Stewart Creations

It’s time for Annie to have her vaccination update, we have an appointment this morning. Somehow, she had the courtesy to get sick right before her appointment. How did that happen? She’s had the runs since yesterday, last night when we noticed a little blood, we decided to wait until today to take her in. Last night we would have had to take her to a stranger, at after-hours prices. We decided that since she was not feverish, and it was only a little bit of bright red blood, not tarry, we would wait.
We love our vet clinic. The support staff is right on the ball, which we have found is very important, and the vets are affordable and really good! Paradise Valley Animal Hospital, LLC 602-992-4560.
Drs. Weinacker and Kastner are the best, and like I said, the support staff is on the ball, they don’t lose records or referrals, or forget to call me to remind me about upcoming appointments.
So Annie will get poked and prodded this morning. I have a ziplock baggie with a stool sample for them. Always exciting.

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Our morning dog walk was glorious today, I got a good shot of Reddy Kilowat-Coyote. This dog is one of our pups from Annie and Hank. He turned out to be too much of a handful at his home, so we got him back. We give a lifetime guarantee.

He is pretty high-strung, and apparently the people who had him had lots of traffic in their house. Strangers wandering around, coming in unannounced or something. Anyway, long story short, he was biting. They were afraid they’d have to have him put down and they just don’t have the right kind of atmosphere for a problem child like he apparently is.
We haven’t had problems, but then we don’t have much traffic.
So now we have five. That’s a lot of dogs. You try sleeping with five dogs and see how you do. I take pills when I need to, I’m not proud. Plus, I have them pretty much trained to stay off of my side bacause I’m tougher than Dave. He ends up with at least three dogs piled up on him and he’s too kind to shove them off. Not so I. I need my sleep.
Here’s anothe pic of our day up on Seven Springs. Pnut just jumped into the cold water! Out of the clear blue, he flew off the bank and into the pool. Seemed pretty happy with himself about it.

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Well, the little green quilt from the left-overs is almost done. Pnut helps me a lot.

I can’t believe how fast this quilt is going. Of course it’s little, like making baby bedding because Jayden wanted a smaller one just for curling up in on the couch. It’s perfect for that, and so very cute! I threw everything at it. No sense in having a serious blankie for a kid, so it’s got rutching and lace a-plenty.
Pnut is small enough to be on the work table and so he is, fequently. He’s just great company.
He doesn’t quite ‘get’ the ball game. He like it when everybody runs around, and when he can get the ball he likes that, too. But he just runs off into a corner of the yard and chews the ball, or even more ofte, he lays down beside it and chews on something else, forgetting the ball altogether. When he has the ball in his mouth he will come to me when i call him, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the ball.
He doesn’t have to be smart because he’s so cute. There I said it.

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We had been looking for a camper to put on the truck, I want my own bed! But my sweetie is worried that our old truck will not like it. What we ultimately need is a fifth-wheel/toy-hauler, but that will mean a different truck to pull it, it seems so complicated and expensive that we keep putting it off. Just shopping for it makes us weary.
I don’t think the Mexican insurance will be any more with a bigger rig, will it? We will have to shop insurance quotes to find out.
So after I found a bunch of campers for him to look at on Craig’s list, he looked, got weary, then suggested a motel. I think it’s a good idea, we can leave the dogs in the camper shell if the motel doesn’t like the idea of dogs in the room. We will miss them, they tend to take over the bed, but they are warm. That reminds me, we should give them their flea spot a week before we leave. We don’t keep them spotted up here at home, no bugs (knock on wood) in our yard, but when we go anywhere we put the stuff on their necks to keep them bug-free. It takes a couple of days before it’s fully effective.

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I’m starting to get really excited about going to Rocky Point. We haven’t been there for so long a time!!! Mom is looking into our favorite room at the Pithaya Motel, the one on the end with the door that opens onto the beach is my favorite. It has a kitchenette and is cheap. Like $65.00 a night. At least it used to be that cheap. I don’t care if they raised the rate, it still has a lot of bang for the buck. The dogs will have to sleep in the camper shell, but not a problem. We can walk them on the beach early and late cause it’s right there.
I have the dental appointment set, can’t wait to get my teeth fixed and cleaned, it’s been so long. I went to a dentist on the border last summer for a quick repair and cleaning, but it’s nothing like my own favorite dentist right there in Rocky Point. I think the last time I went was with Pam, to close out her place when they sold that. We made a quick over-nighter and then right back. We get to stay a few days this time.
So I am making sugar-free squash pies for the trip. Of course I will make a lot of them, no sense cooking a couple once you have all the equipment out and the oven warm. They freeze nice, and I can spread some out to the neighbors, I think I will try my own crust. Usually, Dave and I buy crust, but this time I want whole wheat. I’ll probably make some sugar and some not-sugar. Mom will not eat sugar. I have to admire that, she took herself from borderline diabetic to no sign of unusual blood sugar in just a year of diet control. Wow, you go, Mom!

