Feeding RAW

Ryker eating his first turkey on Thanksgiving 2007

I have been feeding RAW for 2 years. I was happy with the food I was feeding my dogs, they liked it and I had no issues with allergies. Then on March 15th 2007 some of the foods of the same company were being voluntarily recalled.
Someone in the Ogden plant in Utah had cut corners and bought un-approved rice from China. No other plants were effected. At least that was the story that was told to the consumers. I have been thinking about feeding RAW for at least 4 years prior to this incident and this helped me make my decision to switch very easy. 70% of my dog training friends feed RAW and have been telling me to switch all along.
I did it cold turkey, no pun intended, and brought back the unused portion of the kibble back for a full refund. For the first 2 months I fed only chicken. Chicken feet, hearts, gizzards, liver included. I did not want their tummies to get upset and chicken the best way to help them switch. After about 6 weeks I added a bit of fish, then beef, then lamb, then turkey. It was challenging to give them enough skin and bone. Loose stools, more bone; harder stool, more skin. Here is a list of foods they get, salmon oil, coconut oil, olive oil, cottage cheese, pumpkin, green beans, spinach, carrots, bananas, apples, yogurt, eggs with the shell, anything I can get my hands on from beef, pork, turkeys, chicken lamb, fish. I have been offered lamb heads, but I am not brave enough to handle it. I am sure my pups would love it.
I stopped feeding raw chicken bone. Rylie and Raygen would swallow large pieces and on more then one occasion regurgitate them during the night. They still get bone, but it is crushed into pieces and blended into a paste. I used to feed raw meaty beef bones and lamb bones. I noticed Rylie had broken a tooth and that was the end of feeding larger bones, too.
This does not prevent me from still feeding them raw. I have never seen dogs go crazy at feeding time before.

Calming/Avoidance

I wanted to take a picture of the pups as they sat next to each other. I positioned them and asked them to stay. As I turned around Ryker had turned his head away from Ryddick and when I snapped the photo Ryddick was also avoiding him by looking and lying down. This is typical avoidance behavior. Yes, there are issues between Ryddick and Ryker and yes, I have to manage and train them to be able to live in the same home. No I will not re-home either and no using aversives does not work to fix this problem. It may suppress it, but not fix it.
I have been training using positive methods described in the books, Click To Calm by Emma Parsons, Feisty Fido by Patricia McConnell, Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt. I have learned to better read Ryddick's body language to avoid a full blown tantrum. I am happy with how they respond to the training and proud to say that I did not use aversives to get where we are.

WW Posing for a Poster

Left to Right Ryker, Rocci, Ziggy, Raygen, Donner and Ty (or Ty and Donner?)

WW Time Flies

Less then 2 weeks old

3 1/3 weeks old

6 years old

Rylie TPLO Update

The Surgery went well. My vet allows me to be with my dogs when they wake up. After an hour sitting with her I took her home. Spending the night is not an option for me or my dogs.
I have been lucky with my vets, as they allow me to make important decisions without making me feel bad in any way.
Rylie has been extremely well behaved. I have set up an x-pen in the living room next to the couch and an x-pen next to my bed. I keep her on a short leash when I take her out into the backyard to go potty. She gets to walk for about 5 minutes and then I put her back into the x-pen. I know she does not understand the new routine, but she doesn't mind. I take some time to open the x-pen and sit in with her and play some target games and a new trick that I will post on youtube when she gets good at it.
And as a bonus.... she pooped today. Nothing since Wednesday the morning before the surgery.
Phew, she was getting heavy hauling up and down the stairs.

WW TPLO Surgery

Rylie is going to have TPLO surgery today. I am hoping for the best.

WW Like Father Like Son

Slickcrownjewl aka Ryddick

One Slick Buck aka Slick

Success at GIVTC trial, 2-15/16

More runs and more ribbons. Raygen Q'ed in both JWW and earend another 16 points. As a bonus he finished 4th in his last JWW run. The ground cover was very hard, dry and slippery and at one point in my STD run I slipped. It was difficult to stay on task with handling and Raygen sucked into the wrong tunnel twice.
Ryker did really well. He never dropped a bar, did all his contacts, did not run a wrong course. He was just not getting the weaves. Which keeps us from qualifying in Exc. No mistakes allowed.
Ryddick ran again on Monday and qualified both in the JWW and Std run. No knocked bars, no off-course and no refusals and two new Agility titles NAP and NJP (first AKC titles). After such a long break I now need to make a plan on what, how and where to train. Next trial will be in Farmington in March. It will be a DOCNA trial and there is training in the ring allowed. Good for Ryddick and I.

IKC Agility Trial 2/13-14

Ryddick JWW

I had a great time the last two days at the IKC Agility Trial in South Jordan. Raygen' s JWW run on Friday was very nice. He only missed the serpentine when he looked for Libby, a dog he really likes. Ryker's JWW was O.K. on Saturday. He pulled out of the weaves and missed the serpentine. I handled mostly with rear crosses and the last sequence with 5 jumps was sloppy. He however did not knock any bars and held his SLS until I released him. This alone is reason to celebrate. On Saturday I was doing some front crosses that I haven't tried with neither dog at a trial and it worked beautifully. I did not stumble and fall and they read my cues nicely. Ryker did take and off course, but recovered nicley after that. Raygen was listening very well and I overhandled a jump and pulled him off. Otherwise my handling seems to get more in sinc with the big boys.
Our Standard runs were amazing. Raygen Q'ed both days and earned 23 points. Ryker had a beautiful run on Friday with only one off course. Saturday he ran beautifully. He missed his weave pole entry, however the rest of the course was clean and again he did not knock a bar.
As a bonus I ran Ryddick today. His teeter issue is not as bad, but he still barks at it. He knocked a bar in STD and pummelled a jump in JWW. The rest of the course were nice. He handles a bit more like a tank than a Ferrari (Ryker) and he is a lot of fun.
Here are some videos

Flyball St. George, January 31st, February 1st

I am a bit behind in posting about our very successful Flyball tournament with my team UTB.
This one was was sponsored by Stampede in St. George, Utah. The drive is not to bad and the weather was very nice.
Raygen and Ryker were signed up for singles races and Ryddick came along for the ride.
This was Ryker's debut race. His best time was 4.18 seconds. This was Raygen's second tournament and he really loved it. His best time was 4.77 seconds.
To my suprise I was asked to run Raygen and Ryker in one of the team races. Raygen's turn was on Saturday and Ryker was to run on Sunday. Both of them did fantastic and earned their of TF/Top Flight title. Maybe Ryker will go to Nationals in Nebraska this year?