Shaggy Dog Stories

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Sorry this is a bit blurry. The actual package is much nicer.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that I have a particularly big soft spot for products made by local businesses. Most of those businesses are new, or new-ish — but today’s products come from a 140-year-old New Hampshire-based company with a new “boutique” label. (The company also generously supports NEADS — Dogs for Deaf and Disabled Americans and Canines for Combat Veterans — so they act locally, too.)

Blue Seal, based in Londonderry, NH, has been making large animal and pet foods for many years. The company’s new byNature label contains an expanded array of products for both dogs and cats, including grain-free and organic formulas, canned food, and dog treats. Some of the formulas (such as the pork and sweet potato dry formula or the canned duck, green bean, and wild rice stew) sound almost as though they’ve been plucked from the menu of the local bistro. byNature doesn’t make any claims about their more “exotic” formulas and their suitability for pets with food sensitivities, but all the ingredients are listed for each product so you can decide whether they would work for your food-sensitive pet.

We were invited to try the Mixed Berry flavor dog biscuits. The folks at byNature sent us a humongous box filled with bags of biscuits. The Gang of Four circled the box in much the same way that hungry sharks circle a leaky rowboat.

The biscuits are wheat-free (their major grain sources are rice and barley), and they also contain chicken meal, cranberries, carrots, blueberries, dried tomatoes, rosemary, ground flaxseed, and a variety of vitamins and minerals. When I opened the bag, however, a familiar scent escaped. It took me a while to place the scent, but the main ingredient was definitely listed on the label.

The biscuits smell exactly like traditional New England brown bread. I’m not even sure if people buy and eat the stuff any more, but many of my childhood Saturday-night dinners were made up of hot dogs, baked beans, and brown bread. The bread is sweet; it contains molasses and raisins. It comes pre-baked in the can. You can slice it and serve it cold, or toast the slices and add a little cream cheese. Food reverie aside, these may be mixed berry dog biscuits, but they smell like molasses and Saturday night suppah to me.

I can’t claim that anyone in this pack is a picky eater. Charlie, the 14-year-old, sometimes requires a little extra temptation at mealtime, but even he will not turn his brown hunk-of-fudge nose up at any proffered treat. To say that the younger three were “food motivated” might just be understating things a little. Okay, a lot.

"Wait -- did someone say 'biscuit'?"

As you might have guessed, all four of them would happily do cartwheels for these biscuits, if they could only figure out how. I’m really glad that byNature sent us such a generous supply — trust me, these treats have been very well appreciated in our household.

You can buy byNature pet foods and treats online at retailers such as PetFoodDirect and Wag.com, or use the handy retailer locator on the company’s website to find a store near you.

Want a Bag? Your Dog Does!

We’re giving away a bag of the Mixed Berry flavor biscuits to each of two lucky winnahs! All you have to do is follow our Wicked Simple Rules…

Wicked Simple Rules

1. Go visit byNature’s Facebook page and give them a Like.
2. While you’re at it, toss us a Like too (if you haven’t already done so).
3. Visit the byNature Pet Foods website and check out the other food and treat formulas they offer.
4. Leave a comment here on the blog and let us know what other food you would try if you had the chance. You’re not limited to just the biscuits, or even to the doggy products. Remember that comments on our Facebook page, while enjoyed and loved by all, do not count as entries for the giveaway.
5. Because we don’t want to get anyone into trouble with Customs, I’m afraid we can only ship to winners residing in the USA this time around. Apologies to our regular readers and fans in Canada!

Entries for this giveaway close on Sunday, April 1. No foolin’!

As always, winners are selected at random by comment number using a random-number-picking script.

Congratulations to Sharon Prassa, the lucky winnah of a fresh, shiny new copy of Dog Photography for Dummies! Each of the Dummies covers entered was funny and creative; not all of them were dog-centric, but they all collected plenty of chuckles, Likes, and comments on Facebook.

Here’s Sharon’s cover, featuring the Eye of Ry…

The rest of Ry is pretty handsome, too.

Yeah, I know I say this every time, but I really need to: Our lucky winnah was chosen at random by comment number, using a random number-picking script. Had it been left up to me to pick a single entry from the Dummies covers everyone made, I’d definitely be hard-pressed to do it. They were all great!

Didn’t win? Not to worry. The StowAway giveaway is still going on for another week, and you won’t believe all the great stuff in the “coming soon” queue: more books, dog treats, and some truly fun things that I hope you’ll love!

