Chewy loves to lay on paper. She curls up on the desk wherever the biggest pile is. Yesterday she hit the jackpot! I am surprised it took her so long to find it.
As you can tell by the glare she is giving me, she was not impressed I woke her for a photo shoot.
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This is Kona, a very shaggy golden doodle (I'm not sure what you call golden doodles that aren't gold...). He races around his fur just flies in all directions. We haven't managed to get a stationary picture yet.
Since we opened the daycare in August, we've had a few dogs "break a nail". We've never been able to figure out what they are breaking their nails on. The dog never cries out so we don't know it has happened until we see blood. A dog's nail is constructed of a hard outer cover, which protects the quick. The quick is the inner soft part containing blood vessels and nerve endings. If the hard outer core breaks (or is cut too short) to expose the quick, they will bleed.
While we can't figure out for sure how dogs are breaking their nails, we are starting to see a pattern in the length of the nails - they tend to be on the longer side. We think the longer nails might be getting caught on something, possibly the chain-link fencing. Some dogs are more prone to it than others (i.e. if it happens once in their life, odds are it will happen again) but you can help reduce the occurances if you keep your dog's nails nice and short.
How do you know if your dog's nails are too long? An easy way to tell is if you can hear them clicking on the floor. If you are unsure, you can always just ask.
These nails are too long
This is a good length for your dog's nails to be.
If you aren't sure how to cut your dog's nails, Amanda would be more than happy to give you a quick tutorial or we can cut them here for you for $10. Some regular daycare dogs have a standing order to get their nails cut once a month, during one of their daycare visits. If you are interested in this, just let us know and we can schedule them in.
Well we've got one Saturday left (March 1)for the Indoor Dog Park. It has been a lot of fun. We've met lots of new pups and best of all, lots of new people too! It is nice to be able to chat while the pups play. We've had some requests to keep it open longer but we will be opening Saturdays as the "regular" daycare (i.e. You drop your dog off while you go shopping, run errands, or have a day of fun in the mountains). We've thought about moving the indoor dog park to Sundays until April but it isn't going to work - we've rented the building out for a few Sundays and it would just be too inconsistent. Sorry!
So the daycare is going to open on Saturdays starting March 15. The hours will be from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. If you need a shuttle on Saturdays, you must book it by Thursday. Sandy will be working most Saturdays with Amanda and I filling in when she is unavailable.
I hope to start (or continue!) to see you on Saturdays!
I'll leave you with a cute picture of Perkins - just so the post isn't picture free!
A few months ago we had the pleasure of doing some puppy visits for a litter of lab pups. I know, I know...we have hard jobs. Well today, we got to see one of the pups "all grown up"! She has quite a few months of growing still to do but she is much more grown up than the last time we saw her.
Lili is easily the bravest puppy we've ever had at the daycare. She was in with all the big dogs within an hour of arrival and by the end of the day was wrestling and playing with the grown-ups. She must take after her mom.
Check out Ruby the Rocket vs. Lightning Lacey in their first ever, "televised" wrestling match.
I think it was a tie!
Sandy bought some bubbles to amuse the dogs. Some of them love to chase them, others are fascinated and just like to watch them and others completely ignore them.
Tundra was particularly fascinated - in the picture on the side bar she is just standing there watching them float over her head.
Here is the clip that Shaw TV did the other day. I video taped it from our computer so the interview is hard to hear - I'm really heart broken about that ;) - but you get a good idea of what the dogs do all day.
Enjoy!
The saga continues with the rope toy...
First Maggie Mae gave it a try.
Venice decided she must just be a wimp, so he tried and tried and tried. With no success.
Not to be outdone by his 2 lab friends, Chester tried too. He also failed. 
They are going to be thrilled when they finally get the toy free.
Camela joins us from hot, sunny Mexico. She was recently rescued by a family in Lethbridge and as you can see she is quickly adapting to colder temperatures and snow!
