Adventure Dog Blog

With winter upon us, I’ve discovered that my little Chublet cannot tolerate the cold. This isn’t unusual for pugs, but he can’t even go around the block. Both he and Anna are dying for some exercise and playing at the park just isn’t an option right now.

One solution I’ve found for their boredom and need for socialization is the meetup. There is this website online called Meetup.com where people can arrange all kinds of shared interest groups, and there are a lot of dog groups. Most large cities have breed specific groups and sometimes general dog play groups.

I’m pleased that I found Meetup.com because I found the local pug meetup group and have taken Chublet to play with other pugs once a month for awhile now. At first he was terrified, but now he takes off and plays. It’s been essential for socializing him and teaching him how to behave around other dogs.

Now that winter is here, I realized that finding a good meetup that both dogs can attend will solve part of our problem with the weather. I discovered that we don’t really have a general dog meetup that allows any breed, but found that the bulldog meetup would let me bring my dogs to play. Better yet, joining the meetup is free, and play days just cost a five dollar drop in fee per family.

If you are looking for a good opportunity to socialize your dogs, or need somewhere to play indoors during the winter, you can try looking on Meetup.com and see if there are any groups in your area that offer indoor play!

In my city, there is a wonderful group of pug owners that get together once a month so that their pugs can play. The woman that runs the group is fantastic, often ensuring that there are door prizes and goodie bags on all special occasions.

Recently, she started a new business, The Pawhaus Boutique. I’m writing about her here because I think she provides some very high quality products and a really awesome service. On her website, you can order dog/puppy packs or kitten/cat packs that contain all kinds of great items for the pet owner in your life. They make great gifts, with packs like the Birthday Celebration Pack, Baby Makes 4 Pack, Spa Packs, and even a Dog Sympathy Pack.

I have seen some of the products that go into the packs in person and they are top notch goods that you aren’t going to find in your local dog department store. These packs are unique, and you can make them even more so if you’d like by creating a custom pack.

Please visit our friends at The Pawhaus Boutique and have a look at their great pet packs.

Since I am quite tattooed and my tastes lean towards the alternative, I’m always on the lookout for something punkrock for my dogs. One Halloween, I even dressed Anna up as a punkrocker. I gave her a very tiny green mowhawk, put an army green shirt on her, and a studded belt. She looked SO funny! Besides that, I haven’t ever found much in the way of accessories or dog products that ran to my tastes.

Recently, I stumbled across a site called Punk Rock Dogg where they actually have punk rock dog products. I think what I liked the most are their aged pewter dog tags that say “Lucky Pup” and feature pictures in the center like the Buddha, a cowboy, flames, vintage ladies, etc. You can see them in the image I’ve put above.

Check out Punk Rock Dogg by clicking here.

When we went to Mexico with our dogs Mr. Meaty and Anna, I worried a little about how they would fare in the ocean. As Mr. Meaty was a pug, I felt he would need help the most should we find ourselves tipped out of a boat, and bought him a little lifejacket. Anna on the other hand is a huge dog and an incredible swimmer and I didn’t think she’d need any help.

After spending three months in Mexico, I really wished I had bought her some kind of flotation device. First, when we would go swimming, she thought nothing of just heading off towards the horizon and would only turn around when called back. I worried that she would tire and get pulled away by the tide. Second, we had an incident where she leapt from a dock to catch a retreating boat and found herself in deep water she couldn’t swim out of. It took a lot of nervous yelling and coaxing to get her up on the very steep rocks at the side. I thought I would watch her drown that day.

The device pictured above is called the Sea Dogg, a buoyant swim collar for dogs that keeps their head above water and helps them to swim. Unlike a lifejacket, the collar is simple to put on and adjusts to any size between 11 and 20 inches.

I think something like this would have been perfect for Anna. A lifejacket her size would have been cumbersome to carry around and this neck collar would have been great for when we went swimming. Perhaps next time I will be able to try one of these out.

Click here to visit the Sea Dogg website!

I had to laugh out loud a little when I read this article about Taffy, a springer spaniel who had to undergo surgery to remove the 40th pair of underwear he had eaten.

My pug Mr. Meaty had always loved my underwear. I remember one night when I had a group of friends over to visit, he ran out into the kitchen shaking something black fiercely. He looked so triumphant, super pleased with himself, and I discovered in horror that it was a pair of my panties that he had in his mouth.