If you use both Nature’s Variety raw and kibble, or if you’ve been feeding kibble but want to see what the excitement about their raw food is all about, then this coupon is definitely for you…

(Click on the image to get a printable copy to take to the store.)

Can’t hate that! If you’re going to buy both anyway (as I usually do), then here’s a chance to save $3. The coupon expires May 31, so you have time. Enjoy!

Welcome to our guest blogger, Lee Hammerschmidt of StowAway Cargo Carriers! I wish that my Subaru had a hitch, so I could enjoy the added cargo space of a StowAway. Read on if you’d like to expand your vehicle’s carry capacity!

Plenty of room for all those ribbons!

Let’s see, you’ve got all the comforts of home… carriers, bedding, toys, bowl, food, treats, grooming and beauty supplies… oh yeah, and don’t forget your own gear, too. Yikes! Where are we going to put all this stuff? Where’s everybody supposed to sit? Why do fools fall in love?

If you’re a veteran of the dog show circuit (or travel with your dog on road trips and/or vacation) you’ve probably asked yourself these questions dozens of times (well, maybe not the last one). Conditions can become pretty cramped inside the vehicle once everything is packed and loaded. Not very comfy, especially if you’re driving any distance with everyone belted or harnessed in, or riding in a carrier (required options for ALL passengers, two or four-legged).

While taking frequent rest and leg-stretchin’ breaks (every three hours or so is recommended — again, for all travellers) will help get the kinks out and reduce your chances of deep-vein thrombosis, the only real solution to crowded conditions is to un-crowd them. Many competitors who frequently travel to dog performance events have discovered the the convenience and versatility of a StowAway Hitch Cargo Carrier.

With up to 16 cubic feet of storage space and 200 pounds of carry capacity (that’s a lot of kibble!), a StowAway will will hold enough gear to seriously ease those cramped conditions. Sliding quickly and securely into your vehicle’s receiver hitch, a StowAway offers easy ground level access to your gear, making it a snap to fetch a Frisbee or ball thrower at a rest stop (say so long to that inconvenient, fuel-inefficient rooftop carrier). Its swing-away frame allows quick access to the rear of your vehicle. With a secure locking mechanism, your gear will remain safe while you stop at rest areas, diners and other roadside attractions, and the weather-tight seal keeps everything dry as a, well, bone!

Mary Lou Hanlon, a long time dog trainer and agility competitor from New Jersey, swears by her StowAway.

Mary Lou and Shazam tearin' it up!

“Since having the StowAway, packing for my dog agility events as well as unloading at the show site has become so much easier than in the past when I had a traditional roof top carrier, Mary Lou said. “The StowAway fits a tremendous amount of gear and luggage. Its swing-away design makes it so easy to swing away from the cargo area of my Denali and load up my dogs.”

So wherever your own Travels with Charlie take you… Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, Fresno, Florida, Detroit or New York, make the journey a safe, comfortable and enjoyable one for all (and all for one!). Strap in for safety, take frequent breaks and solve your storage issues with a StowAway Cargo Carrier. Hey, take it from Mary Lou…

“I am happy to award the StowAway “Best in Show!”

Sounds Good to You?

How about you? Could you use a little more space in your vehicle? Have you watched my road-trip buddy Val and me trying to get things into and out of my roof-top cargo carrier, and have you laughed yourself breathless at the sheer Keystone Kops absurdity of it all? How about winning a discount coupon good for $100 off a StowAway purchase of $500 or more? All you have to do is follow these Wicked Simple Rules…

Wicked Simple Rules

1. Leave a comment on this blog telling us where you’d like to drive to if you had a StowAway, and if the price of gas were no object. Facebook comments, while always enjoyed, don’t count.
2. Like StowAway Cargo Carriers on Facebook.
3. Hey, Shaggy Dog Stories could always use a little extra Facebook love, if you haven’t offered up some already.

Dog show season is coming up soon in our latitude! Entries for this contest close on Friday, March 23.

When I was a little kid, my parents allowed me to use their old Kodak Brownie camera on special occasions. I took it on a Brownie (ha!) Scouts field trip to Boston’s Freedom Trail, to a horse show, and to a few other places. One day while we were at our summer house, I decided to shoot some photos of the next-door neighbors’ new German Shepherd puppy: on his back, sitting up, one ear flopped over, both ears straight up… and so on. I shot from ground level. I shot from puppy’s-eye level. I shot standing up, looking down. I just kept shooting until the roll was done.

