INCOMING!

Looks like we have a new foster coming in soon. Stay tuned!

Vacancy!

Josie went to her new home yesterday! We're all going to miss her but I think Sasha is going to miss her the most. Those two were always up for a game of chase or for some rough-housing, but alas, that's how things go. She was one of the easiest dogs we've ever fostered - no problems or issues to work through, always happy, no medical issues - just an all around great little girl.
Now we're just waiting to see who comes through our door next. Stay tuned!

Ads for Green Acres Boxer Rescue

Here are some ads I designed for the rescue starring one of my favorite foster dogs, Chex!

Got a new camera!

Here are some of my first shots with my new camera!

Josie - Adoption Pending!

Her meeting today went fantastically well. It was love at first sight for all parties involved and they wanted to take her home right then and there. It looks like, if I can get all of her paperwork together in time, she'll be placed next Saturday.
Yay for Josie!!

Great Lakes Pet Expo

It went great! Josie rocked. She was just lapping up all of the attention like a sponge, although around 3-ish she was starting to get tired (as was Sasha - they had both been there since 10am!) so Lynn took them both home. At some points Josie was just getting mauled by people - there were hands coming in from everywhere just to touch her, people were grabbing and holding her face, some guys were giving her big heavy pats on the head and through all of that, she just wiggled her little butt and gave kisses. She is as about as bulletproof as it gets. Nothing fazed her.

Here's Sasha going over a jump and towards the tunnel. Not necessarily the best angle. Darn paparazzi! Always taking photos of her when she's not at her best!

Sasha ran the agility course pretty well. The first run - a practice run I was to find out later - she was as sloooow as molasses. The second run - the actual run - she was speedier and had a nice clean run. She was starting to get a little overwhelmed by it all - don't people ask if they can pet your dog anymore? - so she got a little down time in her crate. All in all it was a great, if tiring, day. I think I'm going to make a little adult beverage and collapse on the couch with Georgie. I'm pooped!

Lucky Number 5

I just got my 5th inquiry about Josie (!!) so I had the Waiting List banner placed under her photo on the web page.




I hope all this popularity doesn't go to her head!

A little rant about Dog Food

Found this link regarding Beneful Dog Food. I personally have serious ethical problems with the quality of the food, the ingredients, and especially the advertising. Beautiful plump ears of corn and freshly harvested stalks of wheat rain from the sky amidst other vegetables. Umm... wait a minute. Corn and wheat are among the top allergy causing ingredients in dog food, yet Beneful's advertising touts them as healthy ingredients? The corn and wheat they use are most likely fillers so they don't have to add as much protein and other good stuff (read: expensive stuff).

I mean, look at the first 28 ingredients:
Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, beef tallow preserved with mixed-tocopherols (source of Vitamin E), rice flour, beef, soy flour, sugar, sorbitol, tricalcium phosphate, water, animal digest, salt, phosphoric acid, potassium chloride, dicalcium phosphate, sorbic acid (a preservative), L-Lysine monohydrochloride, dried peas, dried carrots, calcium carbonate, calcium propionate (a preservative), choline chloride, vitamin supplements (E, A, B-12, D-3), added color (Yellow 5, Red 40, Yellow 6, Blue 2), DL-Methionine, zinc sulfate, glyceryl monostearate, ferrous sulfate

Is there anything in there YOU would want to eat? The #1 ingredient is corn! Coming in at #2 is chicken by-product meal (which AAFCO defines as: Consists of the dry, ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcass of slaughtered chicken, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines -- exclusive of feathers except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.

This does not mean that feathers are not present in Chicken By-product Meal, just that they cannot be only added to the mix. And the definition says"...such as..." not "only" so use your imagination as to what else is in there.

Chicken byproducts are much less expensive and less digestible than the chicken muscle meat. The ingredients of each batch can vary drastically in ingredients (heads, feet, bones etc.) as well as quality, thus the nutritional value is also not consistent. Don't forget that byproducts consist of any parts of the animal OTHER than meat. If there is any use for any part of the animal that brings more profit than selling it as "by product", rest assured it will appear in such a product rather than in the "byproduct" dumpster.)

Yum-o. Thanks to this site for much of the above info.

Furthermore, I had a foster dog who would "only eat Beneful." I grabbed a handful of it from the bag to look at it and my hand was instantly coated with a disgusting sheen of oils or fats or who knows what. Ick. There was NO WAY in the world I was going to feed that to anyone so I tossed the whole bag and gave them what we were feeding at the time. Check out the first 28 ingredients of Timberwolf Organics Wilderness Elk:

Fresh Elk, Salmon Meal, Millet, Sweet Potatoes, Oats, Flaxseed, Carrot, Watercress, Spinach, Celery, Parsley, Fennel Seed, Wild Salmon Oil, Atlantic Kelp, Hydrated Alfalfa Leaf, Potassium Chloride, Currants, Cranberries, Pears, Figs, Thyme, Anise Seed, Ground Cinnamon Bark, Fenugreek, Garlic Pieces, Sunflower Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Apples, Chicory Root, Spirulina,

To be honest, I really don't care if the Beneful story is fact or fiction - in my opinion it's bad, unhealthy dog food with sub-standard ingredients topped with misleading and offensive advertising.

