Flyball Friday! 5-13

Peanut had a blast at flyball on Friday. We are working on passing drills. My crazy baby likes to growl and bark at the dog comming at her before she takes off. Me and Peanut are hoping to go to our first competition soon so we need to register for our CRN number and I am starting to figure out when to let her go depending on what dog runs in front of her.

Lollypop Farm Young Professionals Gardening

Volunteers Mulching



On May 11th 70 volunteers from Xerox came to the shelter and got a tremendous amount of work done. They spent the day cleaning the barns, fixing the farm stalls, planting flowers and trimming the bushes.

Lollypop Farm Young Professionals volunteers got together Wednesday night to finish some mulching. The whole front of the building needed to be mulched. We were able to get a majority of the work done and will be finishing up on Wednesday June 1st from 5:30pm - 7:30pm. Additional volunteers are welcome. If you are interested send an email to youngprofessionals@lollypopfarm.org. Benefits include helping out an amazing animal shelter in your community and good karma!

I'll Be Missing You

Hurry Home Mommy

I went away last weekend for a trip to the beach and I missed my babies so much! I wish I could tell them what was going on. I always worry that they think I've left them and I'm not coming back. I don't bring them to a kennel they stay home with my mom. Neither of them have ever been to a kennel. Saturday was a busy day so she spent most of the day at the babysitters with her best friend Princess. I was really happy to see them today. Peanut got a bouncy ball and Bailey got kisses.

Bailey is much more sensitive than Peanut. He has a little bit of seperation anxiety. When I'm putting my makeup on in the morning he knows I'm leaving soon and he starts crying. Patricia McConnell writes excellent dog books and she has one on seperation anxiety that I read a while back called I'll Be Home Soon.

Our Adventure at Boughton Park

Someone got tierd and wanted to be carried!

We finally had a little bit of nice weather in Rochester so we took the dogs to Boughton Park in Victor. I love walking there since only Victor and Bloomfield residents can go (you have to have a car permit) it is usually very quiet. We came across a few other people walking their dogs which Peanut loved. She wants to play with every dog. Peanut has been discovering water lately. She walked into the pond up to her chest looking for a frog. I tried to entice her to jump in by throwing a stick for her to chase but she didn't go for it. Bailey loves going to the park to sniff everything! Hes not as much of an athlete as Peanut tho and wants to be carried after a while.

Where did that frog go!!

Flyball Friday!

Friday night flyball in pictures!

Amber

Peanut's Favorite Part: Hurdles!

Flying Lou Bob

Peanut made me laugh so hard when she kept on running after she had the ball and ran right out the door! Into a fenced in yard thank goodness. I can just imagine her thinking come on mom and dad lets go play fetch outside.

Lollypop Farm Young Professional Group

Lollypop Farm Humane Society of Rochester has formed a young professionals group. I have volunteered to be on the groups committee. The goal of the group is to support the shelter through awareness and fundraising. We will hold educational, fundraising, and networking events around Rochester. The first event was held on Saturday. Several people from the group met at the shelter to do a spring cleaning of the grounds around Lollypop! It was a beautiful day and the volunteers were able to fill several bags with trash.

Our next event will be City Solve scavenger hunt and urban race on June 4th. This will be an exciting event for Rochester and a great fundraising opportunity for Lollypop. Teams solve clues and take on challenges for a chance to win $5,000 at the championship in Las Vegas. Local prizes will be available for 1st, 2nd, 3rd place and best costume, best tweet, top family and top senior. If you've ever thought about entering the Amazing Race this is a good place to test out your partner! The creator of City Solve Jason Hofsess is from Ithaca NY. You can follow them on Twitter @citysolve and Facebook.

If you are interested in signing up for Lollypop Farm's Young Professional email distribution list send a blank email to youngprofessionals@lollypop.org.

Raw Food - Answers

Friday night I attended a free seminar on raw food for dogs at Boom Towne Canine Campus. The seminar was hosted by Jacqueline Hill from Answers Pet Food. I'm interested in raw food because I've heard of the enormous health benefits of feeding it but I really have not done much research into it. Jacqueline was a great presenter who really understood the material she was presenting. She has two mastiffs that she feeds a raw diet who are now 17 years old! Much older than a mastif's life expectancy. Raw food is superior to kibble because dogs are carnivores and kibble is mostly made out of grains. Another reason raw food is really good for our dogs is that it is not cooked and put under the pressure that kibble is. Kibble is cooked under high heat then squeezed out of high pressure machines to make its shape. This process destroys any nutritional value that is in the ingredients.

Answers sent us home with a free container of raw goat milk for our dogs. Raw goat milk is supposed to have great nutritional value for cats and dogs. Peanut, Bailey and Ollie really liked it. I'm going to start giving it to them once in a while.