Thanks to Chuck Baker of www.brownie-camera.com for kindly allowing me to use his photo. Hobbyists still love this little box camera!

Back in the Dark Ages, before the advent of digital photography or even 1-hour film developing, you used to have to pull a finished roll of film out of the camera, roll it up tightly, put it into an envelope, and mail it off to a photo lab. When the prints came back, my father was livid. “You took 20 pictures of the Kilmartins’ DOG?! Are you out of your mind?! Why did you waste all that film?!” He reamed me such a new one that I don’t even remember if I got to see the finished photos or not. It didn’t matter. I never used the Brownie again after that.

I never got over it, either. I was well past thirty before I acquired my first (and last) 35mm camera, a little Pentax point-and-shoot number that took halfway decent photos without making it look too much like work. I sure as heck didn’t want to waste any film! When the Pentax started developing “tunnel vision,” I replaced it with a digital point-and-shoot. I haven’t looked back since. By the way, most of the photos I take these days are of dogs… so there!

When Sarah Sypniewski contacted me about reviewing Dog Photography for Dummies, I couldn’t have been more tickled. My most recent digital point-and-shoot has manual capability, but I’ve never actually tried it. I thought that maybe, with the help of the book, I could explore the wild, unfettered world of shooting on manual, and maybe even add a more artistic dimension to my photos.

What I didn’t expect was that I practically wanted to hug the book for explaining arcane and forbidden terms such as f-stops and apertures — or to see the artistic value in off-center photos and photos where parts are out of focus. Dog Photography for Dummies also explained the power of post-processing: simple and effective touch-up techniques that really lend a finished, professional look to what would otherwise be a pretty decent amateur photo. With their simple, friendly approach, Sarah Sypniewski and her co-author Kim Rodgers offer help and advice to manual SLR devotees and pocket digital fans alike — including a semi-Zen section on how to get the best out of a photo session with a dog by waiting for him to be himself.

If you’re considering going into the pet photography business, this book has loads of helpful information about setting up the business, marketing, and even self-assessment. How much do you like photographing dogs? Enough to make a full-time job of it, or just a profitable hobby? Enough to deal with the boring business stuff, tax returns, recalcitrant clients of all species? There are no right answers to these questions, but you’ll be happier and more successful once you decide where you land on the spectrum between hobby and profession.

In addition to running Bark Pet Photography, voted Best Pet Photographer on the Los Angeles Hotlist, Rodgers and Sypniewski dedicate themselves to “pro bone-o” work, photographing adoptable dogs to show them in their best light. The next-to-last chapter discusses some ways to give back to the community.

I haven’t yet had time to switch my camera to manual and see what happens next, but you can absolutely bet that I’ll have my copy of Dog Photography for Dummies along for reference and encouragement. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be seeing more artsy photos on the blog someday soon.

The book is available from Dummies.com or from all of the usual outlets, including Amazon, Books-a-Million, the Kindle Store, and Apple i-Books.

So… Want a Copy?

Thanks to Sarah Sypniewski and the kind folks at the Dummies imprint of Wiley & Sons press, we have a free copy of Dog Photography for Dummies to give away! All you have to do — as always — is follow these Wicked Simple Rules…

Wicked Simple Rules

1. Go to covers.dummies.com and create your own Dummies book cover. It doesn’t have to be dog-related.
2. Post it to the Shaggy Dog Stories page on Facebook.
3. While you’re there, show Shaggy Dog Stories a little Like action on Facebook if you haven’t done so already.
4. Like Bark Pet Photography on Facebook.
5. Come on back to this blog and leave a comment to let me know you’ve posted something. This part is important; the script used to pick the winner can only process comments made to the blog. Posting on Facebook is just part of the fun.

Here’s a sample…

The lucky winnah will be chosen at random from the comments on this blog, so don’t forget to come back and leave a comment! You have until Friday, March 16 — so start creating those Dummies covers now!

Congratulations to little Paisley Maloney (Famous Seamus’s niece) for being the lucky winnah of a Kyjen Star Spinner toy of her very own!

A star for a future star!

Really, it wasn’t a fix. We use a computer script to pick winners at random from among those who submitted comments to the giveaway. All I have to do is click a button, and everything else gets done for me. (Since the Oscars were just broadcast, it might be topical to mention that the script is a WordPress plugin called “And the winner is…”.)

If you didn’t win this time, that’s OK — please stick around. There are so many terrific things here just waiting for review and giveaway, and we just know you’ll want to get in on the fun!