I just found out that we will be on Shaw TV tonight starting at 6:00 p.m. It will run every 30 minutes for 24 hours. If you miss it, I'll try and get a copy up on YouTube. Please ignore whatever it is I actually said...I couldn't seem to make a coherent sentance!
I want to send a big Thanks! to Ruby's mom for making all this happen.
Do you remember the rope toy from the other day? Well, it is currently stuck in puddle that refroze over night. This did not impress the dogs!
Wicca tried really hard to get it out from the ice.
We were sure Ruby would be able to pull it out...we were wrong.
Maggie Mae gave it her best shot but quickly decided it wasn't worth it.
After all the other dogs gave it a try, Lacey tried to sneak off with it again but she didn't make it very far at all!
I'm really pleased to be able to offer all of you a Pet First Aid Course! This class will be all day on Saturday, March 1 from 8:00 a.m. - 5 p.m. at the daycare. In the class you will learn what to do in an emergency situation including:
In order to have all the materials ordered for the course, you need to register and pay by Feb 20, 2008. To register, please fill out and e-mail the application to info@paws-on-the-run.ca. Don't hesitate to contact us if you need more information!
Well maybe that is a slight exaggeration but it feels that way to us.
Last week we did an interview and photo shoot with Lethbridge Living. The photo shoot was quite amusing and I've asked the photographer to send us the "outtakes". We brought a few dogs into the small play area and we sat on the floor with them on the couch. Ponz was one of our few dogs - he is a pitbull that thinks he is a lap dog. At one point in time I was flat on my back, laughing my head off as he attempted to lick me to death. We got a sneak peek at the article and it looks GREAT. It will be in print on March 10.Today Sheila with Shaw Cable came out to do a story. I'm not very articulate during the interview but the dogs did a great jobs showing off for her. We had dogs wrestling in the tunnel, sliding down the slide and checking out the camera. The interview will air sometime next week. I'll keep you all posted!
Chewy was feeling left out but she tried to make sure she wasn't forgotten.
Ruby had a lot of fun playing tug with the other dogs today...probably because she always won! The other dogs would pull and pull and she would just stand there effortlessly. They eventually would give up and Ruby was left with the prize - which wasn't all that fun without another dog to play with!
First Barley gave it a go.
Then along came Chester
Then Oreo thought he'd help Chester out
Oreo gave up and it was just Chester and Ruby again.
We haven't had the heart to break it to Barley that Christmas is over. Every day he runs to the holiday bulb and prances around with it. Only 321 more days until next Christmas!
...a few new friends of ours.
This is Bailey - isn't he a beauty?
Cassie doesn't know what the word stop means...
Chester loves to play. What do you expect? He's a lab!
Jack has the best smile.
And this is Suka. We haven't managed to get a photo of her that shows her true personality. We'll keep trying!
Labs are definitely the most popular breed at the daycare. We have more than a dozen purebreds that come on a fairly regular basis and numerous lab crosses. Labs are great at daycare - they are generally friendly, playful and high energy. Exactly what makes them a little "unmanageable" at home sometimes!
Click on image to make it full size
Hopefully most of you have received the e-mail I sent out earlier today...we will no longer be offering pet sitting and dog walking services. It was a very hard decision for me to make, but it had to be done or I was going to burn out. I've shed lots of tears over the decision but I have to admit I'm also looking forward to having a few more days off. I used to camp and hike a lot and we only managed one 3 day camping trip all last summer. The daycare will still keep me busy but the hours should be a little more manageable and predictable.
Speaking of the daycare, we are going to be expanding our play space by more than 500 square feet. We are really excited as this will bring our indoor area to almost 3,000 square feet of actual play area. Our original plans had a stove (for baking biscuits) and more dog runs that we've decided we don't need, so we are going to take the entire space surrounding the "small dog area" and make it play space. I've ordered the rubber matting and it should arrive in about a month. This will allow us to accept more dogs and give all of them the chance to really run around.
