monthly review: May BarkBox

My review is incredibly late this month because I've had a BarkBox fiasco that didn't resolve itself until this morning.

Before I get into that, here's how BarkBox works: it's a company that sends you four or more products every month to try out with your pups. A portion of each months proceeds help doggies-in-need (a different cause every month). The price of the boxes range from $19-$29 a month, depending on the plan you choose (a 6 month subscription is $19 a month, a month to month subscription is $29 a month).

Around the middle of each month, you get an e-mail from Frida the Mail Dog letting you know that your box is on the way and giving you your tracking number. Delivery takes 2-10 (business) days once the box has left the warehouse. I've always been really lucky and gotten my box within a day or two of receiving the tracking number, which is why my reviews are so much earlier than Pawalla's.

My fiasco: My tracking number states that on May 13, it arrived at the shipping partner facility. On May 16, the electronic shipping information was received. There is no movement after that. I e-mailed BarkBox and customer service asked me to wait out Memorial Day weekend because as of Tuesday, it would be out of the normal shipping time frame. When I didn't receive it on Tuesday, they asked me to go to my local Post Office to see if they could give me any information about my precious box. I was told by BarkBox that if my problem couldn't be resolved at the post office, they would either reship the May box for a $10 reshipping fee, or they would add an extra month to my subscription. The Postmaster researched my tracking number and stated that saying that the electronic shipping information was received only means that the shipping label was printed, not that it was actually shipped. I told BarkBox this and what it has boiled down to is it's a he-said-she-said scenario. It doesn't matter who made the error with my May BarkBox - it is officially in limbo and I doubt I will ever get it.
BarkBox got back to me this morning and since they are still saying that the box has left their facility, they will only reship another May box or add an extra month. They kindly offered to waive the reshipping fee but I have still chosen not to receive this months box and instead will have another month added to my subscription.

In the end, it was an incredibly frustrating experience to say the least because it's impossible to tell who made the mistake and should be held accountable for Ares and Luna's box. I'm chalking it up to a loss but I'm very glad that they have done something to make things better, at least in my eyes.
This fiasco hasn't lessened my opinion of BarkBox at all but I thought that I should still share my story.

Want your own BarkBox? Clickity-click this link to get $5 off your first subscription.

monthly review: May Pawalla Mini!

How Pawalla works: You can get a standard box or a mini box. Standard boxes come 6-10 full sized products that include wet food, treats, supplements or vitamins, essentials and a toy. Standard boxes range from $21-29 a month depending on your subscription plan. Mini boxes come with 3-5 products that include treats, a toy and surprise item(s) but NO wet food. Mini boxes range from $12-17 a month depending on your subscription plan.
We get a mini box simply because we also get BarkBox and because I don't want them to get picky and only eat wet food :) You fill out information about your dog's age, size, and such so that they can tailor it to your needs.

We got a pretty good haul from Pawalla this month. The pups and I were very happy with our items. Ginger had already gone home, but Annabelle and Maximus were still visiting when we opened the box so they got their first experience with the opening of the box.

Annabelle and Maximus couldn't have cared less about seeing the box for the first time. Luna did her usual chewing to see how good it is.

They figured it out VERY quickly once the box was open, though!




The first item I looked at was the Earth Heart Canine Calm Spray. Pawalla says "Aromatherapy isn't just for people anymore. This natural remedy mist can help soothe dogs during stressful times, including thunderstorms, fireworks, or vet visits. We found important calming and stress release essential oils in this spray mist, namely bergamot, tangerine, lavender, geranium, marjoram, and ylang ylang. Bergamot is an important oil that works to relieve anxiety for our furry friends. Tangerine oil is used to relax muscles and organs, while lavender removes body tension. Just a small amount of an essential oil mixture is required to achieve the beneficial effects. Ylang ylang calms breathing and relieves high blood pressure. Made in the USA and packaged in a BPA free recyclable container."

