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Learn about the breed

FBDCA Booklet

Order this easy-to-read book­let about French Bull­dogs and the best way to find one for only $5, and that includes shipping!

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Austin French Bulldog Meetup Group

The Austin French Bull­dog Meetup

Time to dust off your heatstroke knowledge

Our unusu­ally long, pleas­ant spring weather is swap­ping out for warmer air. Time to reac­quaint our­selves with the basics of heat­stroke pre­ven­tion and treatment.

The best heat­stroke advice is, “Pre­ven­tion is bet­ter than treat­ment!” This sounds very sim­plis­tic, but many peo­ple don’t real­ize, once a dog has expe­ri­enced real heat­stroke they are phys­i­cally altered for the rest of their life. Heat­stroke dam­ages the part of the brain which con­trols tem­per­a­ture, putting the dog at greater risk for expe­ri­enc­ing it again because they can no longer reg­u­late their body tem­per­a­tures correctly.

Before a dog reaches heat­stroke, they will exhibit signs of heat exhaus­tion. Learn the signs and this will be your best chance to keep your dog from ever going into full heatstroke.

Here is a great run down on how to pre­vent and treat heat­stroke by Linda Kalmar, DVM. (This arti­cle can be found at the FBDCA site. It’s copied below for you in its entirety.) At the bot­tom of the arti­cle are links to past Good Blog­gie! entries on this topic.

HEATSTROKE
by Linda Kalmar, DVM

Heat­stroke occurs when the bodyʼs nor­mal com­pen­satory mech­a­nisms are overcome. Dogs are inefficient at cool­ing because they donʼt sweat — they can only cool them­selves by pant­ing. Cer­tain con­di­tions such as brachy­cephalic faces and laryn­geal paral­y­sis can pre­dis­pose dogs to heat­stroke. The dogʼs nor­mal responses to increased tem­per­a­ture are pant­ing and dilated blood cap­il­lar­ies at the skinʼs sur­face. That increase of blood flow close to the skinʼs sur­face per­mits more heat to escape from the blood into the air. Inter­est­ingly when the dog has a fever of 105° or 106° F, the phys­i­o­logic processes arenʼt as affected because in a fever the hypo­thal­a­mus in the brain re-sets the bodyʼs “nor­mal” temp to a higher set point. This is also why mam­mals shiver when they have a fever — the body is work­ing hard to main­tain the new higher “nor­mal” temp. Heatstroke is dif­fer­ent because the nor­mal body tem­per­a­ture hasnʼt been re-set.

How can heat­stroke hap­pen to dogs that belong to smart own­ers like us?

  • Dogs left in car
  • Crated dog left near heat vent
  • Local weather changes
  • Travel related weather changes
  • Unex­pected shut­off of A/C at home or in motor home
  • Dark coated dogs in the sun absorb more heat than light coated dogs

Early signs of heat exhaustion:

  • Heavy pant­ing
  • Bright red gums/tongue (and ears in Frenchies with pink ear lin­ings). The gum should show rapid cap­il­lary refill; that is when you draw your finger­nail along it the gum should whiten, but then quickly turn red again.
  • Increased sali­va­tion early (often thick, ropy saliva), then no salivation
  • Weak­ness
  • Con­fu­sion / lack of attention
  • Pos­si­bly vom­it­ing / diarrhea

Severe heat­stroke signs:

  • Rapid heart­beat / pulse (prac­tice finding this on your dog under nor­mal con­di­tions and make a note of its nor­mal heartrate)
  • Vom­it­ing blood (indi­cates dog is going into toxic shock)
  • Bloody diar­rhea “ “ “ “ “ “ “
  • Severe ataxia (staggering)
  • Coma
  • Gums may turn grey­ish, blueish, lavender.

So I see a dog in dis­tress; what should I do?

