Happy Halloween 2014!

When people describe Mr. N, they use words like fluffy, adorable, and cute. Making him look scary was quite the task. I wanted him to look truly scary. Like something out of a Stephen King novel and not "cute scary." What do you think? Scary or not scary? 

Mr. N's entry for the #frankenpet contest

Wordless Wednesday #60 - Lego Movie Costume

Monday Mischief #49 - Halloween Costume

Can anyone guess who Mr. N is going to be for Halloween?

BW Sunday #63 - Trainer

FitDog Friday #52 - Crime Scene

It's good for dogs to have their off-leash time. It gives them a chance to exercise their noses and run full steam and perform natural acts of agility. Besides you never know what they're going to find!

Wordless Wednesday #59 - Jack Skellington (Nightmare before Christmas)

Taking the Dogs to the Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze

Sure the weather forecast was dire and predicting gusts of wind, and rain and a potential thunderstorm but we set forth to the corn maze anyway during a clear spot. I bundled Mr. N up in a spare raincoat and his Gold Paw Fleece and pulled my rain boots out of the closet and we were ready.

Mr. N always takes point on walks and is very firm about this. I let Mr. N decide which paths to take in the corn maze. He sped through the maze with the occasional stop for sniffing. 

Both dogs were sniffing intensely. Maybe due to the scent of various animals that wanted to eat the corn? It turned out to be a bit of an agility course for Mr. N as various corn stalks were bent and he had to leap over them or go under them. 

I think we only went through about half the maze but Mr. N found the maze exit before we started getting tired or majorly confused. It rained a little bit on and off but it wasn't bad. Mr. N was not happy about being wet and having to take pictures though. He gets cold easily. 

We also toured other parts of the farm. We stopped to take pictures of the dogs on the hay wagon and the cow carts. The cows all had names like Butters, Alfafa, Dairy etc. There were two cows that were named Einstein and Divo right next to each and we couldn't resist.

And we wandered around the pumpkin patch. 

The farm had a petting zoo with some farm animals and we strolled over because Sage has never met sheep before. Well there was a pig that had gotten out of the enclosure. One minute, I'm looking at the animals, the next I'm frantically moving Mr. N back because his face and the pig's face was almost touching. I wasn't sure if I was more concerned about the pig's safety or Mr. N's! 

Both dogs were enthralled with the farm animals and Sage especially did not want to leave. We figured it was time to go before the dogs' prey drive went into overdrive so we picked up our pumpkins and headed back to the car. 

BW Sunday #62 - SuperDog

FitDog Friday #51 - Hiking Triple Falls

After Mr. N recovered from his raisin incident, we set forth with Sage to explore Triple Falls. We made a quick stop at Multnomah Falls for some food (the lodge doesn't allow dogs so we ate outside) and for a picture. I think the dogs ended up in some tourists' photos.

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Mr. N likes to create his own switchbacks. I have to remind him to stay on the path. I don't know why people worry about little dogs maneuvering hiking trails. If they're reasonably athletic, I don't see how most trails would give them trouble. Mr. N is very good at going between, under or over various obstacles. He can also jump three feet at least (he used to jump out of his play pen all the time).

The trail was extremely rocky and the humans had to concentrate on where to step. The dogs didn't care. The advantage of being steady on four paws.

Although I'm also pretty sure Mr. N is part goat. He deliberately seeks out boulders to climb on. In any case, he's a much better hiker than I am. 

He wants to go, go, go! He gets bored when we stop for water breaks and for the humans to catch their breath. Sage was also panting because she gets warm easily. Mr. N yawns at the rest of us for being slowpokes.

After much scrambling over rocks and wondering if the trail was ever going to end, we reached Triple Falls! 

There was a particular stretch that was especially treacherous and I almost slipped. I let Mr. N go ahead and told him to wait at the bottom while I gingerly made my way down.

Sage was a good girl and made sure to keep pace with her human who is recovering from an injury. As for Mr. N, he flew down the trail hampered only by me at the end of the leash. Here we are at the trail head waiting for Sage to make it down.

Wordless Wednesday #58 - Waterfalls

Triple Falls

Monday Mischief #47 - Portland Pet Expo and Blogger Meetup

We were in the parking lot for the Portland Pet Expo when I spotted two familiar looking dogs. I immediately told my friend who was driving, "let's go stalk them!" We parked a few spots away and I approached the couple with the dogs and was like so this may be weird, but do you have a blog about your dogs? And it was Kelsie from It's Dog or Nothing on a road trip.

I brought Mr. N over and we posed all the dogs together for a photo.

