All In Mah Belly!!!

I've been trying out different kinds of food to give Odie. During class, teacher told me that I should find out which treats are of high value to him, and which ones aren't so interesting. So far, we've tried:

• Purina Beggin' Littles bacon flavor
• Sleeky Sticks liver flavor
• Purina Beggin' Strips bacon and cheese flavor
• little bone treats in chicken and beef flavors (I forgot the brand, it's sold at Pet Express for P40 a pack. It was too big for him to chew in one go, so I cut them in half, and suddenly realized they're shaped like penises. Maybe that's why we have humping problems? HAHA)
• bananas
• carrot sticks

And to keep him busy, we also tried:

• Pedigree Dentastix
• peach flavored sticks (also similar to Dentastix)
• PetPlus rawhide

I can only imagine how much salt his treats have, because he's starting to pee a lot more than usual. Maybe I should stick to giving him kibble during regular training, or bake the liver treats that he loved in school. In terms of finding out which are high value treats, it's proving to be quite a difficult task. So far, I discovered that he hates bananas. Sayang because hello, it's nutritious. He likes the carrots though. I read that Beagles are naturally food-motivated, but I didn't know they were THAT serious! Whenever I'm holding something in my hand, or whenever I pretend to do so, he'd automatically offer a sit, then get mad and bark at me if I don't give him any reward for it. Right now, it seems everything I give him is highly-valued and interesting. I feel like a superstar when I have a dog treat in my hands.

I'm trying to keep the commercial dog treats at a minimum now that he's growing. We finished the last morsel of his Beggin' Strips today, so we're really left with his kibble, which seems tasty enough and is supposedly nutritious. I also bought some stuff for him during the weekend:

Canine Carry Outs (P180, True Value) was the treat used in our Pet Centrics class during the Pull-to-Stop, Slack-to-Go exercise. Everyone seemed to love it and the rest of the class chewed one piece at a time, but I still have to cut these treats into quarters because they're too big for Odie. Doc Marose told us though to give just 3 pieces per week because of the preservatives. Oh well, it's a big pack, so it's gonna last for quite a bit!

I also bought Lily's Peanut Butter for Odie's Kong. I tried stuffing the Kong til the narrow part, but he can't reach it yet, so maybe I'll fill that part with ice and put peanut butter at the wide end. He LOVED the peanut butter, and kept asking me for more. It's also my sister's favorite brand so I hope she doesn't steal some. Gotta admit though, I badly wanted to make a PB sandwich when I was filling his Kong. Oh, and I chose this particular brand because it only has three ingredients on the label: peanuts, iodized salt, palm oil. Other jars had ingredients far too complex to understand, so they're probably scary. Although I read somewhere that Lily's uses low class peanuts, WTH at least I understand the label!

I got Nestle Creamy Yogurt as an afternoon snack for a hot day. He's liking it so far. I read that yogurt is as good for dogs as it is for humans, because of the whole probiotics thing. I wonder if he'll like Kefir, the greek yogurt thing that you grow at home.

I'm going to bake him some liver treats (teacher gave us a recipe) hopefully tomorrow. It's made up of chicken liver, crushed graham crackers, honey/molasses, and parsley for fresh breath. I was thinking of substituting parsley with mint leaves for happier breath. It's also safe for dogs, except some dogs hate mint and I wouldn't want to risk spoiling a batch, but maybe I'll sneak a mint leaf in one or two treats, just to see how he'll take it. After all, that little boy keeps wrecking the plants by eating all the leaves he can find!

On a hot day, I also give ice cubes to Odie to cool him down. I leave you with his first encounter with an ice cube, taken using my phone during his second day here at home. Oh, what I'd give to make him shrink to that little bite-sized nugget again, with this cute little dance around the ice cube! Again, I'm not the video editor. Ate, up to you if you wanna jazz this up!!