This post brought to you by homemadedogfood.com. All opinions are 100% mine.

(At left, photo via homemadedogfood.com)

With the wheat gluten scare that happened a few years ago, plus the growing awareness of BPA used in some dog food cans, the idea of Homemade dog food has surfaced more than once at the HoundsGood household. The train was rerailed with a dear doggie I know had a bout of pancreatitis after switching to a home cooked diet.

The most important thing to remember that home cooked doesn't mean table scraps. While the pup's mom was extremely vigilant and thorough on preparing meals, it is difficult to "wing it" and offer complete nutrition if a dog has sensitivities. And its a lot of work.

Recently, I stumbled across a blog dedicated to homemade dog food which presents Easy cooked dog food recipes. The "easy" rated recipe is a simple combination of beef, eggs and white rice. What makes the meal more complete for dogs, according to the site is the supplementation of Dino Vite liquid that contains digestive enzymes and minerals, and an Omega fatty acid supplement. You can find the recipe HERE. There is even a portion chart for different sizes of dogs.

There is a very emotional debate among dog owners on a raw vs dog food diet, and the site gives options of both raw and cooked meals.

The question is: Is any diet truly complete if we have to supplement a healthy young dog, aside from situations where there is a temporary illness or genetic condition?

As with any change, please do not switch your dog to a home cooked diet cold turkey. The author recommends fasting before the switch. Traditionally, many experts advise mixing the old and new foods to gradually switch to prevent stomach upset. Also, consult a dog nutritonist and your vet if your dog has a medical condition. The protein content may not be appropriate for dogs with certain sensitivities or conditions, such as kidney issues.

In this case, the shipping charge might be closer to legitimate with the rising prices of postage and the shipping weight of 32 ounces of liquid in a bottle. The liquid equates to about 2 lbs, plus the weight of the packing materials and the bottle itself. That part of it isn’t prickly.

The juice isn’t touted as being a cure of any sort specifically, but there is a chain of reasoning that because it contains betalains, which reduce inflammation and toxicity, and inflammation can cause illness, then the juice must improve overall health and wellness dramatically?

Betalains can also be found in:

• Spinach
• Rhubarb
• Beets
• Quinoa
• Other Cactus Fruits

In other words, this juice isn’t your only and last chance to take advantage of a certain level of nutrition, and in fact, eating these other foods regularly can give you a larger amount and greater nutrition.

If you are not allergic to secondary ingredients, a fruit or vegetables based fruit or juice is worthy of a try, but keep in mind, overall health and diet is the most important. There is no magic bullet. No one food, even oranges for Vitamin C or Tomatoes for Lycopene are going to protect you against aging or disease. It takes a balanced diet full of variety and balance.

If you are short on cash and want to donate something meaningful to a group, sometimes you can stretch your donation in one of several ways if you purchase items.

1) Join the loyalty program at the supermarket for pantry donations and at pet stores. They are worth a few cents or a few dollars off promoted merchandise. This seems automatic when you are have pets, but if you don’t but like to lend a hand, it is worth having. This also goes for toy stores if you regularly purchase for children’s charities or Toys for Tots.

2) Use coupon codes online. Dog food can be expensive to buy on the net with shipping costs, but there are free shipping offers, discounts for bulk purchases and offers for buying in multiples. I once found Purina coupon codes for items that a shelter was asking for. They preferred the brand because it was easy for people to donate as it was so widely available, and because a store once donated a quantity to them and they wanted to continue. I never thought of buying it online, but the deals made sense.

3) Buy seasonally. Some charities cannot store items for a length of time, but if you can set aside a bin for donation, hold onto frequently requested items to donate later. Buy basic office supplies, such as paper and pens at Back to School time. Sometimes the stores announce when they will issue their deepest discounts. After Christmas, purchase elf collars for pictures with Santa or wrapping paper for the next wrapping booth if your local group wraps presents at the mall for donations.

4) Ask your charity about upcoming events. Usually, a group is planning an event a six weeks to a full year before it is announced to the public. If you know a group is having a Dog Walk in 8 months or a charity auction in 6 months, you can be on the hunt for bargains for specifically needed items.

Remember to ask for a receipt twice. Make sure you print out your receipt when buying online or ask for one at the register. It is helpful to keep it for when the charity issues you a donation receipt for your taxes, you will have a record of the purchase amount.

