Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

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Level With Me

January 20, 2015 By Jodi

For the most part I try and find the humor in the situations I find myself in.  With these two dogs, you sort of have to. 🙂  

Who us?

Who you calling senior?

But sometimes we have to talk about some serious issues.  After all both of my dogs are considered seniors.

You may recall last June when Delilah had pre dental blood work we discovered she had slightly elevated liver levels. Since then we’ve tried a number of different supplements, and treatments to bring those liver levels down, but with no luck.  My vet wants to do a liver biopsy and I’m really not comfortable with this.

Jodi Chick recommended Dr. Peter Dobias, a holistic vet in Canada.  Jodi swears by Dr. Dobias’ liver cleanse.  I e-mailed Dr. Dobias and was thrilled when he responded to me.  He suggested a liver cleanse for Delilah and to continue her on the supplements she is on.

Naturally I wanted to run it by one of the vets in my practice.  I spent a good 20 minutes talking it through with Dr. Atz.

This may sound weird, but my gut is telling me, the whole issue with the elevated livers is in Delilah’s gut.

Think about, this dog eats anything.   For heaven’s sake, Sunday she ate dog shit!

When I shared my theory with Dr. Atz he agreed.  I said I just picked up The Microbiome Diet and the premise is a good portion of disease begins in the gut.  And do you know what my vet said?  He said, “I agree, the gut is the root of all evil.”

So then I ran my idea by him.

My plan is to do a liver cleanse with Delilah and then add in a good probiotic and a good multi-vitamin.

Typically when a dog is diagnosed with elevated liver levels, the levels are quite high.  Often times in the 800 range.  Delilah’s are currently under 300.  As of this writing, Delilah has no symptoms of liver disease.  In fact, as Dr. Atz reminded me we wouldn’t even know there was an issue going on if we hadn’t had the pre dental blood work run.  Dr. Atz and I agree, this gives us time for experimenting.  

Because we feed raw, I try to keep the dog’s treats grain free, but that doesn’t mean we don’t slide occasionally.  Since I have been diagnosed with food allergies, it’s crossed my mind perhaps Delilah may have them as well.  I’m going to be very strict about the treats she gets and do my best to control what goes in her mouth.

Do any of you have experience with food allergies and how would I go about having her checked for them?  For me it was a simple blood test.  Can it really be that simple with dogs too?

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Filed Under: Holistic Healing Tagged With: Delilah, Elevated Liver Levels, Health, Holistic Health

Bad Dogs….

January 19, 2015 By Jodi

Bad dogs, talking bout’ the bad, bad, bad, bad dogs….

It was raining a bit when we set out for our walk yesterday morning.  It was definitely a lot warmer than it has been, but when I stepped out the door, there was a bit of ice on the steps.

Rather than boot the dogs up and walk them on possibly icy roads, I loaded them both into the car and drove to the park.

The  paths through the woods were icy, but I let Sampson off leash and without the competition, Delilah did pretty well.  Sampson even jumped into the car on our way out of the park.

The rain continued on and off all day, often heavy at times and I was dreading our afternoon walk.  But right around 4 PM the rain slacked off.  We all got our gear on and headed out.

I decided to stay off the icy paths of the woods and instead walk around the block.  About half-way through I had a thought.  Sometimes these thoughts are not good, because sometimes, they are a precursor for things to come.

Like when I’m speeding down the highway and think, “Gee I haven’t seen cop today.”  Sure enough, one shows yup, usually with a radar gun in his hand.

But this post isn’t about cops with radar guns, this post is about dogs.

Bad dogs.

So here I was, thinking, wow this has been a great walk.  The dogs are walking nicely on leash, they aren’t zigging and zagging from side to side, no-one has gotten their leash stuck under their leg, one dog hasn’t clothes-lined the other dog and I haven’t had my hands crushed or a leash wrapped around my leg.  We haven’t run into another person, car or dog.  It’s an ENJOYABLE walk.

Golden Labrador

Don’t get any ideas, she’s not talking about me.

And while I stood there, glorying in this small miracle and trying to figure out how to make a blog post out of it….Delilah at dog shit.

Besides being disgusting and gross this is problematic in a number of ways.  

1) Delilah is ALL Lab, she licks things.  Things outside and things in the house.  Things like the counter if she can get away with it, the floor, your plate if she thinks your not looking AND she drinks out of the same water bowl as Sampson.  EWWWWW it’s worse than a kid backwashing in your cup.

2) I’m trying really hard to get those elevated liver levels under control and part of this is controlling what goes in her mouth.  Dog shit is not on that list.

And 3) I use treats on our walks and there’s no way in hell, I’m reaching down to give her a treat after she’s eaten dog shit. 

No friggin’ way.

Immediately after she ate the shit, we had to pass a dog.  So there I am trying to walk past the dog while breaking off a piece of lamb lung, keeping myself from getting tangled up in their leashes, and pitch the treat into her gaping pie hole, praying my aim stays poor and I don’t actually shoot one down her throat and choke the dog.  Nothing worse than having to Heimlich your dog (who just ate shit) on the side of the road.

I told you this story is about bad dogs.  Bad dogs get their teeth brushed when they come home from a walk.

Chocolate-Lab-Teeth Brush

Wait a minute, let’s not get crazy or anything.

See how quickly the worm can turn?  WTF does that mean anyway?  How do you keep your dogs from eating bad things, whether it be in the house, yard or on a walk? 

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Filed Under: Humor Tagged With: Delilah, Humor, Life With Sampson And Delilah

You Make Me Laugh – January 18, 2015

January 18, 2015 By Jodi

You make me laugh (or smile), the sweet, funny, loving things my dogs do on a daily basis that brings a smile to my face or a laugh to my lips.

Delilah, the funny way you look when I’m trying to take your picture….

Funny things dogs do.

You make me laugh.

Back story….I was scrolling through photos last night and as soon as I saw this one I burst out laughing.  I showed it to Hubby and the two of us had a good chuckle.

This dog cracks us up every day.

Would you call this a blooper?

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Filed Under: You Make Me Laugh Tagged With: Delilah, You Make Me Laugh

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About Jodi

jodiHi, my name is Jodi. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog! I have all kinds of fun writing about my two crazy pups, Sampson and Delilah. Find out more!

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