I have been raw feeding for a few years now, and at World Team Tryouts I got to talking to Julie and Daneen who are HUGE raw feeding resources. Julie is so terrific and said she would hook me up with her raw feeding co op and make sure to bring down my dog food bills which would make a new puppy much more doable. It is really neat, they have three places they get food, so my base food has been some chicken backs they can get that ran 35 cents a pound this last pick up, I grind those and mix them with fruits and veggies. I give these great chicken leg 1/4's that run about .65 cents a pound and are almost all meat, or pork brisket with some soft bones in the evening. They get this great organ blend at 1.35 cents a pound, they get that once a week, and once a week they get some tripe and they get whole fish that run about 1.50/pound for sardines, and of course they get things like yogurt and eggs. It is terrific stuff and has cut my food bill down so much and the dogs are getting a better variety. In the morning their food is half and half meat and fruits and veggies.This batch of food Alicia and I got together and picked up tons of fruits and veggies-spinach, green beans, parsley, bananas, berries, peaches, apricots, garlic, tons of carrots, mystery squash, sweet potatoes, just tons of good stuff. We had my food processor really working and surprisingly when we tasted the goop after we finished mixing it was actually pretty good, and the dogs kept sneaking into the bucket we were mixing it in, so guess they liked it too. For their deserts Alicia made some yummy pupsicles with yogurts and fruits, my dogs think they have died and went to heaven.
Anyway, thanks to Julie and Daneen I am finding it way easier to keep my dogs fed, and the price is really reasonable, and having Alicia to split cases with is helping so my freezer doesn't end up overflowing too bad.
Saturday we went to Happy Dog Agility and did their Pay and Play. Breeze did ok. Lizzie and Alicia's dog Hunda practiced some walk abouts, just walking them around the new area and clicking and treating for their checking in with us. Alicia showed me how to work with Liz in a smaller area and just do tricks while she sort of got desensitized to that area before I let her do any agility and that was really helping her keep her mind on agility when we did start our sequences, that was a good tip.
Next we went to the beach. I have to tell you that watching Lizzie on the beach is an experience that just makes me feel so good. Lizzie does the zoomies and runs off so she can not be off leash a lot for her safety. I do my best to find lots of areas she can be off leash and she is getting better but she is not trustworthy. On this particular beach though there is no where for her to go and she can be off leash. She runs around with a look of just pure joy and freedom. Liz loves to jump into the waves and she runs through the water, and I can truly say it is the most happy I have ever seen her. I love taking her to the beach.
There were almost no dogs on the beach so we could let all the dogs go at one time, Pickle, Lizzie, Breeze, Hunda and Moose all had a great time, and so did I. After the dogs got done at the beach we went to a great little fish and chips place for lunch where they were having a Pirate weekend. It was a very good day.