Our beautiful and sensitive girl...

Emmarentia - Dog Walking Park

This morning I went with the girls for a relaxed walk to the Emmarentia Park quite early in the morning. The dog walking area is close to the botanical gardens and the Emmarentia Dam. You can access the park via various entrences with good parking facilities (e.g. Orange Road or Thomas Bowler Street). This dog walking park accomodates a lot of little lakes/dams, all connected with little natural or man-made streams which makes it perfect for hot summer days. Of course the water offers a lot of fun during the winter period as well... 

The accessible walking area is wide spread and in general it is a good place to socialise your dogs. For really good socialisation I would recommend to visit the park during the week as you meet the regular dog walkers with well socialised dogs while over the weekend the quantity of the "sun-shine-only"- dog walkers is slightly increased and you might meet some not so well behaved dogs. However, in general this park is very nice for dog walks, just always watch the cyclists!

The snapshot below was taken this morning and shows Lula. I cannot believe that she is already one year old now! She is a fantastic swimmer and even enjoys our pool in the garden quite often. She basically lies in the water without showing a lot of moving effort. It's really fun to see her swim as it looks to elegant. Something she very often lacks having solid ground under her feet...You can spot Gogo in the background pretending to go for a good swim as well. In fact, she is not fond of swimming at all and should something in the water accidentally touch her feet you can be sure that she's literally running out of the water. "Don't trust what you cannot smell or see!"... 

Makes perfect sense to me.

Don't shop. Adopt!

I just read some news about the police in Germany who caught a person during some routine check with 78 puppies in the boot of his car. The puppies were between 4 and 8 weeks of age. I mean, really?! Argh, that makes me so angry and feeling helpless at the same time... I guess if there were not so many people looking for a proper "breed" dog for almost no money such things just would not happen. Seriously, there are already so many dogs out there who are put down because they are unwanted.

Our two dogs are from a shelter. They are some unidentified x-breeds and who cares about them not being "proper" dogs? They have phantastic characters and I love and enjoy them every day. I would not want to replace them by any other pure breed dog in the world. 

In addition a high portion of these "ach so cute"-high breed puppies will end up in an animal shelter anyway between the age of 10 months and 2 years, namely then when they are not so cute anymore and terrorise their respective household. I volunteered at such an animal shelter for quite some time and you find all kind of pure breed or crossbreed dogs there. And guess what? All of them are lovely creatures with amazing characters... So please! Please please please: Don't shop. Adopt!

Snapshot Gogo shaking off water

Just recently when I was walking with Gogo in a bigger group we came past a little lake or dam. Gogo had a blast running in the water and I was lucky to catch the moment when she was shaking off the water. Really love this picture...

Doggie Treats

Here are my two favorite recipes for dog treats. Both very simple. We use the liver treats for training and the other ones for everyday. Preparing those should not be more than 5 min work before you put them in the oven.

Both the liver treats and the oat ones will keep about a week to 10 days in the fridge. You can easily deep freeze them.

Liver Treats - Ingredients
400 gr. Liver (ox liver rules supreme but any other liver will do)
2 Tblsp Flour
2 Tblsp Milk powder
1 Egg

Mix all ingredients in a food processor and bake on a greased baking tray for 15 min at 180 °C.

Oat Treats - Ingredients
250 gr. Oats
250 gr. Wholewheat Brown Flour
2 Tblsp Milk powder
2 Eggs
100 gr. diced almonds (or nuts or some seeds)
100 ml Milk

Mix all ingredients and bake on a greased baking tray for 20 min at 180 °C.

Gogo and Lula

Before we moved to Johannesburg neither our jobs nor the flat and city we lived in allowed any time or space to have dogs. But as soon as we arrived here in South Africa, having found a nice house with a garden and someone looking after the dogs during the day while we are both at work, we made the plan to adopt a dog. From there it actually only took us two weeks while visiting shelters in Johannesburg until we fell in love with a puppy at the SPCA in Sandton.
There she was, our first own dog: X-breed, 3 months, black, with floppy ears, a bit shy and big orange-coloured eyes (depending on the light).

We named her "Gogo" - after a character of the Kill Bill movie played by Chiaki Kuriyama.
Only shortly after we found out that in Zulu "Gogo" means "Granny" and it seems like she is living up to this name, getting a few grey spots in her coat. Gogo is our crazy kid, now 1.5 years old, a bit of its own mind and with some trust issues when it comes to strangers and other dogs, she hasn't met before. She loves to sleep in cosy blankets and being cuddled, but once asleep you get a wild and reproachfull look when our other dogs touches her even in the softest way. Little, beloved psycho-lady!

We always wanted a second dog, but decided to wait for a year while training her being a well-behaved dog before a second puppy were joining us and immitating bad behaviour. Well, we tried our best and went to several puppy and dog training classes; always keen to learn more about dogs and to improve our knowledge about every basic thing one should know when living with and training a dog. And wow, there is a lot to learn! But that is another story and I will definitely come back on this...
Last year Septemberr we decided that it is time to adopt and welcome a second dog at our home. Again, we found our new roommate at the SPCA: "Lula", X-breed, 3 months, tan coat and quite perky and self-confident.

Her name is also the character of a movie: "Wild at heart" - played by actress Laura Dern.

Lula is full of energy, easily excited and always seeking the next adventure and action. Sometimes a bit less-worried and clumsy she finds herself in helpless situations but seldom really seems to care about.

Both dogs are getting well along with each other and we are truly glad about it. We've got into our normal day/dog-routine, including at least two walks a day.
No day could truly start better off with a walk in the park, sun rising, warm temperature, the gras still wet from the morning dew and the two girls running just for the pure joy of it...