Raw

I've started the raw diet with Fancy and will put the other 2 on it when our kibble runs out. Everyone who feeds it says it is great. Helps dogs with allergies, less poop to pick up, might stop coprophagia, and so on. I've resisted because I'm lazy about feeding myself and didn't want to put more effort into feeding my dogs than I do me. Plus, I enjoy just throwing kibble in a bowl and not having to worry if I'm getting all the nutrients right. But a friend is helping me out so we are going to see if it works. I have to try something because Fancy is living in a muzzle. Don't believe my mom who says it is because she is viscous. It is because she is eating herself and loosing fur from chewing and getting nasty scabs all over from biting.

The raw diet used to be known as BARF. Bones and Raw Food. Easy to see why people don't call it that anymore. Also easy to see how it got that name as the blood pools in the bottom of the baggie and you try not to spill salmonella on the floor. Or maybe BARF is what happens to you after you get the salmonella. (No one I know who feeds raw has ever gotten food poisoning from it, so I am striving not to be the first.)

Pie and I are no longer bikejoring. We are now just regular biking, getting ready for the SchH AD which is a German word that is super long and means something about endurance dog. You do a 12 mile bike ride with some rest stops. Tying Pie to the side of the bike is safer for her than having her in front, but a lot harder for me to get up the hills. Pie goes for about 1/2 an hour, then she takes a short rest as I hook up the other 2, then we all go out for a slow 10-15 minute ride.

The field where I've been taking the dogs tracking at lunch (Pie and Fancy are doing well, Dottie not so much) is now covered in foxtails. They are not dead and brown yet, but they are still not safe, so we've gone there for the last time this season. There is no where else close enough to track during lunch, so now we are biking during lunch and will track in a park after work. The bike ride at lunch went fine today, but took a little longer than it should have, so next time I will be sure to time it better. I do not bike on base. I drive off base and park in the parking lot of the tracking field, use the bridge to cross the Hwy 1, then bike on the local farm access roads. Pie does not like the huge trucks that zoom and rattle up behind us (only 2 today) and the second time one passed us, she stopped short, then got scared as the bike started to tip over on her and drug us backwards into a ditch. No one was injured and Dad, don't worry- we are not going fast enough to get hurt if I somehow managed to fall of and yes I am wearing my helmet. And when I am riding the bike instead of standing and straddling it like I was when she backed into the ditch, she is not able to influence my movement at all.

I just had to yell at Dottie for choking (stop it!) because she was pretending to hack something up on the floor, then came closer and pretended to do it on my afghan. I gave her a bone to chew on to distract her and spotted a bent whisker. So sad for Dottie.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!