My Dog Lacey

Well, we have a new kitten. His name is Jack and he’s been with us about 2 weeks.

O my God, is this cat cute. And Lacey adores him. She mouths him and licks him and picks him up by his ears. He meows at her, and now his jaws are getting stronger and he bites back. I’ve even heard her screech at one point.

I’ve got pictures, but can’t get them up right now. Soon.

This cat is causing some real behavior problems for Lacey. She gets SO EXCITED to play with him that all training seems to go out the window. For some reason, it’s ok for the cat to be all over the furniture. So now Lacey gets on the furniture too. Not only does she hop up on the couch, she practically steamrolls through the cushions. They end up all whomperjawed and on the floor, the magazines are torn and tattered and pitched across the room.

And, if that’s not enough that I’m having to go around and pick up after both of them, saying sternly to Lacey “OFF”. She’s started peeing on the carpet. Not since she first got here 3 months ago has she peed on the carpet.

And, not only those things, but the cat has now figured out a way to follow Lacey out her dog door. Kevin doesn’t want Jack outside, so guess what. We had to close the dog door. And we can’t open the door to the patio either.

Lacey is either in or out and doesn’t get to go out when she wants. I’m now taking her outside and trying to teach her to pee on command. Then it’ll be teaching her to tell me when she wants to go out, so I don’t have to anticipate.

Whew.

The great thing is, she’s becoming more loving, better behaved, more attentive to me, easier on walks.

I love this dog.
Anna

Let’s talk for a minute about BARF (that is, Bones And Raw Food) and the poop that results from this way of eating.

Here’s Lacey typical diet (that she absolutely loves). Everything comes from Whole Foods or Jimbos, so if it’s not completely organic, it’s all-natural, hormone/pesticide free, cage free, etc etc.

Breakfast (after a 20-30 minute 6am walk):

2-4 raw chicken necks or backs (or drumsticks, but they’re harder to chew up). I’ve also given raw wings — so basically any part of the chicken, with bones, but MAKE SURE it’s RAW! nothing cooked.

Sometimes she gets snacks:

Usually a raw cow bone or raw lamb leg bone with meat and marrow. Or pieces of turkey or chicken hot dog.

Dinner:

Raw hamburger or raw ground lamb or some kind of organ meat. One large tablespoon raw veggies from the blender or 1/4 scoop ProGreens, depending on how lazy I am. One egg shell crunched up, shot of kelp sprinkle, and shot of flax oil. Sometimes I put in an egg. Sometimes 1/4 avocado.

Nighttime snack — when I eat a banana or apple, I give her a bite or two. She loves it. She knows now when I go to the fruit basket and pull out a banana. Her ears perk up and she saunters over to get her bite. Kevin gave her a piece of carrot the other day. She wasn’t too impressed.

Ice — she loves ice and will do virtually anything for it. Guess that’s not technically food, but she crunches it so it’s probably good for tartar control on her teeth.

Ok, so now let’s talk about her poop. First of all, there’s very little of it. For a 25 pound dog, she poops about as much as my former dog Gretchen who weighed 10 pounds. This tells me that she absorbs so much of the food. There’s not much trash in it at all.

Second, it’s chalky and kind of dry, even when it’s completely fresh. The other day she pooped in a neighbor’s yard on our walk and I wasn’t prepared (no baggie with me). I picked it up in my hand and dropped it in a bed of ivy (like I’m gonna carry it all the way home with me??!). There was no mess or smell on my hand whatsoever. I dusted off my hands and they were clean!

Third, it decomposes so fast. I never pick up poop in our backyard (which is where she goes most of the time), because it’s gone so fast. Of course, our sprinkler system is like Niagra Falls, so the poop has some encouragement to disintegrate fast!

The only thing I haven’t seen which I wish I would see is her health improve to the point that she doesn’t soak up fleas. Eventually, I hope to have her in that condition. But for now, we’re the flea magnet.

That’s the scoop — raw food, raw chicken (with bones), raw bones, raw (blended) veggies, no grain at all, some bites of raw fruit — so awesome.

