It's About Amoena and the Dogs

The saga continues...

2012-01-10T20:37:00.001+02:00

We visited the vet today with Niila. Her bald spots have been history for quite some time now so she got clean papers for that. She stills has visible spots on her fur but they don't look bald at all. They look like spots... with just less fur. She looks healthier, more normal, better. And the vet said that we can quit using Basiron (acne cream for humans) but that we should keep using Bepanthen (healing cream). Yay.

But we got something else in the change. Last night I noticed that Niila had huge lump on the side of her neck. Huge. We got really worried. Lumps never sound good, or look good, or feel good. Especially on your precious baby girl! But the vet said it's just an inflamed salivary gland and she prescribed antibiotics for two weeks. Nothing serious, thank god.

Miniature pinscher is supposed to be a healthy breed but it doesn't feel like it anymore. I can't remember how many times we've visited the vet already. It feels that there's always something, always something to worry about. It's exhausting sometimes.

Just one and it was dead already

2011-12-20T13:48:00.000+02:00

Niila had her second check-up yesterday and it was all clear. The vet took multilpe sample and she was only able to find one little bugger and it was dead already. We no longer have to feed Niila with those ridiculously expensive meds, but we still have to put some lotion to the bald spots. Basiron to help the skin to renew and Bepanthen to help it heal. I wonder when the hair will start growing back.

And here's a completely irrelevant picture:

The check-up

2011-12-05T22:16:00.001+02:00

Today we went to a check-up with the vet. The situation is better now. One sample far free of demotex all together and the other sample wasn't bad either. We still have to give her meds at least for two weeks. What ever it takes, I just want my pretty pup back.

I'm little frustrated though with the fact that our pups seem to get only problems that are awfully visible. I felt awful when Papu had her weeping eyes... And now I have a dog that has bald spots! I feel that every other dog owner is judging us.

Poor Niila, allergic to her own tail!

2011-11-19T18:44:00.000+02:00

Two weeks ago we noticed a teeny tiny bald spot on Niila's back. We thought they had just been fighting with each other because the spot didn't seem to bother her. She didn't lick it or scratch it. It simply existed on her back. But then the bald spot grew bigger. One day I noticed that her tail usually always touched the bald spot, so I joked that she must be allergic to her own tail.

The bald spot on her back.

But it turned out that I was right. Kinda. Yesterday we talked about how much the bald spot has grown lately and how weird it was since it was only one spot on her body. J.R. decided to examine her just in case we've missed something. And I'm happy that he did. Underneath her tail, where her tail touches her back, he found another bald spot and the bare skin wasn't healthy looking at all. I can't understand how we had missed that. It's not like we're neglecting her. We give her lot's of attention and cuddles. But like you can see in the picture above, her tail curves in a way that hides the bald spot completely.

The bald spot on her tail.

Today we visited the vet. She told us that Niila has a case of demodex canis. The mites had moved from her tail to her back! All dogs have them, but sometimes they get out of hand, like in Niila's case, and cause skins problems such as bald spots.

The skin still doesn't look so bad. The vet took some of her hair so now the spot is even bigger.

The vet prescribed Niila some super expensive mite drugs to get rid of them and some acne cream. Apparently she's going to be fine because she's young and because it hasn't got so bad yet. We'll see. Maybe this starts a whole new series of vet related posts...

This pill costs 10€. She's supposed to eat ½ pill per day.

I felt so guilty for not noticing the bald spot on Niila's tail that I decided to treat her with a new toy; "no stuffing" furry softie with two squekies:

Masked bandit.

But I guess this day turned out just fine for Niila. She got a special walkie with mommy and daddy, some dog biscuits at the vet, some pills that smelles (and probably tasted) like meat fondue.. .and she got a new toy too.

Happy Birthday Niila!

2011-06-16T21:04:00.000+03:00

Today is Niila's birthday, she's finally one year old. It feels like we got her yesterday, like she was a puppy yesterday, but now she's all grown up. You know, she was like this when we got her:

And they were like this:

And now she's like this:

And they're like this:

Of course Niila got some presents too. We couldn't decide in the pet store what toy we wanted, so we got her both toys we liked. They both make noises and they're crazy about them. Never seen them so excited about new toys!

Eye spy water fun and funny sausages

2011-06-08T18:58:00.000+03:00

J.R. and Papu visited the vet yesterday. Her eyes have been quite bad after the last eye drop regimen. This time she was given two different eye drops. They both contain the same antibiotic than the eye drops that helped her while ago, but these new eye drops don’t contain cortisone, so they should be relatively safe to give her. I hope we’re finally on to something. According the vet this antibiotic is very effective one, so effective that they’re supposed to be saving it in case of some epidemic rather than giving it to dogs with eye conditions… But hey, whatever works. I gave her the drops this morning and I think her eyes looked better than they usually in on the morning, but that could have been just a coincidence. It’s way too soon to say anything.

There are some happier news too. Niila has started to show signs that she might enjoy swimming. There’s a brook near the dog park and people let their dogs cool there before they come to the dog park. Couple days ago we let Niila to play in the brook too. She seemed to be pretty excited about it, jumping after the pebble J.R. threw for her. Now we just need to find a lake where we can let her swim properly.

