I have been cooking and baking up a storm this Labor Day weekend. And why not? I got a huge box of produce from my CSA, I had some experiments to conduct with beets (the jury’s still out on that one) and some healthy recipes I wanted to test on both kids and pups.

I had a big pile of carrots to work with as well, and despite the blistering heat I had a bee in my bonnet to make carrot soup. Don’t ask me why. It just sounded good.

I have a ragtag collection of pots and pans, one of these, one of those, and a couple that work well for soup. Rather than pull out my Dutch oven, I decided I would use my pasta pot- one of those that has a strainer insert, since I was feeling extra cheflike and wanted to make my own stock while I was at it. This attention to detail was a rare moment in my otherwise box-filled cooking life, I assure you.

So I opened the pots and pans cabinet, reached into the back, and pulled out the soup pot.

And screamed like the mom on Tom and Jerry.

After realizing it had legs and wasn’t some sort of viper planted in wait by an assassin, I regained my composure and looked a little more closely at the interloper. He appeared to be passed from this world. I tilted the pot back and forth and watched him slide sadly back and forth motionlessly.

Since I was alone in the house and had no one to witness this odd phenomenon, I had to take a picture. It was while I was positioning the pot that I thought I noticed a flicker of a toe. Could it be? Was he alive?

I took the pot outside. Brody, sensing something interesting afoot, was right underfoot. When the sunlight hit the bottom of the pot, the lizard started squirming like a vampire hit by the first ray of dawn. Oh yes. He was alive.

Shooing Brody away, I dumped the lizard into the iceplant and went back in to scrub the pot. And inspect the cabinet, which was found to be otherwise skink, skunk, bug, and other creature-free.

Cute, isn’t he?

My husband’s first response was, “Why didn’t you keep him?” This from the guy who threatened grave consequences should I take home any more pets. I said I figured the poor thing had suffered enough without being subjected to a lifetime of being stared at by Apollo.

I am flummoxed- positively befuddled- at the notion of a lizard, soon discovered to be a Western skink, arriving in my soup pot from his standard scrub habitat. He needed to enter the house, then enter the cabinet, then get up the side of a large slippery pot. I suppose he could theoretically have wound up there when the pot was last used and drying in the kitchen, but I don’t even know when that was.

It has been suggested that Apollo, jealous of my cooking segment for the dogs, was merely trying to give me a suggestion. In which case, he is surely sorely disappointed. The Potage Crecy Sans Skink, c’est magnifique.

We’re coming up on almost a month now of Koa’s Weight Loss Diaries. Time flies when you’re enjoying life!

She has lost another half pound on Nulo this week. Not bad for a dog on a ‘diet’!

If you’ve ever put a pet on a prescription weight loss food, you are probably familiar with the drill. Yes, they get a decent amount of food, but the ingredient list leaves something to be desired. I was actually unable to put Mulan on any of the prescription diets because of her food allergy issues.

Truth is, while there is a rationale behind those diets, they aren’t the only way to get to the goal. Calories in has to be less than calories out, for dogs, for humans, you name it, we all struggle with the same basic tenets of weight management. The biggest problem people seem to have with using regular (ie, non diet foods) for weight loss in dogs is the common complaint that “my dog is starving. STARVING, I say.”

Well shoot, I’ve gone through the dieting stuff, and I know how crabby being hungry makes me. I am sure it is the same for pets.

So how do you keep a dog* on a restricted calorie diet without making them climb the walls?

1. You can add filler to make them full. Those can be good quality fillers- things like green beans, carrots, and the like; or poor quality fillers, like sawdust, feathers, or some of the other things that may or may not wind up in pet food.

2. You compose your food carefully with thought to ideal protein, fat, and carbohydrate ratios. You can choose carbohydrate sources with a lower glycemic index to make a pet more sated. There is a great deal of interest in this aspect of commercial food composition, with the same theories about insulin response in people thought to parallel that in canines.

Limiting the diet issue to calories alone would be missing a huge piece of the puzzle- equally important as calories per cup is the quality and composition of those calories.

Note that these are the same principles that apply to us. Nothing new here. Just like I could theoretically lose weight by eating my daily calorie allotment entirely composed of Twinkies and Slim Jims, I’m going to make it a lot tougher on myself than if I stuck to lean protein and vegetables.

