Category: Uncategorized

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diet

protein: 1 gram/pound

Abby 40 lbs 860 calories
Betsy 55 lbs 1092 calories

Nutro Ultra ($60/30 lbs)
341 kcal/cup
45lbs=2.5 cups
55lbs=3 cups

High Prairie Canine Recipe dry
370 kcal/cup

High Prairie Canine Recipe wet
370 kcal/can

Primo Taglio turkey
30 cal/oz
6 grams protein

cowboy cookout
17 kcal/treat

etta says deer/rabbit

4,255 kcal/kg ME (calculated)
Crude Protein . . . . Min. . . . . . 75%
Crude Fat . . . . . . . . Min. . . . . . . 8%
Crude Fiber . . . . . . Max . . . . . . 4%
Moisture. . . . . . . . . Max . . . . . 10%

http://www.greenbutterflybrands.com/

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Dog Food

Currently feeding Earthborn Holistic

Dog Food Advisor: dog food ratings and recall alerts.
https://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/

Bad Foods
Avacado
Bread Dough
Chocolate
Ethanol
Grapes/Raisons
Hops
Macadamia Nuts
Onions
Xylitol
Coffee
Milk/Dairy

Bad Supplements
Iron

Bad House Plants
Aloe
Begonia
Clematis
Lily
Hyacinth
Geranium

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Betsy at Five Months

Greeting guest:  Hanna the girl next door is helping us train good manners when greeting guests.  Hanna knocks on the door and we ignore Hanna.  Of course Betsy freaks out so we do do the basic sit, drop, up until she settles down.  We use the clicker for this.  When Betsy is a bit settled, we open the door and repeat.  Again, when she is settled we let Hanna in and repeat.  Hanna knows not to pay any attention to Betsy- no looking, no talking, no petting.  Betsy isn’t very good at accepting pets, even from us, so we are not allowing Hanna to pet Betsy.  When and only if we have a good session we allow Hanna to sit down on the floor in Betsy’s bubble and do her basic training exercises- sit, drop, up.

Bark/Quiet: very much beginning stages.

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Betsy at Four Months

It’s a joy to witness your new puppy developing their own personality.  From the beginning they seem to display breed specific personality traits, but the older they get the more you notice them become their own individual.

We’ve progressed in training quite a bit.  Currently we have a rock solid sit, drop, and up.  Stay is about 45 seconds duration, distractions are minimal, and distance includes leaving the room.

Actively training

Stay: duration is about 60 seconds.

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Betsy Visits the Park, and Gets Sick

Betsy’s 14 weeks old and we decided to take her to the park.

I dislike most Delaware parks as they have very strict leash laws.  The state parks have rangers that hide in the bushes with binoculars and jump out when they see a dog off leash.  Then they proceed to give you a $75 ticket.

Our county parks are nicer by far.  They have the same leash laws, but the county police don’t prowl the area looking for offenders.  They also provide poop bags and trash cans, whereas the state parks are all carry in / carry out.

We have a few nearby off leash dog parks, but they are all what I call ‘city people’ parks.  They are small and attract complete idiots.  In addition, my vets have all informed me of the extremely high incident rate of contracting an illness from these parks.

Our first visit on Saturday we went to the state park Bellevue.  It’s off leash but they do have some trash cans.  We followed the rules and kept Betsy on the leash.  We didn’t meet any other dogs but she did say hi to some people.  We worked on her commands, especially ‘close’  She did so great that the next day we went to the county park Carousel.  That was always Ky’s favorite park.  The off leash area is about 10 acres and has a pond.  It’s a tad hilly so it’s easy to get out of sight of other dogs that might not be compatible with your personality.  We found a great puppy when we first arrived but they left early.  Most of the other dogs were too big, too old, or too unruly.  She still got in a good bit of running and exploring, and even got her feet wet in the pond.

The very next weekend we visited Carousel both Saturday and Sunday.  She had a blast.  She ran, explored, and socialized with many other dogs.  There were a couple of puppies with which she very much enjoyed playing.  Of course there were a couple of dogs that had a tad of aggression issues that tried to bite Betsy in a not friendly way.  I had to kick one and yell and stare down another.  One owner was friendly and spoke with me about what happened, the other was rude and never said a word.

We might have over done it as we stayed each day for more than an hour.  One hour was always our average time with Ky as I could tell she got tired if we spent more time than that.  We noticed on Monday that Betsy had the sneezes.  Well, not sneezes as much as reverse snort where she tried to expel mucus.  She was also not her usual self during our play time in the house, acting a bit lethargic and losing interest more quickly that usual.

We got in to see the vet on Tuesday and sure enough she had a slight fever.  The vet said she had a cold and gave us 10 doses of antibiotics to administer for the next 5 days.  He said he usually might not prescribe anything and just let her fight it off but just last week he had a puppy with pneumonia. I looked it up and although rare it is extremely contagious.  If a puppy is exposed to it, they most likely will catch it.  It takes about 10 days to incubate, so it doesn’t seem like it came from the visits to the parks.  We interrogated the vet assistant but she admitted it is extremely difficult to figure out where they caught it.

If that wasn’t enough, we dropped off a stool sample and got a call on Wednesday that she had ring and round worms.  Back to the vet for more medicine.  We noticed the breeder had dewormed 3 times when Betsy was with them.  The vet assured us that is normal and not an indication that she had worms but was probably done as a prevention.

A nasty side effect of the sickness or medicine is the odor.  Ky was an amazing dog.  I swear she smells good and almost never got a bath.  Betsy was never smelly either until this happened.  She hasn’t had a bath since the breeder gave her one the week before she came to us.

Betsy has been on her meds for a few days now and is getting better.  Less sniffling, more energy.  But the vet told us no walks and limit the outside time so we’re having some cabin fever now.  The weekend is here and no dog parks are allowed.  Oh well, we’ll get through this and get our sick girl back to health.  And give her a bath!