11 posts tagged “dog”

Our latest Sky House entree, introduced just today, is the most pupular so far, it seems. This time around our menu features cod as the main attraction, and Miss Sky is going pretty nutso for it. The ingredients are boiled cod, brown rice, carrots, zucchini, green beans, spinach, olive oil and a little garlic powder. The ratio is about half cod to half rice-veggie combo - so, about 1/2 parts cod, 1/4 parts each rice and veg. I boil the rice and steam the vegetables in the left-over fish water. (I always use the cooking water if I boil the meat or fish source; I usually end up using all of it.)

And I'm organizing the food a bit differently these days. Now I mix together the rice and vegetables in one bowl (or two - one in the fridge, and one in the freezer) and store the cooked meat or fish separately (usually, also part in the fridge and part frozen), and mix them together just before I feed her. The reason is that the rice and veggies are a lot less likely to spoil, and will last at least a week in the fridge, while I'm always cautious with meat and fish (and for good reason! I recently got food poisoning from fish soup I made for us, and I was actually very, very, extra careful with it, since it's summer now - freezing half immediately, and putting the rest in the refrigerator right away... but two days in the refrigerator was too much, it seems. Or our refrigerator isn't cold enough - I don't know. But aaarrgggh. So. Sick. Crazy.)

Also, I used to shred the raw vegetables, but now I steam them and roughly puree them, since an article I read argues that the dog's shorter intestinal tract is not efficient at dealing with raw vegetables. You can read a hundred things, all advising radically different methods of feeding the dog, but for now I'm going with high protein / cooked meat or fish  / steamed veg, with the veg in a sort of artificially "pre-digested" form. No corn or wheat, plus active plain yogurt (I feed it separately, since she loves it like dessert). There are a few other health food things I would like to add, if I can ever find them, but I feel pretty good about this diet for now.

Our tally thus far is:

1. Boiled turkey leg meat, plus brown rice, plus raw shredded carrot and zucchini (plus olive oil and light powdered garlic - just add this to description for the rest, as well), plus yogurt added in before serving = Liked Very Much!
2. Boiled turkey thigh meat plus chicken livers, plus oatmeal, shredded carrot and zucchini, and steamed, shredded green beans = Didn't Like Very Much At  All.
3. Sauteed chicken livers, plus brown rice, plus steamed and mashed carrot and zucchini and spinach = Eh. Meh. Not Bad, Not Fab.
4. Boiled Cod, plus brown rice, plus steamed and pureed carrots, zucchini, spinach and green beans = OMG, SO GOOD, I Go Crazy!

And there you go. That's our user-reviewed list of homemade dog foods so far.

Once again I need to point out a cute, cute canine - one of many looking for homes at Stray.gr:

This is Steven, but I think I would call him "Stevie" after a couple of my favorite artists, poet Stevie Smith, and musician Stevie Ray Vaughan. I love the subtle colors of his coat. If you are interested in adopting a dog in or around Athens, Greece and would like more information about Stevie, look here, and contact the people at Stray. They are very helpful about providing details regarding the personalities and characteristics of their foster pets.

I adore a dog with a speckled muzzle. This fine-looking fellow is named Haris, and he's one of the many sweethearts available for adoption from stray.gr in Greece. Stray.gr is an animal rescue group in Athens, Greece (and outlying areas) that finds foster care and adoption families for homeless and abandoned dogs and cats, and the kind people who saved our Sky from the streets and made it possible for us to adopt her. If you live in Greece and are thinking of adopting a rescue animal, check them out here. To learn more about Haris, look at this page.

Some velvet morning when I'm straight
I'm gonna open up your gate
And maybe tell you 'bout Phaedra

How adorable is this little girl? I swear on my honor I don't have a bias towards girl dogs, or Si-Husky-eyed dogs, but she is just too irresistible, isn't she? Hello? Dog lovers in Greece? Any Greek person out there, especially in or around Athens, who is looking for a wonderful pet and would like to save one from a homeless existence - please think about getting a rescue dog or cat from stray.gr or another rescue organization. To find out more about Phaedra, in Greek and English, see this stray.gr page. And if you have questions of any kind, you can email them for information - they are very responsive, and know a lot about the personality of the animal, and try to find as much information as they can about their history. They'll also help you out with problems and questions after the adoption, so you aren't all on your own.

Also, here's the song that I referenced in the first paragraph. Nice song! Nice name! Nice dog! Click the arrow below to hear the song - one of my favorites. (or if you have trouble, go here.)

Meet Beep. Beep was part of the cast of the short film my husband was just working on in Crete.

The director gives Beep some advice about the motivation of his character:

Hey, you Greeks! Asproula is one of the many cutie-pies available for adoption at stray.gr. (info on her here). I love her pirate eye-patch! There are so many adorable cats and dogs at Stray, it's not possible for me to choose just one or two to show off, so I'll make this photo feature a once a week thing. ARR! Adopt this dog, or walk the plank, matey

I'm so curious about Sky's parentage. She's certainly unusual, because I've found very few photos of dogs that look like her. The pup shown on  the left is a cockapoo, which is a cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle, and he certainly does resemble her in many ways... the eyes (but blue eyes are not very common in cockapoos, I think), the nose, the coat color. Most cockapoos are smaller than our Sky, but she does come in at approximately the top size, as far as I've been able to tell.

