Some Tips For Surviving The 4th Of July With Your Dog Our big celebrations for the 4th of July can also be a day that we need to be mindful of how our pets behave. The 4th of July is a big holiday, and many people bring their pets with them to celebrate. Whether you’re celebrating at home or out in public, there are some safety measures you should take so that your pet is as safe as possible. On the evening of July 4th is when many dogs go missing because of their fear of the sounds, they are trying to escape and then people realize the next day their pet is gone. Don’t let this happen to you! Dogs have a keen sense of hearing and can be sensitive to noise. There are many things that can cause anxiety in dogs, including thunderstorms, fireworks, loud music and sudden noises. The best way to help your dog is to create a safe space for them. This could be a room with no noise or one with white noise playing in the background. We have a playlist of soothing sounds for dogs  you can try. It could also be a bed or crate where they feel secure. If you have a dog with anxiety, it is important to take care of it. It can help to provide your pet with the things they like so they don’t feel anxious when they are home. This could be anything from a bone or toy that your pet enjoys to giving them their favorite treats or meal time. There are also many different types of medications which can help to calm your pet down. For me this would be a last resort, but your vet could easily prescribe you something to keep your dog’s nerves calm

What Do Your Dogs Eat Tara?! What do your dogs eat Tara? I’m glad you asked – my dogs are currently alternating between ground beaver carcass or ground lamb mixed with ground duck. These are whole meats, nothing else added, and are not crap from the grocery store or animal doctor’s office! Then I give them ground beef organs which includes green tripe. I order online and it comes straight to my front door. No grocery stores or expensive, fancy pet stores. And absolutely NO Hill’s Science Diet pushed from the Vet’s office – who gets a kickback by the way, it’s not because he believes it’s so awesome for your dog. For their added supplements I am adding Mr. Stud for the boys and Estrumate for the females. Along with nutritious yeast, DE mixed with bentonite clay and some pre and pro biotics, and some MSM along with ground pumpkin seeds. Well, how much do you feed them? I don’t weigh my dogs food, I’m a mom, not a scientist, lol – so I notice if any of my dogs seem a bit chubby or lookin’ a little too thin to me. If they are lookin’ kinda chubby, I cut back some, if thin – well, I make sure they are healthy overall, not feeling sick, and then I give them more food! Like any mom would! But here is a good rule of thumb: STANDARD FEEDING GUIDELINES: Age 5-10 weeks requires 8%-10% of body weight fed per day Age 10-16 weeks requires 7.5%-8.5% of body weight fed per day Adult dog’s maintenance needs are typically 2%-3% of body weight These are just recommendations.  Always watch your dog’s physique. You should be able to feel the ribs slightly and see a waist from above between the ribs and hips.

Are we over vaccinating our dogs? To hear most animal doctors tell it – they can’t seem to give enough toxins to your poor dogs immune system! They want to vaccinate for this, that and the other thing and then some more! And then they want to give more toxins orally with “flea and tick preventatives” oh my lord, there are whole Facebook pages dedicated to the reactions to these horrible toxins; do a quick google search and you will see loads pages! And something I’ve been saying for a very long time – is why do my tiny dogs need to receive as much vaccine dosage as a large dog like a german shepard puppy?! Turns out – someone else had the exact same thoughts as me – and did a great article on that here. I have personally seen what over vaccinating a dog can do. I sold an adorable – vet checked and healthy tiny little sweet baby to someone – and then one day received a call saying could she have a different puppy, the one I gave her has something wrong with it, it hides under her bed and has seizures. I felt terrible! I immediately took her a new puppy and took back the one that was “ill”. After much fighting with the puppy buyer I finally received the puppy’s vet records. What I saw was what actually happened to the tiny sweet innocent fur baby – the vet vaccinated the puppy and had been consistently doing so – like every two weeks, but the last vaccine put the puppy over the edge and she instantly started having seizures in the vet office. The vet had to instantly give anti seizure meds – all of this was in the records no one wanted me

The Perfect Music for Calming Dogs Down Dogs are living beings that have a lot of energy. They need to be taken out for walks, fed, and played with. All of these activities can cause them to get excited and anxious. But it’s good to get that energy out and enjoy time with you! But when you leave, the anxiety can really get to your loving pet. They don’t know where you are going or when you will be back, the stress can get pretty high for some sweet furbabies. Music is an easy way to calm them down. It helps by providing a soothing background noise that masks other sounds and gives the dog something else to focus on. This helps them relax and enjoy their time at home more than they would without it. Soothing sounds – enough to calm the wild beast. Anxiety relief without any supplements, just a new mental state with music. It’s good to have music on for them all of the time, at least, a lot of the time – so if they do have separation anxiety and you turn on music for them, they won’t associate music on with you leaving. Start now with your pet while you are at home – having a background noise of what you would like for them to listen to – so when you are ready to leave the home they are all ready accustomed to the sound, and associate it with you being in the house. Repetitive sounds can, with a melody, be so relaxing and enjoyable that it can put any stressed mind right to sleep – think: lullaby. Soothing music that envelopes the soul and takes you to a different place in your mind to just drift off in peace – that is our goal for your

Growing our own organic dog food, my dogs love to eat raw meat, and organic is the way to go since most store bought meat has hormones, added salt water, just stuff that your body or your dog’s body really doesn’t need! And as you know, I feed my dogs raw meat ~ species appropriate. To feed them and us was getting very pricey and the organic prices were just out of the question! So, we have purchased a pregnant doe rabbit and a buck. This will give us healthy, organic meat for the dogs and for us. A win-win, and they are so cute to raise. We aren’t strangers to raising rabbits. My daughter raised rabbits for her 4-H project. So we are a little bit familiar with it, although it was quite a few years ago. The kids also did chickens and lambs. We hope to get some meat / laying hens too. We are on about an acre – so we do have a little room for these animals. I don’t see the lamb thing happening, but you never know. I didn’t see this coming either. We are enjoying it so far, although I am sure we will have a bit of a learning curve, thank God for the internet, and YouTube. We have learned something all ready – we were storing the rabbit food, by the rabbits in the open and for some reason we started having huge bumble bees show up. We were like, where did these guys come from!? But, as you know, it can rain quite a bit in Tennessee. After a rain we decided to put an airtight container by the cages for the rabbit food. And don’t you know – no more bumble bees. Ha! They weren’t viscious, but they were