What a great dog.
Anna

Guess what we got in the mail today! A FRISBEE!! One of those soft ones with the more rigid edge but it’s soft in her mouth. Canvas center.

Of course, she has no idea what to do with it. I’m introducing it to her slowly.

She loves to jump — and she jumps really high. I’m training her to “jump” and take it out of my hand. Of course, she has to have good manners first. As in “Lacey, sit.” (she sits) Then “Lacey, jump!” (she jumps up and takes it out of my hand).

Next it’ll be that I let go of it before she takes it so she gets used to taking it out of the air rather than my hand.

Then it’ll be throwing very short distances (with “Lacey, catch” –hoping she catches it, or at least attempts), then lengthening the distances. Pretty soon, we’ll be going to the beach!! And she’ll be one of those cool frisbee dogs (like what’s in the picture in the header of the blog).

We also got a galileo bone from Nylabone. It’s a hit and indestructible. Our toy box continues to grow (except the frisbee lives on my desk because I don’t want her chewing it up).

That’s about the scoop these days.
I love this dog.
Anna

I put up some new pictures Saturday. They are random shots.

The first few are of her eathing a leg of lamb (with a raw bone, of course) in her favorite bone-chewing spot.

Then there are just some good ones of her doing various things, like sitting, being bored with getting her picture taken, leaving the pose just as I clicked the shot, and the last one is of her lying by the fountain that she drinks out of all the time. In a way, she’s got a fairly expensive water bowl. She drinks out of it so much, I’m now filling it daily with filtered water (as opposed to regular tap water).

Geez, what I do for this dog!!

But what a great dog she is. Can you see the difference in her physically from the time the first pictures were taken (Lacey the first week) to these that I’ve taken the last couple of weeks. (Pictures of Lacey in June)

Everything about her looks healthier. And she’s not a scared little dog anymore.

Raw food — raw chicken necks, raw turkey necks, meaty raw lamb bones — everything raw. What a difference.

I love this dog.
Anna

Ok, I’ve worked on this digging thing for some time now. I’ve figured out that the best solution for us is physical barriers to areas that we don’t want her digging in. Because there are other areas of the yard that we don’t care so much about.

Here’s what we did — check out these pictures of how we’re stopping Lacey from digging.

We had a bunch of rocks in the yard so I gathered up some and strategically placed them in and around the areas that she likes to dig. Mostly soft dirt areas.

I also bought that white fencing. ok, so it’s not the greatest, but it protects the roses from the digging frenzy. You can also see in the last pic (the one that you have to tilt your head to see because I don’t want to spend the time making it right side up!) that the specific area where she was digging, we put down tiny rocks.

So now our rose bushes and sprinkler heads are safe. I wonder what’s next.

Anna

I heard today that our girl is terrible on the leash in the late afternoons. She pulls on the leash, stops to smell whatever it is dogs smell and is adamant about sticking with the smell until she’s ready to move on.

Ok, so some of it is the humans walking her. I haven’t trained them to keep her from doing these things. I also haven’t walked her at that particular time of day.

I do know that when I’m home and she’s out and about in the house, it’s a high energy time. She tears through the house, into the back yard, usually up on furniture (but not since we recovered our couches with decorative and new-age, stylish aluminum foil!), running circles around everything for about half an hour.

So I know she needs some good solid exercise about that time of day. Walking may not be enough. I’ll have to think on this some more.

Then there’s also that I need to train her to walk nicely whenever she’s on the leash, no matter how much energy she has or who’s walking her. I also need to train the other members of my house how to get her to do what she’s supposed to.

I’ll do some walking with her at this time of day and see what happens. I may have to get out my handy prong collar for these walks. Knowing her temperament, I probably would only have to use it once or twice and she’d get the message.

Will write more as I have success (or failure for that matter).
Anna

Lacey is now learning the word “outside”. The lamb leg bone and the cow bone that I’ve given her the last couple of days are outside toys (once the meat is gone).

