EastVanDogs

i'm closing house on the blog, if we get back up again, i'll post our new address in the comments after this last post here if i can.

Any thoughts on city bi-laws??

I really doubt that we are alone in thinking more people then us believe there locality needs to enforce and or re work the by-laws concerning Pet ownership issues such as off leash , people letting there dogs run a muke weather it is due to ignorance or arrogance or in most cases a mixture of both.

This News letter  really gives one plenty to think about,  and instead of me rambling on as I normally do ;) I was hoping some of you might share your views???

http://www.richmond-news.com/news/City+tighten+leash+bylaws/4170013/story.html#ixzz1CGW5iMnI

Though either way if you share with us or not I am sure there will be ranting going on here at East Van Dogs about this and many other animal related topics! But Please speak up.
 and Harley says this is to much for my hyper brain I need a nap :)

Support your Local rescue! Please :)

Here are a few links to some awesome rescues and just simply selfless caring people that give there 100 percent to animals every day. If you have any you wish to soppuort please post them in the comment section no matter where in the world you/they may be. 

Thank You.

http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/dogwoodrescue.html

 http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/BC160.html

http://hugabull.com/services/community-events

http://www.rescueink.org/ 

http://www.packethic.com/

http://www.reptilerescuerichmond.org/summary.htm

http://www.triciaswaterdragon.com/represcue.htm

http://www.weewelcome.ca/en/node/16241

 

are all dogs that bite vicious?

Most dogs that bite humans do it out of fear , very often a puppy's nippy is not dealt with properly or at all! which leads the puppy to believe they can get what they want by nipping then barking which usually leads to biting. Other dogs are punished by being stuffed in crates or slapped for barking and or jumping on people at the door and the stuffed in a crate.I for one have no idea why people think you can rid a dog of unwanted energy by sticking them in a cage or room somewhere , exercise is soooo vital to dogs period ,but way more so to a puppy and the second we decide to have a dog we have promised them we will make sure they will get the mental and physical exercise they need!!! No words needed the second you take a dog home they make you a promise that they will be loyal and faithful to you and you have made the same promise to them.Unfortunately most humans see this in a much more one side fashion of -I gave you a home and I feed you ,and bath you etc so you owe me.You see a dog does think they owe you there lives and will do anything to please and protect you and your all we need to do is understand how to explain what we wish from them in a positive way.

 

Four months ago when we took in Harley the little Weimaraner  we where told the was aggressive, a biter, and other then that he was fine!  well after having him for maybe 24 hours we knew he was far from fine other then the biting and, that it would be months before we could start working full time on his biting ( which is mostly at the front door ,with dominate men and generally more a nip to the backside) all of which told us we had to deal with fear , anxiety, and his overload of energy! and I do mean over load I have dealt with a lot of dogs with built up energy but Harley,s blew me away ,normally we would run a dog like this beside the bike to burn some of his energy of so we could walk him and work with him but he was simply to crazy bouncing all over from one side of the bike to the other lunging ,pulling ,nipping . So   a new game plan needed to be created .

We try to take all three dogs daily just down the lane where we are lucky enough to have a fenced in gravel play area beside a small school to let the boys ( Gus& Harley) run and be able to control them. Lacey has plenty of toy drive and  is slowly working the boys into it although part of the reason they do not play ball with her is beacause she does not like loosing! something else we are working on. The fenced area is before leaving the house everyone must be calm, when we get to the play ground we stop outside and everyone must be calm, then we enter ,close and latch the gate and sit leashes are removed and all need to stay until give the go command( progress in this has been awesome as of late). Now we play -Lacey is all about the ball and the boys all about smelling who and what has been there since there last visit the day before. Gus has been with us one year now and came with some harsh dog aggression which had improved a great deal from long bike rides and long days on the job site where we meet many dogs and did a lot of people and dog watching on the way home. Since Harley arriving, winter coming and some personal issues popping up Gus had gone back too his old ways a bit .This fenced area is perfect to work with him on ignoring dogs passing by with there humans and also For Harley doing the same with Hyper children and people passing by. They have both should great advance meant in the last week and we know this is simply due to us recommitting our selfs to make sure they have at least there 30-60 minutes there every day as well as walks and or bike rides.This and a raw food diet is the basis of what we are doing to help little Harley over come his fears and outburst,he shows daily improvement and a super strong want to please!!!

Patience, calm energy, massages at the right time, being on him during every single out burst no matter how small , and rewarding every time he stops him self from barking or running up on the door-fence -people-other animals are all ways we are helping Harley get over his insecurity's and he is becoming more self confident and balance every single day. Still he has a long way to go and as Justin http://jfcanineservices.com/services.html the Train who had Gus before us said -"for people like us our dogs will always be work in progress!

Woodworking as a hobby?