  • Move dog to shade/cooler place immediately
  • Take tem­per­a­ture rec­tally. You should know your dogʼs nor­mal tem­per­a­ture as it can vary from about 100° to 102.5°, with an aver­age of 101.5° F
  • Mist dog heav­ily with tepid water to cool (BUT NOT COLD) water and turn a fan on it. If no elec­tric fan is avail­able, fan it your­self. The aim is to move air over the dogʼs body so as to cause the water to evap­o­rate and “pull” heat with it (evap­o­ra­tive cooling).
  • DO NOT PLUNGE DOG INTO ICE OR ICE WATER!!!!!!!!! The cap­il­lar­ies at the sur­face of the skin, which are des­per­ately try­ing to trans­fer heat from blood to envi­ron­ment, will con­strict in response to the cold, thus slow­ing heat loss and pos­si­bly even rais­ing the dogʼs core tem­per­a­ture. Even tepid water is much cooler than the dogʼs body temp. The most impor­tant need is to get the air cir­cu­lat­ing. How much cooler do you feel when it is hot and humid but there is a light breeze, ver­sus hot and humid and no breeze? Do NOT lay wet tow­els on the dog. These warm up rapidly and can actu­ally trap the heat. Air move­ment past the dogʼs damp skin is the key!
  • Donʼt use large amounts of alco­hol for cool­ing as it can be absorbed through the skin and reach toxic levels.

Con­tinue to mon­i­tor the dogʼs rec­tal tem­per­a­ture and stop cool­ing efforts when it gets down to 103° F. At that point you can dry the dog off and move the fans back a bit, as you donʼt want its temp to drop too far too fast. If the dog is alert it is ok to offer a lit­tle cool (NOT ICY) water. Con­tinue tak­ing the rec­tal temp for awhile to make sure the temp con­tin­ues to fall. Should it start to rise again, re-mist and fan some more.

If the dog was in actual heat­stroke — not just the early stages of heat exhaus­tion — it is vital to get him/her to a vet­eri­nary clinic where he/she can be mon­i­tored around the clock for two or three days. Thatʼs because when the body temp goes above 106° F, the cells actu­ally “cook” — nor­mal body processes quit, cel­lu­lar pro­teins dena­ture (fall apart), and a cas­cade of changes occurs which can lead to liver and/or kid­ney fail­ure cere­bral edema (swelling of the brain), and DIC (dis­sem­i­nated intravas­cu­lar coag­u­la­tion). DIC refers to a clot­ting process that has spi­raled out of control. Microscopic blood clots form in all the cap­il­lar­ies through­out the body incred­i­bly quickly — so fast that the bodyʼs clot­ting fac­tors are all used up. This then leads to inter­nal hem­or­rhag­ing and death. Most dogs who sur­vive heat­stroke require round the clock mon­i­tor­ing by a vet for a few days to make sure liver and kid­ney func­tion return to normal.

If you are able to get a dog in heat­stroke to the vet quickly enough, treat­ment will mostly be sup­port­ive: close mon­i­tor­ing, IV fluids, mea­sure­ment of fluid intake/output, temperature mon­i­tor­ing, steroids.

Dogs who have suf­fered from severe heat­stroke are at increased risk of episodes for the rest of their lives due to dam­age to the ther­moreg­u­la­tory cen­ter in the brain. So remember;

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN TREATMENT!

Read past Good Blog­gie! posts on this topic:

We recently learned of a portable air con­di­tion­ing sys­tem. Can’t endorse it, since we haven’t used it, but post­ing a link for your con­sid­er­a­tion. If you’ve used one, let us know what you think. Cli­ma­teRight Portable Air Con­di­tioner and Heater

Stay safe and stay cool!

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Blatantly and unashamedly cute – and sleepy

Yup. This is a blog entry com­pletely rely­ing on cute fac­tor. No real con­tent. No socially redeem­ing mes­sage. No apolo­gies extended. You’ll live.

This is one of my favorite pup­pies of all our lit­ters because he was so sweet – and sleepy. He’d just cud­dle and snug­gle and snooze – most any­where – until he was seven weeks old. Then one day he woke up, sniffed the kib­ble and decided there was more to life than nap­ping and needed to make up for lost time and began zip­ping and zap­ping around the place. It was amaz­ing. Made your head spin. Never had another puppy like him since, so far…

He’s actu­ally Cocoa’s lit­ter­mate brother, so don’t write expect­ing him to be avail­able. He was spo­ken for a long time ago by a great fam­ily. He must’ve liked ‘em because his hol­i­day cards don’t include, “Save me!” writ­ten in invis­i­ble ink or drool. Word is, he’s come full cir­cle and gone back to his snoozy ways as a senior.

So kick back, relax, and enjoy a cuppa pup this Fri­day. And if you curl up and take a nap in the cor­ner, we won’t tell on you.