I'm not sure how I feel about this because Ares and Luna are normally pretty calm dogs in the first place. Luna does tend to get very scared during nighttime thunderstorms though so I will probably try it when we get the next one. A 2 fluid ounce bottle costs $13 and can be found here.

The next one we looked at was Lucky Treats Peanut Butter Berry Amazing. Pawalla says "The dog world is lucky to have such wonderful treats being made particularly for them. Peanut butter and Berry Amazing is a good example of the high quality, human ingredients going into dog treats. Colors, preservatives, sugar, salt, gluten, etc. are a few of the undesirable ingredients that are not found in these products. Blueberries and cranberries contain good phytonutrients, and we know that berries contain valuable antioxidants. Flax seed is great for skin and coat. Barley is high-nutrient flour. This product is made in the USA.

This is about the time that Maximus and Annabelle realized that this box has amazing goodies for them. They weren't too sure about the posing for pictures before treats part though. The cutest part about the treats? They're heart shaped!

These treats are roughly $7.30 and can be found here.

The other bag of treats we received is Cloud Star Dynamo Dog Functional Treats: Tummy. Pawalla says "Dynamo is using the idea of "functional" treats for dogs. This means that besides being a treat, a particular function such as digestive health is addressed with the treat. The Dog Tummy formula contains ginger, known to aid in digestion, along with a probiotic and pumpkin fiber. Peppermint, chamomile, and lavender are also added to to aid in the digestion of food and in digestive health. These treats are made in the USA, and contain no gluten, soy, wheat, corn, and no grain. The other ingredients in these treats are those used in hypoallergenic products, so I would expect these to definitely be tummy friendly."

Everyone sat very still for their treats, although it was still impossible to get all 4 dogs in one picture. These were definitely a success with all of the pups. These treats were $7 and can be found here.

And like always, we save the best for last: the toy. This month, we received Charming Pet Products Lily the Lion Mini. Pawalla says "Meet Lily. This bright, all natural latex dog toy will show your canines that balloons are not just for parties anymore. Lily is made of all-natural premium latex and the same soft supple squish that dogs love to chew and squeak!

This toy is absolutely adorable! In case you couldn't tell in the picture, that's Ares' paw and face in the lower right of the picture, and Luna sitting on my chair so I couldn't take pictures. Silly puggies.  These retail for $2.79 and can be found here.

I had to take a picture of Luna stealing the toy while I took pictures. She's so spoiled, I let her keep it after I took that video.

In all, I received roughly $19 in products from this months Pawalla Mini. I'm very pleased with everything.

Want your own Pawalla or Pawalla?  Clickity-click this link for $6.50 off your first subscription!

Ares' latest trick

When I first got Ares, I made sure to crate train him immediately. I have a studio apartment so blocking him into one area or room just isn't an option for me. We started by saying "Ares, kennel" and putting a treat in the cage so that he had to go in to get it. After awhile, he caught on and would either take his treat from my hand and walk in, or walk in when I was holding the treat.
Luna's at the stage where she won't go in her cage until she has the treat in her mouth. It's the good thing about pugs - they are incredibly food motivated.
We have several different types of treats - small ones for training and large ones to act as rewards for going into their cage. They more or less know the difference between the treats although that's probably because the training treats are usually hanging out in various spots in the apartment while the large treats are always right by the kennels.
Mike pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago that if the door to Ares' cage is closed but Luna's is open, Ares would go into her cage to wait for his treat. When he tried to show me, Ares actually opened his own cage to go in! It's hilarious!
I finally caught it on video. You can hear that I don't actually make any commands for him to go in kennel, he goes in when he sees me pick up the baggie of treats (which you can hear in the video).
Ares is such a smart boy!





