Dog Blogging

Late Night Open Thread: Puppy and Cake

by TaMara| January 28, 202412:15 am| 28 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Food & Recipes, Open Threads, Pet Blogging

Looks like we could use a late night thread. Not that late here, but I’m ready to call it a night.

Dinner was delayed tonight, Jasper was set to expire if I didn’t get my act together:

Don’t worry, everyone was eventually fed and they are all in their beds now (ducks and dogs, the cats are snoozing on the couch next to me).

And here is the 3-Minute Molten Lava Chocolate Mug Cake I mentioned yesterday

The recipe is here.

I also mentioned in a thread that I have stumbled upon Sort Of on Max and I’m loving it. Charming, funny, heartbreaking, and easy to watch a 22-minute episode when I need something to end the day on a good note.

This an open thread!

Late Night Open Thread: Puppy and CakePost + Comments (28)

Howdy Partner

by John Cole| January 11, 20248:10 pm| 32 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Pet Rescue

Everyone say hello to Cowboy!

The last couple of days it has been so cold Joelle has not biked, so I have been driving her to work. On the ride home, we saw this chunker running down the street. Joelle saw him first and said “oh no” and I just said “Fuck. We have to go get him, don’t we?” And Joelle said “yes so I popped a u-turn and we chased him down. Corralled him, put him in the car, and he promptly peed all over my lap.

Drove around looking for frantic people for a bit then took him to the vet and got him scanned. His owner is in Scottsdale, so we have no idea how he got here, but the vet is contacting the owner and giving my information. Fortunately for Cowboy, he was rescued by two people with more dog crates than anyone not running a breeding operation needs, so he is safe and sound here until we can get him back to his people.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: We All Need Something to Aspire To

by Anne Laurie| January 4, 20248:23 am| 82 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Open Threads

A little look at our new AKC-recognized breed.

Help us welcome the Lancashire Heeler to the Herding Group! pic.twitter.com/UllbNekxun

— American Kennel Club (@akcdoglovers) January 3, 2024

Maybe Cole could ~~lie about~~ ‘upgrade’ Thurston Howl’s backstory?..

It’s small in stature, big on activity and known for a “smile,” and it’s ready to compete with 200 other dog breeds.

Say hello to the Lancashire heeler, the latest breed recognized by the American Kennel Club. The organization announced Wednesday that the rare herding breed is now eligible for thousands of U.S. dog shows, including the prominent Westminster Kennel Club show.

With long bodies and short coats that are often black and tan, the solidly built dogs are shaped a bit like a downsized corgi, standing around 1 foot (30 centimeters) at the shoulder and weighing up to about 17 pounds (7.7 kilograms). Historically, they were farm helpers that could both drive cattle and rout rats, and today they participate in an array of canine sports and pursuits.

“They’re gritty little dogs, and they’re very intelligent little dogs,” says Patricia Blankenship of Flora, Mississippi, who has bred them for over a decade. “It’s an enjoyable little breed to be around.”

Their official description — or breed standard, in dog-world parlance — calls for them to be “courageous, happy, affectionate to owner,” and owners say contented heelers sometimes pull back their lips in a “smile.”

They’re “extremely versatile,” participating in everything from scent work to dock diving contests, says United States Lancashire Heeler Club President Sheryl Bradbury. But she advises that a Lancashire heeler “has to have a job,” whether it’s an organized dog sport or simply walks and fetch with its owners…

Lancashire heelers go back centuries in the United Kingdom, where they’re now deemed a “vulnerable native breed” at risk of dying out in their homeland. Britain’s Kennel Club has added an average of just 121 Lancashire heelers annually to its registry in recent years, and the American Kennel Club says only about 5,000 exist worldwide…

Good for the people who love the breed. But I Cynically predict a spate of ‘designer’ doxi-huahuas, minpin-huahuas and everyday ‘little black-and-tan mutts’ being passed off by pet-site grifters (and in a couple years, by rescue sites) as ‘rare purebred Lancashire Heelers’, as well.