A lot of blogs just post the names of the winners and leave it up to you to find your way back on the appointed date. If your plane gets delayed, you lose your house key, your computer crashes, or something else in life happens and you don’t get back to the blog in time to claim your prize… well, you snooze, you lose. The script I use includes contact by email, so if you win, you’ll get a real live email message from me! Of course, if you don’t read your email more than once a week, that’s a different issue altogether.

That said, the clock is ticking for the winnah of the Orijen Adult dog food. If we don’t hear back next week, we’ll have to find a new home for the food while it’s still fresh. So… don’t go away! There’s still a chance!

Puzzle toys have been getting a lot of attention from the pet-owning public in recent years. First developed to provide mental stimulation to zoo animals, these toys help alleviate boredom and challenge pets to use their instincts and problem-solving abilities.

The Kyjen Company has an entire line of Dog Games puzzle toys for dogs. Some spin. Some have flaps that need to be lifted in order to find the treat. Some have interlocking pieces. All of these toys are meant to keep your dog’s mind engaged, since your dog will find it more fun to search for a treat in a toy than to engage in more destructive habits. (Every dog needs a job. You might as well pick one for your dog before he picks one on his own!)

The beauty of the Kyjen Dog Games toys is that they’re made of durable plastic, so they can be cleaned (and they also cost quite a bit less than the fancy European toys). As with other plastic toys, the Dog Games toys are not designed to be left with a chewer all day, so remove them when the fun is over.

We decided to try the Star Spinner puzzle toy, arguably the entry-level toy in the collection. The premise is fairly simple: rotate the trays to reveal the treats within each “point” of the star.

The Kyjen Star Spinner up close. Photo courtesy of Kyjen.

I loaded up the Star Spinner with Charlee Bears, and then placed it on the floor for Dinah. She immediately nudged open the bottom tray and snarfed the treats. In another few seconds or so, she discovered that the Star Spinner also had a top tray. She nudged that open and devoured all the treats on that level. Mission accomplished!

You can increase the challenge by tightening the knob on the bottom of the toy. This makes it more difficult for the dogs to get to the goodies — so even though they’ve already figured out the puzzle, they’ll still have to work harder to get to the treats they know are in there.

The Star Spinner has an MSRP of $24.99. You can find it in any pet supply store that features Kyjen toys, or you can order online.

Bottom view shows the knob. Turn to adjust the difficulty of the puzzle.

Once your dog can get into the Star Spinner even on its hardest setting, you can graduate to a Treat Wheel or a Paw Hide (both have cups with covers that the dog lifts to reveal the treats), or to one of the other Dog Games toys. The Paw Flapper and the Kibble Drop require the dog to use his scenting abilities to find the treat, so they could be good candidates for nosework practice.

Want to Try One?

We have one to give away! All you need to do is follow the Wicked Simple Rules…

Wicked Simple Rules

1. Visit the Dog Games Puzzle Toys page on Kyjen’s website. Check out the entire line of toys, and then post to this blog about the one you’d like to try next. Facebook comments just don’t count, even though we enjoy them.
2. Like the Kyjen Company on Facebook.
3. If you haven’t already liked Shaggy Dog Stories, come on over and Like us too.

As always, we choose the winner at random using a number-picking script. Entries close on February 29.

Our buddies over at Mr. Chewy are proud to announce that they now carry Orijen dog and cat food from Champion Petfoods of Canada. They can get this fresh, grain-free food to you anywhere in the Lower 48 within a day or two via UPS or FedEx, for not a heckuva lot more than what you’d pay for it at your local pet supply store. Add in the free shipping for purchases over $49, and it hardly seems worth getting in the car and driving across town any more, does it?

Orijen produces grain-free, low-carbohydrate pet foods from regional sources, including wild-caught fish, free-range chicken, and regional fruits and vegetables. The ingredients are sustainably raised and harvested, and delivered absolutely fresh (never frozen) right to Champion’s door in Morinville, Alberta, Canada.

Orijen foods are “biologically appropriate;” that is, they are formulated to more closely match what a dog would eat in the wild. Although your dog would probably be happy to polish off your bowl of morning oatmeal, if he hunted for his own food in the wild, he would eat a variety of meats, along with assorted fruits, vegetables, and eggs.

75% of the Gang of Four. Seamus ran out of the shot at the last second.

