The health of your dog - things you may not know!

Those who follow my website know that I don’t recommend just one specific dog food. As pups, I feed Petcurean Now Puppy until about 8 months old. But after that, it’s important to vary the protein your dog gets. It should always be animal sourced but one month it could be chicken, the next month it could be trout, the next a combination of beef and buffalo!  I’ve fed both raw food and kibble depending on whether my hunter friends were successful or not. I feed raw until I run out. Venison, moose, elk etc. But one thing I always feed is vitamins. You must add them to a raw food recipe and kibble is processed so much it no longer has vitamins that are useable. So whether you feed raw or kibble, multivitamins are essential.

For years I have been feeding a multivitamin made by NuVet. My dogs are proof that it is a quality product. Up until recently, it was difficult to get in Canada. But it was worth the hassle for me to get it. The good news is I can now make it easy for you to purchase here in Canada. All you need to do is call NuVet at 1-800-474-7044 and use order code 19865. It comes in bottles of 90 so you only have to order every 3 months.  The dogs love them and you can either put it in with a meal, or just give it once a day like a treat.

Enjoy the video!
Dr Becker and pet nutrition

Another recipe made!

Good morning Guardian Angel Family!

I've just made another recipe of formula for the puppies. It consists of liver water, evaporated milk, raw yogurt, corn syrup, baby vitamins, and egg yolks,.

This is a recipe formulated by Myra Savant Harris. "It is thick enough to avoid aspiration. There is enough yogurt to avoid diarrhea issues that are so common with formula. There is enough glucose in the corn syrup to avoid hypoglycemia. There is also enough glucose to avoid constipation which is also common with formula. There are enough calories to set up a weight gaining pattern immediately. Amino acids in sufficient quantities to avoid juvenile cataracts. It is high in fats, proteins and carbohydrates with vitamins minerals and iron and is designed especially to head off the problems we all seem to have with formula raised babies."

Obviously there was a lot of thought that went into this recipe! I have used it for over 10 years now and find it to be much better than the store-bought equivalent. Obviously it takes more time to put it together but it is well worth it. Only the best for Guardian Angel Shepherd's.

German Shepherd Dog - Then and Now

https://youtu.be/MQXTTar58Wc


Mary Ann

Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Tango has found the perfect home!

It

It is really hard to let a puppy go when they are 8 weeks old.  But it's even harder when they are 3.75 months old!  But I'm extraordinarily happy to tell you that Tango has found the perfect home.  He will have TONS of love and affection from his new family.  Much more than he was getting here.  He was having fun playing with his sister Gypsy but he needed a family he could call his own.  I'm grateful for the extra time I got to share with him and watch him turn into the spectacular dog he will be.

Mary Ann

Hi from Harley

I love getting these emails!

Hi Mary Ann… hope all is going good for you…

 

Bob and Harley here and we're just dropping in with a couple of pictures of Harley and to let you know that he is doing awesome… he continually gets complements on his appearance and behavior… he weighs in at 98.5 lbs. and is still very full of energy.  He loves his balls, the water and totally enjoys playing with all the Grand-kids… We are enjoying him VERY much…

 

The pictures were taken at Kathleen Lake last weekend where we were camping… 

 

Take care… Bob, Deb and Harley

Where’d Everybody Go?

Puppies are blind and deaf until 10-14 days old. They always amaze me how they find each other. They can be all the way across the box and still find each other. Mother Nature is awesome!

This is nighttime footage from my puppy cam.

I was HORRIFIED

I've been passing a pet store in NE Calgary for some time now and have always wanted to go inside to check it out. It said it was a dogs only pet store so I was thrilled with the idea of new toys, new blankets, beds etc that they might carry that other big box pet stores didn't have. I finally took the time to stop yesterday and I was HORRIFIED when I stepped in the door and saw rows and rows of puppies for sale! It made me physically sick! I was disgusted! There were at least 50 cute little doodle puppies. Cockapoos, yorkiepoos, labradoodles, golden doodles, and even what appeared to be two purebred Corgis. The glass in front of each set of puppies said "ask me how you can save $1000!" I was just heartbroken. All these puppy mill puppies who will never get a real chance at life because they will either die in the first year of life or have a short life of sickness and disease. The signs said, Please disinfect your hands before and after handling each puppy! Why would that be? Do you think they might be sick?? GRRRRRRRRR!!!!

There was a young couple there trying to decide which puppy to buy. I SO wanted to tell them not to buy one. Instead of talking directly to them, I was very loud with my disgust of the place and how they would have received all these puppies from puppy mills because reputable breeders would NEVER sell their offspring to a place who sells dogs to anyone with a credit card! I don't know if they proceeded with their purchase or not because Mark was gently pushing me towards the door before I made a downright scene!