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Evening Open Thread: Recipes and Puppies

by TaMara| December 23, 20236:57 pm| 48 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Food & Recipes, Open Threads

Busy cleaning for tomorrow night – we were supposed to get snow, but it now looks like that system is staying south of us – and they need it. We’ll get ours, I’m sure, just not for Christmas. Thought I’d post a recipe for you before I check out for the weekend. From my blog:

I’m prepping the traditional (well, traditional because this is what my Christmas Eve guests always want) Spinach Lasagna and Crusty Bread. But, the day after Christmas, I’m hosting another dinner party and making Chicken Parmesan. I’ll post that recipe once I have photos.

I saw a recipe for these rolls and decided to give them a try. I thought they would be a fun change and go well with the Chicken Parm. I made a few significant changes to the first batch and they turned out delicious. Definitely a bit more work than the crusty bread loaves, but in the end, worth the work.

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Garlic Pull Apart Rolls

3½ to 4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 package Instant Yeast
1 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
½ cup milk
½ water
¼ cup butter
1 large egg, at room temperature
Butter and garlic for brushing on rolls

Mixing bowl, mixer, springform pan

In a large mixing bowl, combine 3 cups of flour, sugar, instant yeast, garlic powder and salt.

Place the milk, water, and butter in a microwave safe bowl and heat until very warm (120° to 130°F). Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and beat for 2 minutes at medium speed with an electric mixer, scraping bowl occasionally.

Add the egg and an additional ½ cup of the flour. Beat for 2 minutes at high speed. Stir in enough remaining flour (up to ½ cup) to make a soft dough.

Knead with the dough hook for 2 minutes on medium speed or by hand on a lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Cover; let rest 10 minutes

Prepare a 9-inch springform pan by greasing with butter and adding a circle of parchment paper* on the bottom. Place a 4-ounce ramekin in the center of the pan and grease with butter.

Divide the dough into golf-ball sized balls. Arrange in rows ¼ inch apart in the prepared pan, allowing room to expand.

NOTE: See photos, I had a lot of extra dough, so once I prepped around the ramekin, I removed the bowl and added the remaining dough and once they baked, popped them out and added the butter filled bowl

Cover and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Once rolls have risen, preheat the oven to 400°F. Bake the rolls for 13 to 15 minutes or until golden brown and 200 degrees F in the center. Brush with garlic butter and serve warm with whipped garlic butter.

* I skipped the parchment and used corn meal sprinkled on the bottom.

==========

Here’s a bonus Scout saying Happy Holidays! (Actually, she’s saying “I was promised cheese”). The other two were being difficult and refused photos.

Santa Scout

I finally got them to settle down enough…but there wasn’t going to be a group photo this year.

Trixiedeer

And she always looks like that when I take her photo, antlers or not…clearly not a fan of paparazzi

Dapper Jasper

And yes, Momsense, that is one of the scarves you made for the ducks. 😁

This is an open thread

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Important Dog News

by John Cole| November 21, 20238:48 pm| 28 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Open Threads, Pet Blogging

No paywall, so read the whole thing:

From New Hampshire to Oregon, researchers are trying to figure out what’s causing an infectious respiratory disease among dogs that has turned deadly in rare cases.

The mysterious illness is described as an “atypical canine infectious respiratory disease,” the Oregon Department of Agriculture said in a November 9 news release. Symptoms include coughing, sneezing, eye or nose discharge and lethargy.

Veterinarians in Oregon have reported more than 200 cases of the disease since mid-August. Other cases have been reported in Colorado, Illinois and New Hampshire.

Not sure if there is anything you can really do other than pay attention if your dog starts to show these symptoms.

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Respite Open Thread: Get Paid To Sniff for Poop!… *

by Anne Laurie| September 19, 20239:03 pm| 28 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Nature & Respite, Something Good Open Thread

These "conservation canines" help sniff out endangered species to save them. A heartwarming example of animals helping protect other animals. Love seeing the great work of @WD4C featured in @washingtonpost. https://t.co/Y6ckPjGfNV

— JG Collomb🐾 (@WildlifeJG) September 14, 2023

Of course not every dog is fit or focused enough, but this sounds like the canine equivalent of ‘grow up to be a paleontologist who is *also* a firefighter’.

