, but you get the general idea. Anytime they want out, just make sure they ring the bell or make them ring the bell before you open the door. Eventually, it will click and like magic, you now have a doggy doorbell.

The great thing about the tools we use is we can quickly untie it and take it with us when we travel. We take it with us and use it for hotel doors, or if we bring Cali over to a friend’s house, we bring the bells and ring them once when we get there to show them where they are–after that, she’s the perfect houseguest.

Keeping with the treat and cheap toy themes of our last two posts, we thought we’d write about some of Cali’s other favorite treats: Human food! The good thing about giving dogs some of our stuff is it’s usually just leftovers, and pretty low cost (at least better than the $14.99 FURminator treats cost per package!).

Her all time favorite is also Felicia’s favorite food: Cheese! We usually get a few extra slices of white american and Cali drools and drools over the stuff. Some other favorites include peanut butter, cucumbers, hot dogs, bread (we usually give her the ends of the loaf), ice cubes, ice cream, corn, rice, ground beef and of course steak.

We’ve found that a mix of white rice and a little plain, cooked, ground beef mixed in with their regular dry food is a great way to help an upset dog tummy. Also for a special treat, we’ve been known to pour some chicken broth or gravy over her dry food–she goes crazy for that.

Definitely beware of giving dogs all human foods though–our vet kindly reminded us of some of the worst human foods for dogs, such as grapes, raisins, onions, chocolate, and of course any thing too spicy. Now, my old dog Sparky used to love chocolate (he stole my birthday cake off the counter two years in a row!) and he hardly ever got sick after eating it, so maybe each dog’s unique, but just make sure to ask your vet before giving them anything too crazy.

When Feebs leaves for work in the morning:

• A Kong filled with peanut butter
• 2 Milk Bone treats
• 1 Milk Bone chewy treats (chicken flavored)
• 2 Canine Carry Outs (small bacon flavored treats)
• 1 FURminator treat

After her afternoon walk with Dave:

• 1 Milk Bone chewy treat

Before bed snack:

• 1 Canine Carry Out (small bacon flavored treat)

As you can see, she’s definitely a momma’s girl, and Feebs can’t resist the temptation to spoil her. Most treat packages that we have seen actually say a dog of her size can have anywhere from 4-8 treats a day, so maybe we aren’t that far off. Letus know what you think: How many treats are too many?

I think the first thing anyone who gets a new pet does is run to the pet store and go on a shopping spree. We did this with Cali and had to make sure she had all the “cool” toys: Squeaky balls, Kongs, Ropes, Bones–anything that she could chew. Our bill quickly grew and grew, but we had to have the best for our new addition. Reflecting back after a few months, we realize her most cherished and most used toys aren’t ones with big price tag. An old pair of socks tied in a knot is her favorite rope/chew toy. She always loves a dirty old tennis ball, an old stuffed animal, a stick she brought back from one her walks, and above all, water bottles. As a puppy, empty water bottles and water bottle caps kept her entertained for hours. She would munch on the bottle, tear off the label, get the top off and spill whatever water was left all over the place. The best part was the bottle tops; Cali LOVED batting the water bottle tops around with her feet– she acted like a cat! Since she has gotten older, she started chewing and eating them more than playing with them. What a great, cheap puppy toy!Before you go spend all your money on the “cool” toys, look around your house first. Trust me, you’ll need the money for food they eat!

Cali’s last post about her dog bite was so depressing, we thought we’d have some fun at her expense. Who knew with two staples, antibiotics, and a cone, Cali could still be in the mood to make us laugh? After a long few hours at the Animal ER, Cali was still in good spirits. Within a few minutes, she had us rolling on the floor laughing. She had to wear this ridiculous cone to keep her from licking her wound, and the thing added about 2 feet to her head size and made her lose all of her peripheral vision.

I wish I had a video to put on YouTube. As we tried to leave the vet, she tried at least five times to get out the door, walking full speed ahead, only to get rocketed back as her cone got caught on the door frame again and again. We felt so bad for her, but just couldn’t contain ourselves. She even had the nurse chuckling away. At home it was even funnier, slamming into to coffee tables, getting stuck in the hallway, spilling her water dish everywhere, it was quite entertaining to say the least. So if your dog just ate your shoes, don’t get mad, get a cone!