The Three Stooges

Carrie had this picture of the brothers taken at the National to celebrate the fact that all three boys were ranked in the Top Twenty last year. Left to right Joey, Andy & Argus. Joey is the silly giggly one, Andy is a mild-mannered serious one, and Argus is always looking for the next adventure. All different and all appealing in their own ways.

We broke a record for temperature yesterday - 96 degrees! The old record was 88. Hopefully we don't have too many 90+ days this summer as I am not a hot weather person. After such a gorgeous spring I guess we have to take some knocks. Minnesotans don't just accept beautiful weather, they think "we'll pay for this later", a self fulfilling prophesy. Gotta get used to this weather though if I am going to show Argus this summer - he does too, so I dropped off the car at Tires Plus, and walked back to pick it up later. A rather warm walk, but not too bad and my ankle felt pretty good.

I'm doing my Physical Therapy every evening, plus walking for at least half an hour, and my ankle feels better every day other than some early morning stiffness. I still get twinges of pain especially if I turn sharply, but can finally walk without a limp until I get too tired. Still hurts to run, but not so that it's unmanageable, and my foot is starting to get the flex back so I don't feel as if I am running while wearing a swimfin on my right foot! Was really looking forward to camping at the shows this weekend, but now Ginger may not be able to go as her motorhome is not cooperating. Wish she had taken it out for a checkup before yesterday so she'd have had a chance to get things fixed in time. Sigh. Guess Argus and I will get a motel and commute back and forth.

Got an interesting question about raw feeding -

I'd like your advice. I have two Dals. One eats chicken wings, necks, backs slowly and crunches them up and swallows them. The other Dal eats really fast. She almost sucks down her food. A few times, when I have fed the chicken, several hours later, she will throw up a small amount and there is always a bone that is about an inch and a half long. Is there a way to get her to slow down? She eats the veggie mix and the ground up meat well. I feed them in separate rooms so there is no competition.

This is a common problem with raw fed dogs. Some are such eager eaters they gulp rather than chew. There's really no way to solve that problem because it's just the way that dog eats, like the person who swallows before chewing their food thoroughly. In every group of dogs you will get slow chewers, brisk chewers, the ones who chew very little and the ones that gulp. My current group consists of Argus who is a slow chewer, Josie and Coral who are brisk chewers, and Watson who chews very minimally. Watson will occasionally bring up a larger piece for rechewing, which is why the dogs all eat in their crates. About the only way to slow down the fast eaters is to feed larger cuts. Turkey necks normally work really well for that - but the dogs will still gulp smaller pieces. When a dog brings boney pieces back up, it is normally part of a chicken wing, or a few turkey neck vertabrae. I'd be inclined to feed backs and necks but no wings to a gulper.