Exercise helps too. Being a labrador, Koa is genetically obligated to enjoy swimming.

Watching the two of them gliding along puts me in mind of a seal and an otter sliding through the water.

So the point here is, Koa has been losing weight slowly but steadily since coming home with me, and continues to do so on Nulo. She has not been on any ‘diet’ foods, but she has been on controlled intake of high quality foods. It is working.

And she is not STARVING. When the bag of Goldfish mysteriously disappears off the counter, it’s not Koa who comes running around the corner with crumbs on her whiskers. She is happy, loves her food, and isn’t exhibiting the desperation of one whose body is screaming for more sustenance. I’m happy that she is getting healthier and isn’t dumpster diving.

And guess what? She likes cucumbers.

Anyone else have dog weight loss successes? Were prescription diets what did the trick for you (and for a lot of dogs it is!) or do you have some other process that lead to your goal?

*I’m limiting this particular discussion to dogs here. Cats are so different with their metabolic needs that I think they really entail an entirely different discussion.

BlogPaws West is only a week away! I can’t believe it’s coming up so quickly.

I’ve debated attending conferences like BlogHer or BlogWorld in the past, but they always seemed so far removed from what I do and what I want to accomplish. I don’t really pay attention to SEO and Google rank and all that stuff. I just like to write and blab about animals, forget all that technical mumbo jumbo.

But BlogPaws- a conference made up of pet bloggers? That’s right up my alley. I attended the inaugural event in April in Columbus and let me tell you, it was so much fun. I loved every single person I met there. The whole conference was so positive and fun and invigorating, and made me so proud to consider myself a part of the pet blogging community. We rock.

My work, as I think you all know, is a bit of a challenge at times. I find myself reading articles about burnout and nodding my head in agreement: yes, I feel that, mm hmm, it is hard to stay motivated sometimes when you spend so much time feeling disappointment. It is a career with tremendous highs and tremendous lows.

It is easy to convince yourself that you’re the weird one for caring so much in a world where so many people you meet are just ambivalent about the cause you are passionate about. That even if you do accomplish what you set out to do, no one would care.

Going to BlogPaws reminds me why I got into this in the first place. By refocusing the energy away from the negativity and towards a group brimming with positivity and a love for pets, I can come away energized and recommitted to my favorite causes.

I feel so fortunate to have connected with all of you online, and I can’t wait to meet those of you who are going to BlogPaws in person! I can truly say the last conference was one of the highlights of my year.

So are you going? Anyone meeting up with me at the raucous table again? (We are all about shenanigans.)

The first day of September is like this abrupt line of demarcation between the lazy days of summer and the impending days of winter. Boom, one day you’re floating in the pool and the next day you’re panicking about getting Halloween decorations out and ready. How did so much of this year slide by already?

I have some very important decisions to make within the next month. Namely:

1. Am I doing another Brody calendar this year? (well, it would be Brody and Koa this time.)

2. What Halloween costume will I subject the animals to this year? (I have a rockin’ idea for Koa already, I’m just figuring out the logistics.) Now that the kids are stubborn enough to insist on their own choice of outfits, I must turn my creative mania upon the unsuspecting quadripeds instead.

3. Should I subject myself to another Thanksgiving Blogathon or was that a one time shot?

These are weighty issues. I am open to any and all input.

This week marks my daughter’s second week of first grade.

The first week of first grade was rather tough. They don’t post the list of classes until one day before- of course this is done by design, to avoid the principal being hunted down at her home by hordes of “concerned” helicopter parents wanting to discuss the reasoning behind Timmy’s classroom assignment.

Of course, my daughter was given the one assignment I didn’t want her to have- a combination class with a group of first and second graders. My reaction was so immediate and visceral that I thought I was going to vomit right then and there in the hallway.

I didn’t think I was going to be that kind of parent, the one who freaks out over things that in the big picture are probably pretty inconsequential, but there you go. I guess I am.

Because my daughter is pretty much a younger incarnation of me I was able to pinpoint my concerns right away. I don’t have any concerns about her abilities academically. She’s a smart cookie. Au contraire, I was much more concerned for her social well-being as far and away the youngest kid in the room, one smart enough to keep up but maybe not savvy enough to know she’s being a little nerdy.