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Honey, I’m so sorry I didn’t get to visit with you last week. I just hate that events conspired to mess up our plans. They were really good plans.
You know that you have kids I haven’t even met yet. I am so looking forward to seeing you and spending time with your family this winter. I sure hope that happens. Winter on the beach is going to be a wonderful experience for your family. Let’s teach the kids spanish.. Does Justice already speak? I seem to have heard that he does already have some.
Hope everything is going well at your end. Closing the houses and such. I will have a nice long break between terms this winter and I plan to spend a lot of it down there, visiting with you-alls.
I love you.

Aunt April
Here is a random picture for your enjoyment.

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I need a vacation. This is still the first third of my term, and I’m burned out. Already had one meltdown, and this weekend I had a sudden desire to not go back to Phoenix, not go back to school.
Luckily it wasn’t a very strong or long-lived urge, so I’m back, but what happens when the term gets really hard? Like I know it can, what happens then?
Last term it was no problem, and I think it was because we had a nice vacation the year before, we went to Puerta Vallarta and chilled for ten days.
I really liked it, next I’d like to try a Caribbean villa rentals, I’ve never been East.
South is nice, though. In the winter, that is, while I’m in school.
What I need is a summer spot. A friend of mine recently went to Hawaii, she said it was cool in the summer.
Right now all I got is Ajo, AZ. At least the dogs like it. Here’s another pic.

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Third installment in the kibble salmonella scare:
You should never let your guard down when it comes to huge corporations. They’re just trying to make some money, in accord with the American Dream (and it is a very good dream, I love capitalism).
Corporations don’t make the decisions; people make the decisions, and they have to please the board, which is made up of people who are yet another step removed from whatever the corporation does to make the money that makes the board happy. How can they police themselves? Really. It’s a very rare corporation that has any morals. The individuals that make up the corporate entity may be (and mostly are) very fine people, but a corporation cannot have a soul or conscience, really, it’s not in the nature of the beast.
That leaves it up to the consumer. The American Way (and again, it’s a darn good way).
Somehow i missed the salmonella poisoning issue of 2007, but found plenty on line about it the other day.
In August 2007, Mars Petcare voluntarily recalled select bags of its Red Flannel Large Breed Adult Formula dry dog food and Krasdale Gravy dry dog food.
Maybe I missed that because I had already started feeding them human-grade kibble (Canidae)and started cooking for my dogs, so I felt safe. I researched and settled on Canidae kibble for the human-grade ingredients and low carbohydrates, which dogs don’t need. I found some easy and affordable crock pot recipes. For instance:

Crock Pot Dog Dinner
chicken legs and thighs (we use the cheap ten-pound bag)
carrots
white rice or macaroni

Break the carrots into a couple of pieces and lay them on the bottom of the crockpot and put a layer of chicken on top of that so the chicken won’t stick. Pour in some rice or macaroni (a cup or less) and top with as much chicken as will fill the pot. Add enough water to leave a couple of inches from the top so it won’t overflow.
Set the crock pot up on the porch if you have a small kitchen like me, and out of your pets’ reach (it gets hot). The porch is also great because it smells up the whole house when it’s inside.
Let it cook four hours or so on high or six on medium, the chicken should fall off the bone when you stir it.
Take the long bones out, the rest will be so cooked that it’s okay. You need to use your judgement based on your own dog. Cool to wrist-temperature before you feed it to them and keep it refrigerated since there are no preservatives. Once it cools you can skim off the fat for low-cal diets. Use this in the same amounts as your usual canned portion.
Sometimes I add (very cheap) liver trimmings or pork kidney and the dogs really love it. Boy can that stuff stink while it cooks!

The reason I use white rice and pastas is because one of our dogs has an occasional digestive thing and the vet told me that if she wants roughage, she will eat weeds and grass, but bulk in the form of brown rice and whole wheat bran is probably part of her problem and not that good for her, although carrots in small amount are allowed. (She really loves her cooked carrots).
Cooking every few days is no problem for us and it’s a lot cheaper than canned. I also feel I’m generating less waste in the form of packaging than I did with canned, so that adds to the appeal for me. Dogs love this food and they don’t even care that it’s really, really good for them.
Lack of trust in commercial dog food generated by big business drove me to the point of cooking for my dogs, and it turns out it’s a good place to be driven to.
Good luck to you whatever you decide.

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One way a dog’s meat-and-greens prefering digestive system helps dogs not get salmonella poisoning is that dog digestion is so rapid. They are a ‘short gut’ animal, with a digestive system only three (3) times the length of their bodies, and the subsequent speed of digestion helps the meal and any parasites or bacteria move out faster. The concentration of hydrochloric acid is ten times the amount found in vegetarian-type animal digesteve systems.
Compared to human digestion, the time for bacteria to be exposed to their system is far less. Compare total dog digestion time, from the bowl to the baggie, in a dog with a very healthy diet at 2-4 hours total digestion time. Two to four hours. Add more carbohydrates to a dog’s diet and you can slow the digestion down to 6-8 hours. That’s in a diet with lots of carbs, like most kibble-only diets. Try to compare that with human digestion. Go on, I dare you. I don’t know what human digestive time is average, but I know it’s a lot longer than that..
That’s another good reason we get the salmonella bacteria reaction and dogs don’t.

