Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



You are here: Home / Archives for Recreation / Pets and animals

Another pet food recall – salmonella is the cause this time!

by

I just got my weekly copy of the ASPCA newsletter and one of the articles warned that there was a recall on certain brands of pet food made by Mars Petcare US. They stated that the pet food, for both cats and dogs, could be contaminated with Salmonella.

Here’s what the article said:

The ASPCA is advising pet parents to discontinue the use of certain dog and cat foods manufactured by Mars Petcare US. On September 12, the company issued a nationwide recall of certain foods due to potential contamination with a Salmonella serotype called Schwarzengrund. The recall includes several widely distributed brands of dry pet food, including Pedigree, Special Kitty, Paws & Claws, Natural Dog Food, Red Flannel, Country Acres, Buju & Ziggie, Member’s Mark, Natural Cat Food, Retriever, Bruiser, Doggy Bag, PMI Nutrition and Pet Pride.

“Pet parents should wash their hands after handling any potentially contaminated pet food,” says Dr. Steven Hansen, the ASPCA’s Senior Vice President of Animal Health Services, “and immediately consult with a veterinarian if any signs or symptoms are noticed in their pets.”

You can learn more about the affected brands on the Mars Petcare website.





I’m So Unspectacular

by

My Toronto blogger friend, Lyndon from Lyndonology, tagged me last week with the Six Unspectacular Quirks meme.

I don’t do this kind of meme very often, but sometimes they are kind of fun and I think they give readers a better idea of who the blogger is, so I decided I’d give it a whirl.

If you’d like to participate in this meme go right ahead. Here’s the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules.
3. Tell six unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag six bloggers by linking.
5. Leave a comment for each blogger.

I’m going to leave out rule 4 and 5 because if I tag others I’ll just end up getting more tags! LOL

I think I have a lot of quirks so picking out just 6 won’t be easy! Let’s see …

1. I really like my feet being tickled. Not the tickle to make you laugh until you can’t breath kind of tickle … just nice gentle tickles with the tips of your fingers. It’s sooooo relaxing. I married Chris because he’s a good tickler. Ok I married him for other reasons too, but that was on the list. 😉

littleme 2. When I was a baby I went through a period where the only way my parents could get me to sleep was to put me on my stomach and pat my bum until I was bouncing like a basketball. I’d fall asleep that way and start crying as soon as they stopped! They’d have to take turns bouncing me for hours! Strangely enough I can now fall asleep without having my bum patted.

3. I detested – really really hated! peanut butter all my life. Just the smell of it would make me nauseated, but … a couple of months ago I got a craving for it and I now eat it regularly.

4. I don’t like most reality shows, but I think I’m secretly addicted to America’s Got Talent. I guess it isn’t a secret anymore.

IMGP15631 5. My regular and casual visitors likely already know I like dogs and probably realize that I’m an animal lover, but did you know that I love reptiles? I kept reptiles for decades. We currently only have an Eastern Box Turtle and an Ornate Box Turtle, but we’ve had as many as 9 lizards and the two turtles at the height of our reptile keeping days. Back in 1995 I started my first website “Tricia’s Chinese Water Dragon, Reptile and Amphibian Care Page“. Yeah I’ve come up with better names for my sites since then, but that one’s accurate in it’s description. It’s a huge website that gets 1000’s of visitors each day and it’s had over 15 million page views since I started tracking stats. I’ll bet you never thought there’d be that many people seeking reptile care info, did ya? I’ll also bet that you didn’t know I’m a reptile guru!

6. When I was a child my parents had trouble getting me to eat my vegetables. Somehow my mom figured out that I’d eat some veggies, that most people like better cooked, raw. These days I’ll eat most veggies (cooked), but I still don’t mind eating things like Potatoes and turnip raw – in fact I think I prefer them that way!

Ok so was that unbelievably unspectacularly quirky enough for you? Feel free to do this meme on your blog or better yet leave me a comment with one of your unspectacular quirks!

