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Saturday, March 9, 2024

Is It Ok to Have a Favorite Dog?

It is ok to have a favorite dog? Definitely. Dogs don't know who the favorite is, and as long as their needs are getting met, they don't care either. It's not like human siblings who need to be treated as equally as possible by their parents lest they face lifelong psychological issues. Dogs aren't that complicated.

This wasn't totally clear to me when I began my journey as a dog-owning adult. Brisbane was the very first dog I owned as an adult, and he was my entire world. The best term I have found to describe him is "heart dog". A dog you well and truly connect with on a deeper level than any other. A dog that makes your heart swell with love when you look at them. I still get a wonderful warm feeling when I think about Brisbane and how looking at him made me feel. He was the greatest dog influence in my life. 
When I got my second dog, Ru the chihuahua, I didn't feel the same way about him. I tried. I loved him very, very much. But we didn't have the same bond and he didn't occupy the same spot in my emotional center that Brisbane did. I thought it might be because he was such as easy dog and I didn't spend nearly as much time training with him or orchestrating my life around him. 

Next came Sisci Godzilla, and I thought for sure I would build the same type of bond with this new cattledog training project. It didn't happen though. For a while I thought I must not be trying hard enough with these new dogs. When Brisbane was fighting his terminal cancer, I was taking a beginner agility class with Sis. One day I brought Brisbane along and the instructor let me run him through a short sequence of obstacles for fun. The jumps were the wrong height for him, so I asked him to lay down and stay while I went around moving them. Brisbane was perfectly happy to stay until I told him to take the first jump. This impressed the rest of the class, and I was so proud of how much time I had put into that dog. 

After I lost Brisbane, Zip the border collie came into my life. Zip and I learned a lot about herding sheep. So much that we have done many public demonstrations and been the subject of multiple YouTube videos and even got a spot on a Disney+ show. Zip is an absolutely amazing dog. But I still don't feel that tug at my heart the way I did about Brisbane.
But then Puff came. Puff is my new heart dog. She is my favorite dog and also my naughtiest dog. Puff can jump fences. Puff can open doorknobs. Puff lets other dogs put of crates. Puff is a shameless counter surfer. Puff is missing the part of the typical border collie brain where she cares what I think. She has no shame and thinks she is not only a good Puff, she is the best Puff a Puff could be. Puff makes my heart melt every time I look at her, and I can't stay mad at her no matter how terrible she is.
Your favorite dog might be your oldest dog. It might be your best behaved dog. Maybe your favorite dog is the one that was by your side through a rough patch in your life, or that arrived when you started a new chapter. Your favorite dog may be the one you have spent the most time training, or the one that just likes to cuddle and doesn't demand so much effort to keep happy. Sometimes your favorite dog ends up being your favorite for absolutely no reason other than that your heart just chose that one. 

Sunday, March 3, 2024

I Bought a Klimb Despite My Own Objections

The Klimb is an egregiously overpriced dog training platform that sells for the princely sum of $160. Made by Blue9 Pet Products, makers of the Balance Harness, the Klimb features removable legs. It floats and can be connected to other Klimb platforms on the sides and stacked for amazingly expensive group photos. But seriously. $160. For something I could make myself or find similar at a thrift store. But I am a sucker for dog products, so many years after the Klimb was released I finally bought one. 


The Klimb is a training platform. I have used all sorts of different training platforms for many years. Everything from plyometric jump boxes to children's step stools to cot beds to homemade plywood tables. They each have their own attributes. Cot beds are large, light, and portable, but also flexible. Wood tables are solid and sturdy. Plastic step stools are light and portable. But none of the platforms I have used have been large, light, portable, solid, and sturdy all at the same time. 

The dogs love it. I don't know why, probably because it is big enough to get all four feet on easily, low enough to climb onto without jumping, and large enough that I can drop treats on it either for luring a dog up there or building value once they are on it. Whatever the case, it has been incredibly easy to build value for being on it and they bound onto it at the first chance I might be handing out cookies. Or just because it's there. Sometimes it's tucked under other furniture for storage and they will shove themselves up there just in case I feel like rewarding them.


I use it a lot more than my other platforms.
I have all kinds of different things around for them to stand on, depending on whether we're working on pivots, rear foot targeting, or stays. Platforms are great for teaching stays because the criteria is much more clear than when the dog is on the floor. This thing is so easy to slide out of the way, or lean up against a wall, or shove in a closet, so it's always ready when I feel like using it. The legs come off and snap into storage spots on the bottom, but I don't usually bother taking the legs off.

It's pretty slippery. The textured plastic surface isn't terrible, but an enthusiastic border collie goes sliding right off when they hit it at speed. Which they do a lot. Because they love it. But don't worry, Blue9 will happily sell you a $40 custom Klimb traction mat. Cha-ching. Or you could cut a yoga mat to fit, which is what people were doing before the accessories came out. 

