Stewart Creations

Last year, March of 2007, when we were unwittingly poisoning our pets with Chinese gluten products, I studied dog food, and blogged, and chatted, and felt pretty up-to-date on dog nutrition. I thought I was current on the dangers of feeding commercial dog food to my babies. I thought I knew enough about dog nutrition and what’s available on the market to make informed decisions about my dogs’ diet. I felt confident that I could protect them with my great big smart brain by being informed.
Being a busy person, I soon forgot to stay in regular touch with my new online pals; people who were grieving because they had poisoned their pet when they thought they were giving them a treat. Or worse, when Fluffy and Rover didn’t want to eat the regular pet food they figured Fluffy and Rover were spoiled and left it down and encouraged them to eat it anyway.
How hard is it to deal with guilt like that? Bringing poison right into your home and encouraging your loved ones to eat it. Pretty damn hard to recover from that kind of thing. Folks were really tore up about it, as you can imagine, and we formed some pretty close alliances, trying to help each other understand the madness.
Today I went back on some of those feeds and rooms for old times’ sake, just to see what the haps, you know, and GEEZ, it’s not over, I guess. Today I discovered the pet food salmonella bacteria poisonings of March 2007 that were finally reported in August 2007, and revisited the euthanized pet rendering issue.
I didn’t know dogs could get salmonella, so I went online http://www.mountaindogfood.com/HealthCare/Salmonella.htm
and found that they cannot, because dogs are built to eat meats and greens.
The problem seems to have been humans contracting salmonella poisoning through contact with the kibble. All across the country, people who didn’t wash their hands after they fed their dogs got sick. There was one reported case (I read it on the internet, so it has to be true) of a child getting sick from being in the same room as an open bag of kibble. So the net was buzzing. Uproars of indignation for our horrible petfood industry safety standards.
Still a lot of nagative buzz around the salmonella thing. And it’s true that we shouldn’t have to worry that something we feed our pets is dangerous to handle, at least without warning labels. But who doesn’t wash their hands after feeding the pets?
Hand washing is the number one line of defense against food-borne illness. And then there is hand washing again, since it’s the most important! and finally washing the counter top, utensils, etc. Washing the dog dishes with soap and water was mentioned, but my dogs don’t get that kind of pampering every time. My hands do, they get soap and water after handling money, dirty dishes, dog food, the scummy tennis ball that happens to be today’s favorite in the back yard. Lucky hands.

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cattle dogs in general are just peachy!
I had a nice visit with Lur… Actually, his name is Boyd now, and he answers to it just fine. He’s a smart little guy. I took him to Petsmart for practice at NOT BARKING AT OTHER DOGS. He’s such a little pip.
I tried a new (to me) technique: You have to be down on the dog’s level. When Boyd barked at a dog, I grabbed his neck, twisted and said ‘UH-UH!’
Then let go his neck and wait, he barks again, grab, twist, UH-UH.
It took him three or four tries to figure out what I was talking about and another couple to make sure I was serious, after that, we could walk around the store and when he looked like he was going to bark at a dog, I just told him ‘UH-UH, no barkies’.
I took him in to get his toenails clipped, it’s regularly $8.00, which is very reasonable, but for first-time dogs it’s free. Bonus!
I’ll call Boyd’s owner today and arrange a ply-date with Annie Oakley.
She and Boyd played constantly while he was here. He always was the favorite one for her to wrestle with.
Actually, the first fave was Kodos, the early leader of the pack, but he was adopted very early, then I guess she went for the next aggressive pup, Lur. They were happy to see each other. If I get Boyd and Annie playing in Boyd’s park, maybe he will relax a little.
SOURDOUGH BREAD
I have given up on getting a fluffy loaf of sourdough bread, so I have decided to use yeast. I’m starting a new batch of sourdough starter today and will bake again this weekend, adding yeast. I should get a fluffy loaf that has the sourdough taste and enough texture to support whole grains. The taste really is marvelous, but the bread’s so heavy you have to toast it.