Pup in a Cup

Corners make good pillows

 

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Trying out online pet retailer, Mr. Chewy

*** Notice: In exchange for a review of the MrChewy.com site, we were offered a gift cer­tifi­cate for prod­ucts.
No restric­tions were placed on us. We accepted the assign­ment and what fol­lows is a true account­ing of our expe­ri­ence and opin­ions of MrChewy.com prod­ucts and services. ***

How we got the assignment

A few weeks ago, MrChewy.com approached us about try­ing out their online store in exchange for a gift cer­tifi­cate and a blog writeup of our shop­ping expe­ri­ence. After some inves­ti­ga­tion of the com­pany (to make sure they were legit!) we were pleased to see only were they legit, sev­eral other pet blog­gers had been offered this same oppor­tu­nity and had lots of good things to say about MrChewy.com.

Mr. Chewy logo

Fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion showed MrChewy.com is even receiv­ing praise from The Wall Street Jour­nal: A Dog’s New Best Friend: The Deliv­ery Man.

We are a bit abashed to say we’ve not heard of Nulo, an Austin, Texas, based brand of pet food and they are mak­ing Mr. Chewy their exclu­sive online retailer. This pairs with Whole Foods, as the only other retailer and only in-person store, where you can pur­chase this brand. Humm… another food to check out; the Crew will be pleased.

Now, onto our expe­ri­ence and review!

Order­ing Experience

Nor­mally, we buy most of our kib­ble and pet foods from local retail­ers. One rea­son is to sup­port local busi­nesses, and two; they make great out­ings to dog-friendly estab­lish­ments for lucky mem­bers of the Crew. How­ever, we do occa­sion­ally buy food online, so this was worth cer­tainly worth check­ing out. Plus, the site is easy to nav­i­gate and very fast, mak­ing for a pleas­ant shop­ping experience.

MrChewy.com pro­motes their prices are “cheaper than the store.” Now that’s some­thing we can always sink our teeth into! A spot check of our favorite brands showed, while the prices were good, they weren’t actu­ally cheaper. Then noticed the ban­ner at the top of the site offer­ing 15% off. With 15% off, the prices did drop below local prices. How­ever, the 15% only applies if you sign up for auto­matic ship­ment and only on the first ship­ment. The ship­ment sched­ule can be altered once it is in place, so you aren’t locked into a rigid sched­ule. Another big perk to shop­ping with Mr. Chewy: free ship­ping for all US orders if the amount is over $49. If your order doesn’t make it over $49, there is a small $4.95 flat rate ship­ping fee.

70-brands-logosWhile brows­ing through the foods, we were extremely impressed with the selec­tion of pre­mium, high-quality, grain-free kib­ble. Their inven­tory seems to increase every­day, as a kib­ble we like wasn’t avail­able upon our first visit, but became avail­able on the next one. If you don’t see your food, check back, or bet­ter yet, shoot them an e-mail to find out if they will be car­ry­ing it soon. Mr. Chewy cur­rently car­ries over 70+ brands of pet food, and other items, such as flea treat­ments and pet health care products.

We made our selec­tion and com­pleted the pur­chase on the site. Dur­ing check­out, we noticed they do not accept Pay­Pal, but do accept major credit cards. The site offers a smooth order­ing pro­cess­ing with imme­di­ate noti­fi­ca­tion of order place­ment. The next day another e-mail arrived, announc­ing that our order had been shipped along with the track­ing num­ber. From order place­ment to deliv­ery, a total of four days. Not bad for a heavy pack­age and free shipping!

Since sign­ing up with Mr. Chewy, we also receive newsy e-mails explain­ing com­mon pet ali­ments and the per­fect, in-stock prod­uct for the issue. You can unsub­scribe, but we’ve found these e-mails very infor­ma­tive and are stay­ing on the mail­ing list.

MrChewy-RocksieEyesBox

Rock­sie plays box inspector.

MrChewy_RocksieCocoa_EyeBox

Rock­sie and Cocoa eye­ing the Mr. Chewy box. Cocoa already has the right idea.

Deliv­ery

Cocoa, Rock­sie, and Ghost were con­ve­niently on hand to help with open­ing the pack­age. The heavy box got a good once over, then eyes got brighter once the box opened.

One of the items ordered were Sojos Good Dog Treats. We’ve bought these in the past and really like their intense, fruity smell and tiny size. Just per­fect for bed­time treats or treats any time. We’d bought some from a local store a few months ago, but even though they were within their expi­ra­tion date they had gone stale/rancid. The local store gladly took them back, but we’d rather had a good, fresh box. Thought we’d give them another try through Mr. Chewy.