Papu put all her four paws in the water too, even though we didn’t especially encourage her to! Apparently she was appealed to it after she saw how much fun Niila was having. Maybe we’ll even get her to swim once Niila swims first.

We’ve also found a new type of food that works well for our pups. As you know, we’ve always searching for quality food for our pups. We’re currently feeding them with Acana Grasslands, which seems to work really well with both of them. And now we’ve replaced the regular canned dog food with this new raw food. They look like weird sausages when they’re frozen, but they’re nothing like that once they’ve melted and opened.

Nutrition wise they’re nothing but raw minced meat and vegetables. They’re intended for BARF feeding, but I don’t think we’re going for that. You never know though, BARF feeding is getting easier and easier these days.

Quick eye update

2011-05-30T10:26:00.001+03:00

Just when we thought that everything's fine in our furry world... Papu's eyes were great for days after we stopped giving her the eye drops, but now they're back the same. They're exactly like they were on the first day when we started to give her the drops. It's like nothing has changed. I think we're running out of ammo soon. It could have been pollen... but her eye problems started way before there was pollen in the air. I guess she might be allergic to something, but I don't know what that could be. Maybe she's allergic to Niila?

Fly pretty birds

2011-05-25T09:16:00.002+03:00

Yesterday I got a random gift from J.R. He gave me a pair of really lovely pendant earrings by This Charming Girl, and I love them! I'm so proud of him, he knows so well what I like. I don't have to pretend I like his gifts because I really do like them. You know, I'm a girl who started to wear scarves extensively after my ex-boyfriend gave me a ridiculous golden heart pendant. It was so not my style yet I felt obligated to wear it... so I hide it with scarves. Hmphm. But J.R. knows better. He would never give me anything tacky or ridiculous. He's the best boyfriend ever.

Visiting dog parks again!

2011-05-21T22:20:00.004+03:00

We are finally able to visit dog parks again! First Papu was on heat and then Niila was on heat. Of course we could have taken them to the dog park separately, but neither one of us liked the idea of going to the dog park alone, so that's why there has been a really long break between the visits. But at least the weather favors us now! It's been so warm and sunny in Finland recently, and it's probably gets warmer and warmer as we approach the summer.

Yesterday we visited our regular dog park. It's usually pretty empty after six, but yesterday it was quite busy. Niila made friends with a white bichon frise. They ran couple circles around the dog park. Papu was her usual self, stood distant and minded her own business.

Today we visited a dog park that is located further away. We visited the regular dog park too, but there were some kids running around and Papu wasn't too keen on that. She hates kids and she hates kids than run. So we decided to move on to the next dog park. And I'm happy we did! We met a new dog who was also called Papu, and he looked almost exactly like Papu. Except he was Manchester terrier. The owner of the other Papu was surprised to meet another dog with the same name, but for us it was already a second time. Funnily, all three dogs have been named after different things. Our Papu is named after a can of beans ("papu" is bean in Finnish), her Papu was named after the shape and the color of the puppy, and the third one was named Papu because when he was a puppy he liked to sit on her shoulder like a parrot (in Finnish parrot is "papukaija"). Anyway. Niila played with the other Papu, and our Papu, once again, stood distant and minded her own business. She's not exactly a social butterfly...

And then some other news: Papu is not on eye drops anymore and her eyes still look nice! I think it's pretty safe to say now that her eyes are healthy now. My pretty girl is pretty again!

And Niila... she stills looks stupid:

She sits like that all the time, and it's so embarrassing. Why won't she sit like a dog?!I can't understand how Papu always looks so ladylike and elegant and Niila looks like a... silly joke of a dog.

Rumor has it

2011-05-17T19:31:00.000+03:00

I heard some alarming rumours when I visited Viiala last weekend. My mother told me that my sister and her husband are planning to get rid of their dachshund Pipa. And the reason: she doesn’t like small kids and they have a new baby on its way. When I first heard that they were planning to get a dachshund, I asked my sister are they sure because according the breed descriptions dachshunds are prone to not like kids. She said it won’t be a problem, but to me it sounds like a problem now. Why didn’t they prevent this problem, for example not letting their own kids to tease her? It sometimes amazes me how adult people can’t make adult decisions. Like not getting a dog. Like not getting a dachshund. Like not letting the kids to bully the dog. On top of everything, the dachshund is supposed to be my niece’s. Did they ask her would she rather keep her dog than have yet another baby sibling?

In my opinion dogs are somewhat family too. I don’t say they’re as valuable as real kids because I would probably get lynched for saying something like that, but I think that when you already have two kids and two dogs: two kids who tease dogs and one dog that already doesn’t like kids... You don’t get a third child until you’ve solved the previous problems. Dogs are not disposable. You don’t get one and then get rid of it when it doesn’t suit your lifestyle anymore. Dogs are lifetime commitments. You work the problems, you don’t get rid of the dog until you can honestly say you’ve tried everything.