H

Hello my name is Dan and I am a woodworkaholic ! ;)

Okay I am hoping some of you may be able to help me out? I started dabbling in wood work around 1983 on a pretty regular basis ,worked refinishing antiques, restoring heritage homes ,then building assemble line type furniture and finally making my way to  all traditional joinery. I have tickets in finishing as well as joinery though I never use them as I have been self employed doing my craft mainly on a commission or contract basis for about 15 years. I have had the pleasure of doing some pretty awesome jobs  Wooden cars ( yes real cars people drive around in) ,Dining room sets ,bedroom sets , built ins and many sets of stair I still love doing custom stairs ,Free floating stairs that weigh 1000's of pounds are a favorite because there take so much thought and planning.

Other memorable Jobs ?builds  where being filmed building a copy of the Ark of the Covent for a film called the" Ark of the Covenant Revealed" for  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1304348/  Director and owner of bluebook films 2002 ish.  I really enjoy doing gun furniture /rifle stocks and the like on antique long rifles and other black power guns.

Why I am sharing this is-woodworking it is my other passion. But.  I am kind of at a cross roads of sorts? I am wanting to make working with dogs more my full time activity (job) and woodwork  more of an hobby -an money making hobby but a hobby in the sense of being able to build to sell rather then build to order.Yet I will still do custom builds for people as I have for many years . This has been my goal for many years to build at my  own pace from my own mind , I hope that makes so sort of sense to everyone ? All the amazing builders i have fallowed and or admired over the years have all had something else that that love as much as working that was another source of income which is desperately needed if you are going to do custom woodwork!For most woodworkers the other things are teaching and writing about woodwork , I have finally realised mine has been right in front of me for 30 years or so -Working with dogs.

So I have been out looking for part time work with dogs  meet an very pleasant young man today that owns http://www.sitdoggie.ca/  after a friend of ours let me know he needed some help 4 hours a day , I am hoping I can come down and hang out for a day have them put me to work so I can better understand the job and its responsibilities   and  interactions with the dogs. On the bike ride back to the shop I happened upon an company looking for some one to possibly do afternoon group walks and or runs with dogs at another dog sitting organization,they took my info so i guess we will see.

My hope is to work training dogs that happen hyper issues ,biking, running , doing training on bleachers for agility , helping both the dogs and there owners deal with unwanted behavior ,learned behavior  ( which takes a lot of patience) but Harley our little Weimaraner is proof of ,but he is also prove that fearful reactions ,hyper activity  and other learned behavior  are fix able if we take the time to exercise the dogs brain and body we will find there happy medium and end up with an happy loyal , balanced best friend for life!!!

So if you have a dog and want some one to walk play train with that has another dog ( 3 actually :) and would like to get together , or if you want your dog to come out for so exersice with out you because you are to busy  drop me an email and I will get right back to you : email: thewoodbug@hotmail.com  -Dan

Happy 4 months Harley

Today Harley the little Weimaraner  has been with us 4 months ! YAY!  he has come a very long way in that time . Poor Harley had a tough go to the first part of his live  being with people we believe loved him very much ,but had very little understanding of his breeds and him personal needs.

Good ol Hardly as we affectionately call him ( as he is under 50 lbs ) it seems was the runt of his litter, was brought home by well meaning folks that where first time dog owners for one and had 3 young hyper boys the oldest at the time in the area of 7 years old. I personally would have tried my hardest to talk them into a different dog. Weims are very active when young and need to work a lot!!! Running around in your yard  with crazy hyper kids does not release the dogs energy ,in fact it makes them much much worse and more in need of exercise and training. The breed is known for there drive ,work ethic and intelligence - believe me Harley is Intelligent, and has plenty of drive!That is all we know of his past other then his family turned him in saying he had to much energy and they could not keep up with him. and Harley turned 2 in Dec 2010

That was almost a year ago that he was taken to a shelter in the States , after that he was at the rescue in North Vancouverhttp://www.petfinder.com/shelters/dogwoodrescue.html  where they soon realized his issues where much more then that!  He reacted harshly to strangers at the door and would become so freighted he would strike out of fear and nip when people turned there back to walk away or moved to quickly . Of course people gave tons of theory's and opinions , yet know one stepped up to take him in and work with  him , the first time I went to see him many months after I have first seen him shortly after he arrived at the rescue we went for a drive and then a swim ,Harley tried to bite me instantly and just as instantly "I realized I was going to be able to help this dog" and the root of his problems is fear! Absolute fear -he functioned completely control by fear and negative learned behavior. I had no real contact with him during his play time but when we walked back to the car with his handler I asked if I could have his leash ,she said sure and he watch very carefully I went may knees and slowly gave him a very gentle message he was so tense -but he let me and enjoyed it :)

Today we message him daily and he stretches out offers up different parts he would like messaged and truly relax's. We have had select people spend time with him , he has had very little hand contact while out of the house except by those select people and in doing so his  self confidence grows and his fear dissipate's  daily .