Of course, you can always gather up gently used items, but in some cases something brand new is called for. How have you cut corners without cutting corners?

The rate works out to around £20, but you can hire a tutor for a shorter length of time by the minute. Either you can search for a tutor, or post a question in Q&A about what you are looking for and receive responses from tutors that match your subject. Rifling around, I found folks asking about human resources exams, compounding interest and classical design. You are sure to find something today…or at 3:00 am.

More and more, I am going back to wearing a watch. After my cell phone conked out and my clock on my car was naturally not set since the last time the battery was replaced, I was a little lost. Did I have time to stop and charge my phone somewhere or not? I made it to my appointment in time and charged it there.

I recommend including a traditional time piece in your emergency kit. It’s best to wear it, but having it in your glove box or wildlife rescue emergency kit, or even your emergency kit for car emergencies is so important. It is not only important to have an idea what time it is, but to measure time if you are checking a puluse.

Some watches are up to the task of dog slobber and extracting exuberant Labradors from decorative fountains and some are not. I was not aware of what all of the

Bulova Precisionist Watches are rated for water resistence up to 30 meters and my vintage Timex, well…who knows.

Here is the low down:

• If a watch is rated for 30 meters, you can be caught in the rain, get your wrist slobbered on by a dog, but you can’t dive with it or swim with it.
• If the watch is rated for 50 meters, you could swim with it on. Stay away from deep sea diving and snorkeling The watch will not hold up to the change in pressure for deep sea diving, nor the consistent immersion.
• If you really want to do any diving, select a rating of 100 meters or greater, with only ratings of 300 meters or greater suitable if you are using a scuba tank.

The bottom line? Save any watch with no rating for the night out. If you are looking for a good all around watch for working with animals, choose a water resistant model for the occasional water trough spill.

So…have you gone retro?

This post brought to you by Whitney Farms. All opinions are 100% mine.

Last week, I bought the last roll of deer fence needed to this year's garden. (At left: One of the two survivors from last year. This onion celebrates its first birthday. Grandpa Onion turns four!) The manure has been tilled in and a few starter plants will go in between Mother's Day and Memorial Day, though Memorial Day is the big start of the growing season for both seeds and starters. The garden is completely planted in organic soil, and inexpensively organic. The garden is hand weeded as soon as the desirable plants are planted. It takes time, but is safer for pets and builds character.

Getting the right balance of nutrients has been an experiment. It has been largely left alone, save for the methods of adding manure in the late fall or early spring and tilling in some of the old stalks. The corn and pumpkins are also flip flopped every year. On occasion, one end of the garden that is full of clay needs a little help. There is organic plant food out there, but it can be either pricey, or sometimes brands are small and you can't find the same everywhere.

There is a $3 coupon available to try Whitney Farms® Plant Food or Tomato and Vegetable Food available.

The product is available at many popular retailers, so you won't have to go digging at an obscure out of the way farmer's market. It contains beneficial microbes as well as protein material that will not harm pets that might did in the garden. Potassium nitrate can be lab generated, but Potash is mined and is naturally and necessary to vegetables and other plants. Just as a warning and don't be surprised that it contains not just Potash, which is potassium, but bone meal and feather meal. When you think about it, that is exactly what is breaking down and offsetting the acid that is put in the soil by rotting leaves as found in nature.

What are you growing this season for the health of your family and pets? If you are opposed to adding protein meal to fertilize your vegetables, what have you been using?

Saving Shelter Pets, Inc., is holding its Spring auction online.

Donatons are currently being sought to auction off in this event. If you are an artist, collector, business owner, or just an individual with something to donate…. send an email at info (at) savingshelterpets.com with your contact information, and a description of the item you would like to donate. You may submit a clear, quality photo and ship the item at the conclusion of the auction to the winning bidder, or, if you prefer, mail the item to an SSP volunteer who will ship the item. Deadline to submit items is NOW, so if you are interested in contributing, make like a duck and…nevermind. Tell em you head about it on HoundsGood! For bidders, the auctions starts April 23rd.

The spring 2011 auction raised $1242.00 after fees. Let’s dust off our shelves, dig through our china cabinets and our wallets to make this one even better…can we go for $1500?

Examples of Popular Items of the Past:
Gift Certificates to your business or popular retailers
Dog/Cat toy and supply gift basket
Autographed books
Collectibles
Handmade jewelry, handbags, accessory
Christmas Decor – Keepsake Ornaments and Tree toppers
Hotel gift certificates and getaways
Art work
DVDs
….Whatever your imagination inspires.