I spent the entire night in a sleepless panic, imagining her sitting alone in the dust on the side of the playground while the other girls laughed at her glasses.

“You’re projecting,” said my husband, and of course he is right. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying.

“I’ll just share my concerns with the teacher,” I thought, and got to school a little early that first morning. As did every other parent in the school who has some worry or another. There was already a line in front of the beleaguered principal’s office, and classes hadn’t even begun yet.

I met the teacher, and immediately felt ten times worse than before. My sense of foreboding went through the roof. Fifty red flags were screaming “DANGER!! SHE IS GOING TO RUIN YOUR CHILD!” and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, as she is actually a very kind and well regarded teacher.

After a second sleepless night spent wondering if I had now blown her chances at getting into a good college, it finally hit me: her first grade teacher is a dead ringer for Charity McKay, the most dastardly internal medicine resident ever to terrorize the halls of Davis during my tenure there. Beneath her bubbly facade was the heart of a rabid killer: lord help you if you didn’t remember the sodium content in a bag of Lactated Ringer’s.

A snotty senior student tried to correct her once. She ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. We cowered in terror when her 5′1 shadow darkened the corridor, signaling the impending arrival of our doom.

So here I am, still neatly conditioned one decade later to a submissive huddle at the mere suggestion of her, and now her doppelganger is in charge of my daughter’s development.

No matter. I can be reasonable. I can’t imagine she would have gotten very far in her career as a teacher if she actually devoured small children as I suspected Dr. McKay might do on the weekends, so I’m going to be open minded and give her the benefit of the doubt.

But if she mentions at any point she has a sister who’s a vet, I’m joining the line outside the principal’s office.

In a small lake somewhere close to the Canadian border in the Pacific Northwest, the mallards slumber.

Until the loud hairy Goldenbeast arrives, that is.

There is little to distract them from their duckly goings-on in this forest idyll, and one suspects that perhaps they resent the intrusion.

The Goldenbeast wastes no time interrupting their daily routine, gleefully chasing them off the docks and into the deeper waters.

The ducks show an eerie lack of disquiet during the chase, swimming just far enough ahead to keep the beast swimming after them as they head to the center of the lake.

One gets the disturbing feeling they have done this before. Instead of leaving when the beast hits land, they come closer. Quacking their siren song, they lure the unsuspecting labradors of summer to their exhausted limits in the center of the lake, where they might sink below the surface, never to be heard from again.

These are evil avians.

Fortunately for our hero, the Goldenbeast is fitted with an anti-drowning flotation device against just such attacks.

Ha ha! Take that, malicious mallards!

They lure him past the docks…

Over to their killing fields, where the beast floats like a cloud over the bones of those not-so-fortunate victims buried in the muck 45 feet below. He will not drown.

Tiring of their game, the ducks lead their quarry back to his home waters, hoping he will leave them the hell alone.

Which he will.

Until tomorrow.

Thank you all for the lovely birthday wishes yesterday. It was a wonderful day despite dentist, doctor and 100 degree nasty weather. My husband brought home cupcakes, the kids had a great day at school and Brody found, then ate, a whole bag of goldfish crackers. Two out of three ain’t bad. I guess he was mad he didn’t get a cupcake.

It’s been a bad year for fleas, even worse than normal. With the long hot days of late summer dragging on with no signs of cooling off, they’re not going away anytime soon. Clients are understandably frustrated when they buy the right flea control, use it correctly, and are still seeing fleas because of the persistent reservoir in the environment. The idea of alternating treatments, vacuuming religiously, AND getting a pest control service in for cases of bad infestations is pretty unappealing. I get that. I have several conversations a day about that.

I also have several conversations a day with owners who had no idea their pet had fleas until we point the little bugs out to them. There’s at least a couple a month who, even when you DO point them out, flat out deny their existence. I think this conversation will sound awfully familiar to all the veterinary professionals out there:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cue the Madonna CDs and bust out the ice cream, because August 26th is our favorite day here at pawcurious.

1. It is National Dog Day, which is awesome because dogs are awesome and deserve a day of acknowledgement.

2. Most importantly, it is my birthday, and even though I’m way past the age where birthdays were fun and well into the stage of “oh no, my age plus one is sounding kind of old right about now,” I can’t bring myself to be upset about it. For one, It’s NATIONAL DOG DAY, for goodness’ sake. How cool is that? It also means one more year I didn’t contract rabies, and that is a good thing.