For our test, we selected the Orijen adult dry dog food, with its 80-20-0 formula (80% meat, 20% fruits and vegetables, 0% grain), as our test formula. We could have chosen one of the other options, such as 6 Fish or Regional Red with bison and wild boar, but our most recent bag of kibble was chicken-based. I figured that having at least the same basic main meat source might make the trial a little easier on doggie digestion. As always, Mr. Chewy had our test bag sitting on our doorstep the very next day.

As luck would have it, Someone Who Shall Remain Nameless neglected to buy more of our regular dog food, so we ended up making a more drastic introduction to the Orijen food than we’d originally intended. Thanks to the rotation diet and our lucky stars, we managed to feed the entirely new food with almost no digestive interruption.

Charlie, the old dog, had been turning his nose up at all kibble, declaring it boring and beneath his notice. He would only eat it if canned or raw food were mixed into it so thoroughly that he couldn’t pick out the pieces. He practically dove headfirst into the Orijen food, and we didn’t see him again until he emerged from his dish, licking his chops and looking for more.

Badger, the Methane Factory, could dine upon a diet of angel feathers and sunshine, and still manufacture gas so evil it would peel the paint off my neighbors’ ceilings. Amazingly, he didn’t produce very much in the green cloud department after trying the Orijen.

Seamus and Dinah, the younger two, will eat pretty much anything and thrive on it. They absolutely loved the Orijen. They love everything else, too, but they really regarded the Orijen as a treat. I don’t usually get them to work for kibble during training, but I’m willing to bet they’d at least notice if I tried training them using Orijen kibble.

The verdict: Sixteen Paws Up. I would absolutely consider adding Orijen food to our rotation diet, especially since life in the same room as Badger certainly improved while he was eating it. We can find it at our local store in case we run out on a Sunday afternoon, plus our friend Mr. Chewy will always be happy to bring it right to us.

Want to Try Some?

Mr. Chewy sent us not one, but two 5.5-pound bags of the Orijen Adult Dog formula — so we have one to give away! If you’d like to try Orijen with your pack, then please follow our Wicked Simple Rules…

Wicked Simple Rules

1. Visit Mr Chewy’s website and take a look at the other Orijen formulas.
2. Leave a post on this blog and tell us which formula you think your dogs would like best. (Sorry, my only giveaway bag is Adult Dog formula, but you may say you like any of the other formulas listed.) Remember, only comments on the blog are considered valid entries! I do read and enjoy the ones on Facebook, but they just don’t count.
3. If you haven’t already done so, Like Mr. Chewy on Facebook.
4. While you’re there, give a Like to Orijen, too.
5. And… because we just love the attention, show Shaggy Dog Stories some FB love if you haven’t been there already.
6. One more thing: Since I have to ship the dog food from here, it can only travel to the continental USA. I’m afraid that it would never get back across the Canadian border — or any other border, for that matter. Sorry, folks — but I do have a dog toy giveaway coming up soon, and the dog toy can travel anywhere.

Entries close on Monday, February 27.

Disclaimer: I don’t work for this company or have any financial stake in it. However, I do feed the food to my four Beardies every day, and the company was very generous to the 2011 BCCA National Specialty. Let’s just say that I recommend them highly based on my own experience (which you can read in my Dog Food Diary entries). I asked my contact at NV for permission to share these coupons. If you want coupons of your very own, sign up for the Nature’s Variety email list.

Nature’s Variety has two new products on the market that will help you offer some of the benefits of raw food to your dogs even if you feed a cooked or otherwise pre-prepared diet. If (like me) you barely have the time to feed yourself and the dogs, let alone buy/store/prepare raw food, you’ll find the Instinct Raw line of food, treats, and supplements massively helpful — and the dogs just snarf it down!

The Instinct Raw Boost Bites are freeze-dried, minimally-processed treats that contain raw chicken, beef, lamb, or venison as well as nutritious ingredients such as finely ground bone, apples, broccoli, butternut squash, pumpkin, apple cider vinegar, kelp, blueberries, and salmon oil. Nature’s Variety recommends one or two Bites per day per 20 pounds of body weight — but adjust your dog’s caloric intake accordingly to avoid overfeeding.

The Instinct Raw Boost Powder contains the same raw ingredients, but in a powdered form. Mix the Raw Boost Powder into your dog’s food to give your dog the benefits of raw meat, fruits, and vegetables. Recommended amount for a 50-pound dog is 2 tablespoons per meal.

Want to Try Them?

Nature’s Variety has two new coupons available so you can try the Raw Boost Bites and Raw Daily Boost for yourself. Click the facsimiles below for printable coupons you can take to the store…