Archives for April, 2009
Our stumpy Corgi “Palette” joined in our family at about 10-12 weeks old. She was tiny fluffy ball with long ears,round muzzle,and loud vocal.
This little fluffy puppy loved nipping my heel,loved playing with socks, hated vacuum cleaner, scared of Trash bin and the sound of microwave door closed.
Her absolute favorite thing was to going for walk with me, and sniff around,enjoy sunlight and views. She loved people and she liked to puled me to people on the walk with ears flattened against her head with vigorous butt-wagging and get nice petting from them.
Don’t get fooled by her ball-sized body. She was tiny puppy but she had quite strength to pull.
This picture is when she was puppy about 3-4 month old.
She was same:excited to go meeting people with vigorous butt-wagging at vet clinic or pet stores, but, she gave them pee-mails.
It was interesting observing her because some occasions,she urinated when greeting,some occasion,she was perfectly no urination when greeting.
Biggest puddle she has made was for vet tech that approached her in high toned happy voice with big gesture. She said she could not touch our dog anymore because it might encourage the urination.She said this maybe submissive urination.
For me,the term was new one and,I looked for information about submissive urination.
So,what is submissive urination anyway?
According to Humane society of the United state website, dogs urinate when they feel being threatened, or when being scold and that is submissive urination behavior and,it states that as dogs gain confidence in meeting new people,it solves the problems. (To read more,click here)
In dogs’ world, they use submissive urination,roll on their back,or looking at other way (direct eye contact in dog world means challenge)as sign “I am not a threat to you” to dominant dogs. Being pet on the head,being greeted by people who bend over maybe perceived as threat in dog-human communication. When I greet other dogs,I usually lower myself and offer petting (not on their head). And I usually get no pee-mail.
(more reading on submissive urination here.)
For me, Palette’s pee-mail did not looked like submissive urination because she was very ready to meet that vet tech and other new people.
When you look at Humane Society of the united state website,it also states that urination occur when dogs are very excited,and it usually does not occur with submissive posture.
I think Palette had Excitement urination not submissive urination. The Humane society of the united states website states that it gets resolved as dogs get matured.
It maybe true because Palette is now 3 years old and she loves meeting new people and 100% no pee-mail when greeting them now. Growing might have solved her problem.
If your dogs had pee-mail when greeting people like my dog, one thing the Humane society of the united states suggests is that you do not pet or talk to your dogs after they gave pee-mail on greeting because it re-enforce the behavior.
I think if you had pee-mail at entrance when someone visited your house,it maybe good exercise asking them to ignore the dog and just come inside the house and when dogs get calm and no jumping all over the guests,they can pet your dogs.
I think this is very good exercise for both urination problems and for stopping dog jump up on guests if you had problem of dogs’ jumping.
Our dog Palette thinks us going away for grocery for a couple of hours is her life time long and,when we back home, she was all over us. Jumping up with vigorous butt-wagging. It is cute,I admit but jumping up to us was not all that enjoyable thing when we have grocery bags in hands so,we always ignored our dog and just came in to house and we dropped all of our grocery from car and when she got calm down after some minutes,we called her and let her enjoy our special magic hands massage on her.
IF we came home with high pitched voice saying “Hi” following petting,I think she would get more excited and more jumping. It is same when my husband comes home. Palette used to be vocal in front of the door that leads to garage door and as soon as he shows up in her view,she starts jumping up.
He does not pet her with happy voice right when he comes home, so she just follow him to closet and wait for nice petting with sit. She then gets nice long petting.
But when my husband comes home and my dog hears the car or garage door open, and IF I were fixing the food for human, which do you think she would stick with?
Under such circumstances, she usually picks me with food and she sits nicely behind me or lay on floor like sphinx and follow my movement with her eyes and she does not greet my husband at entrance. she is too busy to greet him.
Apr 08, 2009 | | Miscellaneous (dogs)
Many people like Chinese food. I like Chinese food so does my husband. I make Chinese dish a lot at home. It is quick and easy and you can make your Chinese food at your kitchen.
I see many Chinese fast-food styled places in the mall in USA. The dish taste okay,but it tends to be greasy,chewy meat or bland dish and not as good. If you like to go to Chinese restaurant in USA,I recommend “PF Chang restaurant”. Their dish is good.
Easiest Chinese dish you can make at home with a few ingredients will be “Fried Rice”.It can be versatile and you can make your version of Fried Rice. You can use up whatever veggies you have in the fridge and left-over meat ( shouldn’t be the one heavily sauced) and probably suitable dish you can make on weekends before grocery shopping day.
My “Humble Fried Rice” require very simple ingredients. Cooked Jasmin Rice or cooked Kokuho Rose Rice,1 raw egg,and a bottle of soy sauce (The soy sauce I use is called ” Extra fancy whole bean soy sauce” from Kikkoman Japan:it is imported from Japan and is sold at Asian stores. It is big plastic bottle.).Those are all you need.
1.Heat skillet with Extra virgin olive oil,and when it gets hot, cook diced vegetables of your choice;onion, peppers, shanghai bok choy etc..
2. make an empty circle in the skillet by pushing all the cooked vegetables to the side and, crack 1 egg in there,stir it up and when egg is cooked, add cooked and cooled Jasmin/kokuho rose rice in the skillet and break the rice block and cook.
