Because we hit up so many different locations on Ray’s birthday tour, we amassed quite a collection of doggy birthday presents.  He got treats, an antler split, a smoked bone, a squeaky snake, and a Squeezz Stick in addition to his big-boy food. 

Naturally, I knew that a lot of this would need to be rationed out because just like a child, Ray would get too excited over all of the toys and end up playing with none of them.  So, the antler he received right away.  I found a nice thick one with nubs on it so that it would last longer than a regular split antler.  Regular splits last less than a week around here and full unsplit antlers are I-don’t-have-anything-else-to-play-with-so-I-guess-I’ll-play-with-this toys.  Splits are so much more instantly gratifiying it seems, so when we start feeling like Ray is overloaded on bully sticks, we try and encourage the antler use.

The snake was a hoot because it’s billed as being indestructable and each section contains a squeaker that is supposed to continue squeaking even if punctured.  The eyes lasted about 14 minutes before they got picked off, the head has a gaping wound in it and each squeaker is nearly flat and completely soundless.  The nice thing, though, is that there is no stuffing in the snake.  Glad we had a coupon for that one.

I was feeling pretty good about the Squeezz Stick, too.  It’s a Kong product and had a recessed/protected squeaker in it that might hold up better.  It did.  It took nearly 4 hours of play before the squeaker stopped working and nearly the same amount of time before Ray picked one of the nubs off enough to leave a gaping hole in the toy. 

My intent was not to be negative, and I’m certainly not trying to disparage any toys or companies, this is just more of my frustration in finding fun and functional toys for Ray.  I feel like the person who wants to wear cute shoes but is only able to wear orthopedic footwear.  There has to be some toy with a squeaker that lasts longer than a few hours out there.  Anyone? Anyone?  Bueller?

Ray has a new favorite vegetable.  It makes him screech in anticipation.

He loves kale!

Everyone knows by now that Ray is pretty much a Mama’s boy, but I did want to share that he is also an indiscriminate lap sitter.

With Asia.

With his Daddy.

Also, thanks everyone for the thoughts and advice around microchips and tags.  I love the collar that Pitlandia suggested and will add that to my wish list.  I also never even thought about having him scanned occasionally to make sure the chip is still there. (Thanks, AnnPaws!)  Finally, I went back to the HomeAgain registration and updated his info so that people wouldn’t be looking for a 35 pound dog!  I also want to upload a photo now that he is close to a year old. 

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone.  We are so thankful for all the friendships we’re forging and for the wonderful blogging community in general.  See you Monday!

I’ve mentioned a time or two that I sometimes freak out over certain things.  Anesthesia is one.  When Ray was neutered and again when he had him growth removed, I freaked a little bit over the ghastly thought of what if?  What if the rock he ate this morning causes adverse affects?  What if he doesn’t come out of the anesthesia?  What if what if what if!!   Luckily this often works itself out and I can contiue my day in a fairly productive manner. 

Along those lines, though, I panicked for nearly the entire time that Ray-Ray was unprotected.  Not by vaccines, but by a microchip.  Ray came home with me when he was only seven weeks old because by then his litter was weaned and Sparkles was more interested in becoming someone’s forever baby than in dealing with her own.  I think that bringing him home that early has left him with some deficient social skills that even his puppy classes couldn’t give him but as he grows I still try to expose him to as much as I feel we can successfully handle.  There were times, though, that I found myself wishing I could just leave this little monster in the proverbial pumpkin patch.  This jumping, nipping, leash wrestling little puppy was overwhelming at times but by the same token was the light of my life. 

Anyhow, on our first visit to the vet, I had asked to have him microchipped but was told they prefer to wait until the neuter and do it while he is anesthetized so for the next couple of months I felt like he was unprotected and I was a neurotic mess each time we set foot outside.  The problem now that he is chipped, is that I want to be able to communicate this fact very easily and effectively.  The first question I would ask about a lost or found animal is whether or not it is chipped but I wonder if that is the first thing others would think?  Would most people check?  Would they know how to or where to?  I really wanted to get a tag that would explain that fact.  I liked a tag suggestion I saw …ummm….was it at Love and a Six Foot Leash? …about a reward?  I’m not sure but naturally the talk about local shelters being filled with Pit Bull type dogs are abundant.  Unfortunately, around here the shelters are not full of Pit Bull types, if you catch my meaning.  That scares me even more.  I thought a nice tag saying something like “Ray-chipped and loved” might work, but of course I would need my name and number on it.  Maybe my husband’s name and number as an alternate.  Ray’s name, of course, should go on there so at this point we have a book hanging from his neck.  And we’re talking about a dog who is easily stimulated.  By that I mean he doesn’t do well with dangly, jingly tags.  I even bought one of those fancy tag clips from Sirius Republic.  He ate it while it was on his collar!  At least that is what I think happened because I found his bent tag on the floor, the connecting ring opened and nothing else.