The Mr. Chewy-delivered boxes did not dis­ap­point! The Sojos treats were aro­matic and fresh. (They smelled so good I almost ate one myself!) The other great thing? They are a cou­ple of bucks cheaper per box at Mr. Chewy than what we can get locally; and that’s with­out a coupon or discount.

MrChewy_GhostCocoa_HelpingWithTrash

Ghost and Cocoa help with trash removal.

MrChewy_Ghost_TakinOutTrash

When Ghost offered to “take out the trash,” we didn’t know he meant Tony Soprano style!

 

Char­i­ta­ble Giving

One of the dri­ving forces behind Mr. Chewy is a mis­sion to donate to ani­mal causes. As of now, they donate to three res­cue and shel­ter char­i­ties: North Shore Ani­mal League, Best Friends Ani­mal Soci­ety, and Bideawee. Every time you pur­chase from Mr. Chewy, a per­cent­age is donated to the char­ity of your choice. (Read directly from the Mr. Chewy site here.)

Cur­rent Mr. Chewy cus­tomers are given a refer­ral num­ber to share with friends, which gets the friend (that’s you!) 10% off their first order and also donates $10 to a char­ity. We were given a code and are happy to share it with you. (We do not receive any kick­back from this refer­ral, so order away!)

Refer­ral code
FREN8314
10% off first order, plus $10 to choice of three charities.

There is a line ask­ing for sug­ges­tions of more char­i­ties to add, and of course we’d love to see French Bull­dog char­i­ties on the list (as would the Bull­mas­tiff peo­ple like to see their breed char­i­ties, or the Whip­pet peo­ple theirs) but with the real­iza­tion Mr. Chewy would be inter­ested in char­i­ties with gen­eral scope and appeal, we offer up the fol­low­ing suggestions.

To round out their char­i­ties, per­haps orga­ni­za­tions ded­i­cated to the health of all breeds, mixes, and pets, such as the Ortho­pe­dic Foun­da­tion for Ani­mals or the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Oph­thal­mol­o­gists (who are offer­ing free eye exams to ser­vice dogs in May. Reg­is­ter your Ser­vice or Ther­apy dog this month!) Which leads us into Ser­vice and Ther­apy ani­mal char­i­ties. An orga­ni­za­tion whose pur­pose is to train and sup­ply ser­vice ani­mals would be very wor­thy of adding to the mix. We are par­tial to Texas Hear­ing and Ser­vice Dogs, but there is a huge list­ing of char­i­ties and orga­ni­za­tions at this resource-rich web­site: TherapyDogOrganizations.net. If you’ve been think­ing about mak­ing your ani­mal a ther­apy ani­mal, this site is a must-visit as it com­pre­hen­sively lists national, inter­na­tional, state, and regional organizations.

MrChewy_MandieNGhost_treat2

Mandie and Ghost show antic­i­pa­tion (and a sit!) for their Mr. Chewy deliv­ered Sojos Good Dog treat.

The Wrap Up

We think Mr. Chewy is on the right track with their easy process of order­ing pre­mium pet foods at good prices. They seem to real­ize that in order to attract cus­tomers they need to offer more than low prices and we are impressed with their fresh, qual­ity prod­ucts and the added bonus of free ship­ping. While we will con­tinue to patron­ize our local shops, we now have an alter­na­tive source for our favorite kib­bles and treats and will check with Mr. Chewy to see if their price is bet­ter and to see what new brands they have added to their selection.

If your are a busy, busy per­son who could ben­e­fit from front door deliv­ery of their pet food, or if you can’t get pre­mium brands locally and want good prices and free ship­ping, or if you want to pur­chase food from a com­pany mak­ing a con­certed effort to con­tribute to ani­mals in need, Mr. Chewy is for you!

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A Conversation with Rocksie

Rock­sie eye­balled me, let­ting out a snuffly, noisy “Hey!”

“Hey what!?” I asked.

“When are you going to put that thingy up?” she asked, punc­tu­at­ing her remark with a play bow, an ear flash, and a butt wig­gle for emphasis.

Enjoy­ing the spec­ta­cle, I gig­gled,  “Gee, could you nar­row that down a bit?”

“You know. That flat thingy from the street box. You said came out nice.” (Rock­sie pro­nounces nice like wroof!, but I’m a good translator.)

Try­ing to imag­ine what a flat thingy from a street box might be, “You mean a photo?”