From the Washington Post, “Once-abandoned dogs are now trained to sniff out environmental clues” [Unpaywalled gift link]:

The dogs were stranded on the streets or sitting in shelters, dropped off by owners who couldn’t handle the pups’ strong will and frenetic energy. Their temperaments were too volatile.

One of them, Tigee, was seized by animal control for being too aggressive. The 7-year-old shepherd mix spent several weeks in isolation in a four-foot kennel in Virginia.

But Tigee was smart and had an intense attachment to his toys, so he was a perfect fit to be a “conservation canine” — a dog trained to sniff out endangered species or other important environmental clues.

In 2017, Tigee was rescued by Working Dogs for Conservation (WD4C), a conservation detection dog organization based in Turah, Mont. Tigee now lives in Zambia, where he uses his strong drive — and big black snout — to collect data in South Luangwa National Park and protect the region’s wildlife, including pangolins, a scaly-skinned mammal that is a threatened species.

After a successful session collecting data, he is rewarded with toys and treats…

Tobias, a 9-year-old Labrador retriever, was found wandering around alone in Helena, Mont., in 2016.

He had a hyper personality, a trait Coppolillo said often makes dogs unappealing as family pets. Instead, he was taken in by WD4C and now spends his days sniffing out invasive zebra and quagga mussels in Montana’s Glacier National Park. After a search, he also gets a toy and treats.

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Respite Open Thread: <em>Get Paid To Sniff for Poop!… </em>*Post + Comments (28)

Odds & Ends (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker| September 15, 202311:27 am| 171 Comments

This post is in: Dog Blogging, Open Threads, The State of Being Trans in America

HuffPo did an investigative report about the paid experts who travel around the country helping wingnut states defend anti-trans laws, such as bans on gender-affirming care, so-called “bathrooms bills” and trans participation in youth sports. Y’all will be shocked to learn the “experts” are greedy, unqualified, bible-humping assholes who don’t give a shit about the laws’ impact on real people’s lives! An excerpt:

Most…practice medicine in a field related to gender-affirming care — such as psychiatry or endocrinology — but have treated only a handful of adolescent patients for gender dysphoria, if that, and haven’t published relevant research. Several belong to openly anti-trans groups and have urged state legislatures to pass the very laws they get paid to defend.

Some of the most prominent witnesses were recruited by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal powerhouse whose mission is to realize a country governed by far-right Christian values. And many share ADF’s extreme antipathy toward LGBTQ+ people.

“They’re hired guns,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a lawyer for the LGBTQ+ rights group Lambda Legal who has faced Hruz and his cohorts in several cases. “These are not real experts. They’re manufactured as experts by the opponents of transgender rights.”

Still, for a rate of hundreds of dollars an hour, they can lend a sheen of scientific rigor to school bathroom restrictions and bans on gender-affirming care.

And they are increasingly having an impact. On Aug. 25, a Missouri judge temporarily upheld the state’s four-year ban on most gender-affirming treatments for minors, writing, “The science and medical evidence is conflicting and unclear.”

When a trans kid’s mom shared her fears about the heightened risk of suicide for adolescents who are denied gender-affirming care, one of the profiled “experts” told her to read Pope John Paul II’s opinions on the topic and said, “Some children are born into this world to suffer and die.”

That sick motherfucker’s name is Dr. Paul Hruz. According to HuffPo, he is a pediatric endocrinologist and has testified in 12 cases. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders’ state government in Arkansas has paid that man more than $41K.

Thinking about people like Hruz makes me stabby, so I’m gonna abruptly change the subject to dogs, okay?

The heroic police dog who nabbed the fugitive murderer in Pennsylvania earlier this week is a four-year-old Belgian Malinois named Yoda. Here is that good boy:

Police dog

Thanks, Yoda!

Open thread.

Odds & Ends (Open Thread)Post + Comments (171)

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

When we show up, we win.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Giving up is unforgivable. ~Joe Biden

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

The revolution will be supervised.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Books are my comfort food!

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.