Backpacking Chihuahua!

Kerrigan went on her first overnight backpack about a week ago!  Overall I think she had a good time, although I was not there so I am getting all of this second hand.  Ben and a friend took her to summit a mountain in the desert near Searchlight, NV.  The main complaint I heard about Kerri was that she was slow moving.  Since there was no trail she had to navigate through all the small brush that the people were just stepping over and that took her a while.  The other issue is that no one makes actual boots for small dogs so they had to stop a few times to remove little spines from her paws, a problem that would have been totally fixed by something like Ruffwear Grip Trex Boots in a tiny, tiny size.  Sadly there is no good outdoor gear for tiny dogs so we have to pick her up from now on when there are spiny areas.

Another challenge was that we usually use Zukes Power Bones as trail snacks, but now they are owned by Purina and I don't give Purina money, nor trust them with the health of any member of my family.  So instead I sent her with boiled chicken hearts with honey and coconut oil as an energy snack and it seemed to work out great!  Not sure if it will be a permanent solution or not, I will have to see how it holds up on longer trips.

Getting ready to leave

I was a little worried about this trip, but in the end I do think Kerrigan had a good time even if she slowed the people down a little bit.  Just goes to show chihuahuas really can do anything bigger dogs can!

About to head out.  Also I am in love with that truck.  It is an International Scout and I want one really, really bad.

Kerri helping with breakfast

On a final note KERRI has joined twitter @doginthedesert  I am too long winded for twitter so I am letting Kerrigan take care of the account.  You should follow her if you want- but be warned, she is telling it like it is and might get political, so follow at your own risk.

DoggieLawn Product Review

I want to start this review out by saying that I never thought I would have a dog that was "pad trained" fake grass trained or in any other way trained to go inside my house.  No matter how small the dog was the very idea of it just seemed disgusting to me.  In fact I thought people who had their dogs trained to go inside were just plain crazy.  Copley was of course trained to go outside and Kerrigan was trained to go outside from the time she was a puppy.  It was not until I got Nova that I decided we needed to find an indoor solution (and started to realize a lot of people have perfectly good reasons for needing an indoor potty solution).  It was at the time not going to be a permanent fix but she needed a place to go when she was not yet willing to go outside.  So I put pee pads in her pen.  For a variety of reasons a year later still have pee pads in my house.  Nova only uses the pads once a day, if that.  Kerri will now use the pads if we are gone for a while but overall they are occasional use products.  We tried taking them away but then Nova would totally un-housetrain herself and the only thing worse than pee on pads that I have to pick up is pee somewhere else in my house.

When I was contacted by the folks at DoggieLawn about doing a review I was intrigued and interested in trying the product but I did not at all expect to love it as much as I did.  In fact I plan to subscribe to DoggieLawn myself at the end of the month when my grass is worn out.  The stuff is AMAZING!  Take it from a skeptic, this stuff is the best solution I've ever seen if you need your dog to do it's business inside the house.  Me and Mr.DogInTheDesert were both skeptical going into it but the grass just keeps coming through for us at every turn.

First of all it is real grass.  Just like the stuff you have in your backyard, except that it is grown hydroponically so there is no dirt.  Because it is a real plant you do have to water it.  I was a little skeptical about that.  Won't watering peed on grass make the room smell like pee?  Well I am pleasantly surprised that the stuff does not smell!  I got the petite size (it is the size that is available starting at $29 monthly depending on how often you want it) and with occasional use over two weeks you can't even tell its been used.  I can't smell anything at all in the way of dog pee.  We did have one "incident" where Nova had a slightly runny poop and even after picking it up there was some *stuff* left on the grass.  I was pretty bummed out about that because it seemed like the whole thigh would be kinda ruined by one only slightly iffy poop.  Then it occurred to me to try to rinse off the grass.  I took it out of the box, put it in the backyard and hosed it off.

As you can see it held up perfectly.  I let it dry out a little bit for a few hours, put it back in the box and replaced it in the potty corner in the dog room and it has been great since.  This is certainly not the intended use of the DoggieLawn but it does prove even clean freaks like me can use the DoggieLawn.

I think the best feature about DoggieLawn is actually the free training help they provide!  Once you subscribe you can call and schedule a time to speak to a trainer that can help you out with any issues you are having AS MANY TIMES AS YOU NEED!  That's right- they have a trainer available that will listen to your specific situation and help you get on the right track.  Just that would be worth the subscription fee!  My dogs did not need any help, I just replaced the pee pads with the grass and they went right for it, but I did talk with one of the trainers and they seemed friendly, knowledgeable and their methods of housebreaking get my stamp of approval.