Inside toys are any toys that are squishy, squeak, roll, clean up easily, or haven’t been outside already (or, for that matter, haven’t been inside another living being’s body). Basically, all of Lacey’s toys are inside toys, until she takes them outside. Then they have to go in the washer before they become inside toys again.

Bones are unquestionably outside toys. She can do whatever she likes with them outside.

She tries to bring them in the back door and lie on the rug just inside the door to chew on them. I KNOW she understand the subtle difference between lying on the rug inside the door and lying on the mat just outside the door, even though they are inches apart. She gets it.

As soon as I say, “Lacey, outside” she gets up, lowers her head and ears, and slumps out to the mat — a mere 6 inches away!! What is that — that she is determined to be inside rather than outside???

Goofy dog.

Anyway, she knows exactly what the word means now. The challenge is getting her to surrender to what she knows versus staying inside and trying to trump my alpha position.

We’re also working on “in the other room” because she’s always so underfoot in the kitchen.

My dog’s vocabulary is growing by the day.

I really do love this dog.
Anna

I’m still working on this flea problem. My friend Leslie recommended flea busters. My brother’s girlfriend Julia recommended Revolution. I’ve done some research.

I’m still at the “I want what I’m doing to work” stage. So we’re doing the Advantage and now I comb her with a flea comb every day. I still get probably 30 fleas every day. Granted, they are smaller and move very slow, but they’re still fleas, they still bite her, and she still scratches.

Ug.

Apparently there are still fleas in the upstairs bedrooms.

I’m treating the carpets upstairs with Borax, which creates a very dry environment and the fleas can’t live in it. If that doesn’t work, I’m using the diatomaceous earth, which I know works on critters with outer shells (fleas, roaches, etc).

I’ve also got this herbal spray to spray on her. Of course, she hates the sprayer, so I ended up pouring it on my hand and rubbing it into her coat. Fleas must hate it because I treated her back and head and 30 minutes later she had tons of fleas on her belly (which I then flea-combed off of her).

I’m getting more determined. Maybe flea busters and Revolution are the answers. And maybe Frontline. But I don’t want to use Frontline unless I just have to.

I’m on a mission to be flea-free, without a bunch of hassle or harsh chemicals. We’ll see how successful I am.

Anna

We have new couch covers. It’s kinda space-age looking. Kinda like the Jetsons or Star Trek.

It’s tin foil.

Lacey has this really bad habit of getting on the couch in the living room so she can see out the window onto the front porch. Or she might jump up on the couch when she’s playing and really hyper.

It works. She hates it. However, she’s figured out a way to get up there without touching the foil. ok, so I’m going to have to completely cover the whole thing…. with foil. fortunately, people don’t sit on this couch often. Can you imagine?

Knowing that she hates it is encouraging. Now, just to get the throw pillows covered.

Dogs are a lot of work — ya know?

Fortunately….. I love this dog.
Anna

My mom’s the greatest! Yesterday for dinner I got my usual bowl of mush with some weird tasting orange stuff. THEN, she took me outside and (after the ritual acrobatics that I’m so bored with — come on, can’t you do better than “sit”. I’m so tired of that one) gave me this bone with lots of meat on it.

She talked about it being lamb. I don’t even care — I just know it was soooo gooood. I took it over to my spot in the bushes (I think Mom took a picture so you can see where I eat sometimes) and chewed on it for a long time. Then, I got ready for something else and decided to bury it. But WHERE???

Ok, it has to be someplace secret and I didn’t want anybody watching so I trotted around the yard for a long time looking for the best secret spot. Found it, and buried it. Will come back later for more.

Then this morning I dug it up (and I dug a couple other holes in the yard too. Can you blame me? The sprinkler guy came and fixed a bunch of the sprinklers and left really soft dirt. It just doesn’t get any better than digging in soft dirt) and worked on it some more. There was still some meat on it. Man, heaven!

I hope I get more of those lamb legs. They’re great, even if I do have to keep going back outside when I bring it in to chew it on the carpet. That’s the sacrifice I guess.

I’m a dog — and what a great life!!
Lacey