There are so many reasons not to buy a puppy from a pet store. I have it all written out in my FAQ page on my website but just in case you haven't had a chance to read it, I will tell you the biggest two. Puppy mills count on the fact that you will see this cute little puppy and want to "save" it. All you are doing is creating another opening at the store that they will fill by breeding another litter of dogs. The best way to save that puppy, it's parents and all it's siblings, is to NOT BUY IT! The other thing you must think about when you are buying doodles, is that 50% of all doodles are disposed of at birth. That's a nice way of saying, drowned, necks broken, suffocated etc. What? For every puppy I see in this store, there is a dead puppy?? Yes, that's right! It's genetics. If you breed a Golden Retriever and a Poodle, half of the puppies will shed and the other half will not shed. Why do people buy doodles? Because they are non-shedding. So where are all the shedding puppies? Now I'm not saying every single doodle breeder is killing half their puppies. But the puppy mills sure are. I can almost guarantee you that. There is no market for a shedding doodle. If people don't mind shedding, they'd buy a Golden Retriever.

I have spent decades teaching obedience classes. I have seen the heartache of families who start an 8 week course with their puppy and their puppy is dead before the end of the course. It was a pet store puppy. Or a puppy mill rescue. They wanted to help by giving the poor thing a home. But they didn't look ahead to see how it would affect little Bobby and Suzie when their cute little fur ball didn't come home from the vet. After spending $1000s of dollars on the poor little thing. Believe me. I want to help those poor little cute fur balls too. And I hope I did by letting that couple know all the puppies would have come from a puppy mill. It just made me sick. A "pet specialist" came up and asked me if I needed anything and I just about lost it on her. But I didn't. I'm sure she had nothing to do with purchasing the dogs. She looked like a university student trying to make enough for next years tuition. But in hindsight I wish I had told her what I'm telling you now. Maybe she would have found herself a different place of employment. But Mark was slowly pushing me towards the door, knowing my blood pressure was rising to the point of no return.

If you MUST have a doodle, find a reputable breeder. Find one who health checks the parents and ask them what they do with the shedding puppies. There are good ones out there but they are few and far between. And don't let them tell you they have "hybrid vigour". There is such a thing as hybrid vigour. That is when you breed two species together and the offspring are healthier that the average individual. But that individual is also sterile. And breeding two breeds of dogs together is not breeding two species together. You'd have to breed a dog and a wolf, or a dog and a coyote to get hybrid vigour. And that, by the way, is illegal. So don't be fooled by fast talking salesman who will say anything to sell a dog. Ask to see the health clearances on the parents. And go to the associations and see what their certifications look like. Puppy mills will make up "papers" to say the dog has been cleared and is registered with XYZ. The only associations that matter are The Canadian Kennel Club and The American Kennel Club in the US.

Can you tell this is something that burns a hole in my heart? I cried for those 50 puppies as we drove away.

Mary Ann

They are here! Two Days Early!

NINE of the little cuties!  4 Males, 5 Females.  Not sure on colours yet.  There's definitely both black & red and sables.  

I arrived back from my God-daughters wedding and Cruz went into labour 6 hours later.  I was already exhausted from my trip because I went a day early to help set up and left a day after to help break down.  I wouldn't have changed a thing; but I was tired.  I was heading into this with about 10 hours of sleep in the last 48.  Labour started at 8:00PM with the first pup arriving at 8:00AM.  Those 12 hours were spent pacing, and panting, and Cruz slept.  Just kidding!  Cruz paced and panted and whined throughout the 12 hours.  Nothing was helping her except being there with her.  As I said, the first pup arrived at 8:00AM and the last pup arrived at 10:15PM.  

Cruz did a wonderful job!  The smallest pup born was 298 grams and the largest was 490 grams.  And the others are every where in between.  A real mix of sizes.  

I've mixed up my home-made formula to help out the smaller pups but I can see that Cruz is doing a great job.  If the pups are hungry, they will cry and not a single pup appears to be hungry.  A real treat after Maya's first litter where all 11 pups needed feeding twice a day.  For 6 hours a day, I did nothing but bottle feed puppies!  This litter is nothing like the last!

Wish us luck as we get through these critical first days!

Mary Ann

Guardian Angel Shepherds - German Shepherds the way they used to be!  The way they should be!  The way they are!

Tonks & Tail Chasing

This is Tonks. Isn't she absolutely stunning?! She will be 4 months old tomorrow and is a Maya/Tazer puppy. She was here taking advantage of her free private lessons that come with the purchase of a Guardian Angel puppy. Both she and her owner are doing fantastic. I'm so proud of them both as Tonks gets to do rounds at a hospital and cheer up lots of patients. That is always my ultimate goal. A Guardian Angel Shepherd should be there when people need them the most. And thanks to this dedicated owner that's exactly what is happening.