And I just can’t describe how disappointed I was to my sister and her husband when I heard this rumour. I thought they were dog people too. I mean, they don’t have just one dog, they have two dogs. (Though my mother said my sister wants to get rid of their golden retriever too, mostly because it’s a dog. They’re just less willing to let her go because, hear this, she cost so much when they bought her.) But real dog people would never treat dogs like that. Never ever. Even my other sister was apparently pissed when she heard about this, at least she’s a real dog person.

And so is my mother too. She said that if they fail to find a new home for the dachshund, she’ll get her. Not because she wants her, because she really doesn’t, but for the sake of her grand daughter.

It's a miracle

2011-05-10T21:49:00.002+03:00

Papu's eyes don't weep anymore. I know, it's a miracle. After all, she was on cortisone/antibiotic eye drops for a month, got her tear ducts punctured and tried some super expensive eye drops for dry eyes and they did nothing to her eyes. Absolutely nothing. We had already given up hope. We thought that her eyes would weep forever and that I would always feel guilty for not being able to make her better.

But then after one dry windy day her eyes started to produce yellowish eye discharge. Lots of it, so we took her to a vet again. First the vet wanted to inject her with cortisone and to give us some antibiotic eye drops, but I told the vet that eye drops that only contain antibiotics and no cortisone has rarely worked for us so she then gave us some cortisone/antibiotic eye drops.

She was a full month on cortisone/antibiotic eye drops but they didn't help her. This time however we got different cortisone/antibiotic eye drops... and after a day or two her eyes started to look healthy and completely normal. No more yellowish eye discharge... no more weeping! You can only imagine how happy I am now... though I kinda wish they'd given us those eye drops in the first place as it would have saved us some money. Anyway. We're still on the eye drops so we don't know if the weeping comes back after we stop giving the eye drops to her, but I'm staying positive. At least we know now that there is something that helps her.

And I really thought that I would never see her beautiful eyes healthy again, but here they are:

The fur under her eyes is completely dry! Remember, her eyes used to look like this on a good day:

What a difference!

"She is a weeping dog, her eyes are meant to weep"

2011-03-29T20:05:00.000+03:00

Yesterday we visited a vet with Papu. It was a completely new place, and when we got there, we were greeted by six gigantic mastiffs. They were there for an eye check too. Despite the rush hour our turn came quickly. The vet asked about Papu's eyes, like what kind of treatment she had got already and how had they worked. She then decided they should check Papu's tear ducts. Blocking tear ducts may cause the weeping.

So she was sedated and they took her away. We got her back in less than an hour. The poor baby was so sleepy! They had checked the tear ducts but they were fine and open. Her eyes started to weep as soon as we got her back. The vet gave us some different kinds of eye drops. They're basically for dry eyes, which Papu definitely don't have, but the vet said that the drops may chance the way her tears are. That maybe her eyes weep because her tears are too runny or maybe she does produces too much tears. If these eye drops don't work, then her diagnosis is that "her eyes just weep".

This is how her eyes look... when they're looking pretty good.

It's good to know that there's nothing wrong with her eyes causing the weeping. But I would like to see her pretty eyes again. Now I only see the tearfulness. And I'm afraid that's what other people see too. That they see a dog with seriously weepy eyes and think that I'm a bad dog owner because I don't take care of her weepy eyes. If only I could. I can wipe them, but after a second they're as bad again. No tear drops work.

Still my precious, that's for sure.

I wish I had taken video of her sleepiness. She looked so funny! Her ears were bent down and she looked nothing but sad, and then she walked around like a very, very tired duck.

Here we go again!

2011-03-15T10:53:00.006+02:00

Just when we thought everything would be alright in our dog hairy world... Last time it was Niila's teeth, now it's Papu's eyes. She has had a series of eye infections and her eye problems just keep on coming. First we got an antibiotic eye drop regimen for two weeks. Then week off and the problems came back. Then two weeks with antibiotic cortisone regimen. Teary eyes again. Now we have given her antibiotic cortisone eye drops for a month and guess what? Her eyes are still teary! The vet doesn't have anything else to do, so she suggested we go see an eye specialist. Here we go again...

I'm just worried that it might be something that can't be fixed. My dogs are my babies and I can't stand the idea of losing them. Ever. I hope they live forever. I know that their vet history could be a lot worst. There's one Finnish blog where the min pin owner has described her dog's clinical history and it makes me cry every time. I'm happy that so far we have only had such minor problems. Teeth. Eyes. At least it's not epilepsy or cancer or anything. Probably.

I think I should talk about something happier too. Like the fact that we made the pups to sleep outside the bedroom. Papu was never allowed to go in the bed in the first place, and she never really tried it either. It was like she knew that the bed wasn't her area. But Niila, the stubborn, lovely Niila. She wanted to sleep in the bed. She really, really wanted to. She started sleeping in her own bed like a good girl, but during the night she always insisted to sleep under our duvets. And imagine trying to teach that little dog when it's 3am and you only want to sleep before the alarm bell rings. So she had her way and slept happily in the bed.

But it was unfair to Papu, so eventually she was invited to the bed too. Which was mistake obviously because our bed is ridiculously small. And J.R. started to complain that he doesn't sleep well anymore because the pups are sleeping on him.