We have made our own leashes out of an very fine quality cotton rope used for sailboat  sails, which is showing improvement in all 3 dogs on the lead, we believe there raw food diet and bonding among one another are excelling Harley to where he needs to be and all of use with him is our hope. 

More on all of this soon to come :) 

Cheers All ,from the East Van Pack

 

A bit of Charcuterie

Tonite I will have some hanging to do.  

This is the Year Of Meat.  Strange that I say this aloud, considering I do not regularly eat meat.  Strange also that I mention this, as eastvandogs is not a food blog.   So bear my my digression for these posts to come.

Mrs.Wheelbarrow and Yummy Mummy have a challenge for 2011 called Charcutepalooza inspired by this book by Michael Ruhlman .  Each and every month will be posted a different method and challenge to making meat at home, whether it be cured, smoked, stuffed or hung.

Januarys project is Duck Prosciutto. I have 2 Margret breasts on the make.  #1 was dreged through ground bay, cracked pepper, juniper, coriander a the tiniest bit of allspice, then packed-i mean absolutely completely covered- in about 1 1/2 pound of Diamod Kosher salt.  #2 was dreged in fresh orange rind, juice and Chinese 5 Spice and packed snuggly in Kosher salt as well. Now they sit in the fridge for 24 hours or so.  

Next will be wash, dry and a cheesecloth wrap, kinda like at the spa.  After that,  a cool, semi-moist closet to hang them in to dry for around 10 days, or at a loss of 30% its pre-hang weight. (pretend i weighed it today... i don't have a kitchen scale right now...)

See below, just before the wrap.  They already have lost so much moisture from the salt pack.  The salt is not re-usable, its almost saturated with duck moisture, but it smells soooo good.  I can't wait to get into the  Orange and 5 Spice, it smells fantastically sweet and spicy!

After the wrap, Dan asked if he could hold the prosciutto in the making, so I could take his picture with them.   The dogs thought it was a good idea to offer to help hold the duck too.  They LOVE to help in the kitchen.

So, now comes the waiting.   For 7-10 days  they just hang around in the root cellar.  For the next 7-10 days I will be impatiently waiting for the Orange 5 Spice duck prosciutto...

A boy being a boy ?

Does anyone remember the ice storms of 1977 in south western Ontario? I was 10 years old and we had like a month off of school everything was covered in at least 2 inches of ice even the power polls and wires. The summer after that was when I really started connecting with nature -well really learning about it. As I said in the last post we lived in St Thomas Ont. and by this time it was my sister ,my Mother, and me  our brother Ken may have still been home? if not he did not live far and I spent a lot at his house with his wife and son.

I had some great friends in our little block which was like a big horse shoe and just up from us in the corner lot of that horse shoe was the Thorne  family. I was pretty close with Tom Thorne . They also had moved from else where ,oh this was a brand new neighborhood  I believe we where the second family to move in to our house while many houses where still being built. As my mother was a single mom who needed to work all summer and I ways always at  there house anyway the Thornes started taking me to Grammy Thornes farm out side of Welland Ontario where the family was from for about 6 weeks every summer. I can not remember everyone of Toms siblings name as it has been over 30 years but I believe it was his younger bro Chad and 3 older sister .

On that farm I learned how to care for Horses ,Cows ,Bulls , Ducks , Swans ,Chickens -from collecting eggs for incubation to collecting eggs for dinner ,feeding them properly exercising them and finally killing them in a human way and preparing them for dinner. The pigs where a real eye opener they are very  intelligent creatures and you do Not want to piss one off, this was a self containable farm, we never went to a grocery store and never needed to. There is a reason i am explaining all of this  a couple really and I hope I am not boring anyone.

Tommy's uncles where amazing guys they worked the farm none stop but they also took us up North where they had jobs building hunting shelters ( cabins ) one of my first real experiences building something from nothing! Awesome! The funny part of that is Tom and I being hyper stupid kids thought it was funny to sit on the fence of the Bull pen where the Bull would spend most of his time out side a large fenced in area and we where shooting him with dull practice( round tips) arrows from our bows ,Toms Idea :) anyway Tom hit him between the eyes which did not hurt him but  Pissed him off so much he charged us broke through the fence and destroyed half the farm. Man Grammy was pissed !!! and the Cabin building in the middle of nowhere for the rest of the summer was part of our punishment! Funny that it become my passion and lead me to becoming a joiner/ woodworker  and builder in the traditional styles.