Josie was eating Diamond Brand Dog Food, and we quickly weaned her off of that stuff.

How do you know what to buy? My reference is the Whole Dog Journal. They do a review of dog foods every year and I like how they explain why they choose what they choose. You know, it only make sense: if you feed your dog a GOOD dog food with good ingredients, they'll be healthier (meaning less trips to the vet and a longer life), you'll have to feed less because the ingredients are better (less "input"), they'll digest more of the food (less "output" if you know what I mean) and because you are feeding smaller amounts, even though the food might cost more than a grocery store brand, it will probably cost less per meal in the long run.

And don't rely 100% on AAFCO Standards either (AAFCO stands for the Association of American Feed Control Officials). The AAFCO develops guidelines for the production, labeling, and sale of animal foods. If the label reads 'formulated to meet AAFCO's nutrient requirement.' This means the food was tested in the laboratory and was found to have the recommended amounts of protein, fat, etc. However, I've heard that the combination of shoe leather, used motor oil, and coal could meet this standard as well. So, AAFCO Standards are a start to finding a good food but there's a whole lot more you need to know to be able to tell if the food you're choosing is a good one.

So do your homework when it comes to dog food. Your dog will thank you!

OK, my little rant is over. Thanks for listening.

Josie's First Obedience Class

I took Josie to Obedience class last night. We walked in and she was a very hesitant and a bit scared- her body was very low to the ground and she was a little intimidated by it all. We were flanked on either side by two big Mastiffs (is that redundant? Is there a small Mastiff?) and at one point Josie gave one "the look" so I have to keep an eye on her a little bit when she's out and about. She is, after all, a female Boxer so being bossy kind of comes with the territory. At one point she was straining at the end of the leash and started coughing and hacking. I felt everyone looking at us because it sounded like she was going to hack up a lung. I think I'm going to get her a harness to take the pressure off of her neck. I'm going to try either this one or this one. I've had great luck with both of these. The rest of the class is in the 5th or 6th week so we didn't do all of the stuff other people were doing - Boundary Training, Walking Leave-its, etc... I basically just concentrated on having her pay attention to me. We did about a bazillion Sits and she did the last one as fast as she did the first! It appears she doesn't know Down at all, so I get to work on that with her and I'm teaching her Shake Paw. We worked on Shake for about 5 minutes and by the end, it looked like she was starting to get it. She really worked well for me (and my treats!). We worked a little bit on a basic Leave it (I put a treat on the floor and asked her to leave it. If she tried to go for it, I covered it up with my foot. As soon as she stopped obsessing about it, I said "Yes!"and gave her a treat. Pretty soon, as soon as I said "Leave it!" she sat and looked at me! Yay! I have a suspicion that she thinks "leave it" means sit and wait for a treat, rather than actually leaving the object alone, but hey, as long as she does leave it alone, I'm happy!). After that, I tethered her to a post walked a few feet away and asked her to sit. She sat about 50% of the time and I figured out that two feet is her comfort level right now. At three feet or more, she just looked at me. Our last exercise was the Come command. She did... OK. It was a very distracting environment so she didn't do great, but she did do pretty well. I asked a lot of her in class and she did her best to deliver. Josie's very smart and very sensitive - she responds very well to positive reinforcement and likes treats as much as attention. By the end of class she was happy, much more confident and eager to do more. When we got home, she crashed on the couch and was quietly snoring in about two minutes. A mental work-out IS as exhausting as a physical one! What a good girl!

Little Miss Popular

Wow. Josie is one popular girl! She's now had three inquiries since her website debut on Monday. She has a meeting set up for this Sunday. Cross your paws that it goes well!

I spoke to Melanie and it looks like Josie can pop in on her Obedience class tomorrow. I think I'll go and see what happens. I think they're going into week 5 or 6 so she's going to have a lot of catching up to do. She's a smart girl, though. I'm confident she'll do just fine.

One week!

She's been here one week and is doing better every day. The first few days she was pretty much in constant motion - following us around where ever we went. She has started to relax a little bit and tends to hang out more and more, without having to be concerned about where we're going or what we're doing. She just loves to be near people. The past two mornings I've gotten out of my shower to discover her laying on my bathroom floor. Before I assume that she's completely enamored with me, there is a heating vent in the bathroom that she's laying in front of so there may be a dual purpose in her lying in that particular spot. It's chilly in the house in the morning!

I think I'm going to look into Obedience classes with her on Thursday nights in Tosa with Melanie. Josie has a rocket-fast Sit but she could use a brush-up on her other commands and I'd like to see how she does around other dogs. If the class has room for one more dog I think I'm going to enroll her.

No more inquiries, but I have high-hopes for the Great Lakes Pet Expo this Saturday.