But Niila has one embarrassing feature. She likes to pee in our bed. She was quite house trained but this was just a habit she seemed to have. "Yay, peeing in mommy's and daddy's bed is so much fun". Fun for her, but not to us. Especially since we usually noticed it only after we got to bed. Stupid tiny bladders, stupid tiny brains!

Anyway. Since Niila is so eager to pee in our bed, we decided that they're not allowed in the bed anymore. And to make sure that they don't keep us awake with their requests to sleep in the bed, we decided that they're not even allowed to sleep in the bedroom. So now they sleep in the living room in their tiny little beds.

At the first night Niila whined and whined and whined because she wanted to sleep with us, but the next nights after that has been all quiet. It seems that they don't really mind sleeping in the living room. After all, they have each other so they're not completely alone and isolated.

But I miss them. I miss them sleeping in the bedroom with us, not necessarily in the bed with us. But I miss them. They're my babies like I said, and I worry about them when they're not close to me. What if Papu gots an upset stomach and can't wake J.R. to take her out? What if?

But look at their tiny little beds! And they have matching sleeping bags nowadays!

I've noticed that the pups don't prefer much where they sleep, but there's one pattern they have: they always seem to sleep next to each other, cuddling.

I think they're just precious when they sleep like that. They look like best friends or real sisters. When I watch them sleep together it makes me happy. It makes me happy that they seem to like each other genuinely.

They grow up so fast!

2011-01-15T16:39:00.002+02:00

Our baby girl is so grown up nowadays. Last month she had her first heat, and today we bought her her first harness and a new leash. No more baby collar, no more pink baby leash!

Niila is now seven months old. It's a funny coincidence because Papu was also seven months old when she got her harness and her leash! Here's a picture of Papu wearing her harness for the first time:

There has also been some progress with Niila's canine teeth. Remember, this is how they used to be:

Then she got all her four canine teeth removed by the vet and today they look like this:

And they're growing where they should be growing. There also used to be a hole in his palatine:

But now the palatine looks like this:

So I think we're safe now. She will have normal teeth she can eat, chew and play with. And bite with. I'm so happy that everything turned out fine, even though it took quite a lot money to get where we are now. Dogs: Even if you get the puppy for free, they're still going to cost you a lot of money.

Funnily, Niila still looks like a baby. Especially when she sleeps.

Tooth fairy should bring her lot's of noms.

2010-11-22T18:32:00.003+02:00

There's finally something about Niila's teeth that is worth blogging about! Her permanent canine teeth finally showed up and like expected, the milk canine teeth didn't get loose at all. No matter how much we played tug-o-war with her, her lower canine teeth just refused to loosen. So today we visited a vet to get her canine teeth removed. We checked her with a different vet and he said that all four could be removed, but this new vet said that only the lower canine teeth could be removed, that the upper canine teeth are still too hidden inside the gum. It suited us even better.

Niila fell asleep really quickly, and I think the whole operation was over quite soon too. J.R. helped the vet but I waited in the waiting room. The vet only wanted one to help and it's easier for J.R. to hold her. We got one canine tooth to home with us but the other one got broken while it was being removed. Niila was one shaking whimpering thing when she got out. I felt sorry for her, but her teeth needed to be removed.

Hi! My name is Niila and I just got my canine teeth removed and it kinda sucks!

Hi! I'm Niila's milk canine tooth and it kinda sucks to be away from her gum!

Strangely, we didn't get any information from the vet how we should continue with her teeth. Should we just wait and see or should we start the pushing therapy again. We might have to visit her again for the upper milk canine teeth though, so we can ask her then. I'm just worried that the new teeth might be wrongly positioned too, even though I can't tell it for sure yet.

Giveaway winner

2010-11-21T17:27:00.002+02:00

The Dog Food Giveaway is now closed and it's time to reveal the right answer. I asked you to guess which one is the high quality food and which one is the low quality food. The food on the left is Orijen Puppy, six star rated and the one in the right is Hill's Science Diet puppy, zero star rated. Only two of you guessed right: 27 Stitches and Silly Little Lady. And I thought this was an easy one!

The high quality food is the one on the left.

And now to the winner of this giveaway! I let Niila to do the drawing:

And the winner is A Tangled Yarn! Congratulations!

Dog Food Week Giveaway!

2010-11-13T15:54:00.001+02:00

The Dog Food Week is over and it's time for the first ever giveaway in my blog! I have had a whole week to figure out what to "give away" and I'm pretty pleased with what I came up with.

The winner of the giveaway will get an original "humiliate the dog" tube hat in size S or M and the hat will be hand knitted by me. The hat won't look exactly like in the picture, because I don't have that yarn anymore, but the winner will be able to affect the color and the size. There will also be a color print of the hat knitting/crocheting pattern included in case she/he wants to make more hats.

The winner will also get a fresh batch of Papu's Piggie Treats, the recipe to make them and a small cookie cutter. The cookie cutter may not be the same as the one in the picture.

How to win: There is a picture of two different dog foods below. One food is high quality food, rated with six stars in Dog Food Analysis. The other one is rated with zero stars. Guess in a comment which is which.

You don't have to guess right in order to win, because the winner will be selected randomly. If you are a subscriber, whether you are an old one or you just subscribed after reading this post, mention that in your comment too. Subscribers will get one extra entry.