3. Pour some soy sauce and sake and you are ready to eat! It takes just 15-20 minutes.
This is my base recipe.I use whatever vegetables/meat I have on hand.It is usually good quick and easy recipe as well as good one to use up leftover steak from restaurant.
Today, I had onion,green and red peppers,kale,celery and cooked frozen shrimpb(divined and tail off),so I made shrimp Fried Rice with those vegetable.
First thing I did was cook my favorite brand rice “kokuho rose rice” (you can get the brand rice at local store in Asian ail),and cooled it off.
Second,I put oil into skillet and put finely chopped veg and cook to soften and cracked egg.Then, stir around and when egg is about to cook thoroughly,I put cooked rice and break the lumps of rice and heat through and put shrimp (Since I used frozen cooked shrimp today,I did not need cooking time for shrimp.All I needed was heat them through),and pour my favorite Kikkoman Japan’s “Extra fancy whole bean soy sauce” and sake to my taste.It took me 20 min to finish. It is tasty and quick and easy.
In Japan, if you omit Egg,shrimp and soy sauce from this recipe,and if you replace them with chicken and ketchup,there is a dish called “Chicken Rice”.It is basically ketchup rice with vegetables and chicken.
So.. you prep the rice beforehand,cool it down and put oil to skillet,cook veg and chicken and put cooked rice then when everything heated through,just pour ketchup. You are done making “Chicken rice”.
If you made Omelet on other skillet and put that omelet onto this chicken rice,you have made “Omelet and Rice”. Omelet and rice is my childhood favorite and,I still love this dish.
My husband does not like ketchup at all,so when I crave for Omelet and rice,I make everything same up to tossing cooked rice and heat through.When rice is heated through,I divide the rice,veg and chicken mixture into 2 pans and,I make plain Fried rice with Fried Rice powder and finish his stuff off with drop of sesame oil in one skillet.Then,in other skillet,I pour ketchup and make real “chicken rice”. After that,I plate up by topping the rice with omelet that has salt & pepper.
Here is a thing. When I was a kid,my mother called me to kitchen,handed out the ketchup bottle to draw face on my omelet and rice. It is fun. Sometime I made it look like dog face,sometimes,I made it look like girl face.. I still have fun drawing face on my omelet and rice.
IF you made too much of rice. You can freeze them in freezer.My mother kept leftover rice in freezer and microwaved it when needed.
OR.. my father used to make rice pan cake on weekends.It is easy to make.
All you need is cooked plain rice,flour,sugar, and 1 raw Egg.
He did not measure anything I think.Just put flour,egg into bowl and add about 2-3 table spoon of sugar,and add water and make it feel like pan cake butter and added cooked plain rice to it and break all lumps of rice and mix well and pour it to skillet and cook through and done. It is especially tasty when outside gets cooked to a little crispy side.
This entry remind me of my childhood memory a little in Japan.
Enjoy your version of Fried rice, my version of Fried rice and other dishes explained above and let us know how your cooking experience went.
Apr 06, 2009 | | Asian cooking 911
The other day, when I was watching news on TV, I came across stories on 3 legged dog named Cassidy who was scheduled to be euthanized in 48 hours in NY. This dog was saved by a nice couples in NY that care for him dearly,and this couple started looking for artificial leg for Cassidy.
Dog seems to be able to adopt situation like 2 legged or 3 legged okay without artificial legs, but this couple thought that if Cassidy had an artificial leg,it might help better because normally,dogs’ weight evenly distributed to each leg when they are standing or walking, and the artificial leg can help reduce the weight to be put on each leg. And they don’t get tired as quickly as they will be.
When my dog “Palette” was about 1 years old. She started limping.
Our local vet thought her ligament would have been torn and would need surgery. We also visited ortho vet and she thought the same.
During the worrisome time,I researched online on TPLO surgery,where vet put screw and metal and other alternative method. TPLO surgery seemed to be used for big dog in most case and,I learned that if we go for TPLO surgery,we have a chance to develop ligament tore on other good leg since when one hind leg is in recovery,dog tends to put more weight on good one and eventually,we end up doing surgery on other leg as well.
Palette was luckily stumpy dog and vet said that she is too small for this surgery so,she would do other method which she use thread to tie up and it can resolve into area and no screw,no metal in her knee.
After all,Palette ended up having surgery but she had perfect ligament and her surgery was just cut her open, and just close her up. It was nice to know her ligament was fine but she had to go through long recovery time with Elizabeth collar,restricted activity etc and I felt sorry for her.
The cause of her limping is still remain unsure but, we think it was probably by pulled muscle because she does this crazy run inside the house and she turns direction suddenly. She is fine now.She is limp free,but I remember I was so worry about her leg.
With story of “Faith”, Faith’s parent taught her how to move around (how to hop) and now she walks like human:standing up. I first thought that back/hip might get injured,but apparently,it seems fine according to her parent.
Below is a clip for 3 legged “Casidy” and 2 legged “Faith” videos.
These are nice stories. I think it is nice to know there are people out there that care dogs very much.
Cassidy video 1
Cassidy video 2
Cassidy update video
Faith video
Faith’s story is available with book titled “With a little Faith”.
Do you have any heartwarming stories like these?
Apr 04, 2009 | | Heartwarming K9 stories
