Puppies!

My good friend's dog had puppies.  Her dog is a rescue dog and fortunately they are very happy to have mama and a litter.  I just had to share the adorable lovelies!

And that is my dose of doggie sweetness for the day.

Pitbulls = Chewers

Pibble loves to chew.  She goes through cheap toys like a knife through butter.  If it squeaks, she loves it.  Unfortunately, once the toy gets into her back jaws, it's dead.  She love, love, loves to play with her rope.  She'll haul it around like a security blanket.  She bonks the other dogs in the head with it when she wants to play.  When Mommy comes home, the rope comes out like an offering.  She's gone through three ropes.  As long as she has something else to chew on, she leaves them alone.  Otherwise, she chews them to threads.  The other day I was cleaning and found rope threads on the ceiling.  I have no idea how she got them up there.

So, what are good toys for pitbulls?  One might think, "oh a chewer, must get rawhide bones" but the fact is, rawhide doesn't digest very well.  That is not to say that an occasional bone isn't unheard of in my house, but what seems to be the most popular thing for Pibble and Bella, my other chewer, is a beef knuckle or a goat hoof.  The hoof, not the ears, lasts for quite awhile.  And while, yeah the spawn does go around grossing out about the dogs chewing on "toe nails," they are digestible.  It's the same keratin in your own nails, only thicker.  Another idea that was suggested by a hunting pal that I haven't tried yet is deer antler.  He said his dogs love them and they last for weeks.

A lunch rope is another good toy for pitbulls.  It works with their need to chew as well as their lunging/leaping tendencies.  A lunge rope is basically a rope on a springy pole with a glove, leather tie or some other toy on the end that the dog has to jump up to reach.  The more they leap and grab, the more the toy swings and bounces around, giving them a good physical workout, as well as eliminating the need for you to be the one swinging the rope around for hours on end.

Lunge Rope, spring pole, firt tag

Kong toys are great.  You can stuff them with a treat or just peanut butter and the dog can chew all day trying to get the goodies out.  Of course, if you have four dogs like I do, you need to get four Kongs with the appropriate size for the dog.  When Pibble got the puggle's Kong (it was softer rubber), she chewed it to bits in less than an hour.  Kong also makes tennis balls, which are great because they can be hurled and help use up some of the boundless energy that Pibble has.  Bonus!  They squeak!

Kong

Finally, in my experience at least, is Orka.  They make heavy duty plastic toys that last.  Santa Paws brought Pibble an Orka stick toy that squeaks and it STILL is intact.  The other dogs absolutely detest the thing.  Probably because Pibble has a tendency to bonk them on the heads with it and then squeak the hell out of the thing, trying to entice them to play with her favorite toy.

Orka

Now for special occasions I get the dogs stuffed animals.  They are supervised with them because within an hour, they will be eyeless and have no guts left.  They also love to get the apples that fall from the apple tree out back.  And ice cubes....in the summer I freeze dog treats in a bucket of water and they will gnaw on that all day or until it melts, whichever happens first.

Keeping your dog from getting bored is the key to keeping your house intact.  A bored dog is a destructive dog.

Trinda's Pitbull Experience

A few weeks ago, I came home from work early.  All I wanted to do was go to the grocery store, come home and make dinner and chill in front of the TV.  I gathered the spawn and we hopped into the car and went down the street, heading to the nearest store.  We were on a two lane road near the 465 overpass when we spotted a dog in the middle of the lane.  I slowed down, of course, and the people in the fast lane honked.  I noticed that the dog was really two dogs.  The dog I thought I saw was a big brown male pitbull standing protectively over a puppy.  I pulled to the side and we opened the door, thinking to coax them off the road.  Well, they had other ideas and bounded happily into the car.  We canvased the neighborhood and no one claimed the dogs.  By this time, the spawn had dubbed the puppy "Blueberry" and the other one "Big Boy" and was making all sorts of starry-eyed plans to blend them into our existing pack of four hounds.  They were friendly and clean and wearing collars, so I knew they were someone's beloved dogs and there was no way in hell I was going to turn them over to the shelter since it is a kill shelter.

I ended up driving to my vet and having them check the dogs for microchips.  Fortunately, the big brown pitty had one and even better, they were able to contact his former owner who contacted his current owner who called me and asked for directions to my house to come pick up the dogs---yes, they were anxious to reclaim their missing dogs.  I had to rush home to beat them to the house. Thirty minutes later, Mocha and his puppy pal, Lucky, were happily reunited with their human parents who were grateful that I had gone to the trouble to try and find them.

Mocha the "ferocious" pitbull eagerly awaiting a car ride.

So, after turning the dogs over to their human parents, the spawn and I went to the grocery store and just as we emerged, the snow began to fall.  It wasn't any old snow, but blinding white out conditions with bitter wind and heavy wet snow every where.  It wasn't difficult to see that I had saved two dogs' lives.  I think in dog years, I earned about 14 years of good karma that day.

Moral of the story, microchip your pets.  It hurts as much as drawing blood and costs about $50 to ensure their safety.  And furthermore, make sure you keep your information updated with the microchip company.  If the people the vet called hadn't known who or where the new owners were, Mocha and Lucky might never have found their way back home....if they survived the weather and the horrible drivers.