International entries are welcome and I ship on my own expense. The giveaway closes on Saturday 20.11. The winner will be chosen randomly. I will announce the winner on my blog on Sunday 21.11 and also contact the winner personally. Please make sure I have a way to contact you!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!

Dog Food Week - Why to feed your dog with high quality food?

2010-11-12T15:18:00.000+02:00

This is the third post of my Dog Food Week. The previous post was "How much does the high quality food cost"? If you want to know more about the Dog Food Week or the schedule, read the introduction post.

I think the real question should be "Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you feed your precious family member with the best food possible? People don't eat crappy food, so dogs shouldn't be forced to eat it either. But feeding quality food is more than just a kind act. It will help the dog to live healthier, longer life.

Improves health and elongates life

Think about the ways you can make your dog's life better and the ways you can ensure that your dog stays as healthy as possible. You can teach him tricks to make sure that it he gets to use his brains and doesn't get bored. You can play with him or take him to biking, hiking, jogging, walking or whatever to make sure that he gets plenty of exercise. You can take him to the dog park to give him a possibility to interact with other dogs. You can take him to the vet if he seems sick. So there's basically just activation and exercise. And oh, feeding.

Sometimes you're busy and you don't have time to go out for a long walk, or it's raining too hard, or maybe you don't have imagination to make up new tricks all the time. But you feed your dog every single day, no matter what.

Studies say that dogs will live about two years longer if they are fed with quality food. They will also stay healthier longer. That's what I want for my dogs. I want them to live a happy long life with me as I love them so much. I want them to be here with me as long as possible, and since there aren't so many ways I can ensure that, at least I'm feeding them with high quality food. I also believe that with right diet the dog will stay healthier longer, that even though the dog gets old, it will stay healthy.

And who wouldn't want his or her dog to live a long, happy, healthy life?

Poop is pop

And another very relevant reason to feed the dog with quality food is poop. It is the first thing that changes after changing successfully to a high quality food. The poop looks different and there's less of it. I have witnessed this myself. We spent a week dog-sitting my sister's dachshund and she ate some low quality dog food. Her poop was very dark and very, very smelly and quite loose too. Definitely not something nice to pick up. The same with my mother's dachshund. When our dogs poop (considering that they have not been eating something unusual), it's not unpleasant. The poop is solid, nicely colored (if you can say that from a poop) and definitely not as bad smelling.

We fed Niila with Royal Canin when we got her, because that was what she ate at the breeder's, and we didn't want to change that right away. And she pooped awful, awful poops and awfully lot too. When we changed to Orijen Puppy, the problem was solved. No more smelly piles of poop. I have heard this same story from other dog-owners too; on low quality food the dog poops more often.

So if your dog seem to poop a lot and the poop smells awful, is loose or the color is too dark or gray, it's probably because of the low quality food. Change for high quality food and watch if it changes for better. It's better for you too, since you will be picking it up! Just remember that it takes weeks for dog to adjust to a new food, so the change might not happen overnight.

Why support crap?

As long as people are bying cheap food with suspicious ingredients, dog food manufactures keep making it and less educated people keep feeding it to their dogs. Require quality and we will get more quality. And maybe the prices would become lower too since there would be higher demand for the food and also healthy competition between the high quality dog food brand. Who knows?

The next post will be a giveaway. If you're worried that you might miss it, subscribe. It's easy and you'll never miss a post again.

Dog Food Week - How much does the high quality dog food cost?

2010-11-10T20:16:00.001+02:00

This is the second post of my Dog Food Week. The previous post was "How to detect the quality of the dog food? If you want to know more about the Dog Food Week or the schedule, read the introduction post.

Introduction

In my previous post I said that the dog food with highest meat content is also the dog food with highest quality. Unfortunately the dog food with highest meat content can also be the most expensive one. But is it really?

Let's take an example: In our veterinarian's they sell Hill's Science Diet (Plan) with a high price. And you could rationalize that it's high quality food because a) the price is high and b) it's your vet that's selling it, they should be interested about your dog's health. But even the Science Diet puppy food ingredient list starts with "ground whole grain corn". So despite the high price it's a low quality dog food.

So basically the price tag tells nothing about the quality of the food. The food can be pricey, but still be considered as a low quality dog food.

Quality costs, but so does crap too

The truth is that high quality dog food is not cheap... when compared to food with lower than low quality. The reason they make these low quality dog foods is that they can sell them cheaper and people would rather buy them than the better ones with pricier price tags. And sometimes they have played their cards right and are able to sell crappy dog food with ridiculous price tags like in the case of Hill's.

So to be able to see which dog foods are actually worth the money and which are not, you need tounderstand what makes a quality dog food. I've heard about so many cases in which someone thinks he or she is feeding the dog with high quality food because the food is from the vet or from special pet store and because it's ridiculously expensive! I don't know about you, but I am very willing to pay for dog food, but only when I know it's really worth the money.