“Yeah! That’s it!” Rock­sie agreed. “Those flat thin­gies from those places where I lead you around on a string, show myself off, and flirt with peo­ple. Give ‘em some of the famous 360° butt wig­gle.” Rock­sie finds this hys­ter­i­cal and starts rac­ing around in cir­cles, bark­ing madly, amus­ing her­self and me.

“Oh! A show photo! That’s right. You did take a nice photo at that show. Nice win, too: Best of Breed, Bred-by.”

“Yeah, yeah! Got those strips of rib­bon and didn’t I get some­thing green and fluffy?

“You did. An embroi­dered towel.”

“How come I don’t get to play with those rib­bon things? Would make good cat toys,” her eyes light­ing up and body on full alert at the thought of a game of Cat Toy. Her eyes glaze over as she chants, “Oooo… CAT TOY, CAT TOY!!! Let’s play Cat Toy!” She starts swing­ing her head towards the door of the des­ig­nated Cat Toy room. (For those won­der­ing what the heck Cat Toy is, click here.)

“You’ve had two big rounds of Cat Toy today already. You’ve had quite enough,” I said rub­bing my worn out arm.

Rock­sie pouts, “Hurmph! No such thing as enough Cat Toy.” She pauses, glares, then asks, “So when are you going to put up the photo thingy?”

“Now, I guess, since you are remind­ing me so politely.”

Rock­sie bright­ened a bit and and smiled, let­ting out a big, snorty, “Achhhh.”

I scanned, resized, and uploaded the image. “There! Now you are up and every­one can see how nice you looked that day.” I picked her up to show her the com­puter screen.

“I do look nice! Nice enough to have earned another round of Cat Toy!” she said with a side­ways glance full of mischief.

“Oh why not!?,” giv­ing in to the irre­sistible force that is Rock­sie. “You did earn an extra round or two of Cat Toy that day.”

Before I’d even fin­ished my sen­tence she bar­reled to the room with her favorite toy, leap­ing wildly at the door. I shook my head and fol­lowed her. “What a crazy breed French Bull­dogs are,” I thought to myself. “Leave it to this breed to include one snorty girl, totally obsessed with feline toys!”

For your view­ing plea­sure, here is the thingy Rock­sie was refer­ring to; her win photo taken at the Jan­u­ary 2012 Heart of Texas French Bull­dog Club Spe­cialty. Rock­sie won Best of Breed, Bred-by under the astute eye of bull­dog judge, Link New­comb. She would like to thank him very much for the addi­tional rounds of Cat Toy this award win brought her. :-)

Rocksie Best of Breed, Bred-by, 2012

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Yearly wavier on rabies vaccination passed by AVMA

The Amer­i­can Vet­eri­nary Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion (AVMA) recently approved pol­icy rec­om­mend­ing eli­gi­ble ani­mals be allowed to bypass a man­dated rabies vac­cine, on a year-to-year basis.

…AVMA rec­og­nizes some ani­mals might require a waiver from rabies vac­ci­na­tion because the vac­ci­na­tion poses an unac­cept­ably high risk to the health of the indi­vid­ual animal…

This is great news for ani­mals whose health may be com­pro­mised by the rabies vac­ci­na­tion, how­ever, the AVMA warns this should not be an arbi­trar­ily issued wavier.

If the ani­mal is involved in a poten­tial rabies inci­dent, the ani­mal is to be con­sider unvac­ci­nated and appro­pri­ate reg­u­la­tions and pro­ce­dures are to be fol­lowed. For a never vac­ci­nated ani­mal, this will most likely result in imme­di­ate euthana­sia. Ani­mals over­due for a vac­cine will require eval­u­a­tion, revac­ci­na­tion, pos­si­ble long-term quar­an­tine, and pos­si­ble euthanasia.

AVMA rec­om­mends the wavier be renewed yearly, upon exam­i­na­tion by a licensed vet and upon the con­di­tion of the animal.

If you opt for this wavier, be very sure you are able to keep your pet or ani­mal from any rabies expo­sure, espe­cially in the case of a never vac­ci­nated ani­mal. Accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC), wild ani­mals accounted for 92% of 6,153 reported cases in 2010, domes­tic ani­mals accounted for the other 8%.

For full pol­icy word­ing and to down­load a wavier form from the AVMA, please click: AVMA pol­icy: Annual Rabies Vac­ci­na­tion Waiver. Check with your vet and your state health depart­ment whether this pol­icy may be enacted in your state. This is not an auto­matic wavier and must be enacted in accor­dance with local reg­u­la­tory guide­lines and state laws.

