Day One

Well, I finally got around to trying out raw feeding. I decided that I'm just going to do Pallo first, since he is less picky and has an iron stomach. I spent about an hour chopping up a whole chicken into portion sizes for him, so that all I have to do is reach in and grab a chunk of the correct size out of the fridge.

Last night he got a rather large chicken leg for his first raw meal. He looked confused for a while, licking it and gently picking at the skin and fat on the meat, then finally grabbed the whole thing and took off into the yard with it, where he took a good 45 minutes to eat the whole thing.

This morning he seems much more up to speed on the whole raw eating thing, as it only took him about 10 minutes to eat down his morning section of chicken. Since the single chicken is enough to feed my boy for roughly 6 days, we will be sticking with chicken for about a week, then introducing other goodies, to be determined by my visit to the store today.

We are gearing up for a flyball tournament in 2 1/2 weeks, so it might not be the best time to be making this change, but Pallo is a tough little guy and seems to be doing great so far, and I always have the option of switching him back to kibble until after the tournament if he doesn't do so great on the raw.

On the training note, Koira will keep coming to practice with me. I spent some time talking to our trainer, and we came up with some ideas of improving Koira's drive, like throwing the tug out for her instead of holding onto it, so she really drives off the box and over the jump (we are only using one jump right now with her). It seemed to be improving her drive a lot last practice, so I am eager to try it again, but have to work tonight, so will be waiting for next week's practice to get to try it out good.

Right now the snow is hampering our outdoor activities. My dogs aren't used to it, and while it isn't deep, it is cold and slippery to run on, meaning they slip and slide like crazy. We still go out to play, but I try to take it easy on them. Koira doesn't understand the meaning of taking it easy, and did her first ever frisbee catch with all four feet in the air.