I'm not at all  convinced that she is a cockapoo, but have been looking out for dogs who look similar to her, hoping something will click. I also found a photo of a blue-eyed goldendoodle, another popular hybrid breed (golden retriever/poodle mix), that resembles her quite a lot as well... but I can't find that image right now. I'll post it when/if I do.

The goldendoodle possibility seems more likely, since her size fits the smaller range, they sometimes have green, amber or blue eyes... and I read this about goldendoodles: "Goldendoodles can have very long hair and you will need to brush them regularly to keep them from matting. It is not easy to get down to the undercoat, but you can do it yourself with the right tools."  This does sound right. Here's a photo of a goldendoodle with a coat very much like Sky's:

and here is a goldendoodle with a very similar face (though she's obviously younger):


The thing is, her coat is so incredibly thick and heavy that it makes me think of a mountain dog... a dog suited to live in snow and cold climates. Poor Sky! Greece's sometimes unbearably hot summers are not meant for the likes of her (or me - neither of us being either a mad dog, or an Englishman). But we have air conditioning, so the two of us can hibernate for the summer, if need be. And the ever-so-needed grooming trip will help. Need to find a groomer within walking distance, stat! Or one who picks up. Halp!

yippee! We have the pooping sorted. First walk of the day, and boom! Perfect poop.

Peeing, not so much. Despite me tracking almost her every move, she did wee in the bedroom again. It was like the one second I didn't have my eye on her, and I suppose that's why it happened at that moment and not any other. It's a bit frustrating, because I know if I see her start to go, and take her out to the terrace, she'll get it right away. But she won't start to go if I'm around. So, a teeny hiccup, but we'll get it figured out.

I wish I would have thought of this then, but my just-hatched plan is that if she goes again, I'll mop it up first with some newspaper before cleaning and sanitizing, then put the urine-y newspaper on the terrace where I want her to go. Also, of course, hoping that she will catch on to the novel idea of peeing as well as pooping on these wondrous walks of ours.

Update: We have peepee; I repeat, we have peepee. She made when we took our second walk today. Huzzzah!

SHE STILL HASN'T GONE POTTY. How is this even possible? We've had four walks, and it's been about 20 hours - and nothing. She may have gone a tiny bit under the bed last night, but I'm not even sure about that. It was the only place that I couldn't see exactly what she was doing (and of course there was the time while I was sleeping), and she was liking to sort of burrow in there, so this morning I cleared out the couple of boxes, and bag of clothes that was under there. And there was a small spot where something had been wet once... could have been her (but I wouldn't have expected it to be totally dry), or could have been from something else, months ago. But that's it. And there's hardly a second when she isn't right with me. If I'm on the computer, she's at my feet, if I'm on the bed, she's laying by the bed. And we're talking about basically two smallish rooms, since I have the front of the house closed off - I've looked and looked and found nada.

If she ever looks restless, I take her out to the terrace - the designated emergency peepee area, and I look at her expectantly, and she looks at me exptectantly, and I sigh, and she sighs, and we go back in.

Tres bizarre. Puppy, you have to go sometime!

update: Success! On the fifth walk... We achieved poop!! Yay! Poop!

Well, it's morning our first full day together, and what we have here is the amazing hardly-peeing-never-pooping wonder dog!

She had one peepee incident in the bedroom, while I wasn't watching, soon after she got here, but because I wasn't there at that moment, I couldn't show her that the terrace is the spot for emergency "do". Cleaned that up, and then moved her food and water in there, beside the bed, and beside the pillow I fixed up for her, which she took to right away. Since that's her food and sleep place at the moment, I don't think she'll go in the bedroom again, but we'll see. We slept in there with the door closed last night (but with the door from the bedroom to the terrace open), and all was well. She was peaceful, and stayed right by the bed on her pillow, or sometimes just under the bed.

For now, I have the front of the house closed off, so we are dealing with only kitchen, bedroom, hall, and terrace. I also have food and water in the kitchen. I don't have carpeting anywhere, but the two front rooms have wood floors, so I'll keep her to the tile and terrazzo areas, 'til we have navigated the potty seas.

I took her out for a walk this morning at the crack of dawn, and while she was extremely interested in checking out the "works" of other dogs, she didn't do anything herself. We'll give it another shot in an hour or two. She is used to going outside in a yard, so we'll see how this works.

What I've learned: she is definitely no barker (thank goodness). She snuffles occasionally, and sometimes does something between a sigh and snore, but not a peep otherwise. She doesn't seem to be a shoe-or-other-random-articles-of-clothing chewer either, but I haven't left that much around to tempt fate. I left my slippers on the floor this morning to see if they would generate any fetish behavior :) - but it seems okay.