Alternatively, Ginger is so untrained to go into her kennel (that tiny little airline approved carrier in the bottom of the screen) that I have to throw her treat into the back of the cage to get her to go in.
Also, I don't really know the difference between cage, kennel, and crate. I use them all to mean the cage that they go in when it's time for me to leave. Because I work long hours, they're ONLY in there while no one is home and they usually get a hard toy to chew on and a squeaky toy to play with. (I'm not sure at this point if I can ever trust them to stay outside of a safe blocked in area.)
The newest trick they're learning is:
1) I won't open Luna's cage if she's barking or whining.
2) I won't open their cages unless they're sitting.
3) They don't leave the cage until I give them the ok.
I'm hoping this will keep them from jumping all over me every time I walk in the door. It's such a bad habit that I still haven't managed to break Ares of doing.

PS. We have a really exciting week coming up! We should be getting our BarkBox and Pawalla Mini this week (BarkBox is INCREDIBLY late this month) AND our friends Maximus and Annabelle are coming back for a visit! I'll have 5 dogs running around my small apartment for about 2 days before Ginger goes home. Keep me in your thoughts, I may go insane!

Pugapalooza 2013!

A couple of months ago, our monthly pug meet up, I found out that our local pug rescue group puts on an annual pugapalooza and it was today! I've been talking about it since the day I got my flyer. I think I was more excited to be there than the dogs were. Since I still have The Ginger, she became a pug for the day and joined us.

Ginger doesn't like car rides much and after this one, I don't blame her! Ares and Luna don't like to share their spots!

Pugapalooza was held inside a dog park. This is one of the parks that has two different sides. Both sides had vendors but the smaller side was a place where the dogs could be unleashed and they requested that the dogs were leashed on the larger side. (They sold human food and held the contests on the leashed side.) Also on the large side was a bobbing for hot dogs pool! A kiddie pool filled with water with pieces of hot dogs in it. Haha! I did not allow my 3 to do that, unfortunately for them.
I did let them participate in the digging for treats box though! I couldn't get them out, I'm pretty sure Ares, Luna, and Ginger ate half of the treats in there! It was a box filled with shredded paper and small treats buried in it.

We also participated in a contest! I decided to enter Luna for curliest tail. She got to prance around and show the judges her cute double curl and we won first place! WooHoo! Now I have a dog who won ugliest dog and one who won curliest tail.

This picture is super blurry but it's of Luna picking out her prize (a toy) so I had to include it!

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners with a Ginger photobomb.

They also had an agility pugs demonstration. Those pugs were crazy good - jumping over short fences and running through tunnels!

Those wrinkles! I'm in love!

After that, we spent time in the unleashed side. I let them run wild while I looked at the vendors items and chatted with friends. Luna made so many friends - she would run right up to people and demand attention! Of course, she got exactly what she wanted. They've all been sleeping ever since we got home.

I'm already excited for next year!


Side note: the green tripe alone isn't helping with Luna's pollen allergies so she's back on twice daily pills.

green tripe

**Important note** I'm not a vet and have had no medical training. Do not use this post as a way to treat your dog for any illness - see a vet! This is simply something that I think will work for us because of the information I have found on it and am very passionate about sharing this information with you.

I got really lucky because the butcher that I went to sells raw meat specifically for dogs. A lot of it is not quite what I want (the bone is ground into the meat instead of allowing them to chew on the bone. The downside to that is it doesn't clean their teeth the way gnawing on a bone would) but with a few modifications, I can get everything I want from them if I choose to do so. One of the things that they sell is green tripe.

Now don't be confused - there are two types of tripe. Green and white. White is what humans eat but provides no nutritional value for dogs and green is for our pups. I found a 5 pound bag for $8.50 so of course I had to take it home. It was a big hunk of frozen gunk so I had to defrost it and break it up into smaller sizes. I put them into 5 ziplock bags and put 4 back in the freezer to save for later. The last bag went into the fridge and it is what we are adding to each meal. I'm not going to lie though - to say this stuff stinks is an understatement. I opened the bag and started gagging. I portioned everything out with a candle burning beside me. It was nasty. So of course, Luna and Ares spent the entire time begging for it!  See how gross it looks?!