The right starting point

Money is probably the first thing that prevents people from feeding their dogs with high quality food. But I think that comparing prices is not the right starting point when it comes to food. Of course everything sounds expensive when you have to pay it at once! Last time we spent 140€ for dog food and people think we are crazy. But instead of thinking about the price, you should evaluate how much you are willing pay for your dog's dinner per day. And if you're on the poorer side, you can think how much you can afford. Then simply find the dog food with most highest quality that falls into that budget.

Example

I decide that I'm willing to pay around 1€ per day and then I start to search for high quality foods that are easily available. Eventually I choose Orijen Regional Red, which has rated with six stars in Dog Food Analysis.

Orijen Regional Red costs 26,99€ per 2.5kg in Zooplus.fi online store. It does sound pricey because it's only two and a half kilos. Then I search for the feeding information from their website:

WEIGHT OF DOG	ACTIVE LIFESTYLE (g/cups per day)	LESS ACTIVE (g/cups per day)
Daily Ration and Feeding Guide


1-10 kg/2-22 lb	75-150g/¾-1¼ c	55-115 g/½-1 c
10-20 kg/22-45 lb	150-275g/1¼-2¼ c	115-200 g/1-1¾ c
20-35 kg/45-75 lb	275-375g/2¾-3¾ c	200-275 g/1¾-2½ c
35-50 kg/75-110 lb	375-500g/3¾-5 c	275-400 g/2½-3½ c
50-65 kg/110-145 lb	500-575 g/5-5¾ c	400-525 g/3½-4¾ c
65-80 kg/145-175 lb	575-675 g/5¾-6¾ c	525-690 g/4¾-6 c

My dog weights about 5.5kg and I think she is "less active". The daily portion would be about 80g.

2.5kg / 80g = 31 days

Now I know that this bag of dog food would last for 31 days.

26.99€ / 31 days = 0,90€

So feeding my dog with this high quality food would cost 90cents, which is less than I was ready to pay!

Size matters

The smaller your dog, the less the quality food will cost per day. However, big dogs win something too. The dog food is usually cheaper in a big bag than in a smaller one, but big bags are inconvinient with small dogs, especially since you should change the dog food every now and then.

But no matter the dog size, you can always aim at the best and then make compromises due the money issue. Maybe your Saint Bernard eats like a horse, but you can still make sure that you're feeding him/her with the best food you possible can.

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Dog Food Week - How to detect the quality of the dog food?

2010-11-09T18:26:00.001+02:00

This is the first post of my Dog Food Week. If you want to know more about the Dog Food Week or the schedule, read the introduction post.

Topic introduction

Before we got Papu, I thought that dog food is a simple thing. That you would just go to the store and pick what ever appeals to you, and that's fine. And you could even buy dog food from the vet to make sure that the dog food is high quality food. Obviously, it's not that simple. The quality of the dog food varies a lot, and the price of the food rarely tells anything about the quality of the food. Sometimes cheap dog food can be ten times better than the very expensive one.

Most dog foods are made for the humans, and by that I don't mean that humans can eat them too. I mean that they are trying to make the food appealing to us so we would buy them. They seem to try so hard that they spend all their budget to market the dog food instead of actually making the quality dog food that they promise in the fancy package.

I think it's hard for an unexperienced dog owner to know what to believe when they read the labels of the dog foods. They all promise to be the best dog food for your dog, and each dog food sounds better than the previous one. I myself found this out when I was picking the dog food for Papu for the first time. I was driven to make the best choice for her, yet I had no idea how to make the decision.

What to look in ingredient lists?

The decision should be based on the ingredient list of the dog food. They are easy to read once you know what to look for. The order in the ingredient list is based of weight. The more something weights, the higher it goes in the list. And since dogs are carnivores, the first ingredient in the ingredient list should always be meat. If it's something else, like grains or plant material, it's a low quality dog food. The line between low quality and medium quality is that easy to draw, and it can be done with just one quick look!

However, you should be aware of "splitting". Ingredient list with split ingredients might look like this "meat, corn, another part of corn, yet another part of corn". It looks like there's plenty of meat, because meat is the first ingredient. But if you could count all those corn parts together, they might actually outweigh the meat. They do this to make the dog food sound better, but if you train yourself look for this, you won't be fooled. You should also be vary if there are too many different grains in the list, since they might outweigh the meat too.

The third thing to pay attention to is the form of the meat. If the meat is in "meat" form, it has been weighted before it has been dried, which obviously makes it heavier and therefore higher in the ingredient list. When the water is removed, it probably drops further down the list. If the meat is in "meat meal" form, then you don't have to count the water factor. The meat should also be identified: chicken instead of poultry etc.

Examples

I have chosen some examples of real ingredient lists so I could demonstrate how easy it is to make the basic analyze of the dog food quality:

Corn Meal, Chicken By-Product Meal, Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Chicken, Dried Beet Pulp, Chicken Fat...

The first ingredient is "corn meal", so this automatically falls into "low quality" category.

Lamb, Brewers Rice, Corn Meal, Fish Meal (source of fish oil), Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Dried Egg Product, Ground Whole Grain Barley, Chicken Fat...

This look good at first, since the first ingredient is meat. However the meat is in "meat" form so in reality it should be lower in the list. Then the real first ingredient is most likely to be grain... I don't now have to analyze it any further because based on this information I know that it's a low quality dog food.