As this is the first birthday in 5 years or so I’ve not been at work, I theoretically should be spending the day floating in the pool with a pina colada while Brody tries to clamber on. That is how it should be.

Of course, now that I’m old and responsible for all manners of things, I’ll be spending it at the dentist and the doctor being reminded of the myriad ways my body is going downhill. I have so few days off, it seems, I just had to use the time to get things done.

But no matter! Even the thought of the dentist isn’t enough to bring me down! The nice thing about getting older is that I don’t care if it’s socially inappropriate to make a big deal out of birthdays after 21. I do what I want.

I look forward to laying down in the chair mumbling “Ish mah berhghie” around the little spit sucky thing.

When they asked me at work what theme I wanted for the work birthday potluck, I said, “All desserts,” and my co-workers complied.

They bought me a balloon and I asked if I could take it home. For the kids.

I will buy a useless impractical toy for myself, simply because I want it. As further proof the universe does want me to have a good day, look what I got! The new Vet Barbie who’s not dressed like a go go dancer! SWEET! I’m so installing a cat slide at work. Cats love slides.

I’m taking a break from life’s drama and melodrama and proclaiming it A Great Day, no matter what. So do me a favor, and celebrate with me today- hug your dog, eat a Snickers for breakfast, do something you don’t do often enough that brings you joy. I would love that.

I think we spend so much time panicking about what not to feed our pets that we’re forgetting to focus on what they should be eating.

Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? What should my dog be eating? It’s not an answer you’ll get a lot of agreement upon. In fact, if you’re into trolling internet chat rooms and like to see bloody melees, I highly recommend going to a raw diet message board and posting how Old Roy rocks. Or vice versa.

This is a topic people get downright emotional about. I consider myself a centrist on this issue, which of course drives people on both sides crazy. As you know if you’ve read the blog for a while, I’m a big proponent of high quality foods, learning to read labels, and choosing pet foods that aren’t filled with garbage (figuratively and literally.)

I’m not telling you that I think commercial foods are better than home prepared foods- I’d love to see more people home cooking. But for the majority of the populace, who struggle with the temptation of convenience versus preparing foods for their human families never mind the pets, commercial is the food of choice. And I would be a total hypocrite to say, “You should really be cooking for your pets,” since I use commercial foods myself.

Now I do think we have let the pendulum swing a bit far in the commercial direction. When clients admit, “I feed my dog people food sometimes,” they say it so abashedly you’d think they just said, “I feed my dog Drano sometimes.”

What is people food? It’s apples and bananas and peanut butter, as well as Dunkin Donuts, Popeye’s Fried Chicken, and pork fried rice. Kale and cola. It can be much better or much worse than commercial pet food. What’s the first thing a dog food says if they are trying to sell itself as a quality food? “MADE WITH HUMAN GRADE INGREDIENTS!” See? I’m going to make a dog food called “People Food Dog Food” and it will be a hit. Hit, I tell you.

My point is, we need to free ourselves of the mindset that people food is poison. Crappy food is poison whether you are a dog or a person. The foods that are wholesome and healthy for us are generally the same for dogs too.

Yes, if you are cooking meals for your dog regularly you are going to need to do some research into balance and protein content and calcium sorts of important long term needs, but incorporating some dog appropriate, low-fat foods from your kitchen into your dog’s rotation here and there isn’t going to make them keel over and die from a kibble deficiency*.

I was in the kitchen on Sunday getting lunches ready for the work and school week, surveying the contents of my refrigerator. Brody sat nearby, eyeing me hopefully. I decided that I would incorporate what I making for us into something for him too (I’ll let Koa participate when her diet is over.) And an idea was born: Why should the dogs miss out on the fun? Why not torture the entire family with my cooking experimentation?

We are going on an epicurean journey together. Wait. Make that a pawcurean journey.

Deconstructed Sweet Potato Salad

Serves 1 Dr. V and 1 Golden or 2 chihuahuas.

Lunch ingredients on hand:

1 baked yam, full of beta-caroteney goodness.

1 box of eggs that are verified to not be on the recall list.

1 bag of spinach leaves that I neglected to photograph.