I'm definitely going to be doing more research and thinking about raw diets for the dogs. I am also going to start following this blog about a vet that is transitioning her dog to a raw food diet. You can read about her experiences here: http://web.me.com/dramynesselrodt/RawDogFoodResearch/Welcome.html

Feral Cat Fixathon

Female kitty just spayed

Saturday I spent the morning volunteering at Lollypop Farm for the feral cat fixathon. The fixathons happen a few times a year where small rescue groups and individuals can bring in feral cats to be spayed and neutered for a small fee. These people trap, neuter, and release (TNR) the cats back to their colony. This was my first time volunteering at one of the fixathons and it was a very fun day. The fantastic vets and vet techs were able to fix 43 cats Saturday morning!

My volunteer job was to help take care of the cats as they are coming out of anesthesia. The females have tubes in their mouths that must be removed once they start coming around. The males don't have the tubes because their surgery is must faster so they are put under less anesthesia. While one of the cats was under I was able to shave off his mats. Being a feral cat he doesn't have anyone to brush his long hair and it was extremely matted. I hope he was more comfortable when he woke up.

Shaved long hair cat

Feral cats are wild and are not candidates for adoption. People trap them and get them fixed as an effort to control over population. Cats reproduce very quickly. When a feral cat is fixed the point of its ear is cut off. This signals to others that this cat is already fixed and their is no need to go through the trouble of trapping and vetting this particular cat.

Brush Our Teeth

I've been wanting to try to brush the dogs teeth for a while now so I finally bought a finger brush and poultry flavored dog tooth paste. I first got the idea from their babysitter. He brushes his dog Princess's teeth. Well good news both dogs like the way the tooth paste tastes and they weren't too concerned when I was sticking my finger in their mouths. More than anything I think they just thought it was annoying. I want to get them on a schedule of brushing their teeth a few times a week. Once they get used to it the brushing will become easier. Brushing their teeth is important to keep their teeth and gums healthy just like ours. We brush our teeth why not theirs?

Making Puppy Friends

Peanut and Bailey visiting with their new puppy friend Stewie that lives next door. Stewie is about four months old and was adopted from Lollypop Farm Humane Society. Lollypop has such a great adoption rate for their dogs that they are able to take in puppies and dogs from high kill shelters mostly in the south. Stewie came in on this  puppy wagon with his siblings.

Its good for dogs to be able to play together. You want your dog to be social and dog friendly so introducing them to many different dogs is a good idea.

Steping Up the Treats

One thing that I keep hearing in training classes and books is that you need to have a really high value treat when training your dog to do difficult things. For each dog a high value treat is different. In Bailey's case it is cheese every time. Cheese with more cheese on top filled with extra cheese. Peanut likes cheese but shes not as in love with it as Bailey. I've been experimenting with Peanut's treats lately. I went to the deli and got turkey, ham, and salami. So far she loves them all. The meat treats are really capturing her attention. Buying treats in the pet store can get expensive especially when yoiu are doing training since you go through so many treats. I found this website http://www.petmountain.com/ they have fantastic prices on all sorts of pet products so I ordered some freeze dried liver, dehydrated lamb lung, and Zukes training treats. Also if you spend $60 on the site shipping is free.

Trying to Update the Blog

Trying to update the blog over the weekend but Peanut wasn't having it. She insisted we eaither play with the laser pointer or she will nap on my hands! Such a silly puppy.

Trying to Walk my Cat

I don't normally write about my cats on my blog but I am a cat lover. Sprinkles is my all black male cat that I brought home after a shift in the cat room a few months ago. Ever since the weather has gotten warmer Sprinkles had been dying to go outside. One day he finally slipped out the front door. I hoped he would come back quickly but he got lost and was gone for about three weeks. After searching all over Victor for him I finally heard someone might be taking care of him. I passed out fliers and got a call the next day. I was so happy to hear Sprinkles was safe. But now hes home and he still wants to go out. So what do I do? How do I teach him to go outside and come back to his house? Today I put Bailey's harness on him and tried to walk him around the house. That didn't go great but we spent a few minutes outside. I will try this again a few times this week and hopefully it will help him get his bearings.

Great Flyball Pictures

This Friday at Flyball practice we had a great guy taking pictures of the dogs with his fancy camera. Useually it is so hard to get good pictures on my regular digital camera because the dogs are moving so fast.


Peanut Flying

Peanut is starting to single bound on most of the hurdles now!



Lou Bob!

Pretty Tula

Peanut doing a full run

Peanut is doing soo good at flyball practices lately! She is trying to single bound between the hurdles. Shes doing pretty good but we need to work on rear end awareness to strengthen the muscles in her rear legs. We have started doing this by practicing her sit pretty and then getting her to stand on her rear legs from the sit pretty position.