In conclusion DoggieLawn is great!  Two other great uses I wanted to mention are potty training a puppy.  If you plan to have the dog go outside only, but they are still to young/unvaccinated to use your outside grass DoggieLawn would be a great alternative to pee pads because you are actually teaching the dog to go on real grass!  Seems perfect to me.  Also if you live in an apartment and want a solution that can be put on your balcony or porch DoggieLawn would be great.  Of course it also would work great for people like me who are pee pad users (or as I am now going to say used to be pee pad users before I found DoggieLawn)!

*I was given a free patch of DoggieLawn for this review but my opinions are all my own.

A Nova Update

"I am blossoming into a beautiful flower, and using your plants as beds."

The other night I was at a fundraiser for one of my favorite local organizations Incred-A-Bull and I ran into a lot of people who I had not seen in a while and asked how Nova was doing.  Actually most of them asked about "tire store chihuahua" as she is more commonly known.  If you are a new reader you might want to check out some of my old posts about Nova, but to sum it all up she was a totally feral dog living behind a tire store until she was trapped and I got her.  It is hard to really say how she is doing in a few words of casual conversation, but what I came up with is this.  

"She is very comfortable around the house, very smart and she has taught me a lot."

All that is true, but it is so much more complicated than that.  Nova has come so far in the last year that I can barely believe it but many things are still a big challenge for her.  She has brought challenges to me as a trainer that I had never seen before and more than that she opened my mind to a lot of new ways of doing thing, and proved that what I before would have said "works every time if you do it right" I now realize is just a great place to start.  If nothing else at least every dog that enters my life from this time forward will benefit from the things I learned from Nova and the partnership we have (it truly is a partnership) in navigating the scarey world.

As far as day to day life, Nova is nearly a normal dog around the house with only a few accommodations.  She is potty trained 100% but because she will not ask Ben to open the door we have pee pads inside that she uses if he is the only one home.  She participates in barking that Kerrigan starts, but she is not an excessive barker at the outside world.  When people come over she does hop around nervously and will do some aggressive barking if she feels trapped in a room or needs to get past them for food but mostly is not at hassle to visitors.  She will take food from people, and even sit or touch for food from strangers and visitors.  She has never gone after a person aggressively, and it is obvious she is acting out of fear, but I always lock her up when kids visit.  She has proven that if she is actually cornered and grabbed she rolls over and goes to a submissive scared place, but I don't think I will ever trust that she would never go to an aggressive place.  Because of that I am never going to let her near children loose in the house.

She does do a lot better out in the world.  We have a regular walking route we take and she happily does that with me and Kerrigan.  If people approach us she sits by me as Kerrigan is petted and while on a leash generally looks to me for guidance.  Any change to our route however is a reason for panic the first time or two, then she goes with it like she is an old pro.

A few weeks ago we "graduated" basic obedience class.  She did not participate in everything at class, but was actually excited to go and I did not try to push her too far.  She LOVES her clicker and with it's help she accomplished a lot of things at class.  She walked around with other bigger dogs very close to her, she walked for a short while with someone else (our instructor) holding the leash and she did a lot of her clicker tricks in public.  Also on one day she tried to instigate play with another tiny little dog at class.  The owner was kind enough to let them go for a minute then moved on.  I am so proud of how well she did and I plan to take the class again.  Nova is a very smart dog and while nervous at parts I think she appreciated the challenge of class.

Speaking if smart, Nova has learned a LOT of clicker tricks and is enjoying going through Kyra Sundance's book 101 Dog Tricks and learning even more!  She really gets the idea of the clicker and it is so easy to shape behaviors with her this way.  The unfortunate thing is she will not "perform" for anyone but me!  I am thinking I should get a tripod and video camera then make her a you tube star.  I was thinking of getting her to act out an entire Shakespearean drama or something like that.  I say thinking about it because the odds of me having enough time in my life to actually do that is rather slim, but we can dream.

So in conclusion, Nova is very comfortable around the house, very smart and she has taught me a lot.  She continues to improve in her relations with people every day, she loves Kerrigan and Copley and she is just a joy to clicker train.  Nova may never be a totally normal dog, she certainly is not ever going to run up to strangers like Kerri does but every day she gets a little less scared and figures out a little something more about living with people.  She is a lot of work, and I can't say I recommend adopting a feral dog but for me she has been a joy.

There is a Nova update for everyone!

May the 4th Be With You

May the force be with you, and beware of revenge of the Sith.

