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Truly Pawsome Review

Truly Pawsome
Truly Pawsome, review, dog training, Smart Dog University, subscription box

Truly Pawsome is a high-end subscription box for discerning dog owners.

When I was offered a free month of Truly Pawsome’s subscription box, I jumped at the chance. The dogs and I are always up for new and interesting dog related goodies and we weren’t disappointed with Truly Pawsome’s offerings.

The box arrived stuffed with goodies!

The dogs were all over it the minute I brought it in from the mailbox.Truly Pawsome, subscription box, dog training, dog

We had three bags of treats (artisanal, organic) and toys, too!

There were treats and toys and as you can see, Schooner had to have his lips on everything first! If your dogs don’t share nicely, you’ll be wise to consider getting a box for each dog! Our dogs found everything in their box totally enjoyable. There weren’t any duds in the lot!

I loved the toys — one of them was the poop emoji.

It made me laugh plus the dogs loved it. It’s a win-win!

Truly Pawsome, subscription box, Smart Dog UniversityTruly Pawsome offers different size subscription options. Large dog? no problem, you’ll get toys the big guys like. Little dog? Easy, you’ll get toys your little dog can fit in his mouth. There are also  a variety of subscription options – 1 – 3 – 6 – 12 month plans.

Truly Pawsome differentiates itself by offering free shipping and partnering with one canine rescue center, Rocket Dog Rescue, which receives 10% of all proceeds.

Our dogs had a blast scarfing down the treats and ripping the toys to pieces. And I laughed every time I saw one of the dogs running with the poop emoji!

 

Lily and the Octopus

Lily and the OctopusLily and the Octopus, book review, Smart Dog University

Looking for a good summer read?

I posted a picture of Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley on my Instagram account last week and promised a review.

I don’t get much time to read — I thought it might take me a week to get through. The advance copy arrived  right before I hopped a plane to St. Louis for a weekend of work. I shoved the book in my carry on as an afterthought. By the time my flight touched down in St. Louis, I had read 130+ pages already. It was a good book. I could tell that I was going to ugly-cry (I had already teared up a few times on the flight, but I DO have a senior Lily myself, so…), but I also laughed loudly enough for other passengers on the plane to give me the side eye.

By the time I got my rental car, did my errands before class the next morning, ate my dinner and got back to the hotel room totally ready to crash into bed. I planned to read another chapter to wind down from the rigors of traveling. Two hours later — way past my bedtime — I was indeed crying my way through the end of the book.

Lily and the Octopus is a story with which dog lovers will immediately identify. You’ll find yourself right there on the page. Your dog probably speaks just like Lily:

“THE! SAND! IS! SO! SQUISHY! UNDER! MY! PAWS! AND! LOOK! HOW! VAST! THE! OCEAN! WATCH! ME! RUN! WITHOUT! MY! LEA —“

Before she can say leash, a wave sweeps in and engulfs her delicate paws in a strand of slick seaweed and a look of terror washes over her face.

“SERPENT! SERPENT! SERPENT!” [p. 90]

I’m not giving anything away by telling you that the octopus in this story is a brain tumor. You find that out on page 8. The adventure that Lily and Ted embark on in an effort to kill the insidious octopus is a great one. I could have easily skipped The Pelagic Zone section of the book (pages 201 – 245) as it got a little too fantastical and outlandish for me. I can accept that the dog can talk (because come on, who doesn’t carry on conversations with their dog?), but the epic odyssey that Ted and Lily went on in that section took the whole thing a little too far. But maybe it’s just me. Read it and let me know what you think.

In the end, skipping that section will only get you to the inevitable. I strongly urge you to read that part in the privacy of your home. Don’t read it if you’re on public transportation. Don’t finish the book on your lunch hour. Just don’t. You’ll thank me for it when you can breathe again and when you’re not dripping snot from your nose. Tissues. You’ll need tissues. This part of the book is a candidly accurate description of the loss of a friend of a lifetime. It’s raw, it’s real, it’s peaceful, it’s horrible, it’s exactly what you’d think it’d be.

