Pax is doing great. My office moved to a new building April 1st. We have 5000 sq. ft. all on one floor with a huge long wide hallway. The lease says no animals, but when I mentioned Pax to Casey, the building manager, he said they are all dog people and to go ahead and bring Pax to work. If it becomes a problem he will let me know. Of course now that Pax has met everyone he has become "the building mascot". While he lives in our office on the second floor everyone we run into is happy to see him. The nice thing is with the elevator and single floor office Pax has no stairs to worry about and free roaming access to 17 people who are always happy to pet him until he gets bored with them. Then he lures them into the hallway to throw his tennis ball.
When the recent dogfood scare happened I started reading about homemade dogfood and ended up fascinated by the raw diet data, including Mazie's improved allergies. I got a couple great books and about a month ago started feeding Pax raw meaty bones and "glop", a mixture of eggs, yogurt, greens, veggies, garlic, ginger, fish oil, molasses and apples that I whip up in the blender once a week and freeze in small containers. The first night we gave Pax a lamb leg bone (out in the yard!) he sniffed it, backed up, looked all around the yard for competition and looked back at us tentatively as if to say "can I really have it?" When I said "Okay Pax!" he lept straight up in the air and twirled around twice in pure joy and then dove in to his bone. Both Tim and I were there and it was such an amazing sight we talked about it all evening and have related the experience to any! one willing to listen. I have never seen such pure happines in an animal. While Pax has always been happy to be fed, dinner lasted less than 2 minutes. Now he spends 1/2 hour to 1 hour happily dining away. He also really loves his "glop" which he eats with great relish, sometimes even before he attacks his meat/bone entre. He has slimmed down a bit, his eyes are bright, his coat is soft and glossy, his teeth are gorgeous, his stools are hard, compact and regular and he has no dog breath or dog farts. He has a spring in his step, good energy and maybe a little less joint stiffness which was probably helped by the warmer weather and lack of stairs as well. But, if all these factors were not reason enough to continue a raw diet, watching his pure joy eating dinner an hour a day is well worth it. The only downside is that when he decides he has had enough, he hops ! into my garden to bury the rest of the bone. If I see him and kick him out of my garden he finds some other great place to dig. You can tell his dinner serving was too big when he comes in with his nose caked with dirt and mud.
Lately I have been giving Pax the run of the house when I go out. He has not bothered anything and is completely trustworthy. Last week I was gone a couple hours longer than I expected and when I got home I found he had gotten into a bag of clothes I had put aside for Goodwill, pulled out an old courduroy skirt of mine and dropped it in heap on the kitchen floor. It warmed my heart that he missed me and wanted to be close to my clothing, so I decided to let him keep the skirt and that maybe I would make it into a pillow or dog toy for him. A little later I looked over and there he was on my kitchen floor humping my skirt. So much for warm, fuzzy feelings.
That's my latest Pax story.
Enjoy your weekend. Hope it is finally spring where you are.
Laura
