We Graduated from Puppy Class

For the last eight weeks we've been attending the Intermediate Training Class at the Petsmart near our house. We graduated from the beginner class back in February.

Training Lacy has been quite the process, and it will continue. She still doesn't come when called ALL the time. She is getting better, but she's not there yet. BUT, she is only 10 months old and "they" tell me that Golden Retrievers are puppies until they are 3 years old. I am committed to her and to training her to be a great dog!

Here is one of our favorite things to do at PetSmart. Daughter wears her "Heelies" and Lacy pulls her around the store.

Raw Diet for Dogs

About three weeks ago our 10 month old 65 pound Golden Retriever puppy was scratching herself so much that she had given herself a staph infection. I took her to the vet where we got antihistamines and an antibiotic. The staph infection has cleared up, but it set me on a path of researching why she was scratching so much. What I learned is that dogs in the wild do not eat grains. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a dog ravenously attack a wheat field?

I learned about something called a "Raw Diet". This means that you feed the dog raw meat and vegetables rather than cooked and processed kibble. This is closer to what they would eat in the wild and more closely reflects that they were created to eat.

Here is some of what I found:

From dogguide.net:

Some pet owners who have made the switch have noticed drastic changes in their pets, including:

* Shinier, healthier skin
* Fresher breath/cleaner teeth
* Improved digestion
* Improvement with allergy symptoms
* Decreased shedding
* Increased stamina
* Firmer, smaller stools
* A general increase in overall health

From barfworld.net:

Here are just a few of the skin and coat benefits you can expect when feeding the BARF Diet and why many of our customers call our diet "The Miracle Diet"

* Hot spots, and itching and scratching will disappear. You may not believe it but these annoying and persistent problems do vanish normally within 30 days of beginning the diet. You can throw away the expensive special shampoos and stop antibiotics and worst of all cortisone shots which, by the way, even most vets hate to give to your pet.

* Coat is lustrous, thick and shiny again. Yes, this is one of the first things you’ll notice. Sparse, dry dull coats regain their natural luster and your pet’s coat will look the way nature intended it to look and feel.

* Ear Infections become a thing of the past. This may be the hardest thing for you to believe before trying the diet. Even if your pet has suffered for years from ear problems and you’ve done everything humanly possible this diet will work its wonders. How can it cure ear problems? Because it works from the inside out. The BARF Diet naturally strengthens the immune system and reduces inflammatory conditions and you’ll have a happy and relieved pet once again.

* Fleas & Parasites Don’t Like A Barf Fed Pet! Here’s another unbelievable benefit of feeding BARF. Your pet’s improved and strengthened immune system increases resistance to fleas and internal parasites. You can stop using flea collars and shampoos once you begin on the BARF Diet. These contain pesticides that are not good for your pet or your family.

You will see a raw diet referred to as a BARF diet which stands for "Biologically Appropriate Raw Food".

Here is the website I used to figure out what amount to feed Lacy: www.goodpet.com

If you start Googling about feeding your dog a raw diet you'll find quite a bit of information. Some of it will be a little intimidating. Take the lady in this video for instance. Does she not have a life at all? (If that lady is reading this blog, sorry!) It doesn't have to that elaborate.

I buy one of those 5 pound tubes of 30% fat hamburger meat at the store and mix up 5 days of food at one time and put it in the refrigerator in ziploc bags. This means that 4 days out of 5 all I have to do is get a ziploc bag and empty it into her bowl. No worries!

According to my somewhat loose calculations, feeding her this way is about the same expense as the IAMS puppy food I was buying for her anyway. I'm definitely money ahead if you take vet bills for her allergies into account.

If you have more money than time, there are also ready made raw foods you can purchase. You buy them frozen. I bought several varieties today for Lacy to try just to see what was out there.

http://www.bravorawdiet.com/
and
http://www.naturesvariety.com/

just to name a few.



I credit my Dad's wife's daughter (my step-sister..if we were 6) with giving me the courage to go ahead and try this. She has been feeding "Boo" a raw diet for a few months with great results and encouraged me to give it a try.

Influenza and Vitamin D

I have become more and more convinced that many of the ailments that trouble us can be remedied by what are considered "alternative" treatments. These alternative treatments have fewer (usually non existent) side effects and are more affordable than going the route of traditional medicine. My friend Kristi (HI KRISTY!) posted on Facebook the other day about the relationship between influenza and Vitamin D. I've done some research and wanted to share it with you here:

Here is an excerpt from an article in the Milwaukee newspaper from May of 2009: If the current strain of H1N1 swine flu is like flu strains of years past, it likely will mysteriously subside in the coming weeks.