I've mentioned before that a lot of the raw food diet doesn't really agree with dogs who are still on a kibble diet but this is an exception. It is absolutely fine to give with your dog with the kibble and starting last night, that's exactly what I did. I've taught Ares and Luna to sit and wait for the "ok!" to start eating. Last night, however, it didn't work. Luna went straight for the tripe as soon as I set it down. This morning, she did the exact same thing with one difference - she grabbed the tripe out of her bowl and chewed it up while sitting and waiting for me to tell her that she could eat her food. Silly girl! How can you be mad at that genius?

Disclaimer: because Ginger is not my dog, she did not get to experience the joys of green tripe. Sorry, Ginger!

Now the educational stuff about green tripe:

Now I'm sure most of you are wondering: what in the world is tripe?! Simply put, it is a cow's stomach lining (specifically, the fourth chamber of the stomach where the actual digestion takes place).   Because of this, it contains partially digested plant matter, gastric juices, and digestive enzymes.  The only processing that this tripe receives is to remove the larger pieces of undigested food. Yummy, right? It's a completely different process to get white tripe, including washing and bleaching it. It is also usually from the first three stomach chambers rather than the last. Because of this, it doesn't provide any of the benefits that green tripe provides.

Now, why I put up with the disgusting smell to give it to Ares and Luna:

It's so healthy! I'm terrible with myself, but I kind of gravitate to the crunchy, organic stuff. I'll be the person who makes their own baby food instead of buying the jars of it. I've always done things to help keep Ares and Luna healthy. They get probiotics (specifically bene-bac) when they have upset tummies and now they're getting allergy medication twice daily to control their reverse sneezing (giving it to them at night keeps Luna from waking up and reverse sneezing). I've never liked a lot of medicine. I think our society over medicates. (That said, I take a small mountain of pills each morning. Pot, meet kettle). If I can get them off of medicine and provide organic and CHEAPER ways to keep them healthy, I'm all for it. 

Green tripe aids digestion, purifies and cleanses blood, removes toxins, parasites and fungus, improves metabolism, hormonal function, and boosts the immune system. Even though it is boneless, it is a great way to keep your dogs teeth clean and white which means little to no trips to the vet to get expensive teeth cleaning! 

Green tripe also contains probiotics and amino acids! These maintain a healthy belly for your pups. The naturally occurring probiotics rather than the manufactured stuff I had been buying was reason enough for me to buy the tripe! 

The specific strain of probiotics found in green tripe is lactobacillus acidophilus. It is known to prevent and treat diarrhea, yeast infections, and urinary tract infections. It also counteracts the side effects of medications such as antibiotics, improves their coat and prevents shedding, relieves the pain of arthritis, and eases the symptoms of allergies.

The last part is what really interests me. Something natural to keep the dogs from reverse sneezing during pollen season? Our pollen counts have been off the chart the past few days. It's terrible here but because Ares and Luna don't actually suffer from severe pollen allergies, I thought I would experiment a little. I stopped giving them their allergy medication a couple of days ago. They haven't had any symptoms yet but I've now given them the green tripe last night and this morning. I'm waiting to see if they will continue to have a lack of allergic reactions, or if the green tripe is enough to keep it from presenting itself in Ares and Luna.

**Important note** I am NOT a vet and do not give medical advice. I am simply compiling and relaying all of the information I have found about green tripe online. If your dog is sick, SEE A VET. This is NOT a cure-all! For example, because Ginger suffers from severe allergic reactions to pollen, I would never take her off of her medication to test the green tripe on her, nor would I recommend that her owner do so. Talk to your vet to see if this is a good fit for you - I simply find that it is a good fit for me.

Ox tails and beef knuckles

Let me venture back into controversial territory and say that ever since Ares was 3 months old, I've wanted him to be on a raw diet. The ex-vegetarian in me thinks it's absolutely disgusting, yet the way I see it, kibble is like eating McDonald's every single day of your life and eating raw is like eating fresh, home cooked meals. In my mind, it's just better. For various reasons that I won't get into right now, we haven't made that leap.

