Milka crates and etc... (sleeping)

[Gina Heitz <brier@oregonsbest.com>]

Karin wrote this to me privately but I am bringing it here. :-))

 >> I know I made fun of the bed thing but do you think Milka needs to still
sleep in a closed crate?

Yes you made fun and I smiled!  Love the friendly banter and I will get you 
back. <evil grin>

That depends on Milka and your comfort level.  Is she potty trained 
fully?  Does she chew on things inappropriately?  What kind of "trouble" 
does she get into when left unattended during the day if any?  Does she 
enjoy her crate or does she fight it?

With Reo the no crate thing is only at night, she still naps in her crate 
during the day if I need her to with out a fuss.  How the sleeping in the 
bed thing got started was I would take her in the bedroom in the evening to 
just have quiet time with just her and she would fall asleep followed by me 
doing same, George would come to bed not turning on any lights and 
forgetting to see if she was put to bed.  In our bed the fluff factor is 
high so in the dark how can you tell who's fluff it is? <grin>  After just 
a couple times of this if we tired to put her in her crate she would scream 
and we would give in but only because she is the kind of puppy that stays 
in bed, she does not jump down in the night and go exploring, though she 
can easily jump on and off the bed and we needed our sleep, she will stay 
in bed as long as I do, in other words she is not ready to get up in the 
morning when George does she waits on me even if I sleep in.  Interesting 
to note that she will sleep in any other crate in any other room just fine, 
it's just the bedroom crate that she says NO to. :-)   Gotta love em and 
wonder what goes on in their brain?


  >> I never crated dogs before so just want to check what is the right 
timing.....

In general my thought is for the first 8 mos to a year for most, and a lot 
depends on the answers to the above questions.  It's a individual dog to 
dog owner to owner thing. Hard to give a "answer" to.  Hard to say what you 
are willing to give up in the name of chewed up?

 >> My little sweetie has a bout of diarrhea so I feel so bad for 
her....She's playing as usual today so
hopefully this is just something that will pass.  I did call the vet and 
leave a message just to check in....

With this I often suggest, skip a meal, omit treats for a day and go to a 
bland diet of  mashed potatoes and cottage cheese or rice and cottage 
cheese for a day or two.  Normally this is an indication of "garbage 
gut"  eating things one should not...

Here are my recipes:

Potato meal:

Boil 5 to 6 good sized potatoes peeled, mash with 1 container of  4% or 2% 
cottage cheese 4% is best as they need the fat in the cheese, never use non 
fat it has nothing in it that will help the dog.

Rice meal:

start with 2 cups of dry rice, cook and add in same amount of cheese.

For both:
  Also add to each meal a good tablespoon of plain yogurt.  Feed small 
meals 3 times a day if possible, 1 cup to 1.5 cups at a meal.

  Just remember when they get into things and they react with bad poops 
this means the gut needs to rest and rebuild it's good bacteria and that 
sometimes it's just best to let mother nature take that into hand and to 
not go reaching for drugs such as anti die areal <sp> things such as 
Koypetake, <sp> Imunidioum <sp> adding the yogurt to the mix can help with 
that.  I tend to lean toward looking at the whole dog the whole situation 
when trying to assess if a dog is sick or just off.

Peggy lived with a dog who had IBD (Inflammatory Bowel)  and she as well 
may have some recipes to share?

Gina