For whatever reason, in temperate areas such as North America, flu largely is a fall and winter phenomenon.

A couple of theories have tried to explain that seasonality, but in recent years an intriguing new idea has emerged:

Levels of flu-fighting vitamin D reach their lowest point in the winter when ultraviolet light disappears.

Vitamin D, which is made in large amounts in the skin when it is exposed to solar radiation, is a hormone that regulates hundreds of genes. Some of those involve the body's innate immunity and its defenses against viruses, especially those affecting the respiratory system.

The idea is that if people increased their levels of vitamin D, it might help ward off outbreaks of flu.

For as far back as records exist, flu outbreaks have occurred around the planet when solar radiation was at its lowest. No one has been able to say why.


Here is an article from US News and World Report that says "The researchers found that those with less than 10 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood, considered low, were nearly 40 percent more likely to have had a respiratory infection than those with vitamin D levels of 30 ng or higher. The finding was consistent across all races and ages.

In particular, people who had a history of asthma or some form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) were even more likely to suffer from vitamin D deficiencies."

Just Google "Vitamin D +Flu" and see what you find. I know I'm going to start my family on Vitamin D supplements tomorrow.

Just Another Day Out With My Kids

This is What is Happening Here Today

I Blame KRLD Restaurant Week

Last night we ate with our good friends, the Stanleys, at Lawry's the Prime Rib on the Tollway. I was so stuffed I could not sleep last night.

Tonight we're at Love and War in Texas in Grapevine, then tomorrow night at Del Frisco's for our staff meeting. I may never eat again after that.

Spa Time with my Girl

Daughter and I recently visited the Ogle School on Preston Road for an inexpensive evening of pampering. We each got 90 minute facials, spa mani's and pedi's and she got her eyebrows waxed. Total bill? $92.00

It was fantastic fun and I got to be next to my daughter for several hours when she couldn't text. YAY!

Roller Skating!

At our school, they pair up each new incoming family with an existing family as "buddies". The purpose is to make the new student and family feel welcomed and provide a resource for navigating the murky waters of starting a new school. This year we are a buddy family for Carlos and his family. We have had such fun getting to know them and everyone is excited (!) for school to start a week from Tuesday.

Yesterday we went roller skating together.


Here is Carlos in "mid-fall". He is a very accomplished skater, this was purely a lucky shot on my part.

Here I caught Owen at an unstable moment.


Here are the boys toward the end of our skating adventure when everyone was fairly whipped.

After we skated, we went to eat lunch. 3 of the 5 kids present requested Chinese food so, we found nearby the China Dragon Buffet on Stemmons. (If you click on it you'll see that even the website is lame.) Take my advice. Don't eat there. It was the single most awful Chinese buffet I've ever visited. And that's saying something.

Ick! But, we had a great time skating.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Yesterday, my family and I went down to Waco with a surprise party for my dad's 70th birthday. We had a great time visiting all day.

Grocery Store Reviews - New Stores in Dallas

I've been seeing several new grocery stores here in the Dallas area over the last few months and hadn't really taken the time to check them out. So, today I did.

My first stop was the internet. I wanted to see what was on special at each store. The weekly ads of each store is easily available.


Market Street was my first store to visit. Market Street has points as being the only store I visited today where you could do everything in a single stop (i.e. you could get your normal grocery shopping done without making a second stop ). My chief complaint with Central Market is that you would always have to make another stop at Kroger to complete the grocery shopping.

Market Street was clean and very good looking. Everything appeared to be very good quality. I hadn't identified anything in the ad that was particularly applicable to my families needs although I'm guessing that this would vary widely depending on the week. My guess is that the pricing is probably higher than your normal Kroger or Albertsons. I say it is a guess because I've never been really good about keeping a price book. It seems that a price book would be a wonderful iPhone app, but I've been unable to find one.

Anyway, I only bought a half pint of blackberries and a couple of Texas grown yellow crookneck squash.



Next stop: Newflower Farmers Market

Serious Food, Silly Prices. Newflower has a really fine assortment of vitamins and natural supplements and foods. Also, as the name might imply, a big produce department. They had grapes on for .59lb so I bought 5 pounds.

Newflower bears a very strong resemblance to my next stop...

Sprouts

I believe Sprouts has been open longer than any of the others I visited today. I had shopped there one other time when I lived in Plano and I wasn't terribly impressed, probably because of the "can't do it all in one stop" issue I mentioned before. Sprouts, however, did win the prize for the best deals I found today. They had $1.77lb boneless chicken breasts and .99/pint blueberries. I left more money at Sprouts than anywhere else.

I guess for me it all boils down to looking at each ad and getting the best deals from each store.