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They were just leaving the Expo so we made plans for the next day and we went into the Expo.

Mr. N generally rides in his airline carrier at these things. He still gets to see everything and he gets to have his little "bubble" of space. Plus I don't want him getting stepped on. We walked around and gathered samples and entered various raffles. And Mr. N has his caricature drawn. Does it look like him?

I didn't know this at the time but Zoe and Phoenix from Adventures of Zoe & Phoenix were at the Expo while we were there as well. So we all had lunch the following day with the five dogs at a food cart pod. We had a lovely time eating Southern food and pizza and Korean tacos and chatting about dogs and other things. Mostly dogs.

And that was our dog-centric weekend and our impromptu blogger meetup!

BW Sunday #61 - Old and New Friends

Viva La Dog Oatmeal Shampoo Review

Mr. N gets a lot of baths so he's an expert at receiving them by now. He has hair and not fur so everything gets caught in it and his hair starts getting greasy (like ours!) if he doesn't get a bath every so often. Also he sleeps with us and who wants to sleep with a dirty dog? His therapy work also requires that he's clean for his weekly visits.

In preparation for his therapy visit, I gave him a bath with Viva La Dog Spa Oatmeal Shampoo.  The oatmeal shampoo is meant for sensitive skin and features mild cleansers, oatmeal, aloe vera and sweet almond oil. It's suggested for dogs with hot spots, skin irritation, insect bites, and dry itchy skin. 

The company also make conditioners, grooming sprays and wipes that they sell online as well as Petco. I received the shampoo and wipes to review. The wipes will feature in a later review, I need to test them out on a few more therapy visits.

I normally bathe Mr. N in the kitchen sink but the boyfriend had commandeered the kitchen to make stew so we made do with the bathroom sink. The shampoo has a slight pleasant tropical smell.

It lathers up nicely as you can kind of tell from this photo. Being wet is not a good look for Mr. N. 

His hair felt soft and fluffy after drying and remained so until his next bath (about a week or so). The kids enjoyed petting him afterwards.

Mr. N gets a little itchy from time to time due to allergies. Nothing dire. Not to the level of hot spots or anything like that. I didn't notice any difference with his itchiness after the bath. 

The boyfriend sniffed him the next day and said he smelled clean but he couldn't smell any other scent. Which is a good thing in Mr. N's mind. He prefers to smell like horse rather than the fragrances humans prefer.

This post was sponsored by Cardinal Pet Care. They are not responsible for the contents of this article. All opinions expressed are our own. 

Wordless Wednesday #57 - Diva (or Divo)

Credit: Time Machine PDX

Shaping and Clicker Training with a Box

October's  Positive Pet Training Blog Hop theme (co-hosted with Cascadian Nomads and Dachshund Nola) is Positive Training Fun with a Box! 101 things to do with a box is a clicker and shaping game where you treat the dog for any interactions with the box and shape it into a useful (or not so useful) trick. 

Mr. N says hello and welcome to the world of shaping with a box. He likes to sit on boxes and pose probably because I reward heavily for jumping up on things and posing so I can take photos. 

I did some free shaping with him to see what what kind of behaviors he would naturally offer. We've been doing some conditioning exercises with his K9 Fitbone lately and so that's what he tried out on the box. He put his back paws on the box.

And stood on the box. It's much more impressive when the surface area is wobbly!

I've also been working on pivoting (his front legs remain stationary on the platform but his hind legs move in a circle around the platform) with him so that's what he offered most of the time.

What kind of tricks does your pet do with a box? 

BW Sunday #60 - Grand Opening

FitDog Friday #49 - Sage visits Mr. N

Thanks for all the good wishes regarding Mr. N's recovery. He's much better now after his bout with raisins and thinks that he is not being fed nearly enough.

Sage came over to cheer Mr. N up and brought him a toy. They both raided Mr. N's toy box as well but we had to hide all the balls from Sage. She adores them and ours are all Mr. N-sized and we didn't want her to choke. 

At some point, they were wrestling on the couch when Sage snarked at Mr. N. He probably stepped on her while wrestling. She was immediately as apologetic as any dog could be but Mr. N wasn't having any of it. He retreated to Ann's lap and acted miffed then took a nap. Sage curled up for a nap as well. 

When the dogs discovered we were going for a walk, they were both instantly awake and ready for adventure. Mr. N introduced Sage to one of our neighborhood parks and told her about all the squirrels.  

Once they were walking, Mr. N totally forgot about old grudges and started bossing around Sage like usual. Sage had to leave after our walk but the dogs plan to get together soon. Mr. N says thanks for the visit!