So what do you do to keep your pooches safe and easily returned if that unspeakable event happened to separate him/her from you?

Sometimes I’m dense.  It takes me longer to see the forest through the trees, so to speak, so it has always kind of shocked me that people constantly ask me what kind of dog Ray is.  No one has ever assumed (at least verbally to me) that he is a Pit Bull.  Though his dna came back as “not a pit bull” I still consider him a Pit Bull type and lead with that.  So a typical converstion goes like this:
Stranger, “What kind of dog is that?”
Me, “He’s a Pit Bull type.”
Stranger, “Really?” This is usually followed by any number of follow up statements which compel me to explain the American Bulldog/Boxer/mix and how Wisdom Panel doesn’t actually screen for APBT but does screen for Staffie and Am Staff, etc.  Ok my round about point being that I always considered Ray to obviously be a Pit Bull.  Yet, we have neighbors who thought he was a dalmation and I guess I can see why.

Until I saw this picture that my husband took last night.

It made me wonder if perhaps Wisdom panel meant that the “mixed” part of him was this?

Yes, it’s that time of year again when we engage in both a flurry of activity and time of reflection.  Ray and I have been participating in a thirty days of Thanksgiving project on Facebook.  We are trying to keep a mixture of things to be thankful for, from the little things to the large.  It’s also the time for lots of boxes to be delivered and this week was no exception.

“Mama, what’s in the box?”

Since we regularly get orders of treats or food for the fur babies in the mail, Ray was pretty sure this was mostly for him as well.

He was excessively nosey so excited that it was hard to get the tape cut and the box opened with his big jug head in the way.

But when I finally got it opened, imagine the glee for his puppy who LOOOOOVES his bully sticks.

So let me tell you what we got but first let me tell you why we’re so excited.  Every Sunday Ray and I go to TSC for some Ray-Ray lovin’ and to purchase a couple of bully sticks.  Our local has the best prices we’ve found in $5.99 for a 12″ bully stick.  The next cheapest place was over $8 for the same size.  Antlers as you may know are not exactly cheap either, even though the shed ones (at least in my mind) are cheap to free if they’re found.  So we ventured over to best bully sticks where we found the same 12″ bully sticks for just over $2 each!  Shipping was fast, too.  I placed my order on Moday and received the box on Thursday. So what you see in the picture is a 1 pound bag of antlers which ended up being 3 larger, heavier antlers, one antler burr, one large bag of Sam’s Yams and a bag of twenty-five 12″ bully sticks all for under $100.  If you haven’t ordered from this company before and decide to do so now, I’d be especially thankful if you would mention my name in the “where did you hear about us” box. 
If you enter a code that I will be happy to email to you, I will receive a 10% off coupon.  (email me at peaceabullassembly at yahoo)  Then once you place your order you can pass the savings along via the refer a friend program as well.*  Why does the 10% off mean so much to us?  One of the things we have in the works for the holidays is that we are doing an antler drive for the pooches at our local shelter and I’ve made a start on that with the order we got yesterday.  I think my sorority alumnae group will be participating and hopefully we will have an antler for each dog who might otherwise spend the holidays without.  The best thing about the antlers as opposed to a kong, say or a toy that can be played with in the kennel is that if it hasn’t been worn to the nub already, it can be taken home when the dog is adopted.  I’m very excited about this drive and hope it will be a success. 

Do you typically participate or lead collection drives during the holidays?  What has worked/ not worked for you?

*please note, I am not receiving anything for this other than the 10% off coupon, though I did sign up to be an affiliate and if approved you will see that  link in the sidebar eventually.

Happy Monday, Folks.  WOOF!  Last week when my Mommy told me she had another three day weekend and that she didn’t have any plans to cheat on me to attend any adoption events, I was elated!