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Jeff brought Lur (his name is now Boyd) over for the weekend. I told him to just take his time returning. He laughed.
Lur knew right where he was, slammed out of the car and into the house. Had the submissive wee-wees for the first half hour or so, then settled right in.
He doesn’t know what to think of the new fountain. Everyone else dashes right in after the ball, and I think he will soon.
He’s such a love. He was hungry, and his nails are too long, but he really looks great and his attitude is real fine. Jeff’s doing a good job.
I might send care packages of frozen meals home with him, though. You know bachelors, never anything to eat in the house.
Boyd was happy to tear into some frozen eggs, I’m spoiling him, though. Between the chicken bites and all the eggs, he actually just ate the yolks out of the eggs once he got them open. I’ll just smash the egg whites into their dinner tonite.

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Mr. Kilowatt got lucky yesterday. The people who adopted him have a pool built just for dogs with exit platforms all around. They have a three-year-old red heeler male (neutered) already.
They said they have been watching Reddy’s ad and this blog for a few weeks, thinking since they had a young dog and an old dog maybe they needed another. Well, sadly, they lost their 17 year-old blue heeler a couple weeks ago, and they put off contacting Reddy until their grief was under control. Seems the 3-yr-old was getting lonely, so they came looking for Reddy.
He went with Michelle on the leash real smooth, like he knew what he was doing, and hopped into the back of their truck just as natural as you could want. Hope he settles in easy.
We miss him, but there seemed to be a lot more room in the bed last night.
I forgot to send kibble with him, but did get some home cooking and a smelly rug bundled up for him.
Reddy’s new people are going to put both dogs into assistance training. They’ll be able to take the dogs in to a lot more places with working-dog credentials. That’s a good idea. And Reddy loves school, he’s good at it. School at PetSmart really gave him that boost in confidence when he needed it.
Soon as I get your email, Michelle, I will send you Reddy’s baby pics. Here’s some now.

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Today we have to take a break at tennis-ball-in-the-fountain because Reddy cut his foot last night on a flagstone edge. We put styptic powder on it and it stopped immediately. Very impressive.
Dogs have some major arteries in their feet. The toenails are especially full of bleeders. If your dog ever snags his toenail, be aware that he could bleed out and die pretty fast from it.
Apply pressure and styptic powder. Petsmart has it in little plastic containers great for your dogs first-aid kit.
We got this picture at an earlier session. Reddy doesn’t completely sit when he’s playing ball, his butt almost touches the ground, but he keeps that tension in his haunches. Ready to spring.
Wow, can that dog ever jump.
Reminds me,““““` I didn’t have success yet in contacting the fly-ball folk. Think I’ll try that again.
I had thought of Nununda (Shawnee) for a fly-ball dog, but now since I been spending so much time with Reddy, in school, and him being the only puppy left, I see that he’s a good candidate, too.
Some dogs show it earlier, I guess.

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My bread hasn’t risen enough to even want a picture of it yet, but each loaf gets better. By the end of next week I should have a loaf worthy of portraiture. The taste is great, and the crust is coming along. I’m looking for crisp, flaky crust about a half to one inch deep. The recipes say that if you sprinkle with water just before baking you’ll get a crisp crust, butter or oil and you will have a soft crust. So, so far I have the crunchy part good, just working on the flake.
My sourdough starter is very active in this heat. I keep it in the shade on the porch. IT’S ALIVE…. ALIIIIVE!
I need a solar oven now so I can bake every day and not heat up the house.
I spend a lot of time on the back porch throwing a tennis ball into the fountain for the dogs. Annie will make sure she gets it dropped so it rolls right by my chair. Hank just catches it and drops it as if to say, “There, I killed it, my job is done.” Reddy pretty much the same, he loves to jump high and wiggly, but once he’s got it, it’s all catch and release. Except when Annie’s around close, she takes it away from him right out of his mouth. He’ll hold on to it for that. Fae just hangs onto the ball and comes over just barely within my reach so I can try to take it away from her.
These guys make me laugh to tears every day. I get much more out of our games than they do, I think.

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