Shaggy

Hi.

This is Shaggy. He's staying with us until Saturday. Shaggy isn't a guest dog. He's actual a rescue from Korea who flew to Virginia yesterday to join his forever family. He'll get to meet them this weekend and until then he's staying with us. And let me tell you, he is a complete sweetheart.

The first thing we did when Shaggy was dropped off at our home was to let him out in the backyard to relieve himself. Then it was bath time. He didn't enjoy it but his little protests were the gentlest. Almost like, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I think I want to step out of the bath now." And his gentle, soft personality continued to show throughout the day to this morning.

After breakfast and morning pee and potty session, I decided to leave him downstairs with Noah and Momo so that I can take care of things on the computer upstairs. We have a pet cam and I was watching them and I noticed that he was doing something but I couldn't tell what. Then I realized that he was howling! But it was so low, almost like a hum, that I couldn't even hear it clearly from upstairs. Shaggy is the gentlest dog. He is now sprawled out on the sofa sleeping. I hope he has a good dream.

When Shaggy arrived his stool was a bit soft and runny. This morning though it has firmed up significantly. We have been feeding him the same food as Momo - I and Love and You dry food mixed with ground beef, vegetables, chicken giblets with coconut oil. I also added some goat's milk and he gobbled everything up. I can feel that he is bony but I'm sure now that he has a forever family and a constant meal and lots of love he will gain the pounds he needs.

Some of the most endearing characteristics about Shaggy is his snaggle tooth. He also likes to dig and landscape too and so his hind toe nails look like they are about to turn into the Hulk (we'll have to get them washed before he leaves us). Shaggy also lets us wipe his paws and private areas too after he goes on a bathroom break. He just seems to go with the flow. 

I'm not sure how the stars aligned for us and Shaggy to meet. Sometimes I wonder that with people - how lucky I am to have met some of the people I know. And now I feel that with dogs. We really didn't do much for Shaggy. There are dedicated volunteers at Asan Angels Sanctuary, where he and Momo and Noah are from, who do all the hard work to get dogs like Shaggy adopted. We are just lucky to have the opportunity to be apart of this dog's journey, as small as it might be.

And we're all very excited for what the future holds for him. And we hope that all his friends at the sanctuary will get the same opportunities as well.

Please remember, adopt. Don't shop.

Hi

It's been a while.

I thought maybe it was time to come back to this space of ours. So much has happened and perhaps one day I'll be able to talk about it, make some private posts public again. I'm not sure - it's something I don't want to deal with at the moment.

Right now I just want to dust off our little home here and begin to tell stories again. The way I used to (although I've taken a look at some of our old posts and cringe at what I wrote - like did I really talk like that?)

I thought about making a new blog site but because I had small regrets getting rid of my old Instagram account, I decided to continue on here.. where Piri, Bartles and Lady are and pick up with new members of our family. 

Meet Noah and Momo. I have so much to tell you about them.

November is Adopt A Senior Pet Month

There is a narrative that I don't like and it goes a little something like this. That old dogs have lived a full life and they don't have much to offer anymore. And so it's ok to let them go, replace them with a younger dog and give up on them. That couldn't be further from the truth.

If you felt anything through the pictures and videos of Lady I shared on my new (and old) Instagram account, or if you followed along way before when I had Bartles and even Piri, you can see first hand that at 15 years old (14 when she was adopted) she still had so much more to live and so much more to give to me and Yangkyu and everyone she met. She was Spootie and Clover’s parents favorite and they loved that she loved them so much.

I remember the guarded response everyone had when we let them know that we adopted another senior dog. A 14 year old. Even older than Bartles when we adopted him. But when they met her, I think Lady broke every stereotype that people have about adopting senior dogs. And everyone fell in love with her immediately. 

Lady came to live with us because of a promise that I had made to an old 17 year old cancer ridden, kidney disease stricken cocker spaniel named Piri. There were many nights when Yangkyu and I would give him his sub-q fluids and me wondering if something were to happen to us, if a family would step up and give Piri a home, despite his age, despite his medical needs and total hands on care. Despite the fact that he couldn't hear or see well. Because even though he got bone skinny, at 17 he was still trotting and running whenever he saw his favorite human in the whole entire world come home. Because there was still so much life in him. And so when we said our final good-bye to him, I promised that I would never overlook an old dog. Or an old sick dog. And that from here on out I would only adopt frosted faces which have become so endearing to me.