But then she said she was going to visit my Auntie in Michigan and I was confused because that sounded like she was going to leave me at home, but then she started packing my bye-bye bag!  Oh, I was getting pretty excited because even though she sometimes takes my bye-bye bag with her and leaves me at home, she did act like I was going.  And I did go!  We were in the truck for a million hours an hour and a half when Mommy decided to stop at a Rest Area so I could go potty, but there were so many smells there that we ended up taking a sniffy walk so I could stretch my legs and investigate. 

When we finally got to my Auntie’s house I was more comfy and did my business there and then there was another surprise!  Cousins!  My Auntie has three doggies of her own and I got to meet two of them. 

First I met Bobbers. 

Her name is really Bob because my Auntie found her and discovered that her owner had turned her out to the streets.  Auntie was not going to get attached so she named this girl doggie Bob.  That was last Spring.  Since then, Auntie learned more about Bob’s “story,” got her icky shots and made sure she wouldn’t have any baby Bobs.  Bob didn’t like me very much.  I’m an only child here and sometimes I’m kind of pushy when I want to make friends.  Bob didn’t appreciate me jumping on her head to say hi.

Next I met Mocha.  She is not much older than me and almost as tall as me.  She has a funny curly tail and we played like pals.

Mocha and I were a good match, Mommy said.  We both are ram-bunk-shus, Mommy said.  I think that means that we’re both cute and bouncy.

Speaking of cute and bouncy, I didn’t get to meet my cousin Pinky.  She sat in the window and barked at me and Auntie said Pinky doesn’t know that she is not a Pit Bull.  Since I don’t understand that I am not the same size as Pinky and I was pretty excited from playing with Mocha, I didn’t play with Pinky.

When we got back home I wanted to go to bed early and all day Sunday Mommy said I had a ‘fun hangover’ because I was so sleepy.  She even had to wake me up in the morning because I just wanted to sleeeeep alllll daaaaaay.  We did get to go to my shopping store and buy bully sticks and get some love and also we played in the yard.  Mommy and I played run and get it for awhile but then I was tired and thirsty so we stopped. 

I can’t wait to see my cousin Mocha again.  Next time I hope we get to play longer but that just might give me a two day fun hangover.

Hope you had a great weekend too!

Recently Asia and I had lunch together at one of our favorite lunch spots…Fresh Market.  Each time we go there it’s like a frenzy of sights and smells in a sensory overload kind of way and we spend way too much on “lunch.”  To be fair, that day we ended up with lunch, dinner, snacks and some fresh fruit so it was definitely worth the visit. 

When I got home that night, Ray was pretty interested in the contents of my shopping bag as well.  He’s always up for an opportunity to try new fruits and vegetables and this was no exception.  While most of the contents of our fruit basket were not for Ray’s consumption, he did get to partake in some of the fresh goodness.

Ray loves apple slices and these are not much bigger but sooo much more fun.  Do you have a guilty pleasure lunch spot? 

I see that term bandied about quite a bit and since the majority of the blogs I read are centered around Pit Bull-type dogs, I imagine quite a few of these dogs are “Power Chewers.”  Sometimes I think Ray fits into that category and sometimes I don’t.  For instance, when I first started giving him Churpi-chews it would take about a week or so for him to chew the entire thing.  The last time I gave him one, he had it entirely eaten before we finished our dinner.  At that price, there will be no more Churpi-chews for Ray-Ray.  Hooves have been a great and inexpensive replacement, as we can get those for just a few dollars and they do last well more than a week.

Bully sticks are a highly favored treat for Ray and a twelve inch bully can last almost 15 minutes if we’re lucky.  We use them mostly at the beginning of a football game since they tend to settle Ray and get him more focused.  We’ve also been favoring the frozen stuffed kong, using the recipe that Pitlandia posted the other day.  I had been freezing Ray’s kongs, but not using a lot of the mix-ins so he was clearing the contents pretty quickly.  Ray loves his kongs, we’ve been using them a lot more for feeding, though we do still use his bowl as well.

Antlers are something that Ray is very mezzo-mezzo about.  He prefers the split elk antlers but right now only has his deer antlers, one with a large nub and one more tapered.  Because that is what we have available right now, he has been chewing on those more lately.

For some reason, the antler seemed much more fun on this day than on previous days.