Sunday, 29 April 2012

Black labs: They eat horses don't they?

Oprah, the female fountain of all wisdom has one piece of advice which resonates with me.
If you know better, you do better.
This advice holds very true when it comes to animal training.
When you're young and busy, you think, "Well, I'll just put down a mountain of kibble and the dog will eat when he's hungry." Or "he's a dog; he won't live long enough to have teeth rot."
Expensive mistakes, both.
Many of my early dogs became very fat because of the first theory. Gordie ended up being three times his proper weight because he just never stopped eating.
And then got bladder stones which cost me $3,000.
Then he got pancreatitis which cost me another $2,500.
The whole dental ignorance on my part was, by far, the worst mistake.
Here is what happens if you don't do dental maintenance on a pug.



Today, I am the proud owner of a vial of 10 of Gordie's teeth, which I'm thinking of turning into a neckace to try to sell to Mickey Rourke so I can pay my son back the $3,000 I owe him.

I've heard Mickey will buy anything.

The vet bill is not the worst of it. Now I have a toothless pug.

A pug who now looks like this.




I've been checking online to see if I can get a grill to keep his tongue in. Something like this.




Finnigan is getting schooled early.
Our new vet, Dr. Dave has suggested that twice a week, we go on a tooth picking expedition, like the birds who eat bugs on a hippo, to get all the grit and tartar off of Finn's teeth.




I was thinking instead of getting him an Oral B electric toothbrush because I bet he'd really like the twirling action.
On second thought, I'll just get Scott to pick Finn's teeth.

We're also watching Finn's diet from the get-go. Dr. Dave says labs are the equivalent of the Dyson 360 vaccuum cleaner, when it comes to food.

So he gave us a kibble dispensing ball, which looks like this.



It's called an Omega Paw Treat Ball and you fill it with kibble and let him have at it. Generally, Finn can only get, like, three pieces of kibble out before he falls asleep or asks to go outside to eat dirt, which is cheaper than kibble. And dirt is probably higher in fibre.

We'll see.

I pray not to wake up to a half-eaten carcass of Gordie lying beside me, like the horsehead in the Godfather.



If that happens, I'm going to let Finn eat what he wants.




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