Cereals, meat and animal derivatives (min. 4% chicken in chicken kibble), vegetables (min. 4% vegetable in vegetable kibble) oils and fats, minerals, vegetable protein extracts...

What's in this?! I rate this lower than low quality.

Fresh boneless chicken, chicken meal, turkey meal, russet potato, fresh pacific salmon, herring meal, sweet potato, peas, fresh lake whitefish, fresh northern walleye, chicken fat...

There are many meat products in this ingredient list, and they are all identified as well. Some of the meat is in "meat" form, but since there are meat in "meat meal" form too, it's quite safety to assume that the meat content in this dog food is high and therefore I place this in the high quality category.

Closure

It's relatively easy to detect if the food is low quality. Detecting whether the food is "medium quality" or "high quality" is harder. The quality is the higher the more meat it contains, simplified... But since the dog food manufacturers aren't always keen to share the exact percentages of the ingredients, it's sometimes hard to know for sure. Luckily the high quality dog food brands usually share this information openly.

There are also plenty of good dog food review websites on the Internet. They can help you to determine the quality of the dog food you're thinking about. My favorite website is Dog Food Analysis. They have reviewed dog foods solemnly by their ingredient lists and rated the food with stars from one to six They also have many interesting articles listed in their FAQ.

The next topic is "How much does the high quality food cost?" If you're worried that you might miss it, subscribe. It's easy and you'll never miss a post again.

Dog Food Week!

2010-11-09T09:14:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I woke up early and for some mysterious reason I also felt really energetic. I had nothing to do before school, so I thought I could spend my morning writing that blog post about dog food I have planned for months and months. Unfortunately, or should I say fortunately, I am really passionate about dog food so I end up writing something that I usually refer as "megapost" or as "the post that is so long that nobody will ever read it".

So therefore I'm announcing this week as the Dog Food Week. I'm going to break my megapost into smaller parts and post them through the week. That way I have a chance that someone actually reads them. There is also going to be a giveaway at the end of the week, which is something totally new. I have never had I giveaway in this blog, so it's about the time. The prize of the giveaway will be something dog food related since this is a Dog Food Week.

Here is the raw schedule:

The Dog Food Week

How to detect the quality of the dog food? - Tuesday
How much does the high quality dog food cost? - Wednesday
Why to feed your dog with high quality dog food? - Friday
Giveaway - Saturday

If you have other dog food related topics you would like me to cover, or just questions about dog food, drop a comment. I will take all suggestions to my consideration, and I will gladly answer any questions.

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Calendar for social life losers

2010-10-27T19:48:00.001+03:00

I was really excited when school started this Fall. Fall means new calendars, and I absolutely love calendars. They make me feel oh so important. I just have one teeny tiny problem... I barely have life beyond school, and school projects don't really fill the calendar. Empty days, weeks and months make me feel depressed and like a social outcast. And besides, I couldn't justify buying a new fancy calendar just to write down one or two exam dates.

So I came up with somethind different. I call it a "calendar for social life losers".

It's just a thin notebook which I have covered with violet paper. The stickers on the cover say "Calendar etc 2010" in Finnish. Not very fancy or original, but in the same time it suits my style. Every spread in the notebook represents one week; I have handwritten the number of the week and the names of the months including the specific dates.

The basis of the calendar is really simple, but it works for me. I just write down the day and what is going to happen, and I can use pretty much as much space as I want to, because there's no fear that I'll manage to use the whole spread... J.R. complained that my calendar is hard to understand because the days don't follow any logic. It doesn't bother me. I think it's easy to scan because I only have 1-4 events marked for each week. And hey, there's still room for occasional to-do lists!

When I go through my calendar now, I don't feel depressed. My calendar covers all my needs and makes me feel like I have a life, because there's no empty days. Yay!

Autumn leaves and my little Autumn ladies

2010-10-22T19:25:00.003+03:00

There have been some signs that the winter is just around the corner. Days have became colder and it has also snowed a little. It still looks like autumn outside, though. There are even some leaves on the trees. Papu is prepared for the winter. She has her coat and her little tube hat. Niila, on the other hand, is not prepared at all. She doesn't even know what winter is. And she doesn't have a winter coat yet. I've been looking for a human coat that I could turn into doggie coat, but I haven't found anything suitable. The time is seriously running out, so I hope I find something before it gets seriously cold.

The girls have been enjoying the autumn too. Last weekend we visited my parents because of my dad's birthday party. We let them run loose in the backyard and they seemed really happy. Viiala is like a paradise for our pups. There's plenty of room to run, indoors and outdoors, and there's lots of play mates too. My mother's dachshund is now also Niila's good friend and she also made friends with my sisters' Labrador retriever, Dachshund and Golden retriever. The Golder retriever is a new acquaintance for Papu too. My sister's family just got her and she was actually younger than Niila.

They also tried out their new sweaters against the chilly autumn weather. The blue sweater that Papu is wearing is knitted by me, and J.R. has knitted the greenish sweater Niila is swearing.

The ladies don't always manage to look so smart.

Papu is actually shivering from cold in this picture.

Niila is one serious super model.