For more on rabies and your pet, please visit the fol­low­ing links:

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A Texas-based French Bulldog Rescue

Short Mugs Rescue Squad logoFrench Bull­dogs are lucky to have some very fine res­cue groups ded­i­cated to the breed and we have to admit we have a soft spot for one located here in Texas that serves the Texas, Okla­homa, Louisiana regions: Short Mugs Res­cue Squad. SMRS started up last year and proudly announced this week they have acquired their offi­cial 501c3 sta­tus, mean­ing any dona­tions are now fully tax deductible.

In a short time, SMRS has gone from startup to tak­ing care of some of the hard­est of hard luck cases. Just take a look at Hope and Faith, two Frenchie girls left aban­doned in an Hous­ton apart­ment with no food or water. Both girls are being treated and reha­bil­i­tated for their future, lov­ing home. Hope and Faith.

Not all dogs in their care are this bad. Many are in much bet­ter shape, just need­ing a place to stop off while in tran­sit to a new home. SMRS res­cues and places all types of short-nosed breeds and mixes, but spe­cial­izes in French Bulldogs. If you live in Texas, Okla­homa, or Louisiana and are think­ing of get­ting a French Bull­dog, Pug, Boston Ter­rier, or Eng­lish Bull­dog, stop by their web­site and see who’s avail­able and who will be avail­able soon. One of those cute mugs may steal your heart.

Short Mugs Res­cue Squad Ani­mals Avail­able for Adop­tion and Sponsorship

If you aren’t search­ing for a dog at the moment, visit the SMRS Auc­tion and see what good­ies you can nab for your­self or your own pooch. There is dog stuff, fun stuff, seri­ous stuff, art­work, and even some high fash­ion! (Gucci any­one?) Auc­tion con­tin­ues until 8PM CST March 25, 2012.

Link: Short Mugs Res­cue Squad Face­book Auc­tion
Click on pho­tos to enlarge and bid. More auc­tion direc­tions here.

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Bulldog Bats

Saw a pic­ture in a children’t book and couldn’t resist post­ing a link to it so you can see the image.

Bull­dog Bats (Library of Bats) by Emily Raabe, Powerkids Press – Rosen Publishing

Appar­ently, there are two types of Bull­dog Bats: the bat species, which gets their name from their floppy, bulldog-like jowls, and the wooden ones for play­ing baseball!

Learn more about the Bull­dog Bat by watch­ing a Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel video of one out for a nightly fish­ing trip. Life: Bull­dog Bats Fish at Night

Sci­en­tists are learn­ing bats rec­og­nize indi­vid­u­als among them­selves. Guess it’s good to know bats are social and can ask each other, “Hey, how’s it hang­ing?” The Lan­guage of Bats — ScienceDaily.com

If base­ball is more your thing, check out the hand-turned wooden bats found at Bull­dog Bats in Con­necti­cut.

Why yes, this is an odd blog post, but the tag line does say most things Frenchies. :-)

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10-Minute Kibble Topper for Dogs

Once in awhile we have a bout of picky eat­ing around here and you may, too.

We’ve found a spoon­ful or two of home­made kib­ble top­per perks up our crew’s appetite. This is our eas­i­est recipe, need­ing only two ingre­di­ents, ten min­utes, and it’s scaleable. That is, what you pur­chase for the basic ingre­di­ents eas­ily changes the pro­tein source, how organic it is, the fat con­tent, and how much the dish will cost.

10-Minute Home­made Kib­ble Topper

  • 1 lb. ground meat (Beef, bison, chicken, turkey, or lamb. Reg­u­lar, lean, or super-lean. Choose stan­dard, grass-fed, or free-range.)
  • 1 bag of frozen veg­gies (Peas & car­rots or green beans)

Place ground meat in microwav­able dish and break apart with a spoon.

Cover and microwave for 2 min­utes. Remove. Stir and break up chunks. Microwave again for 1 more minute.

Stir in frozen veg­gies. Microwave for another 2 min­utes. Stir and microwave for another 2 minutes.

Let mix­ture cool for a 3–5 min­utes and it’s ready to serve.

Now you have nearly two pounds of home­made top­per; about the equiv­a­lent of three cans of pre­mium canned food. We store ours in the refrig­er­a­tor in a sealed con­tainer, scoop out what we need per meal, reheat for a few sec­onds in the microwave. Viola! Warm, yummy kib­ble top­ping and happy, dish-cleaning dogs.