Please spread the word so we can make this auction a huge success for all the dogs & cats helped! Saving Shelter Pets, Inc., a 501(3)c charitable organization, has several wonderful programs including Spay & Neuter, Puppy Promises (puppies are intercepted from ever entering a shelter environment), Bernie’s Buddies (help for heartworm positive shelter dogs), TNR programs for feral cats, Rescue & Transport and more!

This auction will benefit the Puppy Promises Program. To fight the overpopulation problem at the shelters they work with, the Puppy Promises program intercepts pups before they enter a shelter environment, where they often contract Parvo and pass away or sometimes are euthanized for space. If the owner who is dumping the pups agrees to take them home for another 14 days, SSP vaccinates them and at the end of the quarantine period, places them in rescue. In addition, the mother of the pups as well as the other adult dogs and cats are spayed or neutered at SSP’s expense to prevent additional unwanted litters. A family’s pet number remains manageable, making the chances of them abandoning their adult pets much more slim. The now-neutered adult pets are also less likely to wander from home, reducing pet losses due to traffic accidents, poisoning, wildlife injuries and more accidental litters.

Click the banner to travel to the SSP site, or click HERE to read previous stories from this blog on SSP.

About Saving Shelter Pets:
Saving Shelter Pets (SSP) strives to eliminate euthanasia as a method of population control for homeless companion animals, by providing no-kill alternative solutions and pro-actively addressing the problem of pet overpopulation.

SSP is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization with supporters nationwide. Please see our FAQs for more information.

]]> http://houndsgood.com/2012/04/08/happy-easter-2/feed/ 0 http://houndsgood.com/2012/03/28/giveaway-reuse-recycle-and-grow/ http://houndsgood.com/2012/03/28/giveaway-reuse-recycle-and-grow/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 22:00:23 +0000 houndsgood http://houndsgood.com/2012/03/28/giveaway-reuse-recycle-and-grow/

This post brought to you by Scotts®. All opinions are 100% mine.

Win a sample of Expand 'n Gro for your house plants or garden. Read on to find out how.

Ever since the days when crop rotation was rediscovered to prevent another Dust Bowl, modern farmers and homeowners alike are looking for ways to enrich the soil without adding harmful artificial chemicals. One of the latest trends is the addition of Coir. Coir is a coconut fiber.

The process goes a little something like this:

• The coconut is dehusked.
• The milk and the core are separated and used for food and beverages.
• The long fibers in the husk are separated and used for products, including fabric.
• The short fibers, which make up 70% of the husk, are discarded…..Until now….

The remnants have a new use in plant compost and fertilizer. Expand ‘n Gro™ by Miracle Gro is one such product that incorporates the fibers. The coir fibers naturally retain moisture in the soil without the need for chemical release agents.

When the product is wet, it expands to three times its size. You won't need a lot of storage space for large bags of potting soil, but you will need to wet the product a bit if you are filling a flower pot.

To win a sample.

1) Comment below and tell me about the planting projects you are working on this season.

2) For an additional entry, Tweet this post to your followers and leave the link to your tweet or profile below in a separate comment.

A winner will be selected at random through Ramdon.org random number generatior. Each comment will be numbered sequentially.

A word of caution: Coir fibers are not to be confused with cooca fibers. Cocount fibers are not toxic to pets according to the ASPCA. However, some parts of the coconut core contains oil which can cause diarrhea or an upset stomach. Anecdotal reports that some dog breeds are more sensitive.

Do not store the product where a pet can reach it in its dry form, as it can expand in the belly. Use coir products where a pet is unlikely to dig.

As the saying goes, a certain percentage of women are not wearing the correct bra size. While the statistic varies from 50-70% depending on where you read it, I have found it to have merit. I was told by one fitter that wearing the correct size changed a woman’s life, and I know believe that to be true. Darts on blouses and suit coats will line up where they are supposed to instead of looking puckered and pulled, or resorting to one size up and swimming in clothes. The important thing, of course, is back and shoulder health and ultimately breast health.

