Life with the Three Crazy Dogs

Sometime last month, I had to buy a new frisbee for Chase. His favorite one is a Nylabone frisbee which was once belonged to Cooper. Since Chase came along and horded all of the frisbees that once were Cooper’s, Cooper just didn’t bother….as if to say, let the young-un enjoy them now. :D

However, that fav frisbee is now somewhere in the woods. I tossed it too hard and it landed somewhere in the deep shrubs. I went up and looked and searched but could not find it. I will get back to looking for it in the fall.

Anyway, I thought I had better get another frisbee for this crazy fetcher. So I bought one cheapy plastic frisbee meant for humans and what a big mistake that was. It only lasted 2 weeks or less and I had to toss it coz he was chewing it to pieces and some parts were missing which I assumed he swallowed them!!

This is what that human frisbee turned out after the Chase-abused:

Then I bought another one which the girl told me is super durable and a little more expensive, about $14.

The feel of this frisbee is totally different. It’s not flexible plastic, but it’s like rubber and heavier. It took me a while to get use to throwing it.

Letting Chase smell and feel it.

Chase lives to fetch and “abuse”! :) He really knows how to “knead” those darn frisbees whether they are plastic or flexible ones. He will keep “kneading” them till you force him to let go. The weird thing is he will only start the “kneading” thing after 8 minutes or so of fetching….after he has his “fix” of fetching! :D

Now, this is what the new blue frisbee looks like after a month and 5 days:

The middle portion of the frisbee are tear up and so when he fetches it, he will sometimes comes back looking like this:

He is definitely a comedian, makes me laugh a lot. The frisbee does not “fly” very far with its “injured” body. DB said we need to get another Nylabone frisbee which really last. The lost Nylabone frisbee we bought was in 2001, and it’s still flying albeit a lot of teeth marks. This weekend a trip to Petco will me on my calendar.

It has been ages since I really posted  something non paid!  Sad isn’t it? 

The only thing that is really worth posting is what I baked during the weekends.  Pretty much every weekend the oven is on.  Last weekend I must have been super hardworking, full of energy I guess.  I baked a banana bread and blueberry crumb cake.  On top of that I prepped for the week’s dinner.  I was tired the morning up till I started working on the nana bread.  Whatever happened, I have no clue.  I was cooking away in the kitchen.

My disgusting looking blueberry crumble. Tasted darn good though.  We have been eating it with vanilla ice-cream.

Here’s the banana bread. Why do American’s call it banana bread and not cake? This nana bread is a favorite of the man, so he does put in quite a few requests a month!

I told DB no baking this weekend.  I need to let my over flowing muffin top a rest.  It’s more like giving my pants a breather.  No joke, my pants are screaming at me for suffocating them.

Since it has been hot and hot and humid and more humid (seems forever), I have shorten my walks with the dogs.  I still walk them in the afternoon after I get home from work.  The temperature is like 89F or higher plus no shady spots.  The boys, no matter how damn hot and humid it is, they still want to go for their CSI walks.  I call it CSI because they have to snoop every 10 yards or less!!  We walk them again in the evening since they cannot roam around the yard on their own, we walk them and get their business done for the evening/night.

Here’s a pic of Cooper after his walk. Catching some coolness in the kitchen tiled floor.  This fella is getting whiter day by day, but still loves his long walks.

Ranger at the entryway. Everyday when we come back from a walk, he will lay just like that to cool off.  He is the real crime scene investigator.  Anything that is 5 yards or less he will stop to check it out. 

Chase after his evening frisbee session in 90F temperature. He’s a slob. There’s water on his snout and he is my shadow.  Follows me every where in the house.

So there, my updates for now till Lord knows when.  :)  TTFN

*This is not a paid review.

I have to admit, I do not bathe the dogs very often, especially the two C’s (Cooper and Chase).  The two C’s are “cleaner” dogs, whereas Ranger is more of a “I love to roll on yucky stuff” kinda dog.  Needless to say, Ranger gets more baths than the other two.  I simply hate bathing the boys.  The number one reason is they do not stay still and I don’t even bathe them outdoors or in the tub.  I bathe them in the shower stall where they are confine in one small area.  No where for them to try run from me.  Even in the shower stall, they will go round in circles.  So I resort to just brushing them more often and that was before we moved to town home community.  I have not brush them since we move to our new digs coz dog hair will be all over the neighbors.

So now, I do subscribe to a pet website.  In a particular email I saw the goodness of Rapid Bath by Hydro Surge. 

I read the product reviews, the works and watched the testimonials.  After reading and watching these testimonials and reviews, I was drawn to this wonderful creation.  Talked it over with DB and he said get it.  Ordered it and also extra shampoo cartridges, they came within a week and I tried it out [(new toilet, you know! :) ]

It says the Rapid Bath will get your dog bathe in 3 minutes. Of course, I don’t believe that since each dog is different depending on how big and thick its fur is. The kit comes with the hose, connectors, sprayer and a free shampoo cartridge.

The installation seems to be very easy.