It got so bad that he used to sit near my feet when I was changing my clothes, waiting for that pair of underwear to hit the ground. I learned very quickly that I needed to toss all underwear into a laundry basket where he couldn’t get it.

Chublet, my new pug, is the same way! He is a panty stealing enthusiast just like Meaty was and any chance he gets, he steals underwear and runs away shaking it like mad to some hiding place where he can maul them in peace.

Poor Taffy the dog though. Swallowing everyday objects can be very dangerous for dogs so hopefully he’s learned his lesson.

Since Christmas is coming soon, I thought it makes sense to start posting about the various products I’ve found online for dogs.

When shopping for dogs online, I’ve found there are a lot of junk websites and it is very hard to find quality products. The search engines are filled with cookie-cutter sites offering the same poorly made toys.

I was pretty excited when I found a website called WoufPoof. They make quality leather products for dogs, including dog beds, jackets, collars and leashes. I laughed out loud when I saw this bone shaped dog bed. It looks fantastic!

You can click on the image, or click here if you’d like to see Wouf Poof for yourself.

Much to my dogs’ dismay, I found this dog toothbrush set at PetSmart when I was shopping and decided it was time to start brushing their teeth.

What made me think of it was seeing all the dogs that were virtually un-adoptable at the local animal shelter because they were old and had very bad teeth. Getting a dog’s teeth done can be quite an expensive procedure, and anaesthesia is risky business so it’s always better to avoid it when you can.

I got a kit like the one pictured above that came with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a little finger toothbrush that’s really just a rubber thingie with some nubs on it.

I started by introducing both dogs to a little bit of toothpaste on my finger and letting them lick it. The second week, I let them lick toothpaste off of the little rubber finger brush. After using the finger brush for a couple weeks and getting it in their mouth a bit, I started with the real toothbrush. I’m still not able to brush a lot of their teeth, but they do quite enjoy trying to lick all the toothpaste, and I am managing to scrub a bit. It’s better than nothing.

So here are my Tips for Brushing Your Dog’s Teeth:

1. Start Slowly. The last thing you want to do is rush, and end up turning the situation into a negative experience for your dog. Dogs don’t easily forget!

2. Try Your Finger. Even if you don’t have a special rubber brush that fits on your finger, you can put dog toothpaste on your finger and rub it on your dog’s gums and teeth.

3. Use a Schedule. I brush my dogs’ teeth once per week. This way, it has become a routine. They know what to expect when the toothbrush comes out, including the treats they will get when everything is done. It has become an event they look forward to.

4. Use a Dog Toothpaste! This is important! There are chemicals in human toothpaste that you shouldn’t give to your dog.

5. Reward Your Dog AFTER. After your dog has sat and allowed you to fudge around in their mouth, be sure to give them lots of love and attention. They will remember this next time they see the toothbrush come out.

Hopefully in a few weeks, I’ll be able to report even more progress with my dogs and their teeth!

It’s highly likely that you’ve already seen the following site, but if you haven’t, man you’re in for a treat.

I LOVE my pug, and in searching for information on pugs, I discovered Obey the Pure Breed, a website that has really unique designs for all kinds of products, from t-shirts and posters to bumper sticks and baby onsies. They have images/designs of ALL different kinds of dog breeds and all of them are really unique. And this is not your usual product. This is “propaganda for canine world domaination”!

I think what I really liked was that their designs featuring pugs really capture the true character of a pug. I’ve seen so many people try to draw a pug or design an image, and they just can’t get the wrinkles right or the squashed face to look natural.

Look at that face, isn’t he hilarious:

I think this site has a lot of stuff that would make good stocking stuffers for friends and presents for the people in your life with dogs. I think my little Chublet would look hilarious in one of their pug shirts, and trust me, he’s going to take over the world. Soon. Just not yet.

Take a peek, these dogs are hilarious.

I was just reading a post on Bark Blog that discusses a news item about a family who took their dog to the vet with tumors that required surgery they couldn’t afford. They decided to have the dog put down. The story gets a little confusing here, but essentially what happened is a visiting vet decided to do the surgery on the dog and keep it. Eventually, the family was contacted and reunited with their dog, and left quite upset over the whole ordeal.