________________________________________________

Earlier today I received an award from a blogger who clams she’s mainly a lurker. I love it when I’ve made a post that finally gets a reader to leave a comment or better yet, as in this case, give me an award that says:

blogger_award.jpg

Thank you Wendy! When I went to visit Wendy’s site, The Domestiquette I discovered that she’d given the award to 5 other great blogs which will now become part of my reading list, along with Wendy’s blog of course! BTW I’ve been to Wendy’s site before in my travels, but I’ll try to get there a little more often.

BTW Wendy I hope your internet connection gets better!

Like the previous tag I believe I’m supposed to pick out blogs I’d like to give the award to, but there are so many blogs that I really love! It’s too hard! So I think I’ll pass on that part of the tag, but if you’d like to award some of your favorite blogs with this award go ahead and copy the award image (do not link to it!) and give it out to your favs.

So what are your quirks? This inquiring mind wants to know!

Happy Birthday Midnight!

by

Our little fur daughter is growing up! She’s, apparently, one year old today.

 

Midnight, our dog, in the garden

I say apparently because when I first spoke with the breeder on the phone she told me the puppies were born on September 7th, 2007, but a few days later when we drove out of the city to the farm and picked her out of the 12 to 14 puppies that were playing in the pen of a huge barn she gave me papers that said Midnight was born August 26th. Then … about two months later we finally received her official Canadian Kennel Club papers (since she was registered as a purebred Labrador Retriever) the papers said August 25th.

See why we’re confused? I think something fishy was going on at that farm. The parents we met were both yellow labs yet the majority of the puppies were black females. I know it’s possible for two yellow labs to have black pups, but with all the confusion about the date of birth we feel that the breeder probably had two or three litters on the go. Plus, as it turns out we got a very sick puppy! We discovered on the first full day that she was with us (November 24th) that she had a gastro infection, a heavy infestation of round worms and later she also developed an ear infection and an eye infection.

Here she is on her second day with us, November 25th, 2007, when she was just 13 weeks old:

 

Labrador Retriever Puppy Midnight

I can hardly believe she was ever that small – and oh so cute! She looks like a toy!

I guess Midnight lucked out, because we treat her well. Took her to the vet on the first day she was here when we realized something was wrong and she’s fed dog food with only natural organic ingredients. She’s got it made!

So … what do you get a dog on it’s first birthday?

She has tons of toys and tasty treats … We were thinking that we’d have BBQ’d steak for dinner and give her a portion as a special treat. We have given her grilled steak and chicken before as well as plain veggies, but we don’t give her these kind of foods too often. Hopefully this doesn’t cause more gas – she’s still got that problem, I think it’s her hormones since she’s in heat right now.

I think Midnight started celebrating her birthday early …

 

Our lab rolling in the grass

We had her out in the garden on Saturday and she loved being able to roam around the yard while we sat at the patio table. She also enjoyed rolling in the grass!

Oh and this was Midnight on November 25th at 13 weeks during her first visit to the backyard. As you can see she’s exploring the garden. I think she found a small green pepper that had fallen off the dying plant (of course we took it away from her).

 

Labrador Retriever Puppy Midnight

You’ve come a long way Midnight! Now if we can just teach her to stay off the home theater seating with her bones everything will be great!

My dog has wrinkles!

by

photohunter7iq.png

Our dog stalking a bug

This weeks photohunt theme is Wrinkled and I love nothing more than the wrinkles that appear when my Lab Puppy lifts her ears.

See how the skin at the top of her head is wrinkled in this photo?

I took this while we spent some time in the garden earlier today.

I think Midnight was trying to stalk a bug or something. It certainly looks like she’s watching something intently doesn’t it?

Meta

Search this site

Tags

blog blogs camera Canada Chris computer crohns dinner dog Family flower flowers Food friends funny garden Gardening Green Thumb Sunday Health and Fitness Health Fitness and Beauty holiday home Home and Lifestyle house husband IBD Inflammatory bowel disease Internet Music neighbors pain photo photos plants puppy Shopping sick sleep spring Toronto TV Video visit website Wordless Wednesday