Meaty Monday: New Research Opportunity!

In June our local animal shelter hosts a huge cat adoption event called KittyPalooza, and my aunt Laurie adopted a little tuxedo kitten!

Meet P.K. (that stands for Poor Kitty)

Recently, Laurie was over at our house and we started to talk about P.K.  Emma and I had mentioned raw food to her before, and she was interested when we started our dogs on their new diet, but she decided to not switch P.K.  She started to complain about how terrible his litter box smelled, which turned into the perfect segue for persuading her to switch P.K. to a raw diet.

Why?  Because feeding a raw diet for both cats and dogs results in smaller poop that has an extremely low odor.  As in, almost no smell.  We usually can't even tell if one of the little dogs has had an accident inside until we see the poop!  (OK, that's pretty gross, but it's the truth.)

After hearing this, Laurie decided to try out a raw diet.  The only problem is that neither she nor I has any experience with feeding cats raw.  It's the perfect (or should I say, purrfect?) opportunity for more research!

I'll keep you updated on my progress!  :)   

--Olivia

Meaty Monday: Adventures in Raw

Seven years ago, Olivia and I traveled to Houston to pick up Brego from his breeder. When we got to her house, she introduced us to all of her Papillons and told us about Dr. Ian Billinghurst's B.A.R.F. diet, which she fed to her dogs in patty form. She encouraged us to keep up with the diet and included Dr. Billinghurst's book The B.A.R.F Diet in Brego's puppy packet. 

We ordered some of the patties and fed them to Brego for the first few weeks, but the patties were expensive, the book too science-y for us at that age, and Brego seemed too picky. Since Brego liked the kibble that the Labs were eating better than his B.A.R.F. patties, we switched him to dry food.


One year ago we started feeding raw.  Here is our story and what we've learned along the way:

After battling Brego's bad teeth and breath, fondly referred to as "death breath," Olivia and I decided to look into a raw diet once more. We were inspired by a few of our agility, trainer, and breeder friends who swear by a raw diet and by the fact that our expanding pack of five all had different health needs: seasonal allergies and dermatitis, gingivitis and bad breath, lack-luster coats, not to mention digestive "issues". So began the long, exciting, stressful, time-consuming, fascinating, and over-all successful venture into raw-food land.

The first mission on our raw quest was to acquire as many books on the subject as possible. Being college students, we decided to take another crack at Dr. Billinghurst's book and found it to be a fairly easy read. Anyone with an understanding of basic biology should be able to easily comprehend everything in Billinghurst's book.  The other books we acquired are: Work Wonders by Tom Lonsdale; Unlocking the Canine Ancestral Diet by Steve Brown; Raw Dog Food by Carina Beth Macdonald; and Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs by Lew Olson.  Lonsdale's book was a very easy read but he promotes a "prey" driven diet that was not conducive to how we wanted to feed our dogs.  Steve Brown's book proved to be fairly interesting but very tedious to read, it also focuses on supplementing a kibble diet rather than feeding raw.  The last two books on our list proved to be the most helpful.  Carina Beth Macdonald is not a veterinarian or a nutritionist but her insight and instructions prove to be the most helpful.  She explains everything in plain, simple, straight forward terms--there's even a chapter about poop!  The second most helpful book is Lew Olson's Raw & Natural Nutrition for Dogs.  Olson is a canine nutrition specialist.  She lays out nutritional values for various proteins, supplements, etc.  in tables that make figuring out portions a breeze.  She also outlines diets for several types of dogs from puppies to seniors.

And so, we delve into the world of raw food and BARF diets. We'll keep you posted on our progress. :)

Weekend Project: Cheap & Easy Agility Jumps

A while ago, Emma and I decided to build some practice agility jumps to use for backyard practice.  Since this project was successful we decided to share it with you.  Here's how we made two jumps for about $40.

We went to the home improvement store and bought 3 1" PVC poles, 2 3/4" PVC poles, 12 1" pole caps, and 4 1" tees for about $20 (all our PVC is Schedule 40, if you don't want to have the bar codes and item numbers on the pipe, go for furniture-grade PVC. However, this tends to be a more expensive option).  The other $20 we spent on 4 4-way tees that we had to special order from Clean Run.

Whenever we being a building project, we make a checklist of all the parts needed, and work our way down the list checking off items as we go before assembling the obstacle. Here is what we already had:

• PVC cutters
• hacksaw
• tape measure
• black marker
• clamps
• cutting board (not the kind you use in a kitchen)
• vinyl electrical tape, optional

Here is what we needed:

• 2 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 48 inches
• 4 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 36 inches
• 12 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 12 inches
• 4 1-inch  PVC 4-way tees (we ordered ours from Clean Run)
• 4 1-inch PVC tees (these are the normal ones from the hardware store)
• 12 1-inch PVC caps, we like the ones with the rounded look, but you can get the flat ones, if you want
• 2 poles of 3/4-inch PVC measuring 48 inches

Note: you can use PVC glue to adhere all the pieces together. We chose not to, because we wanted our jumps to be collapse-able for easy transportation and storage purposes.  If you want water tight jumps use a PVC primer and glue on all the joints.

Now that we had the list, we could buy our products. We found two 10-foot lengths of 1 inch PVC and one 10-foot length of 3/4-inch PVC to be sufficient for this project, along with all of the fittings we needed, of course.  

So, we cut all of the pieces down to size. It is very important to note that you should measure and cut each piece individually as you go, because you can lose a little bit of pipe when you cut. Next, we separated the two jumps into their components and began putting them together. 

Once the jumps were assembled, we set about making jump cups. A simple solution would have been to buy a set of jump cup strips from Clean Run, but a cheaper solution was to make our own! Since all of our dogs jump 16" or less (for now, at least. Tucker will jump 20", but he is still building up muscle), we only made two sets of cups for each of the jumps. To do this, we clamped a regular PVC tee to a 2x4 board that we straddled between some cinder blocks. Then we went to town with the hacksaw to cut the tee in half and provide us with two cups. To make the cups snap on and off the jumps, we also cut just less than half of the back off, creating a clip-like portion on the tee. pic of cups - on right side, make this section wrap We repeated this process three more times, and, voila!, we had jump cups!

The last step was to align the jump cups and set the bars in between them and admire our new practice jumps! We also decided to stripe our jumps with electrical tape so that they matched our weave poles.

To download and print complete, detailed instructions with more pictures, visit: http://howtomake.allearsagility.com/practicejumps.pdf

HAPPY JUMPING!

-- Emma & Olivia

We Like: Smartwool Socks

Smartwool socks are the best socks ever.  Seriously.  If I could replace all of the socks in my sock drawer, I would buy nothing but Smartwools!  There is nothing worse than having bad socks.  One reason I love Smartwools is because they are thermo-regulating--they keep your feet warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  There are many different styles of Smartwools designed for everything from skiing to running.  For agility the best socks are the PhD Running socks.  They are ankle length and super lightweight.  The PhDs are especially made for high impact movement and do not slip down into the toe of your shoe!  All Smartwools also boast that they are blister free.  I have never gotten a blister while wearing my Smartwools--even if I'm wearing new shoes!  The only downside to Smartwools is that they are on the slightly expensive side ($12.50 for socks?!?), but I believe that they are worth every penny.

--Olivia