Of course one option is to wear a seamless bra that just comes in S, M, L, etc like the ahh bra that is advertised on television, but not everyone receives the right amount of support, so set an appointment with a professional fitter who can steer you in the right direction. Look for specialty stores that carry a very wide range of sizes. Don’t worry about the number size or the cup letter, or if you are fitted in some plus size lingerie when you don’t want to be. Size is just a number and you could actually look thinner when everything is in the right place. In the end, it will change your posture and your health dramatically.

Guest post of the week by Brittany Booker

I was watching the “Today Show” and saw a really great recipe for a molten chocolate cake that Martha Stewart cooked with Al Roker on the show. I got really inspired and decided that I wanted to use my tv internet bundle and log onto the NBC website and rewatch the clip. They had a step by step instruction for the recipe. I also watched the clip several times to make sure that I was going to be able to cook it just like Martha.

The only thing that I needed to get from the store were the actual little ramekins that I didn’t have at home. I stopped by TJ Maxx on the way home from the grocery store and picked up five of them. They were a great price, only two dollars each ( compared to the ten each I would have paid at Williams and Sonoma). Making the cake was a lot easier than I expected it to be. It was a great success.

My husband loves molten chocolate cake. He may have just been yanking my chain, but he said that it was the best molten cake that he had ever had in his entire life. I love to bake!

This post brought to you by Triad Retail Media. All opinions are 100% mine.

Apps for raising fake frogs, apps for tracking fertility cycles, apps for guessing a horse's weight: There seems to be an app for everything except your real love dog or cat. Purina has just introduced the Purina Pet Health App for both iPhone and Android. Emergency information, a park and vet locator, as well as reminders for the next vet and grooming appointments are at your fingertips.

I already keep track of Alex's busy social calendar on other apps such as Cozi calendar, so wondered if this added any benefits or merely was just another app that I would forget to check. I downloaded the app and I was pleasantly surprised. Features are not just geared towards pet owners, but could benefit rescue volunteers, too.

The App is divided up in sections labeled Vets, Contacts, First Aid, Medical Tips, Grooming and Exercise. The tip section is geared towards canines, but you can add both records for cats and dogs.

• Vets: Store contact information for your vet and your next vet appointment. The GPS feature finds the closest emergency vet facility or vet office when you are on the road if you need it.
• Contacts: The contact section pulls contact information from the Vet and Grooming sections and organizes them under each pet. Click on a pet's photo for immediate access.
• First Aid: A pet's list of medications appear in this section, as well as articles on first aid tips. Recognizing heat stroke is am important one. Medical advice or attention is encouraged, but the app lists when and when not to induce vomiting.
• Grooming: Store contact information for your groomer, appointment times or find a Groomer.
• Exercise: Find parks via GPS. This section also includes articles about your dog's body condition, post surgery exercise tips and more.
• Training: Training is a subsection of the Exercise section. The app contains numerous brief articles, including teaching your dog to "come," as well as answers to commonly asked questions. Topics include what to look for in a dog leash, and "4 Key Tips to Successful Crate Training," which may seem basic, but it bears repeating!

My review is slightly mixed on the Medical Tips section.

The Great:

• The app offers a list of plants poisonous to dogs.

Tips on dental care and how to spot disease are valuable resources.

The Iffy:

The medical tips section includes a section on pregnancy. As a pro-rescue site, resources that encourage breeding dogs and cats are not something typically recommended. However, the app does not encourage breeding. It provides information on spotting false pregnancies and does list spaying as a remedy to it, which is a plus. The app does also mention the signs of knowing your dog is pregnant and what happens during a normal delivery. It would be preferable to actively encourage users to spay their house pets, since this app is targeted to pet owners. However, it is helpful to rescue volunteers who rescue a dog from a shelter and do not know what might be wrong with her.

With Purina's pro-adoption stance, hopefully in the future, stronger language will be included that is pro-spay and neuter.

Overall, despite that one suggestion, this is a valuable and worthwhile app.

You can click and download here.

There is a general criteria for determining if you can sell mobile phones that you have, or in other words, generate either a donation to your favorite organization running a phone drive or a profit for yourself.

1. The battery must be included. If you do not have a working battery, purchase one before sending the phone in.
2. The phone must power up and down.
3. Nicks and scratches are acceptable, but broken screens and speakers are not. The speakers must work and be free of dents. The screen should not bleed, and should power up. If the screen is cracked and can be inexpensively replaced, swap it out before offering sending in the phone or before having it evaluated.