But I have made an effort. I've bought marrow bones for them instead of rawhides, I buy a few various smoked or slightly cooked bones from local pet stores, let them eat the meat and take them away (eating cooked bones is a HUGE no-no!). I also bought a dehydrator, as you know, to make jerky treats for the dogs. Mike thinks it's absolutely disgusting, which some of it is. We don't allow the bones on the bed because they're still meaty but the pups absolutely love ripping off the meat and licking out the marrow. It seriously keeps them entertained for hours. When I first gave them a marrow bone, I have them eat it outside - my apartment is entirely carpeted and I can't risk them staining it. After the meat comes off, the bones are allowed inside. I have a huge balcony that I can block off since they're leashed when we go downstairs and they just go to town.

Lately, the idea of raw feeding has grown more and more inside my head. I've done my research - I've figured out how much of each type of meat the dogs need to eat a day, I've even started pricing out how much it costs to feed the dogs a day in kibble ($0.70 for both) vs how much it would cost to feed the dogs a day in raw meat ($1.40 for both). Needless to say, unless I can find cheaper sources, it'll be awhile before I can convince Mike we should take the leap.

But Mike has been out of town the past few days and while the cat's away the mice will play, right?

We started out with beef knuckles (yum?) These particular ones I bought frozen from a local pet store and thawed out the day before giving to them. We have The Ginger again so she got in on the action! I was worried how the dogs would react with sharing but they did remarkably well. (In the beginning at least!)

 

 After awhile, they started to get possessive of the knuckles and started growling at each other if they looked at each other wrong. I learned from my trainer last year that this type of aggression, as long as it doesn't progress, is fine - they're telling the other dogs to back off of their food.

They did still share though and have been taking turns chewing on it.

The next night I bought some ox tails at the grocery store. In the picture below, Ares was chewing on a super tiny bit of tail and swallowed it whole! You can see his tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth while he worked it down.

I gave Ares another, really big piece and he and Luna spent a good 30 minutes chewing their bones. Ginger also ate hers whole immediately so I don't have any pictures of her eating her raw bone.

Ginger did a really good job of moping around while Ares and Luna gnawed on their bones. The reason she didn't get another one while Ares did is because dogs have trouble digesting bones on a kibble diet. I'm prepared if Ares gets an upset tummy because of the bones, but I'm not going to do that to a dog that isn't mine.

Eventually, Luna gave up completely on her bone. Her mouth was tired! Poor Ginger though, when Luna gave up, Ginger tried to get it to eat the rest and Luna went right back to it and took it from her! Luna did let Ares have it and I took it away from him. 

When they had dinner, I gave them a smaller portion than they would normally get to account for their appetizer. Also, as with their regular food and bones, I make sure that they will let me come up and take the food from them or their mouths. Ares has always let me, but Luna had to be taught. It's really important to make sure your dog isn't going to bite you if he has food! (We had a dog growing up that did that! And poor us as kids, thought it was great fun to play in Webster's food!)

Coming up next: adventures with green tripe. (Blegh!)

Picture dump

I'm totally slacking in the blog department, I know. Life is getting in the way of my pugs. Stupid life!
A quick update on them:
Ares is mange free! And if you remember my post on mange and my cousin's story about Otis, you'll be thrilled to know after a long battle, Otis is also mange free! Both dogs are on one more month of medicine and need another negative skin scrape but I think it's safe to celebrate now!
Luna keeps me on my toes! She's been so funny at the dog park lately - the other pug there, Nicky, likes eating the dirt from holes that other dogs have dug and Luna has decided all of the holes are hers. This results in him sniffing and her going over and flopping on her back in his hole, batting her paws in his face! They're tiny, shallow holes but she's definitely gotten stuck in one by wiggling too much!