However, do not — DO NOT — consider NOT finishing the book. You must the read Three Hearts section. This is where Rowley earns his redemption from dragging our hearts through hell. Ah, I just teared up (the good kind of tears, though, I swear) as I was reading that last piece of the book just now, looking for a quote. I have to stop reading it if I’m ever going to get this published. I want to read it all again. The whole thing (well, save for The Pelagic Zone section I just told you about).

Plus, there’s a lot (LOT) of really funny bits. The laugh-out-loud parts that had the other airline passengers giving me the side-eye, trying to get a peek of what was making me laugh so genuinely.

Here’s a little something from the author himself that I found particularly interesting:

Q: The relationship between Ted and Lily is affectionate, and it’s clear that your own connection with (the real life) Lily was powerful. What was it like to write about her? How did you find her voice?

Steven Rowley: “Throughout the book, Lily speaks in two unique ways. Sometimes in SHARP! STACATTO! NOTES! This is meant to be as close to a literal translation of her barking as possible. She also speaks conversationally, and these are imagined talks she has with Ted. I think this rings true with a lot of pet owners. As much as you might be convinced at the outset that you’re not that kind of person — sooner or later you start having conversations with your animals. And it’s inevitable that they start talking back.

Pets lead dual lives: one as the animal they are born, and a second as the anthropomorphized creature we create. Somewhere at the intersection of those two lives exists a bit of enchantment, some kind of magical truth; writing about Lily actually taught me some things about her (and some things about me) that I don’t think I ever knew. It was enlightening.”

This book is about a man struggling with loneliness, heartbreak, and challenging relationships. His name is Ted, but he could be any of us. With his dog, he finds courage he never knew he had, had fun he never knew was possible, and realizes he’ll never really ever be without his Lily.

So yes, go get this book. It’s officially available on June 7 (you can pre-order at most bookstores). Go to your local bookseller or buy it online. You won’t be sad you did. (Well, you’ll be a little sad for a little while. But I promise there’s redemption when you get to the end. It’ll make you feel good, I swear.)

You can find the author online at his Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Sparkle Bar: Shampoo Bar for Your Dog

A shampoo bar? For a dog?

What Is It?dog shampoo, dog soap, dog bath, dog, dirty dog

In short, it’s a bar of shampoo. Y’know: like a bar of soap except that it’s shampoo instead. It’s the latest product from The Honest Kitchen and we tried it out on our dogs (and ourselves)!

What’s It Good For?dog bath, dog shampoo, dog soap, dirty dog

This is a great, easy, and smell good way to get your dog clean. I know, we’re used to shampoo being liquid. But it doesn’t have to be. It can come in bar form! I like using bar shampoo because I can get all the bubbles I need in all the right places. Need extra soap right there under the armpit? Just rub the bar there! No shampoo dripping down your arm or into the bathtub.

How Do You Use It?

Get your dog wet, get the soap wet, and start scrubbing! Each bar will last you about 18 baths for a 30 pound dog. I think it also depends on how much hair — a smaller, long coated dog is going to use a lot more than a larger, super short coated dog.

What We Loved About It

  • It’s handmade. Yep, for real. We make our own soap (for people) and as soon as I took the bar out of the box, I knew instantly it was handmade. It’s pretty impressive to get something handmade from a big company these days.
  • Delicious smell. I wish I could pump the fragrance through your speakers. The scent alone would make you buy it. There are three different scents: Apple Cider Vinegar, Diatomaceous Earth, Calendula, Comfrey & Aloe, and Lavender, Cedar, Juniper & Rosemary. Holy cow, the smell is incredible.
  • It works on people, too! I’m not gonna lie, I tried it. And loved it. The smell…so good.
  • Works well, rinses easily.

How You Can Get One

Check out The Honest Kitchen’s website where you can order the Sparkle Bars.

More Questions?

Check out The Honest Kitchen’s FAQ page.

Slippery Floor Tough on Your Older Dog? Try This!

dog traction, dog falls, dog training, dog obedience, Frederick, clicker, puppy classes, puppy training, Smart Dog UniversityTraction on hardwood floors is hard to come by.

Almost all of the flooring in our house is hardwood or tile. We have dogs, hard floors are easier to keep clean than carpeting. However, our dog family is getting older. Three of our dogs are past their first decade, and our oldest at 13.5 years is having an increasingly hard time getting traction on those hard floors.

