Friday, February 28, 2014

February is National Pet Dental Health Month: How we keep our teeth super clean!.

Today is the last day of February. As February is National Pet Dental Health Month, we wanted to share with you how we keep our pearly whites clean, healthy and strong!

You may know if you read my blog, that we sometimes eat a super high quality kibble, and we also eat raw too!

Chicken backs, chicken necks and chicken feet are our preferred raw meals that we have at least 3-4 days per week.

Raw meaty bones are a great way to keep your dog's teeth healthy and long lasting. Take a look at mine at nearly 10 years old! Many of our vets say Gracie and I both have the teeth of a two year old.

A great way to start eating a little raw for the health of your dog is to start with chicken necks if your a smaller dog and turkey necks if your a larger dog. That's what we did. And you should see how much we love them! On raw feeding days, Gracie and I run full blast to our crates (where Mum feeds us our raw) and can't wait to dig in.

We get our chicken back, necks and feet from Whole Foods, which has organic, all natural, hormone and anti-biotic free meats. We think that is really important so we're not adding nasty chemicals to our bodies.

Here's one of our chicken backs that Mum cuts up to split between me and Gracie!
Here I am enjoying one of the pawsome chicken backs.


Oooooo.....chicken feet! My favorite snack!
And you can see in this vid how much I love my chicken feet!


Remember, it's important if you feed raw that you do your research! We suggest visits to Dr. Karen Becker's blog and do a search for raw dog food to learn the ins and outs. In addition, you can visit Dog Food Advisor to learn about prepared raw dog foods; and RawLearning.com for more information.

Enjoy!

A little agility practice!

The other day I said to Mum, "Hey! We're bored!!!"

So what did we do? Yep, we piled in the car and headed out for the two hour drive to agility run thrus in Norcross.

It was a very nice day, sunny and cool, just like we like it.

We got there just in time and the place was packed! Guess everyone else was bored too.

Over the next four hours we got in three runs each, three for me and three for Gracie.

Our first two runs we ran the excellent nested course. I had a few bobbles with a bad angle on the weaves, but Mum helped me out on that with the second run.

My speed was pretty good, not super fast, but not bad for an almost 10 year old.

Then Gracie ran. She's been feeling really good lately....nearly over all the effects of the RMSF. And dog, does she have her energy back!

She ran two runs and was a bit wild, she ran off from Mum to play with all the dogs at the run thru. With all the people and dogs, this was a perfect 'test Gracie out' on stress op. But it all overcame her a bit on her first two runs and she couldn't help herself.

But her third run she finally finished a course. On our third run we ran the novice course for fun and speed work. She even did her teeter! And I got all my contacts. Gracie got her frame, but missed the contact for her dogwalk.

Overall it was a fun, long day. We left at 9 AM and got home at 5 PM. But we had a great time away from work, the cabin, the nasty weather! Now we're ready for the trial this weekend. Can't wait!

Here's a short little vid from our third novice run. By this time we were both kind of beat....so slower than normal. But look at Gracie's tail wag, bol!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Hiking the Dawson Forest Wildcat Creek Trail!

After days and days of gray skies, super cold, even some snow; the sun broke through the Sunday before last (before our second big snow) and it heated up to about 58 degrees making for an awesome hike with our best pal Rocco from To Dog With Love and his Mum.

We met up with our pals in Dawsonville and drove in one car to the trail. I have to say that it seems to always be a little difficult to find information on where trail heads are located from a variety of websites. We thought we were headed to Tobacco Road Trail, but ended up at Wildcat Creek Trail, so decided to hike this one and hopefully check out the other one another day.

And that turned out to be one of the best decisions we all made all day. It was a great trail. Very moderate, but very interesting and enjoyable. Just the type of hike we all needed that day since we got a bit of a late start.

We started off on the trail and immediate saw the river. We found out that along this trail the Wildcat Creek merges with the Amicalola River, right at the start of the trail. The trail goes along the Wildcat Creek where we stopped to enjoy some of the running stream.


 

We walked on and met some nice folks, gave them some licks and jumped all over them. They loved it and so did we.

Then we came up to the bridge that crosses the Amicalola River. Gracie was grateful this bridge didn't have grates and so was Mum!


Along the way we enjoyed nature at it's best in the winter of North Georgia. We were talking with Rocco's Mum and had the same thoughts...winter hiking is all about texture! From stray bamboo to wonderful fungi...


And from the grounding ivy to moss on a rock...


From the bark of the rhododendron to the shininess of the mountain laurel...

 
To the smoothness of the river rocks...


We walked on and found more interesting things. The five of us where looking down at the river, just then Mum turned around and whoa! There's a big tree up there, better move over in case it decides to let loose!


This trail was an up and back, and on the way back we saw things we didn't see on the way in. Including this little hiding place. Hey Yo! Is there a critter in there?


We posed for a few shots. Gracie is ready to move on. So am I!!!


Enough Mum! Let's go!


The best part was watching and listening to the the water rush!



On the way back Gracie and I really, really, really wanted to cross the river, but Mum wouldn't let us. Oh Mum!!!

 
Here's a bit of our hike! So fun!

Friday, February 14, 2014

Snow (and ice) Day Round #2 in Georgia!


Just a couple of weeks ago we had a significant snow event in Georgia....and what happens this past week? More snow....and this time ice, too!

Again we stocked up, prepped for extra water, food and wood, hunkered down, realizing we may not be able to go anywhere if we needed to for about three to four days.

We were supposed to get a lot of snow on Tuesday, but it turned out to be about an inch of snow and lots of freezing rain. Mum worked and we went out a little, but really didn't enjoy getting pelted.

Then the next morning we woke up to five inches of snow on top of that mess. It was an amazing sight to see the mountains with every single tree covered in beautiful snow.

The early morning pics are bluer because it's darker. But we didn't want to miss capturing the beauty and the bit of dark made for a nice little effect! This is the view looking more to the right from our deck.


And this is the amazing view straight on from our deck. Springer Mountain, the start of the Appalachian Trail, is behind that big tree on the left.


The trees were gorgeous with all the snow plopped on top, and everything was sagging.


The sun started to come up a little and things got a little brighter. Still amazingly beautiful! If you look closely you can see another mountain range in the background.


And that same back deck view once the sun started shining on the limbs of the trees. Wow!


Once the sun came up more we really got into play time! 
Love this shot of Gracie jumping....see her shadow?


Gracie got a little wild and crazy....that's why we call her our Wild and Crazy Girl!


We wrestled.


And wrestled some more.


And wrestled a little more.


Then after Mum's meetings in the afternoon we looked out and poof, it's all gone except for the higher elevations (about 1000 more feet) on the mountains in the distance.


Overall it was a sometimes fun, sometimes stressful few days. We are grateful we didn't loose power and kept the heat, water, internet and cooking going. The only thing we lost was cell coverage as Sprint had about 150 towers out of commission in this area, but we finally got that back today.

We'll be happy to have some nice days coming up and get a little break!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!


Mum loves this heart, it was made from photos that we've taken over the years. A mosaic if you will! If you want to make one too, check out Andrea Mosaic!

I'll be loving up my favorite Valentine today, my Mum (and vice versa)!!! 
Wishing you lots of love this special holiday!

Sunday, February 02, 2014

Black and White Sunday: Hiding!


Just before our big snow, Gracie enjoyed the very last leaf pile that Mum leaves for us to play in! Can you see her?

If you love dogs, you love all the great programs on the television today, don't miss our post about it!
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...