WOW.

That was fast! Josie got her first inquiry today from a very nice family. They seem to be on more of a fact-finding mission right now (they just lost their other Boxer - adopted from GABR - back in December), but since they've adopted from us before, they know all about adopting and how the rescue works.

Super Bowl Sunday

My mom stopped by last night during the Super Bowl to drop off a toy for George's birthday so she got to meet Josie. This will be the first "stranger" Josie has met so I was very curious as to how she'd do. No problem. She sat like a good girl, did the leaning thing but didn't bark, growl or jump up on my mom. Part of that though might have been because George and Sasha were barking and jumping and there wasn't any room for Josie to get in there and be obnoxious too. The woman who surrendered Josie was older (her mom was with her when I picked Josie up) so she's used to being around older people (she had her grandchildren over a lot too so Josie is good with kids). She did really really well


She's up on the Green Acres website now! Scroll down to see Josie!



Here are some photos of her I took last night:

She's constantly moving towards me as I try to take a photo so I have about 85 shots of her nose! Here's #37.



Here she is just before she leapt off the couch and licked the camera.


The magic of cropping: I am holding her in place with one hand as I try to take the picture. She's very wiggly!

So far, so good!

Josie is doing so well that I think we're going to move up her website debut by a few days. She's really not shown me anything that makes me think she'll be any different in a couple weeks. I also really want to take her to the Great Lakes Pet Expo and I'm hoping that a little advance publicity might be a good idea. Here's what I wrote for her bio:

Josie is brand new to the rescue. She was surrendered because her owner was moving and couldn't take her with. Josie is three years old, very sweet and very well-behaved. She's fully housetrained, crate-trained and gets along great with her foster Boxer brother and sister. A lot of people ask about her coat - it's called Brindle, which just means she is a solid fawn color with dark tiger stripes. Josie LOVES to cuddle with you on the couch while you watch TV but also loves to lay in front of the fireplace and chew on a bone or run around the house with a toy, playing keep-away with her foster sister. She's an active girl so the perfect family for her will need to give her lots of attention, exercise and things to do. She loves kids and other dogs but ... cats? Not so much. Needless to say, she is not the Josie from Josie and the Pussycats! Stop by the Green Acres Boxer Rescue Booth #228 to meet Josie and learn more about adopting her or the other Boxers in need!


She's been playing really well with Sasha:

Yes, this is how Boxers play

Sasha looks PSYCHO!

We call this Mouth-Wrestling

"Hey! Stay away from my butt!"

More mouth-wrestling and Sasha is in a nice play-bow! Good girls!

and when she gets tired of that, she'll go lay down next to George. She's eating well and not being much trouble at all! Her former owner said that she very rarely gave Josie people-food. Right. For "rarely" having people-food, she sure knows how to beg! Every time I sit down to eat, Josie is right there with her chin either resting on my leg or on the table (and breathing all over my food. Yum-o). If you're cooking in the kitchen, she is at your feet constantly, waiting for the Food Gods to shower her with steaks and bacon. It was kinda cute at first but it gets a little old when you're trying to walk to the sink with a pot full of pasta and she's constantly blocking your progress. I've started to try and teach her to go lay down in the other room while we're cooking. That's going to take awhile, I think. She's very cute and will probably get adopted pretty quickly so that will be something for her new home to work on. She is NOT a fan of the cold weather, though. It's currently -8 F outside (the wind chill is somewhere around -25/-30) so I can't really blame her for not wanting to go out there. Brrrr!

Whew!

I got home from work to find Josie had done just fine in her crate. Her blankets were dry, she was quiet when we got home and didn't seem stressed out at all. What a relief! I had to teach two Agility classes last night and I took Sasha with me. After we got home (around 9:30pm), I was feeding Sasha supper and Josie kinda backed up and peed on the doggie bed which is about three feet from where Sasha was eating. I had tried to give Josie a little bit of food when I fed Sasha - so she wouldn't feel left out - but she didn't seem interested in it so I picked it up (by the way, Lynn told me she did eat supper while we were at class so hopefully she's learning that food only comes 2x a day). Lynn assured me that Josie had been outside less than 1/2 -hour ago so I have no idea why she peed like that. It wasn't like she wanted food too because she had just turned a bowl of it down. Well, you have to expect a couple of accidents here and there until she get the routine down pat. Speaking of peeing, she does mark when she's outside. She marked Sasha's pee (which Sasha wasn't too happy about) and she marked George's pee (which confused the heck out of him. That's HIS job!). She's kind of a tomboy, I guess you could say.

She only tried to get on the bed once last night. I told her "Off!" and she laid down on the big chair and went to sleep. She's a smart cookie! She tried to get on the bed this morning but this time Sasha decided to tell her "Off!" Josie jumped down right away.

Everybody ate breakfast, did their thing outside and while Josie wasn't too happy about going in her crate, once Lynn had a hold of her collar, she walked right in there and waited for her peanut-butter bowling pin.

So far, so good!