Today has been quite a day indeed. When we woke up this morning, there was about a 1/2 inch of snow on the ground. Ok, I could be exaggerating a little but it was definitely enough to completely cover the ground. This is actually Ayla’s first snow and I have to say that I think she really loved it. When she first stepped in it, she seemed to realize the potential for fun and started running all over the place lol. It was actually quite amusing to see her crazy tracks in the snow where she’d been running back and forth all over the place. We’d really hoped that there would be more snow and she’d really get to romp and play in it but the snow was already starting to melt a bit when we went for the walk and there really wasn’t much on the grassy areas which was very unfortunate. I’m not really a friend of snow or cold weather in most cases but for Ayla, I’m happy to make an exception. We’ve had such strange weather here so far anyway, who knows, we may end up with snow here in March or April (hope I’m not cursing myself there lol).
We had quite a bit to get done today so after the walk, we immediately headed out. Our first stop was breakfast at McDonald’s (healthy, we know)…but sometimes you just don’t have the time for “real” food. Of course we brought Ayla a plain hamburger as well since it’s not really fair to be fattening only ourselves lol. And surprise, surprise, she totally loves them.
Then we were off to the old house where we had to finish up a few things, clean the last bits of trash out of the house and turn over the keys to the landlord. We actually will still need to make another visit to pick up the plants and such from the house but at least the most daunting things are done now.
Since we finished up cleaning earlier than expected and had some time to kill until our meeting, we decided to make a run over to the pet store to get some more food for Ayla and the kitties. I now remember why hubby and I never go in there together – it just turns into a very expensive shopping experience.
We’ve been talking about getting a new food and water stand for a while now. We saw a very nice stand last year with huge bowls and a tilt feature for the bowls which we thought was quite nice. But the price tag was about €200 which made us quickly change our minds. Instead we bought a cheap version to last us through the puppy times and we figured we’d upgrade at some point when we found the right stand. Since the move, we’ve been trying to figure out the best area of the kitchen to have Ayla’s bowls and decided to buy a Plexiglas sheet to put on the wall behind her bowls since she made such a mess at the old house while eating. But then we came across the Ferrari of dog bowls and knew this would be perfect.
As you can see, there is already a back splash built into this model and the holders for the bowls are mounted on a steel arm. We saw another slightly cheaper version of this stand with plastic arms but the sales girl (who really is one of the best informed sales people ever) pointed out that a rambunctious dog like a Newf is not going to always been so nice to the bowls so metal is definitely the safer bet if we want to keep the stand for longer than a few weeks.
I have to say that the bowls themselves are more than huge. Her dry food ration barely covers the bottom of the bowl…but I do think it helps her to slow down a bit while eating which is definitely a good thing. She’s got more room to chase the food around in these bowls which should beneficial. We’ve decided to use the old bowls strictly as water bowls now. We have them in the entry way which is where she sleeps at night so she can always have plenty of water available. And since she will only drink from a bowl of water once, it does make it a little easier to make sure she’s got fresh water since there are 3 sources now instead of just one.
In addition to the new bowl, Ayla also got a few new treats and the “alien cow.” It’s a little neon green squeaky cow (sorry, no pic yet) with no eyes or anything but wow does that thing squeak. It’s almost as if it’s screaming when she has that thing in her mouth. We’re trying to make it a mostly outside toy simply because it’s so loud but at least if she’s playing with it, you know she’s staying out of trouble because you can hear her all over the house.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this earlier but we also recently switched Ayla to a new dog food and we’re all rather thrilled with it. She’s quite literally eating better than us now but our cats have been doing that for years as well so I guess it shouldn’t be such a huge shock. Our pet store has started carrying a brand manufactured for them called “Real Nature.” They sell a dry food which is cold-pressed, helping retain many of the minerals and all that, and a canned food. The dry food is actually Black Angus, Barbary duck and some other delightfully tasty stuff…and the canned food comes in 4 variations which are also things like wild turkey and venison.
I was a bit skeptical about the stuff at first but we haven’t been overjoyed with our current food anyway so when the sales girl told me about it, I figured why not give it a try. We have been very happy with it and hubby can finally be in the kitchen while I mix up her food without gagging. When we were feeding canned green tripe, he couldn’t come anywhere near the food bowl or the kitchen so this is a very nice change. Maybe one day he’ll even be able to feed her himself lol. Not only that, but it also comes out very nicely in the end. Sorry for anyone eating breakfast now or something but we are quite concerned about the consistency of her fecal matter. With the old food, it’s been very foul smelling (not such a joy to clean up later on) and not very firm. But almost instantly after switching to this food, things are just as they should be…and yes, I’m finished talking about it for now lol.
Anyway, the meeting with the landlord actually went much better than we anticipated and we think that our chances of getting the majority of the deposit back are very high. That should be good news for Ayla since her birthday is coming up in less than a month and now we have no clue what we’re going to get the dog who already has everything 😉