Okay they other thing- the reason I am writing this is this- During my third summer on the farm- The uncles would take us out and they would use there Irish Setters  to find trees that Mother raccoons who where sick with rabbis had litters of baby's born with rabbis housed in, which meant they would die before becoming a month old!  So we would surround the tree ready to scare the mother away from the area  once she was removed from the tree. One Uncle would climb the tree the other uncle had an rifle just in case ( an angry sick mother raccoon is an scary thing to deal with. He would have to remove the mother from her nest in order to retrieve the young so we could bring them first to a vet and then home so we could nurse them back to health in hopes of reintroducing to the wild before the become to tame.More often then not the did not survive which was a very valuable lesson about life and death that has stuck with me through life and makes me have an good understanding of the value of all life.

The great thing is that enough people keep up this effort and the rabbis epidemic in raccoons  became under control and the populations increase and flourish and i will aways be proud and humbled that at 12 years of age I was able to be part of such an amazing thing. 

Cheers All, thanks for reading again :) 

The East Van Pack

t

 

 

R.I.P Terrance Allen Northrup July 25th 1955 to Dec 29th2010

As Teresa mentioned in the last post I was out of town last month visiting my oldest Brother Terry who was very ill. 12 days after returning home he passed away. Please do not morn him ,but instead celebrate a great man , hunter ,fishermen,  artist machinist,father ,grand father and lover of life and all animals big and small.

Okay some may wonder why I would mention this on a blog about or dogs and love for animals that sometimes need us to speak for and stand up for them. 

We where all born in London Ontario Canada and lived in a tiny house on Lovett St. in east London with or Parents our uncle Bruce who was an amazing hunter an superb outdoors men who owned an awesome black Lab duck hunting dog and  my sister who was the only girl 51/2 years my elder. Well as a small boy as young as 4 years old I rememberer my 3 brothers that are 8 1/2 ,10 and 13 years my elder bringing home cats ,dogs, snapping turtles ,snakes, lizards raccoons, you name it the yard was an huge pigeon pen built around an incredible old tree . When I was almost 7 years old we moved to St Thomas Ontario a near by town where our father and Mother could afford to buy a house that had more then two rooms. Not long later it was me and Mom and my sister the boys where young men and off doing what young men do and our father had went back to London to start a new family.

Terry , Kieth and later Ken would come by and bug mom on our behave to let us have animals ,but mom would say no they will not take care of them. Terry does not give up that easy(non of us do;)  so Terry  gave me a fish in a bowl and told me how to keep it alive . I did and after that one of them? brought mom some birds ;) that went okay I cared for them but did not enjoy them so much . Later Kieth brought us the coolest grey cat from a litter of kittens born in an alley he was awesome and grew very big.Mom was coming around because the animals where healthy and loved and she grew to really love that cat. So Terry saw his opportunity and bought me "Hero"  My very first dog and little awesome hound dog -ended up he was no hero and actually would pee if you raised your voice because he had been abused. Later Ken gave us an awesome cat named Micky named by my girl friend at the time,in the house was just Mom and myself at point.

Okay this is why I mention my brothers death here- my visit with him reminded me of many amazing things many concerning animails and him teaching me the importance of our( humans) balance with nature and that we need to return twice as much as we take from nature. What I realized most was his giving me "Hero" the hound dog  set me on a path of caring for and taking in many many different animals and continuing to this day to learn from everyone of them, and teach what I learn to anyone who is willing to listen! Which I will continue to do until I too pass away myself.

Thanks for reading

I love you Terry and am proud to say every set i take from this day forward is a step you take with me

Long time gone...

Wow, we have really become stunted bloggers the last 2 months, haven't we? Well, it started raining, then Dan went away, then the busy holiday season came, blah, blah, blah....yup. LAME.

Lacey had her 1 year anniversary with us at Christmas, and Gus will be 1 year with us in about 3 weeks. Harley has been with us almost 5 months and he has grown so much - size-wise and learning to become his own dog. Everyone gets along quite proper and agreeable in their odd and hilarious dog ways most of the time.

We have ALL had our birthdays in December.

We all love the early morning snuggles in bed. Our home motto seems to be "Its all about the dogpile" This can get almost as tricky as the other type of 'dogpile', but much less messy. We find we need to extricate ourselves out from under the bed sheets sometimes; we get pinned in by slobbering snuggling dog love!

Dan went home to see his brother and while he was gone for 8 days, I was with the dogs and my nephew, (or is that- phew...George!?) The gang was great, only initially a bit concerned dad was gone, but soon realized it was going to be ok. Walking the 3 went surprisingly well. I wish i had pics of me with them out on our late night walks, but i just couldn't pull that off.

Here a few pics of our little 'babies' taken on Xmas eve with some toys my mum and her husband sent out for the kids.  Thanks mum and Ron!
Also, thank you for asking where we were, and not putting up with our lame excuses.  

Happy New Year.