One of the most rewarding things about this journey we've had is receiving random messages from people who tell me their stories of raising awareness on senior pet adoption. One woman wrote to let me know that after following our stories, she convinced her mother to adopt a senior dog from the shelter who is now the most beloved member of the family. I also had another person who told me they are inspired to rescue and adopt senior dogs and that it is directly because of our family. And another who told me that their next pet will be a senior. 

Our efforts doesn't have been grand or large in scale. Simply talking about senior pets to five of our friends, our family, help change mindsets and quite possibly helps saves lives. 

So if you or someone you know is looking to adopt a pet this month, don't overlook the frosted faces. They have so much love still to give. 

Stella and Chewy's

For the past year, Lady has been thriving on raw food. We went back and forth from frozen raw to freeze dried raw and have gone through different brands including Steve's Real Food, Primal and Stella and Chewy's. They are all great and Lady loved them all but she seemed to do best on Stella and Chewy's.

There are many cases of dogs' conditions improving on raw and while Lady saw the most common conditions - less stool and less smelling poop - I also noticed a few other things as well. 

When we first adopted Lady I noticed that she grazed on grass a lot. Even after I switched her from Natural Balance to a home cooked meal, whenever she was in the backyard, she would often times graze. I know this is fairly normal for dogs but I wondered if maybe she was trying to fulfill something that was missing from her diet. I am not quite sure if my hunch was correct but when we switched her over to a raw diet she stopped grazing. Also, when we used to bathe her the first few times there would be clumps of fur that she would shed. After switching to a raw diet there was no such shedding.

I was a bit worried if she was too old to be eating raw food (she is 15) but I was able to speak to someone at our local natural pet store who talked about her own dog and how she planned on giving her raw even when she is old, unless she showed signs of not being able to digest it well. I gained the confidence to do the same. I also was able to speak to a holistic vet/acupuncturist who seemed to agree that it was a good plan (although he does encourage his clients to give their dogs vegetables and homemade stews). 

A few weeks ago though, I noticed that Lady wasn't as enthusiastic about raw food as she had been in the past year. She would literally dig right in and lick her bowl clean but she was slower to start her food and would leave small chunks of food behind.

I have been testing out other types of food with her lately, canned food and human grade food, but I am wondering if she is just being finicky and holding out for something better. She used to get a taste of canned food because that was the only thing that she would take her medicine in (she has now figured out that I stuff pills in there and won't touch it when I try to feed it to her from my hands - and I can't stuff the pills inside the wet food for her to lick up from her bowl because she will do just that, lick up the food and leave the pill behind. She is truly a master at it). But she shows signs of boredom with canned food as well. She will be so enthusiastic the first couple of times and then just stand in front of her food or just walk away in the days following. I recently read an article and am pretty much convinced that she is spoiled (the last couple of days, she eventually came back to her food and ate it, although she did leave a portion of the food where vegetables were stuck to it. Man does she hate her vegetables..)

In any case, I would love for Lady to continue to be on raw food and perhaps we may revisit once I get in the habit of not panicking and switching up her food every time she doesn't eat.

Lady's absolutely favorite flavor was Phenomenal Pheasant but Stella and Chewy's no longer makes it. Her other favorite flavor is Absolutely Rabbit.

Below are links to some of the raw food that we have tried. 

 // Stella and Chewy's

 // Primal

 // Steve's Real Food

*This is not a sponsored post

Songs for a Sunday Afternoon

 01 // Make You Feel My Love - Adele

 02 // Bring It On Home To Me - Sam Cooke

 03 // We Can Always Come Back to This - Brian Tyree Henry 

 04 // Blues Run the Game - Jackson C. Frank

 05 // The Butterfly Song - Pink Martini

 06 // A Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum

 07 // You and Me - Penny & The Quarters

 08 // Heart of Mine - Peter Salett