Copley's Arch Nemesis is Ruining Our Camping Trips

This weekend we went on a quick trip to a BLM Campsite in a wilderness area near Searchlight, NV.  It was a beautiful site, no other people around, plenty of shade and a nice big fire pit.  I didn't take a lot of pictures because I only had my phone with me but we really had a great time.  Except for one tiny little bit of evil trying to make Copley's live a living hell.

That's right.  The Kangaroo rat.  The tiny, cute little buggers are the only mammal that does not have to drink water and they have the most adorable tail of any rodents.  But unfortunately they also have one tiny little problem around here.  They are afraid of nothing, and like to charge Copley while we are camping causing him to bark and lunge at them.  He will never catch it, they are too fast, and the little rats know it too!  This first started happening to us at Valley Of Fire, but I thought they were just habituated to people.  Now that it is happening at rarely used wilderness campsites at the end of roads that you need this kind of car for I am worried-

Ruined wildlife at the end of a dirt road that hasn't been graded in years and is even a challenge for that big guy? Seems strange to me.

Are they attracted to the heat of the fire?  Why not scared of predators?  Does anyone know how we can stop these little buggers.  Copley was miserable around the campfire.  He first was on his leash just running around whining while they bluff charged him.  Then somebody held him and he whined, then we put him in his crate next to us and the little things were sitting inches from my foot and inches from the crate staring at him so he barked.  I am having trouble blaming Copley for any of this behavior because I can't really expect him to ignore wild animals right by his face.  In many cases I don't want him to ignore strange animals and let them walk on him so the problem here really lies with the mice.

However cute they are we need to figure out how to keep them away.  Any ideas about how to repel little rodents?  I have tried throwing sand at them and rocks near them, they just come back.  Stomping and yelling causes them to scatter but they just come right back.  Barking does not effect them at all.  I'm not willing to kill them, but am up for any creative measures you may have.

Dog Friendly Sedona!

A few weeks ago Kerrigan, my Mom and I went on a trip to Sedona, AZ.  It was a lot of fun, and very dog friendly!  We stayed at a hotel called the Sedona Real Inn, and we give it 4 out of 5 paws up.  The dog friendly rooms were on the ground floor, all tiled and they had an off leash park area with a grill, fire pit and plenty of grass so you could easily get some down time with your dogs.  They also gave you a collapsible bowl, leash and a few biscuits when you checked in.  I would count this hotel as one of the actually dog friendly ones out there, as opposed to the places that say they are dog friendly but you feel like the whole time they are just angry you brought a dog to the place.  The staff was friendly too and the breakfast was delicious.  The only reason I would not give this place a five paw stamp of approval is because they have no view whatsoever.  Their website shows nothing but beautiful views of the red rocks, but it was just about the ONLY PLACE in the entire city of Sedona without a great view.  They even have a post card in the room showing the hotel with a great view behind it- but neither me nor my Mom could figure out how they took that picture.  Must have used a helicopter- because not a single room in that place had a gorgeous panoramic view from what we could tell.  

We spent one day exploring the national forest and the little shops around town, then the other day we went on a little hike.  The National Forest there is really nice, and very diverse.  In the area around Sedona it is actually a forest, thick with trees and plenty of creeks.  In the valley it was more of a desert terrain with lots of red rocks and rock formations.  Expect to see plenty of cacti all mixed up with forests as evidenced by this picture of Kerri at the start of one of our hikes.

 The town was very nice and a lot of the stores were dog friendly.  We always had one of us wait outside with Kerri and went into the stores one at a time, but often the people in the shop would see that's what we were doing and invite us all right in.  Kerri also attracted a lot of attention from chihuahua lovers- who seemed to be everywhere around Sedona.  Several were amazed that I got such a small chi as a puppy from a shelter and I told those people if they are looking for a chi they should check out Las Vegas's kill shelter The Animal Foundation because they are literally packed full of them!  It is just crazy to me that there are some places in this country where chis are the hottest dogs in shelters, all being adopted within hours of showing up and here in Las Vegas they are being euthanized by the hundreds.  I wish that people would know what was going on and we could just get these dogs into the hands of the people who want them.  To me it does not seem like a numbers problem, it is a marketing and transport problem.  Maybe just a marketing one because most of these people in Sedona seemed to think it would even be worth the drive to Vegas to get a chihuahua.  Anyway, I digress...

We ate at several restaurants with dog friendly outdoor patios.  I had two favorites, one called Ken's Creekside actually had a dog menu with both cooked and raw food options.  I ordered Kerrigan raw ground beef and an egg (I think they called it steak tartar).  It came in a great dane sized bowl that Kerri literally had to climb into to eat, but other than that I thought it was great.  I brought freeze dried food with me, and I probably could have gotten beef from the supermarket for cheaper, but it was just so convenient.  The people food was great too.  My Mom is a vegetarian and she ordered the vegan tomato soup and a hummus plate (they had a whole vegetarian menu available) and I had some pork ribs dressed up as buffalo wings.  It was all fresh and delicious.  

