Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving, time to dish up a plate of turkey and then go around the table saying what we're thankful for! (Actually that's not one of my family traditions, we usually eat Thanksgiving dinner in front of the television while heckling old movies MST3K-style.) Anyway, here's what the Dog Geek is thankful for:

• I am thankful to shared eleven years with Brisbane, he had a major impact on my life.
• I am thankful for Sisci Godzilla, our relationship is founded on mutual adoration. She is absolutely perfect.
• I am thankful for Zip, she is an amazing working partner. I seem to just luck into the perfect dogs.
• I am thankful for Ru because he is so incredibly easy.
• I am thankful for the Hellions because cats are nice to have around.
• I am thankful for my job, because working on a sheep ranch is ridiculously awesome even if I did spend half of yesterday treating sheep for pinkeye and then painting the ones I treated. (I need to do a post about stuff you won't believe happens on a sheep ranch if you grew up in the city, because sheep crayons exist and I find that hilarious.)
• I am thankful for my friends, who tolerate my endless dog talk, invite my dogs to their houses, and take pictures of my dogs for me.
• I am thankful for the internet, which connects me to tons of friends I have never met, and allows me to share my semi-coherent rambling with the world. 

What are you thankful for this year?

It's the Tihar Festival!

Today is the second day of the Tihar festival in Nepal! The Kukur Tihar is a special Nepalese portion of the Hindu Diwali festival, in which dogs are honored for their many contributions to human society. I had no idea dogs figured so prominently in Hinduism, but there are some really neat parts of the sacred texts featuring dogs. My absolute favorite is the epic in which Yudhishthira refuses to enter heaven without his dog.

By Originally uploaded by Swapnet (Transferred by Wiki-uk) (Originally uploaded on en.wikipedia) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Dogs are traditionally honored on the day of the Kukur Tihar with flower garlands, red tika marks on their foreheads, and tasty food offerings. I fully intended to make flower garlands for my dogs, and spend the day appreciating them. Unfortunately, life  got in the way and we spent the week housesitting, recovering from our hectic herding trial, and preparing to leave on a camping trip tomorrow. I'm pretty sure they know they are appreciated, though.

I think my favorite thing about the Kukur Tihar festival is that it honors all the dogs, not just the lucky ones belonging to devoted owners. Even stray dogs, and village dogs, are honored just for being dogs. I wish my own culture had this sort of deep appreciation for dogs and all of their past and present contributions. Maybe if we keep talking about it, the Kukur Tihar will rub off on the rest of the world a bit.

Halloween Costume Parade: Target Cheerleader Dog Costume

Halloween is my favorite holiday! Since Brisbane and Sisci aren't huge social butterflies, I don't normally dress them up and take them out to costume contests. I do love costumes though, so I thought I'd share a few of them here.

Photo by Erin Koski

This Cheerleader Dog Costume was originally available at Target and probably came in three or four sizes. Ours is from a thrift store. It's a medium and the shirt part fits Sisci perfectly. It's comfortably stretchy and opens in the front so it's easy to put on. Sisci doesn't mind wearing it.

The pom poms are way too big for her skinny legs. To keep them on, I tied a couple of the strands together. She didn't mind that either. Sisci is a lot less melodramatic than Brisbane.

I'm not sure what the Australian Cattle Dog cheer is, but it probably mentions biting in there somewhere.

Photo by Erin Koski

Puzzle Toy Review: Planet Dog Orbee Tuff Bulb

The Planet Dog Orbee Tuff Bulb is a durable, stuffable rubber chew toy shaped like a bulb from a string of vintage Christmas lights. It is available in two colors and two sizes for largish and smallish dogs. The Orbee Tuff Bulb is made in the USA and comes with a 100% guarantee that I have not yet put to the test.

Photo by Erin Koski

I had been wanting one of these for years, and this one happily arrived in our December BarkBox. This is probably my favorite thing we've gotten in a BarkBox so far. It's basically made of nostalgia (and rubber) because it is shaped like the Christmas lights of my childhood.

Back in the 1980's, we didn't have all those fancy strands of mini lights. There were no animated three-dimensional lighted sculptures of reindeer and snowmen. Nope, back when I was a kid we all just had a single strand of these big fat bulbs adorning our houses every December. They weren't as big as the Orbee Tuff Bulb, but they were a heck of a lot bigger than the ones on all Christmas lights today. Even when I see "retro" Christmas lights now, they still aren't as big as the ones of my childhood, which are still sitting in a box in my parents' garage. Given that "things shaped like Christmas lights" are invariably shaped like those old bulbs, I'm certain this nostalgia is widespread.