Step one: after boiling the eggs, waste several of them attempting to use some stupid plastic Japanese egg mold purchased from an online bento store because you think it will make them more appealing to your human children (Step 1 optional.)

See, Brody? Wild rabbit and salmon! … Not falling for it, eh? (the kids didn’t either)

Step two: Wonder why you wasted 45 minutes of your life on making an egg into a rabbit that you are going to then chop up.

Step three: Mash up the peeled yam and divide in half. Mine had a sprinkle of brown sugar and maple syrup. Brody’s had a spoonful of broth.

Step four: I didn’t want to use any fatty binders for Brody’s chopped egg, so I decided we would mold it in a ramekin and turn it into a nice layered yam and egg napoleon. Or did I call it a deconstructed egg salad? I need to review my Top Chef lexicon.

Eat your colors: The children begin to wonder if their insistence on PB and J may be misguided.

Step 5: Take bets on whether the crisp bed of spinach will be eaten by the dog. Oddsmakers have it at 4:1.

I admit I had a pang of misgiving giving this to Brody instead of sliding it into a tupperware for myself. However, I realized this was the first time in my life I envied the contents of my dog’s dinner bowl. Success!

Verdict: Brody devoured the creation, ate a couple of the leaves that still had egg on them, and left the rest to wilt. Next goal: Getting Brody to eat spinach!

*Use common sense when trying out new foods. If your pet has health problems, dietary sensitivities, or you are unsure as to the safety of any ingredients, check with your vet before introducing something new.

When I put my daughter to bed tonight, she was sobbing. “What’s wrong?” I asked, giving her a hug.

“I’m sad because Koa’s going to die,” she cried.

“Koa’s not going anywhere for a long time,” I responded. “Why do you think she’s going to die?”

“Because she ate a grape my brother dropped on the floor today!” she said, hiccuping at the pent up emotion this confession was eliciting. I admit, I may have slightly exaggerated the immediate consequences of grape ingestion with the kids in order to keep them from feeding them to the dogs, but I hadn’t meant to cause this level of hysteria.

“One grape?”

She nodded, overcome with distress.

And this is how we introduced the topic of LD50. After learning that one grape would be OK, she felt much better, though I made a mental note to have a talk with her brother in the morning. Besides which, grape, apple, banana, or Cheerio, girlfriend is on a diet.

Koa has been on her new Nulo diet for about 12 days now. She is happy.

When we left for vacation, I did two things: pack her bag of food on our rooftop compartment, and then I measured out two days’ exact amounts to leave inside the car for the travel days. I did the same for Brody: Honest Kitchen on the roof for use at the cabin, and kibble in the car for the trip.

As I’ve mentioned, I rotate Brody’s food regularly. The kibble that I bought for the trip was one that he hadn’t had before, but it is one of the “super premium” brands that’s been around for a while, one I have used and recommended often. I thought it would be a treat.

So imagine my surprise when we stopped at the first hotel, and Brody wouldn’t eat his food. Nerves, I assumed. Perhaps the cerenia wore off during the trip and he was feeling a bit seasick from the car ride. I put his food aside and brushed my teeth, only to hear the crunch-crunch-crunch of Brody licking Nulo crumbs off the floor like a Roomba.

I gave him a nibble of Nulo. He gobbled it up. Other brand: wouldn’t touch it. I tried, on three separate occasions including dinner after 12 hours on the road, and he apparently would rather starve. This is a dog who eats anything: crummy food, good food, non-food. There were actually a couple of squabbles on the road about who would get to eat Koa’s food, since has now figured out the Nulo is hers and doesn’t want to share. She didn’t have a choice, at least for those two days. Nulo: Koa tested, Brody approved.

When we arrived back home this weekend, we both had to face the piper. I got on the scale and blanched. Koa has no such anxieties or fits of self-consciousness, and happily plunked her butt on the scale at work today: 78 pounds. (I am not telling you how much I weighed in at.)

So, she’s lost one pound. I haven’t figured out if the Nulo online system has a way for you to change the amount of food you are feeding- it’s not surprising that an older female spayed lab who doesn’t tear around the yard all day will have lower energy requirements than other dogs. I’ll be cutting her back a bit and we will go from there.

As for me, I continue my wildly inconsistent approach to healthy eating. Koa and I, we’re in this together. Pass the grapes.