You can see how eas­ily this recipe adjusts in qual­ity, price, and fla­vor. Buy ground meat on sale or spend the extra cash for hormone-free meat and organic veg­gies. Dog aller­gic to beef? Try ground chicken. Wor­ried about fat con­tent? Drain the meat before adding the veg­gies. (Too much fat can cause annoy­ing diges­tive issues, chubby pets, or worst of all, pan­cre­ati­tis.) No wor­ries about salt, because you aren’t adding any. Check the ingre­di­ent list of the frozen veg­eta­bles though; some­times they do con­tain salt.

Chop­ping up fresh veg­gies will add time, but if you feel it’s worth the extra effort, go for it! In addi­tion to peas, car­rots, and green beans, own­ers who feed raw sug­gest broc­coli, spinach, and cel­ery. Just remem­ber to skip onions. Here is an excel­lent arti­cle of foods to stay away from at Fetchdog.com: Deli­cious for us, Dan­ger­ous to Dogs; Foods to Keep Away From Your Dog

One note, do your dog a big favor; even if the ground meat is a bar­gain, avoid those con­tain­ing pink slime. (Ground meat with pink slime is con­sid­ered human grade, but we wouldn’t want to feed ammo­nium hydrox­ide to our dogs.) ABC News has a list of stores which do not sell ground meat with pink slime: Pink-Slime-Free Beef. We are very happy to see our local gro­cery store chain, H-E-B, sells ground beef sans this additive.

If you are feed­ing kib­ble, this recipe is a nice way have the con­ve­nience of kib­ble, but with a lit­tle sump’n extra made by you on top. Let us know what your kitchen floor crit­ics think of your cooking.

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A win for Minnesota dogs (Rabies vaccinations)

A siz­able num­ber of vet­eri­nar­i­ans in Min­nesota are vac­ci­nat­ing their clients more often than every three years with 3-year rabies vac­cine. The Rabies Chal­lenge Fund shared the good news of how they are help­ing Min­nesota dogs avoid over-vaccination with a recent state Vet­eri­nary Board rul­ing. Details below.

(If you don’t know how over-vaccination can dam­age your pet’s health, please click here.)

Cross-posted with per­mis­sion from the Rabies Chal­lenge Fund.

MINNESOTA Board of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine issues Rabies Vac­ci­na­tion Guid­ance Doc­u­ment 3/1/12 http://www.vetmed.state.mn.us/portals/22/RabiesVaccinationGuidanceDocument.pdf

“rabies vac­ci­na­tion cer­tifi­cate should always com­ply with Min­nesota Rule 1705.1146, includ­ing dis­play­ing the date of vac­ci­na­tion and the rabies vac­cine labeled dura­tion of immu­nity, even if the vet­eri­nar­ian rec­om­mends more fre­quent rabies vaccination”

A major vic­tory for Min­nesota pet own­ers thanks to Jane Ander­son & Chris Adding­ton, who, with assis­tance from The Rabies Chal­lenge Fund, have prompted the Min­nesota Board of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine to pub­lish a rabies vac­ci­na­tion guid­ance doc­u­ment in order to get vet­eri­nar­i­ans to fol­low the rec­om­men­da­tions of the CDC’s Rabies Com­pendium, to issue rabies cer­tifi­cates accu­rately reflect­ing the dura­tion of immu­nity on the vac­cine label, to obtain doc­u­mented informed con­sent if admin­is­ter­ing rabies vac­cines off-label, and to have “cred­i­ble, scientifically-based information…in the pos­ses­sion of the vet­eri­nar­ian and avail­able for review” if the vet­eri­nar­ian chooses to adopt a booster pro­to­col other than that rec­om­mended in the Compendium.

The Rabies Vac­ci­na­tion Sur­vey Report can be viewed here:
http://www.rabieschallengefund.org/images/stories/pdfs/rabies_vaccination_committee_survey_results.pdf  

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A different type of show dog

Young Mars.

A young Mars wait­ing for some­thing to drop from the table and into his mouth.

Things have been a bit quiet around here. Two weeks ago we said a final farewell to our old­est boy, Mars.