Puzzle Toy Rating

Capacity: 4/5
I can fit nearly a cup of kibble in here, which is amazing for this type of toy.

Loading Speed: 4/5
A soda funnel speeds up the process quite a bit.

Unloading Speed (standard dog): 4/5
The foster puppies spent close to an hour emptying the bulb.

Unloading Speed (superdog): 2/5
This puzzle is pretty easy for Brisbane to solve, but he still enjoys it.

Size: 5/5
The smaller size is small enough for Ru-sized dogs to use, and the larger one is big enough for a really big dog. The flexibility makes it easy for dogs on the smaller end of the spectrum to carry the bulb.

Durability: 3/5
Planet Dog gives the Orbee Tuff Bulb a three out of five rating for durability. It will stand up to an infinite amount of tossing and chomping, but a determined chewer can probably demolish it with little effort.

Noise: 5/5
Soft rubber means this toy is silent on my hard floors.

Locatability: 3/5
The non-spherical and non-cylindrical shape means the bulb doesn't roll freely. This mostly keeps it from disappearing under the furniture. Mostly. It's still small enough for Briz to pick up and carry though, so it ends up in his lair once in a while.

Washability: 2/5
The skinny neck of the bulb makes it pretty tough to get the inside clean, so I only put in dry treats like kibble. Occasionally I'll fill it with soapy water and shake it up before rinsing and drying. I haven't found anything on the Planet Dog website about their toys being dishwasher safe, and I have my concerns. I know one of our previous Orbee toys melted in the dishwasher, back when we lived in a house with a dishwasher.

Versatility: 4/5
The relatively long neck and flexibility of the bulb make it a challenging toy for various animals. We haven't tried giving it to Xhuuya the raven yet, though.

Total: 36/50

Happy Valentines Day!

Valentines Day is one of those candy holidays, and one of the most chocolate-intensive celebrations. I think most people know by now that chocolate is bad for dogs, but beyond that the details tend to get a little fuzzy. Should I be worried if they lick my face right after I put on chocolate-flavored lip gloss? What if they snag a dropped chocolate chip cookie? Can they have white chocolate?

How Much Chocolate Does It Take to Kill a Dog?
First, it's important to know how much chocolate is in your chocolate. When it comes to chocolate toxicity, quality is everything. The most dangerous substances contain high percentages of actual cocoa. That chocolate-flavored lip gloss? They could eat the whole tube and be fine. Chocolate-flavored breakfast cereal? I'm not worried unless Ru somehow manages to eat an entire box.

According to the Merck Veterinary Manual, white chocolate is an insignificant source of theobromine, the compound in chocolate that is toxic to dogs but not humans. The lethal dose of theobromine can be as low as 100 mg per kg of dog weight, with mild effects occurring in some dogs with as little as 20 mg/kg. Serious cardiac effects are more likely at 40 mg/kg or more. Dry cocoa powder can contain as much as 800 mg/oz of theobromine. Unsweetened baking chocolate has about 450 mg/oz, while milk chocolate has around 64 mg/oz.

Ru weighs about 3 kg, so an ounce of milk chocolate could be enough to make him sick, and two ounces could make him really sick. A Hershey's Kiss weighs 0.2 ounces, it could take up to five of those to make him queasy, and if he eats less than ten he's unlikely to have serious heart rhythm issues. Since Ru doesn't really like food, I'm not seriously worried about him eating enough milk chocolate to make himself sick.

Of course, different dogs feel the effects of theobromine at different doses. Brisbane has a stomach of steel and would have to eat a whopping 360 mg of it before he got so much as a tummy ache. That's 28 Hershey's Kisses. It would take nearly an ounce of cocoa powder to put him in the cardiac danger zone, and more than an ounce of baking chocolate. I happen to know that Briz tolerates theobromine remarkably well, as he has eaten half a flourless chocolate cake off the counter on two separate occasions with no ill effects. He got a tummy ache once from eating an entire bar of 85% chocolate bar. I feed him the occasional M&M, secure in the knowledge that the theobromine will be out of his system within a day or two.

Chocolate is really nothing to freak out about, though it can hide in unexpected places. Coco mulch is sometimes used in landscaping and also sometimes eaten by undiscriminating dogs with unfortunate results. I think it's wise for dog owners to have a rough idea of how much theobromine is in chocolate, as well as a general estimate of how much it would take to harm their particular dog. That way we can all stop freaking out when a lucky dog snarfs a stray piece of candy off the floor.  PetMD has a really cool chocolate calculator for those who find all that math a bit daunting.

Has your dog had any close encounters with chocolatey goodness?