Changing Diets, Annoying Owners, an Award and I Finally Found out What That Bird is!

I’ve bitten the bullet and begun to move Flo off her dog biscuits and on to a raw diet. Although I’m confident that it’s not her food that is causing her skin spots, I am hoping that this diet might improve her immune system so that it can better cope with whatever it is that is causing it.  I have always been planning to move her to a raw diet, but wasn’t going to do it until she was about 2.  She already was getting a fair bit of raw meat and bones in her diet – a big meaty bone probably once a week as well as marrow bones, and she often has a turkey drumstick for dinner.  Her Kongs are also stuffed with either minced beef or chicken mince.  So far I don’t think the new diet has made an impact on her skin, but I did notice a difference in her coat within 3 days and she would outrun a cheetah to get to her food bowl in the evenings, which is a new thing.  I think it’s fair to say she’s enjoying this new feeding regime.  She still gets some dog biscuits too; apparently it’s not good to let them go cold turkey when they swap to cold turkey.  Paaaahaaaa!

Nose. too. big.

... 14 mins later

As for the v-e-ts, I have decided that enough is enough with the visits for her skin.  The v-e-t has said (and I believe him) that it is almost impossible to find out what is causing the problem.  Each time we go Flo is  prescribed medication that does the trick, but it’s not a long-term solution and the side effects (mainly incontinence) are getting worse.  This last time the rash cleared up really quickly and then came straight back once the drugs wore out of her system.  The skin rash doesn’t seem to bother her – she occasionally licks it when it is on a particular part of her leg – so I think on balance we will just manage it at home unless it gets particularly bad.  We do have some cream from the vet which does help when the spots are on her tummy.  The trick is getting the cream on and stopping her from licking it off!

Now to the annoying owners.  And beware, I’m about to go on a rant.  I live in a suburb which is plagued by dog-owners who are less than exemplary.  When I first brought Flo home at 8 weeks old I was absolutely paranoid about not letting her feet touch the ground outside our yard because I was sure many of the dogs wouldn’t be innoculated against parvo.  There are always dogs wandering around the streets, pooing on the strip of grass outside my house, and on more than one occasion they’ve come in to my yard.  The cheek of it.  A few days ago I spoke to a neighbour across the road about her dog (a very small thing, not sure which (if any) breed it is) which is out on the street a lot.  It runs around on the road and in front of cars, and it chases people.  The other thing that it does is that it gets in behind my car when I’m reversing out the driveway in the morning.  I am terrified I’m going to run it over.  It makes me so cross that its owners are so blase with its safety.  Anyway, after I spoke to them it’s been shut in the garden a little more, but it does still get left out to roam around on the street.  Grrrr.  The dogs at large annoy me as well because I try to do the right thing with Flo – thankfully she’s never taken off down the road chasing one of these dogs in an attempt to get it to play, she’s always been very well behaved and done what I’ve asked her as I’ve put her in and out of the car, but it does worry me that I’ll be reversing out one day and she’ll rush off her bed and out the gate after one of these dogs.

Anyway, today there was a dog fight outside my house with a whole lot of little kids around playing in the street.  The dogs involved were all serial wanderers – a big dark entire dog, my next door neighbours’ little fox terrier type dog and the little dog from across the road.  The big dog was the aggressor and my next door neighbours’ dog was on its back, in a submissive pose.  The little dog was just in there pouring fuel on the fire.  I phoned the local council’s animal control section and they eventually came out a few hours later.  When they drove up the street, they found the big dog and were about to pick it up when its owners drove past and behaved in an aggressive way towards the council worker, so he wisely just let them take their dog.  He says they’ll be receiving a fine in the post.  I hope this makes them take a bit more responsibility, and I hope that goes for my near neighbours too.  Double grrrr.  Annoyed.  Enough of my ranting.

Thank you Basset Momma for awarding us the Liebster Award!  We are chuffed, especially coming from such a fantastic blogster… you really do crack us up! If you haven’t visited Fred and Gloria (c’mon, with names like that they’ve got to have a sense of humour…) then I highly recommend you pop over.

Liebster means “dearest” in German, and the award is intended to help up-and-coming blogs get the attention they deserve. As with any award there is a bit of ceremony involved. In order to accept the award we must do the following:

1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award.
3. Pick our five favourite blogs, with less than 200 followers and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.

I am fairly certain that all my fave blogs have already received this award… but I thought it would be nice just to recognise a few of them.  No pressure to do anything with it.  🙂

Romping and Rolling in the Rockies
Dachshund Nola
The Poupounette
From Sophie’s View
Rumpydog

And finally… during the wet season there is a bird with a really distinctive call which I have been trying to get a glimpse of for months years.  FINALLY, this evening I saw it – it’s a pheasant coucal.  It was sitting on the track before us, then it moved up to a tree for a while where it showed us its beautiful long tail, before it flew off in a flurry of russet.  Here is a link to it if you want to see what it looks like or sounds like.

Pheasant Coucal information

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