I still can't believe I spent $160 on this. Yes, it's a fun training tool and the dogs love it. But it's still just a big piece of plastic and the price feels outrageous for what the production cost must be. I guess all the Klimb buyers are funding further innovations from Blue9. But I would not be surprised to see some more affordable plastic dog training platforms from overseas popping up eventually. Those probably won't hook together though. Maybe I should buy a second one for better group pictures.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Numbercrunching: Kibble with the Lowest Fat, Lowest Calories, and Best Value

 What is the lowest fat, lowest calorie dog food currently on the market?

Sisci Godzilla has pancreatitis. Not the acute hospitalization kind, and not even the kind where she needs to be on prescription food. It's more like a chronic tummy sensitivity. This started a few years ago with very occasional but severe episodes of vomiting. She would puke and puke until the only thing coming up was bloody foam. I would rush her to the vet and they would give her a shot or a pill of Cerenia, an anti-nausea medication. Maybe a short course of famotidine or sucralfate to help her feel better. She would be fine for a long time, six months or a year, before it happened again. It didn't seem to be correlated with feeding her anything in particular.

A couple of months ago, Sis had three vomiting episodes in one week. When I took her to the vet, I asked for bloodwork. I was worried about her kidneys and liver, but it turns out her pancreas levels were high. Not super high, just elevated. Not bad enough for acute treatment or a prescription diet. She was put on omeprazole and given more Cerenia for the nausea, and a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome as well. 

Prescription diets for pancreatitis have very low fat, around 5% for products like Purina's EN. Sis had been eating Diamond Adult Maintenance kibble with 12%, and I decided to look at food options with lower fat to help keep her body comfortable and hopefully settle her stomach. Calorie count was also a consideration here, as she gets fat on air like many cattledogs. With these factors in mind, I started collecting data on dog foods. I stuck with formulas marketed for weight management to help narrow the search. I started with the values for Diamond Maintenance and excluded any foods with a higher fat percentage.

Productcal/cup%fat$/lb
Diamond Maintenance36012%$0.94
Victor Purpose36011.50%$1.68
Wellness Healthy Weight40510%$2.70
Eukanuba Fit2679%$3.22
Royal Canin Weight Care2569%$3.67
ProPlan Weight Management3309%$2.12
Blue Buffalo Healthy Weight3249%$2.03
Science Diet Perfect Weight2999%$3.44
Iams Healthy Weight3049%$1.61
American Journey Healthy Weight2999%$1.77
Merrick Healthy Weight3559%$2.92
Purina One Healthy Weight3208%$1.37
Beneful Healthy Weight3418%$1.13
True Acre Foods Healthy Weight2698%$1.43
Natural Balance Fat Dogs3157.50%$2.47
Pedigree Healthy Weight2807%$1.21
Nutro Healthy Weight2317%$2.50
Solid Gold Fit3306.50%$3.05
Diamond Care Grain-Free3046%$2.12
Diamond Naturals Weight3106%$1.39
Kirkland Signature Healthy Weight Formula2756%$0.83
Science Diet Light2715.50%$2.64

Here is what I came up with. First, there is a huge range of different calorie content for different "weight management" dog foods. Wellness Healthy Weight offers 405 calories per cup, while Nutro Healthy Weight only has 231 calories per cup. That's a difference of 174 calories and means a dog can eat significantly more of the Nutro food while consuming the same amount of calories. That's something to remember when putting a dog on a diet. I could add a cup of green beans, or I could just feed more of a lower calorie food.

Next, there is a wide range of fat values in food marketed for weight management, with 9% the most common. There isn't an official feed definition of "weight management" food the way there is for puppy food, or adult food, or all life stages food, or large breed puppy food. Dogs use fat for energy, so for my active working dogs I look for higher fat. Most dogs don't need an incredibly low fat diet, and too little fat in their diet can leave them tired with a poor coat. Anecdotally have known people feeding vegan dog food that struggled with energy level and poor muscle tone in their dogs. While many people would be quick to blame the vegan food, I would more readily cite the 8-10% fat levels in commercially available vegan dog foods. But some dogs can benefit tremendously from a low fat diet, particularly for things like pancreatitis.

So what food gives me the most bang for my buck in terms of low fat and low calories? A number of pancreatitis prone dogs eat Science Diet Light (not Science Diet Perfect Weight) as it has the lowest fat content and calories per cup on the lower end of the range. I was about to order a bag, but needed to make a Costco run and decided to check out their house brand Kirkland Signature food just to grab another data point. I was pleasantly surprised to find a similar nutrition profile, at a much lower cost. So that is what Sis is now eating, and so far it seems to be helping. At least, she hasn't had any more uncontrollable vomiting episodes since the food switch.