In Bark Blog, they raise the question of what can be done to help animals that are being put down because their owners cannot afford surgery.

This isn’t the only scenario where I’ve seen dogs suffer because someone can’t afford their surgery. At my local animal shelter, they often have older dogs up for adoption that require expensive work on their teeth. The shelter will only let someone adopt the dog if they pay for the surgery and have it done first, and so often these dogs will go un-adopted. There must be a way to help these dogs as well.

There are a few problems that need to be solved besides saving the dog’s lives. The first would be having the surgery paid for and completed. The second is finding some way to keep the dog with it’s family.

1. Create a pool of vets who are willing to perform surgeries on animals to ensure they are more easily adopted from animal shelters, and for families that cannot afford surgeries on their pets.

2. Create a fund that provides financial assistance to families that need it to pay for these surgeries.

3. Find a way to provide better payment options for low income families who require surgery for their pets.

Unfortunately, there is a shortage of vets who are willing to work for free, probably because there are just too many animals and families needing help. A vet has to earn a living. Maybe this issue could be solved if all vets donated a certain amount of time per month to the pool.

Who would start and maintain the fund for assisting families financially? And can vets offer better payment solutions?

Hopefully this is an issue that more people will think about and the ball will start to roll.

When it’s windy and cold outside, my dogs are almost as hesitant as I am to go and play outside. Almost. Well actually, they’d probably drag me to the park if it was up to them, but sometimes I must refuse.

It’s frustrating when days can go by and the dogs haven’t had their daily fix of romping exercise with other dogs. What can a dog owner do on those days to keep their dogs from tearing up the house with pent-up energy?

The following is a list of activities that you can do with your dogs during the winter months to keep them in top shape and happy:

1. Find a local dog meetup. Many of these groups will meet indoors at a local dog daycare where dogs can run and romp together and nobody has to stand around outside.

2. Visit your dog friendly friends. Taking your dog to someone else’s house can be enough to break up the monotonous routine of their day. Even better, visit a friend that has dogs and let the dogs play together in the yard, or even in the house.

3. Join a flyball team. Flyball is a sport for dogs and their owners where the dogs run a race, jumping over jumps to catch a ball at the end. Flyball teams are always hoping to find small dogs to compete as the height of the jumps are set by the smallest member of the team. This sport is often played indoors so it’s great for the winter.

4. Take your dog to the pet store. Whenever you run off to get that new bag of food or pick up some treats, load those dogs into the car and take them with you! Going for a ride, sniffing out a new place, and meeting other dogs can be an exciting outing!

5. Visit your local dog daycare. We run a dog daycare from our home where dogs come to play with us, and often stay overnight. There are also larger commercial dog daycares run in buildings with big playrooms for the dogs. You can use dog daycares to ensure your dog gets enough socialization, exercise, and entertainment. Some daycares are now setting up indoor dog parks, so look for one in your city.

6. Teach your dog some more tricks. A training session can involve lots of laying down, jumping up, spinning around, and more. You can use a training session to give your dog some entertainment and mild exercise.

7. Play hide and seek. Lots of dogs enjoy a good game of hide and seek where they have to find you, or find a toy that you’ve hidden. We will tell Anna to wait, and let her sit in the livingroom while we go off and hide a toy somewhere. Then when we say “okay!”, she knows it’s time to go find her toy. We had to make things very easy the first few times we played, but as she caught on, we had to make things harder and harder. I know a woman with a border collie that LOVES this game, but she has to go down into her basement and hide the ball in the sleeve of a coat or buried in things, because he’s so good at finding it!

8. Dance. There are people who participate in musical freestyle, a combination of obedience and dance. If you can train your dog a few basic moves, you could be dancing together in no time!

9. Get down and wrestle. My big dog Anna has always really liked it when I get down on the floor with her to play. Her tail wags like crazy if I push her down onto her back and sniff at her ears and face. She used to be a little rambunctious for play like this, but now that she’s older, she’s pretty gentle with me. I get just as much exercise as she does when we wrestle!

10. Blow bubbles. One summer we discovered that Anna just loved chasing bubbles. If you have a room in your house where it won’t cause problems to get some soap on the floor, mix up yourself a batch of bubbles, find a bubble wand, and start blowing. Anna goes wild snapping and catching them in her mouth. It’s really fun!