I’d been investigating ways to help her gain some traction including booties (which Lily would despise), little sticky pieces of plastic you stick to the pads of their paws (again, Lily would despise that), and even something called toe grips. Knowing Lily and her persnickety ways, I knew I had to find a solution that did not involve putting anything on her, but rather I had to find something I could actually put on the floor.

Now before you start suggesting scatter rugs, know that (until very recently) we had a cat that just loved to pee on any rug or dog bed on the floor. Throw rugs or runners were absolutely out of the question. Plus, they’re just one more thing to vacuum. The reason we took the carpet out was so I could sweep all the dirt up and get it out of the house. Adding scatter rugs everywhere sort of defeats the purpose.

At about the same time I was running out of ideas, the folks from HandiRamp happened to reach out to me with their Puppy Treads (TM). I was intrigued when they told me these were applied directly to the floor — that meant I could leave Lily’s paws out of the equation, making both our lives a whole lot better. I gladly accepted their offer to try some of their Puppy Treads (TM).

Here’s our experience with Puppy Treads (TM).

I put them at the spots where Lily usually loses traction. When she hears my husband’s truck in the driveway, she beelines it to the door which involves making a sharp right turn on laminate flooring — it’s very much like an ice rink and she routinely spins out and falls right on her rump. I tried using the treads in two different ways: I used a full strip in one location. And in another location, I cut the strip into smaller, thinner pieces, like so:

Puppy Treads, non skid traction, dog traction, Smart Dog University, dog training, dog obedience, Frederick, clicker

Puppy Treads, non skid traction, dog traction, Smart Dog University, dog training, dog obedience, Frederick, clicker

Yes, I left the dirt and hair on the floor. If you have dogs, hopefully you’re used to seeing floors like this and you’re not grossed out by it. In any event, that’s what I did with the Puppy Treads. Those have been on the floor now for about a month and have seen some seriously heavy dog paw and human foot traffic. This is probably the most heavily trafficked area in our house and the treads held up quite well here — no curling up or anything. We’ve had rain, too, so there have been wet and muddy foot- and paw-traffic on them and still they’ve stayed stuck.

Caveats

If the dogs take a different path to the door, where there aren’t any Puppy Treads, they’ll still slip and fall. I can’t Puppy Tread the entire family room floor, so I’ve tried to choose the most likely routes. I haven’t mopped the Puppy Treads a whole lot, so I can’t speak to how long they’d hold up if you mopped your floors every day. (Hahaha, mopping floors everyday; who does that?) Also, if you’re using the Puppy Treads on a high gloss real wood floor, I don’t know if the Puppy Treads would take any of the polyurethane off the floor when the Puppy Treads are removed. My guess is that they wouldn’t remove the poly (that’s pretty tough stuff), but because I didn’t try them on actual hardwood, I can’t speak to that flooring material.

About Puppy Treads

  • Size: 6″ high by 24″ long. They are easy to cut down to any size with a pair of regular scissors.
  • They’re fairly translucent, but it’s clear (haha) that they’re on the floor. The higher the gloss on the floor, the more readily apparent the treads will be.
  • Durability: they’ve withstood 16 paws and four feet for the past month without any trouble at all. That includes rainy and muddy weather.
  • Stick and unstick: these are easily removed whenever you want them to come up. If they’ve been down for awhile, I don’t think they’ll re-stick again with the same intensity as the first time around. Most important to me, though, wasn’t that I could move them from here to there, but that I could remove them without having to clean a lot of sticky residue afterward. I’ve since taken one of the treads completely off the floor and there wasn’t anything left behind.
  • They’re made right here in the U.S. (Illinois)
  • Made of vinyl and graded “high traction” by the National Floor Safety Institute.

These would be great on hardwood stairs — for people and dogs. We have only one set of stairs in our house (and they’re carpeted), so I didn’t have the opportunity to experiment with them on stairs, but I think that’s where they’d really shine.

Pricing

Per Puppy Tread: $7.99

4 Puppy Treads: $29.95

10 Puppy Treads: $69.95

If your dogs (or you!) are having traction problems on your floors, take a look at Puppy Treads. They fit the bill for us and have helped give Lily some added stability.