Sniffing, sniffing.

There is also one new video of Niila on Youtube. They were playing just the other day with a stuffed mouse. Niila got it and she didn't want to give it back to Papu. It seems that our little one knows how to benefit from her smaller size...

I don't mind so much about getting older because I got so many awesome birthday presents

2010-10-10T21:21:00.001+03:00

My birthday was on Friday, but for some reason my parents and sisters forgot it. I expected to get birthday wishes early on the morning, but I actually received the first one late at night and got more only after I complained that everybody has forgotten me... I don't know what could be more important than my birthday?

J.R. of course remembered my birthday, and he was excited to give me my birthday present. He had gotten it weeks earlier and he was eager to know if I liked it. We didn't do anything special for the rest of the day though. We were too busy baking cakes. J.R. baked a double chocolate cake and I made an easy cheese cake. J.R. ran into some troubles with his cake though and we had to use all of our imagination to make it work. It was worth all the trouble because it turned out fabulous.

My birthday party was on Saturday. All my friends came and we served tea, cake and other treats. Ossi entertained us by trying to play my wooden flute. You have to make a special trick to get a sound of it, and it's not exactly easy to figure out how to do that. Anyway. I forgot to take pictures of the cakes, so I have to show you a picture of my birthday presents instead:

Click to enlarge...

OK. All of my birthday presents are in this pictures, except the chocolate I already ate on Friday. The purple Vans t-shirt is from J.R. I had told him that I would like a Vans t-shirt because I really love shoes by Vans and that it would symbolize my fandom for the shoes. People wear band t-shirt because they like the bands, so I can now wear my Vans t-shirt because I love the shoes. At least it makes sense to me. The pom pom maker is also a present from J.R. I already tested it and it's super easy to make pom poms with it!

The purple scarf is from my most awesome friend Ossi. I got a scarf from him last year as well, so I think he's now my number one source of cool scarves. And since I'm the "girl who always wears a scarf", you can never go wrong with scarves with me. The shiny white cardigan is from Tien whose my friend from school. I guess she has noticed my lack of long sleeves shirts. I really needed one!

I also got a great deal of tea this year. The "Karibian aurinko" tea is from Elina and her boyfriend, as well as the shower gel next to the tea packages. I think Elina is psychic, because I have just ran out of shower gel and she saved me from a shopping trip. The two green tea packages are from Hannes. He got them from Poland and J.R. googled that they are some tangerine and cactus black teas. They sound so exotic that I can't wait to sample them tonight!

I also can't wait to try out the sandwich grill. It's from Hannes too. We already had a sandwich grill, but it was old and the shell was broken and glued back together. I always felt slightly unsafe when using it, but now I can grill sandwiches without worrying about getting an electric shock or something. I gave the old one to Hannes though, because I knew he wanted a sandwich grill too. And he's an electrician. Electricians are allowed to use unsafe devices, right?

The Body Shop gift card and sweets are from M.B. He complained earlier something about his present being too impersonal. I don't mind impersonality when it comes to body shop gift cards. I have TBS gift cards permanently in my wish list! I'm too poor nowadays to pamper myself with TBS products, but now I have no other choice than to get something nice just for myself. I'm already thinking about night cream or new shades of shimmering eye shadows... Something I want, but not necessarily need.

And lastly, two new KoKo mugs. We actually got four new KoKo mugs by Arabia, two yellow and two light green, but I don't know yet how many of them are my birthday presents. I invited more people to come to my birthday party than we had mugs, so I asked my mother if I could buy new mugs and they would just give me some money later. We decided that we needed three mugs to be safe, but we ended up buying four to get two of both colors... My mom can give me one of them or all four if she wants to.

Yes. I'm into birthday presents. Into all kinds of gifts really. I like to get them and I like to give them. And I like to write megaposts about them...

Tooth update

2010-09-24T20:46:00.000+03:00

Yesterday we took Niila to the vet again. We wanted to make sure that there's nothing too dramatic going on in her mouth now that her teeth have grown more and we also happened to get an appointment to some kind of a dog teeth specialist.

The vet was really positive and said that in most of the cases like Niila's there is a high possibility that the permanent teeth will become completely normal after all. He also said that there's no sign of inflammation in the hole in Niila's palate and that we shouldn't be worried about that unless the hole becomes red, swollen and really sore.

The vet also gave us a tip that we should give a ridiculously large raw bones to Niila. According to the vet it will help the teeth stretch toward the right position and that it works better than just pushing the teeth with fingers. We are little suspicious, but naturally we are willing to do anything to help her achieve the perfect smile.

We took a new picture of the hole in Niila's palate. The picture is not as sharp as the previous one, but it still shows some difference. We believe that the hole is slightly wider nowadays, which would indicate that the left canine teeth is moving. The hole is not helping the process, though. Niila places the canine tooth to the hole because that's where it probably feels most comfortable. When we move her jaw where it "should be", the left canine tooth is actually quite close to the right position. So I would say that the pushing therapy works, it just works really slowly and you have to have lots of patience.

Anything else is fine in our dog kingdom, by the way. Papu is her usually cute self and Niila is the nuisance she is supposed to be during the puppyhood phase.