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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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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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I think Nununda has found a home. The people were over to see her today, I think it will be a good home for her. The guy was almost in tears, he liked her so much. They had just lost one a couple of weeks ago and he was grieving.
I am a little worried that they didn’t have an autopsy done, seems a mystery why a 7 yr old cattle dog would just keel over one night. But I guess they weren’t that curious. They have 2 other dogs of mixed breed, medium to large in size and they all sleep together. Nununda is used to sleeping on the bed, and hell, anywhere else she wants, I guess, if I had to say it plainly. Seems like these folk have the same attitude. She should feel right at home.
They have a nice back yard, and I am going to try to make sure they get her out frequently. Dogs need new sights and smells just like we do.
Dave needs to say goodbye and also needs to check these guys out himself, so I told them we’d bring her over tonight and Dave could meet them. I told them to expect another interview. I grilled them pretty hard.
I fed the dogs frozen hard-boiled eggs while the people were here. Everybody calmed down real well and Nununda seemed to take to the guy right away, laid down at his feet while we were talking, even.

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Nununda, Fae and I went to Mom’s the other day and spent the night. Fae loves it there, and Nununda got along just fine with the chihuahuas. I was real proud of her.
The two hour car trip didn’t bother her, either. She’s a pretty steady dog.
Middle of the night, Mom tells me Nununda got up in bed with her. I didn’t even know she was gone.
Mom felt hot, so got up and turned on the cooler, and walked Nununda down the hall. She got back up on my bed and was there in the morning.
Go figure.
She really liked my mom.

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Lur MacKenzie found a great home with a guy who really understands him. Lur’s new name is Boyd. Boyd has a bunch of grass around his house and for a couple of days couldn’t figure out where to poop, so he just didn’t. We suggested that Boyd’s new friend take him out to gravel or dirt. So now the routine is to go for a run off-leash and he gets the job done. He’s a good boy and goes to the garbage off-leash and to the mailbox off-leash. (It’s a quiet and self-contained place, perfectly safe).
Boyd’s new owner wanted both Reddy and Lur but his mom told him it might be too much at once. I actually agree, but what I liked is the fact that this young man (who owns his own place, has his own life) listened to what his mom was saying. That’s when I was really sold on this kid taking a pup.
Before, I was worried that he wouldn’t be a good candidate because his condo doesn’t have a back yard and he’s YOUNG. really young. But he’s a real level-headed guy and I guess Boyd and he are getting along just great.
I am so happy for him.

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looking back on this month i see that i have been giving out a lot of Reddy Kilowatt and not enough of Lur MacKenzie.
He is such a sweet baby. He has the prettiest face of all of them all. He’s got that two-tone cattle dog eye patch face.
okay, here’s another picture of him.
He’s starting to put on some weight. he’d lost some when he went to the home that didn’t work out. these things are hard on puppies. He came back skinny and spooked. He’s just now getting over the flinch when you put your hand to his face for a pet. it breaks my heart because he was the alpha pup when he left, and the broadest in the chest, starting to put on some chunkiness. now he’s the slender and small one.
I’m told i was too harsh on people who think i may be writing about them when i call someone stupid if they can’t figure out how to make their puppy comfortable. it’s not directed to anybody in particular, just in general, people who don’t think out how to make their dog happy to behave nicely are just one of those things i can’t abide by. dogs really try to make it easy. they just want to behave, all we gotta figure out is how to let them know what we want.
so, i admit i’m a little tough on people, and probably too soft on dogs. just the way i am.
go get yourself your own blog is what i say.

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1 1/2 to 2 lb. chicken necks
1/2 to 1 lb. chicken, beef or pork livers
1 to 2 c. rice
several carrots
water to fill

Line crockpot bottom with carrots, add meat, pour rice over and fill close to top with water.
Set on low for eight or ten hours or high for four to six hours. Cool completely and store in refrigerator.

Australian Cattle Dogs love it mixed with a good-quality kibble. We use Canidae because there are no mystery ingredients and NO GLUTEN and no glutinized products.

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We got Reddy and Lur back….. stupid people don’t know that
1. you need to be home for the first few days you get a new dog, not on a business trip to chicago.
2. dogs don’t immediately accept every new change you throw at them (for instance a day care center at your home with no place for the dog to hang out while it’s going on)
2. leave a puppy outside all day and night alone and he’s bound to bark.

I am just glad that we got them back from those stupid people. I do wish I’d had a chance to train the people, Lur’s cituation might have had a better outcome, except i really believe that he wanted the dog but she did not. that won’t work. but the rednecks who had Reddy probably couldn’t be educated.
so we have 6 dogs again. they are all really well-behaved, and surprisingly calm, but we have Reddy and Lur in school anyway. first class starts Saturday. posting more ads.

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