Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Dog Expo

Last weekend I attended the Dog Expo and I had such a great time. Well, as good a time as I can have without Marley. There was so much to see and so much information was available. I managed to catch Splash Dogs, K9 Hangtime (frisbee) and Uncle Matty the dog trainer.

We started the day by watching a bit of Uncle Matty, who is a delightful man. He had his well trained German Shepard, his wife's puppy and two clients at various stages of training. It was quite amusing because the puppies all kept breaking their sit/stays because of the distraction. Well, a couple of minutes into his workshop he taught everybody how to properly use a choke chain, which we took as a hint to move on to the next activity.

The frisbee dogs were awesome, the one pictured below is also a seizure dog (he tells his owner when she is going to have a seizure). The other dog was a rescue from a puppy mill who was scared of everything when he was adopted. They was simply amazing, they spent a lot of time teaching us how to introduce the frisbee to a dog and how to increase their desire to play with a frisbee.

I think I want to teach this to Marley.

My favorite kibble was available and I spent quite a long time quizzing the employees about any potential changes to their kibble formulas (Natura was recently purchased by Proctor and Gamble)
They answered all my questions and addressed all my concerns. They had samples in dog bowls which allowed me to see the size of the kibble and I left with a ton of samples. There were so many food companies there that I spent most of my time collecting information about ingredients and nutrition.

There were so many products available such as beds, clothes, collars, toys and of course hats. I so wanted to get Marley a hat, conveniently forgetting Marley dislikes being dressed up. I still think she would have looked fabulous with a new sombrero!



I also caught Splash Dogs which looks like so much fun and I think its an activity I would totally enjoy (Marley is not fond enough of water to actually enjoy this activity). I have to keep reminding myself Marley has to buy into an activity.

I would like to thank my friend Lucas & Josie's mom for taking photos for me, I managed to show up to an event with dead batteries in my camera.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Cat Protector

Mahone has had some really good days recently. I've started to feed him canned food twice a day instead of only in the evening. He is actually feeling a bit feisty, I caught him playing with Bob. Mahone was sitting on a stool and reached down and batted at Bob. Bob responded by crouching down and batting a Mahone. I was so surprised I stopped everything to watch and make sure Bob didn't accidentally injure Mahone.

The play continued for a few minutes and then Mahone jumped off the stool and they started wrestling. Bob quickly got Mahone in a head lock and at that moment I saw a black streak run between the cats turn around and body slam Bob. Bob jumped up and took off running with Marley and Mahone in hot pursuit.

I was totally caught off guard, I didn't realize Marley would feel protective towards Mahone.