My favorite restaurant had to have been the first place we ate- Rene at Tlaquepaque.  It was just delicious.  Not often do you find great gourmet restaurants with local wines and fresh foods that also have a dog friendly patio, but this was for sure that.  There was one other dog there (raw fed I believe- the movement is growing) and her people told us the pecan pie was to die for.  I believe them but unfortunately we were too stuffed from pasta and duck to even think about desert.

We ate a few places without Kerrigan too, but honestly Kens and Rene were the best places we went to with or without a dog!  Kerri was a real trooper, walking around all day, even getting up for the sunrise but at night she was just as pooped as the rest of us.  Here is what it looked like both nights as soon as her head hit the pillow.

One warning I have about Sedona though- it is not Las Vegas!  It was downright chilly there at night compared to Vegas.  I thoguht we were going to the same climate in the next desert over but I ended up sorely unprepared.  Kerri only had one sweater with her and she would have been much better off if we brought a few t-shirts and a few more sweaters for the humans.  All was well in the end though, there was a fireplace in the room.

I'll leave you with a few more pictures of Kerrigan enjoying the sunrise and then our hike.

(P.S. If you don't already follow us on facebook please do.  Facebook.com/doginthedesert )

A Word On Gender Conformity

"TAKE ME HOME IMMEDIATELY!  This pink Hawaiian print clashes with my fur!"

If you don't own a little dog and think putting clothes on them is cruel please read this post first- http://doginthedesert.blogspot.com/2013/11/tis-season-to-judge-other-people.html While today's post is not about dressing up dogs, you may get bogged down by the idea and miss the point of this rant.  The above link should explain my motives for doing such a thing.

I pretty much hate anything with the word "conformity" in it, but if you know me you will know that this one particularly gets me going.  A society that expects people to conform to some sort of gender norm is a society that sucks.  While I am happy that we do seem to be going in a direction that is tearing down the construct that there are "boy things" and "girl things" (or even that everyone is a boy or a girl) there are also a lot of areas that we still need work on.  ( For the record I am not saying that there is no difference between the genders, also I am not saying that gender expression should not be important to individual people, their perceived gender matters a lot to some people and there is nothing wrong with that- so before you go crazy google the subject a little.)  People should be free to choose what gender they identify with, express it however they want, and not be judged against some standard of how men and women are supposed to act.

I know I have been thinking about this a lot lately because of all the media attention the Christian Patriarchy/quiverfull/fundamentalist baptist movement has been getting (thank you TLC and the Duggars).  They believe that women should wear skirts and have long hair so that they can be easily recognized as woman (they also believe that they should stay at home, under their fathers rule, until they are married off to be ruled over by a husband).  They would say that in regular culture the sexes are becoming too hard to differentiate between.  Well you know what I have to say about that?  GOOD.  I don't care if people think I am a man or a woman, and *shock* neither does my husband.  We are not people who so closely identify with one gender or another to give a hoot about it.  But you know who really, really, does not care if they are misgendered in public.  MY DOG! 

My dogs are not some pawn in society's scheme to perpetuate gender stereotypes.  They are pawns in my scheme to make the world a little less gender conforming than it was yesterday (see what I did there?)

Sometimes I like putting Kerri in things with little flowers on it, because flowers are pretty.  I equally like the super soft, super warm Darth Vader hoodie I have for the girls because it is warm, soft and HILARIOUS.  For the most part, I really don't love how dresses look on dogs, but some dogs can pull it off and some cuts are better than others (plus if it makes people happy, why not?)  Buy see- if I want Kerri to have a blue collar it is no skin off her back.  She just wants it to fit properly and not hurt her.  Point here is that people with dogs should be able to buy what ever accessory they want for that dog without society making comments about their dog being "gay" or "poor thing" for having a "boy" outfit on.  The frustration just comes from shopping and seeing everything so clearly divided on gender lines.  Maybe I would feel this way if I had children too, I don't know.  I guess it just seems like marketers realize that adult women don't respond well to being marketed at in a way that excludes them from half the colors/merchandise/activity in the world, but for some reason it is still OK to market to dogs and babies like this.  To me it is just a bunch of the same stereotype manifesting in a different way.

Thanks for listening to my rant.  I will be posting about our trip to Sedona and Nova's obedience class success soon!