Casey makes a break for it!

So I’ve been a huge slacker, mostly due to my lack of time on my part.

Casey has had a rough go of it for the past week or so.  He’s been a pill and a half.  He escaped from his stall, through an open door – thanks to his grandmother under estimating his ability to move fast at this point in life!  Upon his escape he decided it would be great fun to gallop (to the best of his ability) around the barn and visit everyone.  He seemed fine until Wednesday when he laid down for a good roll and tried to get up… and couldn’t.  Not once, but twice.  He lounged around on the ground for awhile and I had to help him get up with some encouraging clicks and a swat on the butt.  He managed to hop right up so I’m not entirely convinced he so painful he couldn’t get up but that he was scared it was going to hurt.  Casey has been on 1G of Bute since Wednesday and is getting reduced to ½ G because he’s becoming quite full of himself again. 

 

In other Casey news – the “monthly feed grinding event” was this weekend.  Mom and I ground 400 pounds of feed for the toothless wonder!  As you can see with this picture it is a beautiful event.  We use what was once a yard mulcher to run Casey’s Mountain Sunrise timothy hay pellets and Triple Crown Senior through.  This way we never have to worry if the barn has time to soak his feed into a mash.  They just add water and stir!  Instant mash!  All in all the procedure takes about two hours every month but it's worth not worrying about Casey choking on feed because he's unable to chew it. 

It's raining cats and dogs?!

Well, it was supposed to rain today... but it didn't!  What a tease!  At least Raja got a good sniff out the window.  He seems to be having some small tummy trouble, most likely related to the weather.  His irritable  bowel disease (IBD) is funny like that sometimes.  He hasn't had any change in diet so I know it's just "off" when he has minor regurgitation several hours after eating.  Poor little guy but he doesn't seem to mind one bit, did the kitten dance for dinner when my mom came by for a visit.
Here's what Raja is eating at the moment:
Nature's Variety Instinct Duck canned diet (he eats 2.75 oz daily)
Addiction Venison kibble (he eats 1/4c daily)
Goat Yogurt - for the natural probiotics and enzymes
Honest Kitchen Perfect Form (1/4tsp daily)- to help his digestive system with lots of natural digestive aids like Slippery Elm and Papain

The only constants in Raja's food regime are goat yogurt and the Perfect Form, everything else I like to keep mixed up so his system doesn't get too used to one thing.  Early on I realized that if he ate the same thing all the time he eventually rejected it after eating it for months and months, but would get sick when I tried to find him something new.  Also, because of his sensitive system when a company would change a food formulation just slightly his tummy would be the first one to tell me.  Pet food companies can change their formulations six months before they change the bags identifying the change, Raja's stomach takes about six seconds... he has been known to upchuck in his dish while eating.

In other animal news... if the saga of my cat's stomach hasn't chased you away just yet!  Billy, Nala and Maggie just finished off a bag of the Merrick Before Grains Pork kibble, and were doing peachy keen!  Sometimes it takes them a bit to warm up to a food, and this one was no different.  Ryan reported some gassy pups on the B.G. Pork, but they were coming off of a fish protein and a food that didn't have potatoes in it - these could have been gas causing problems... Not to mention, I'm pretty sure his dogs are just kind of stinky sometimes. ;)

Billy is an especially funny eater and likes to take a few kibbles at a time and take them out of his dish into the office and eat them there.  Billy, Nala and Maggie started on a bag of Acana Pacifica, they generally seem to do well on the fish.

The dogs were also started on a multi-vitamin from Techmix, it's a good sized tablet and they seemed to have some trouble figuring it out since it's a chewable and not a "dog cookie".  They all seem to have the hang of it now.

I'll leave you all with a video of Raja's WORLD FAMOUS (house famous anyway!) kitten dinner dance!  Make sure you have your sound up, because he has plenty to say!

Introduction

Hi there everyone!
Welcome to my blog!  I hope to introduce animal owners to new kinds of pet foods,  toys and perhaps supplements through the experiences of my own and almost my own pets.  I've found that there are so many choices out there that people have no idea where to start.  I've been working with animal nutrition since 2007, but I am by no means an expert so my advice is not meant to be taken as a replacement for veterinary advice.

To the right there are tabs where you can find some generalized information about the pets which I will be talking about if you ever forget who is who and what is going on.

Hopefully this blog will give you some information about what's out there and some tasty and fun ideas for your pets.  Plus, given all the antics of my animals... maybe some humor for your day!