Installation was done by DB, the tool guy around the house. He got it up in less than 10 minutes. We are going to leave the installation up there for good since it does not affect our shower head.  The connectors that came with the kit really works.

I did the testing with the Rapid Bath. No pictures while bathing the dogs coz I was bathing them and DB was busy bodying outside the shower and I forgot to ask him to take pictures.  The instructions says to hold the sprayer at a 45 degree angle to get a better wash.  It’s true, the 45 degree angle does a very good cleaning. 

Overall, it’s a good buy. I like the fact that the dogs really stood still while I was spraying them (shampooing, rinsing and their faces). It must be the spray as it says it is like a spa for them.  The water pressure from the sprayer was perfect. It does remove a lot of loose hair also and yes, the dogs were clean and smelling good. The bath time for each dog varies. First it was Chase: it took about 7 plus minutes from start to finish (shampoo, rinse and face) since he has the shortest and least hair on him. Ranger I took less than 10 minutes also since I bathe him few weeks ago. Cooper was the only one that took about 15 minutes since he has so much loose hair and they were coming off him like he has some disease.  I spent extra nimutes during the rinsing to get the hair off him.

The only drawback is each the shampoo cartridge will wash 2+ dogs, or it could be because it was my first time using the Rapid Bath, I am not accustom to the new tool yet.

Halfway bathing Cooper (he was the last I did), I had to get a new cartridge to finish his bath. The Hypo-allergenic shampoo is for Ranger but for this first round of baths, I used the oatmeal shampoo and so far it’s working good.

Now that we are done with one of the shampoo cartridge, we are saving it.  We cannot refill the cartridge with our own dog shampoo.  Once we are done with what we ordered for cartridges, we have to order more.  I read in some reviews, people are using a syringe to pump their own dog shampoo into the cartridge (there is a plastic tip on the top of the cartridge). 

The next bath will be next month since bathing the three monsters now is easy peasy.

Nadine and I were out, me tagging along as usual with her shopping, we were chatting about her family and the topic of family turned to expanding the family of 2.  I told her DB and I already have 3 dogs in the house.  Adding another human to care for will probably kill me, I told her.  She said her hubby, Mark, is thinking of having a kid, whereas she is not.  She is actually wanting to have a puppy.  She told me she is asking her friends if any puppies for sale around her area. 

I told her puppies are cute in the beginning and a lot of consistencies needed to be placed in the begining stage of the pup coz the pup will become an adult and will stick with you for a very long time.  She said she much prefer a dog than having kids.  At least a dog will listen and much more obedient with commands.  Well, that’s true.  Each time she comes over to our place, she will go crazy over the boys, especially Ranger she is very fond of.  She said she might also check out the paper’s classifies for dogs for sale.  Adult dogs coud be better for her since she is always out of the house as long as she crates the dog before she leaves for work.   Or she could adopt from animal shelters, however, she is not too keen about that idea.

If Nadine likes Ranger, I mentioned she should check out the kennel where we adopted Ranger.  The owner breeds amazing quality breeds of Labs.  Her stud dogs have a field of certificates for obedience, agility and hunting.  What is great about this kennel is the owner will first ask if you want a dog for companion, for competition in obedience, agility or for hunting.  Ranger was bred for companionship, he has great disposition as a family dog, and beautiful features that a lot of folks praise him for. :) *Beams*

If that is what Nadine wants, a special bred Lab per what she wants, the cost be slightly higher than going to a regular breeder who only breeds out of selling.  I would recommend she gets in touch with Ranger’s breeder and ask about the stud fee and the terms and condition for getting a well bred Lab.

Dogs do that, I know coz my crazy ass dog, Ranger does that a lot.  Probably just to piss the crap outta me.

I know dogs roll on dead animals or even on other animals’ poop so they, the dogs can leave their scent there, like how they mark their territory on a tree, or what my friend says “leaving their calling card”.  Also, I read they do that so they could mask their own scent and another I read is dogs to that to tell the other animals they found something interesting!!!!   Animals, they are some creatures, alright. 

Ranger is one of these animals from the wolf family….!!!  That fella did it 2 weeks ago.  He was smelling something on our way back from a walk, he was sniffing for quite some time and I started to pull on the leash.  He then moved a little and BAM, rolled on the grass he was sniffing.  I kept pulling his leash to get him up.  Boy did he stink, stunk of dead animal.  Cilaka betul.

Bathe him as soon as we got home.  He sure knows he is deep doodoo coz he was very still and did what I told him to do which normal he will do the opposite of what i want him to do. 

This early morning, he almost did it again.  It’s at a different spot than the previous incident.  This time I was watching him and as soon as I saw him crouching down, I pulled on his leash real hard which really jolted him off that spot.  From then on each time I see him sniffing a spot for a while, I started tugging at the leash and if no response, I just pulled him away.  I’m sure whoever sees me doing that will stay I’m a dog abuser. Walking the dogs is suppose to be stress free, no need to sort out any acne treatment but I think from now on I really have to. The other two dogs have not give me much problems when I walk them, just this Ranger, the angel, that’s what DB calls him and yet he does not like to walk Ranger.