Freshpet: New Baked Dog Food Recipes

dog food, Freshpet, dog training, dog treats, Smart Dog University, clicker, positive, Frederick, With the addition of monster-dog Schooner who eats 10 cups of dry food each day, I’ve been looking for a high quality, convenient, and reasonably priced dog food for him. At about the same time I was researching different dog foods, I stumbled across a new Freshpet offering in Target. I’m a dedicated Freshpet user, usually the Freshpet Select kitty treats (that I use and recommend for dog treats — great small size won’t fill up your dog too quickly), but also the refrigerated dog treats, too. But now. Now they’re making dog food. I was a little excited. Here’s why.

Freshpet has a new line of baked recipe food that I’m pretty keen on. I like it for a few reasons:

  • fresh and simple ingredients: no chicken meal here — straight up fresh chicken and eggs, peas, lentils, cranberries, flaxseed, sweet potatoes, etc.
  • freshness: you can see the exact date the food was made on the front of the bag
  • no bad stuff: no artificial preservatives, animal by-products, or rendered meals
  • grain-free option: for those dogs who don’t do well on grains (like mine)
  • easy to travel: nothing needs refrigeration, so traveling with your dog is a breeze
  • convenience: you can find it in Target, grocery stores, and big (and small) box pet supply stores
  • price: the quality ingredients are reflected in the price — it’s not the cheapest food in the store (for which I’m grateful), but then again, I wouldn’t buy the cheapest. My dogs deserve quality food and I’m happy to buy something that takes the time to make a better, more nutritious product.

Who cares what I think about it, how do my dogs like it?

Schooner was getting a bit picky with his current food. I swapped in one Freshpet baked recipes cup of food and used his regular food to make up the difference. Interestingly, he made quick work of that new combination, rooting around for the Freshpet kibbles, fruits, and veggies. I’ve been gradually adding more Freshpet while reducing the normal food and I expect we’ll transition fully later this week.

I need to finish the bag of the other food that’s already open, so when that’s gone, I’ll transfer Nemo over to Freshpet, too.

Next time you’re out shopping, take a look for Freshpet. It comes in three sizes: 3.5 lb, 11 lb, and 22 lb bags. (The grain free food comes in only 3.5 lb and 11 lb.)

 

Peace. Love. Paws.

Dog lover?

Looking for high-quality and cool dog-related people stuff?

I gotcha covered with a company called Peace. Love. Paws.

Peace. Love. Paws. logo. Alissa Gander introduced herself and her company and invited me to take a look around and check out what she offered. There are a lot of companies out there who offer dog-related clothing and gear and it’s pretty much buyer beware out there. I’m fairly skeptical when it comes to “Ooh, we’re different.” I’m pretty much like “Prove it.”

So Alissa sent me some stuff. And she’s right — her stuff is different.

She really gets what it feels like to love and be loved by a dog. She has a soft spot for dogs without homes and donates a portion of sales to a different rescue or dog-related charity each month. But even that’s not enough to stick out in this crowded world of new pop up shops with dog-related merch. What makes Peace. Love. Paws. different is that they’ve got high-quality stuff you can wear to the dog park or out to dinner. It’s nice stuff. The art is cool, not sticky sweet or over the top.

shirt with "Walk with peace" slogan.

tshirt with drawing of girl and puppy touching noses.

Here’s one of their cool messenger bags. (They’ve also got really cute tote bags that I adore.)

picture of messenger bag with Dog is Peace slogan.

They have the coolest blank greeting cards.

Greeting Card Peace. Love. Paws.

And some pretty amazing magnets that I’ve got on my fridge and filing cabinets. I’ve pretty much put them on every magnetic surface in my office.

Circle car magnet from Peace. Love. Paws. with drawing of a dog wearing a scarf with his head out of the window. "Ride with Adventure."

“Peace. Love. Paws. lives by three very simple rules:
-Be kind to one another.
-Do the best you can.
-Hug your pet daily.”

-Alissa Gander

Peace. Love. Paws. sent me some merchandise free of charge so I could experience the product first-hand. I wasn’t asked to endorse the products or the website. I chose to endorse — without any payment — because I love the stuff and figured you would, too. 

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