Mars, or Marz, was short for Marzi­pan. He was a big char­ac­ter and for twelve years pro­vided comic relief and absolute frus­tra­tion with his gre­gar­i­ous and solidly stub­born Frenchie ways. He loved peo­ple and loved an audi­ence. He loved his din­ner fol­lowed by an upside down snooze in your lap, where he emit­ted a softly purring snore. He never stepped foot in the ring; never won any rib­bons or points, but he was our first show dog in that he showed us what Frenchies were all about, the good and the bad.

2 week Mars

A two-week-old Mars.

He was our first planned and highly antic­i­pated show puppy lit­ter. That is, we were expect­ing a lit­ter and got ONE big, fat puppy. It didn’t take long to fig­ure out he wasn’t going to be a show pup, but he was our pup, and thanks to his sin­gle­ton sta­tus and our con­stant atten­tion, the mon­ster pup became a Frenchie unlike any we’ve ever known or prob­a­bly will ever know.

Along with tutor­ing us in Frenchie atti­tude, he schooled us in breed biol­ogy. In his younger years, he showed us, that even with med­ical atten­tion, how seri­ous an ear infec­tion could become. He gave us a crash course on deal­ing with aller­gies in dogs, which included learn­ing the names of antibi­otics, steroids, how to give allergy shots at home, spe­cial med­icated baths, and spe­cial Rx foods. We now can spot and treat ear infec­tions and aller­gies before they get out of hand. We feed our dogs dif­fer­ently due to his suc­cess with grain-free foods and nutri­tional sup­ple­ments. Thanks to our expe­ri­ence with Mars, and despite liv­ing in the Allergy Capi­tol of the World (as Austin is some­times called by locals), aller­gies are now not much of an issue for our crew.

A baby Rock­sie and Mars.

He acquired a per­ma­nent head tilt from the prior ear infec­tions, which gave him an endear­ing, curi­ous expres­sion. We’d worry his hear­ing was start­ing to go because he wouldn’t look at us when call­ing his name. But rat­tle the treat bowl or scoop up some kib­ble? He’d come gal­lop­ing across the yard or house! He could hear just fine. He was just exhibit­ing famous Frenchie Selec­tive Hear­ing. If the topic isn’t inter­est­ing or has no nutri­tional value, there’s no rea­son to listen.

Mars check­ing out a tiny Cocoa.

 

 

Mars taught us how fear­less this breed can be. When intro­duced to new peo­ple, new things, or new sit­u­a­tions, he approached every­thing as the star per­former and fully expected to receive a stand­ing ova­tion. He had favorite peo­ple and one of the most uncanny things he would do, is know when a par­tic­u­lar one was com­ing over to visit. She doesn’t visit very often and even with­out the usual company’s com­ing clue of a burst vac­u­um­ing and tidy­ing activ­ity, about two hours before her arrival (coin­ci­den­tally, the time it takes to drive from her house to ours) he would perk up and eagerly begin star­ing at the front door until she stepped through it where he would greet her with the sig­na­ture Mars pounce, roll, and toe nibble.

Pup Bed

Mars, fit­ting his bulk into the puppy’s bed for a nice nap. Stuff­ing his body into small beds was a habit he con­tin­ued all his life.

He was the prac­tice dog for his later half-brothers and sis­ters, nephews and nieces, and even a great-nephew and great-niece. Once pups were old enough to inter­act with an older dog, it was time to intro­duce Mars. He’d play with them and show them how to take a proper nap, act­ing as their over­sized, bat-eared teddy bear. He’d curl up in their puppy-sized beds and cram his body into the puppy-sized play crate we leave in the playpen.

Mars play­ing cush­ion and heat­ing pad for Argon, Vivian, and Monty.

 

He started slow­ing down and becom­ing a bit can­tan­ker­ous in the past year, as old dogs are wont to do, but it seemed he would just keep chug­ging along, belay­ing any dire pre­dic­tions as he always had. But that Feb­ru­ary morn­ing we woke up to a Mars in dis­tress and it was obvi­ously time to let him go. We took him to the vet clinic for the last time, where we sat on the floor, pet­ting him, say­ing our good­byes, telling Mars sto­ries and escapades, and then – let him go. He will be missed and is one of those leg­endary Most Unfor­get­table Char­ac­ters. This one came equipped with four legs, bat ears, a bugling bark, and a bigger-than-life per­son­al­ity. Farewell our snorty pal; you taught us well.

Mars and pups

Mars going nose-to-nose with his niece Miko.

 

Marzi­pan

Feb­ru­ary 10, 2000 – Feb­ru­ary 17, 2012

Older Mars

Mars, this past October.

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