If the phone meets the conditions, and the model is on the list of those accepted by a sell phone purchaser or recycler, you can profit or donate the phone’s proceeds to your favorite charity.

If a phone does not meet these conditions, it is only good as a prop or a paper weight. The phone will cost more to fix than it is worth for the buy back or recycling company. At that point, it is better to look into EPA-certified programs that accept electronic waste. Call your local landfill for a referral, or ask if they take electronic waste. Some landfills or recycling facilities collect them and dispose of them safely. The battery and some internal cell phone parts can contain toxic metals that while harmless inside a device can cause leaching into the soil if they are separated from the phone case and become wet in a garbage bag under a mound at a landfill.

Flea larvae, which are newly hatched fleas, ingest tapeworm eggs. As the flea matures and infests the dog, the dog licks and bites the irritated spot. When the dog inadvertently eats the flea, the tapeworm egg begins to hatch inside the dog. When tapeworms appear in large numbers, a pet can lose weight rapidly.

Standard flea treatment for dogs involves a topical preventative. However, if fleas are actually spotted on a dog, a shampoo treatment kills the fleas on the coat and an oral medication, such as Drontal, kills round and tape worms growing inside the body as well as flea eggs that were laid. When someone tells me flea shampoo doesn’t work, I tell them that it is working, but often only kills fleas presently on the dog. It does not repel newcomers, and sometimes a few eggs are missed that later hatch. Therefore, a multi-step approach with shampoo, oral medication followed later with preventative keeps the intruders out.

In most climates, flea and tick preventative is not warranted during the cold months. However, this does only means that the flea threat moves indoors. Before topical flea preventatives are discontinued in the fall, wash your dog or cat’s bedding. Regular vacuuming also helps. Starting fresh in the fall and winter will make you and your pet more comfortable.

Last week, I tried Clipix for the first time as a tool. I made a clipboard of the links to bios of dogs and cats on the "time up" list at a shelter. It was easy to update the clipboard, instead of constantly sending updated lists around, which can be almost impossible when emails are forwarded again and again. (12 urgent dogs left the shelter – hooray! I heard that a rescue is picking up a couple tomorrow as well.

The assessment? It is a viable tool for communication among direct collaborators. Not every individual had to be contacted with every single change that occurred. One could just check "the board."

Unfortunately, it was not without its hiccups. Some people claimed to receive an error message when they viewed the url. Since, I have figured out where my error was.

1) Set the permissions on the clipboard to "Everyone." If not, only members of clipix or friends on Clipix can view your clipboard.

2) Copy the correct url. The url that appears in the browser bar when you view your board only applies within your account or within Clipix. You want to send the url that has the word "visitor" incorporated. To send the board along, or to get a url for a page visitors can view, look for the "mail" and social media icons in the upper right corner of the individual clipboard.

You can send the clipboard to yourself in email form, or to your friends. Simply click on the envelope icon. For a "grab and go" short cut, click on the Twitter icon if you are logged into Twitter. A tweet will be produced containing the proper url. Copy and paste to your heart's content.

3) Pass it on. Post it to message boards you frequent and send it along.

Now, I don't know if these dogs and cats would NOT have been saved if the clipboard was around, but it surely made for a better communication tool.

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A clipix clipboard has just been made for urgent pets, this time at Heard County Animal Control in Franklin, GA. The building is packed with so many strays and owner turn ins that it is at double capacity or more. There has been little movement or interest.

You can view this entire clipboard in full size, and click on the individual links to the pets at: http://www.clipix.com/clips.aspx?clipboardid=8721, or please pass the link along. Two adopted pets have been removed from the list. The others remaining need rescues or adopters quickly. "Time up" for most of these cats and dogs is at the close of business (4:00 pm) on February 10th, so please help share the clipboard quickly.

Clipix can be used to bookmark and share a collection of links based around a brainstorming idea or theme, and is a lot cleaner than trying to hunt everything down in your bookmarks menu. Each link populates with a thumbnail from the actual web page. You can scroll through and choose your favorite or type in your own text. In this format, one can quickly update a clipboard while the link is still circulating rather than having to email every single one of your contacts again and again. The biggest chore with sending "crossposts" is that a lot of people have old news. Something can be old in a matter of hours.

You can simply drag and drop the Clipix button to your toolbar. It works just fine in Opera and Firefox. I have yet to try it in Safari.

Here's the run down on how it works. Try it out and let me know what you think.

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