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I’m hoping my new dog will help me get some exercise

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I was just saying in my last post that one of the reasons we just got a puppy was so that I could have some incentive to get more exercise.

I’ve been stuck at home with Crohn’s Disease for two years now. Actually December 4th was the beginning of my third year at home. I hate this. I feel ill all the time and I’m in a lot of pain. This has naturally made me a lot less active than I used to be.

I used to be on my feet for 12 hours a day, constantly moving as I tended to patients in the Emergency Department where I worked. I also walk to and from work. Now that’s not aerobic activity but it certainly did burn calories and kept me busy!

Now my days are spent sitting in front of my desktop computer or using my laptop computer while sitting or lying down on the couch. I don’t eat much food, nor does it stay in me long thanks to the Crohns ( I know TMI), but I’ve gained some weight due to the inactivity. Not a ton, but enough that I’ve recently had to purchase larger clothes sizes much to my dismay. Being on prednisone, a steroid, in the last three months has also caused me to gain a bit more weight.

I must admit that I haven’t been using the elliptical trainer that I got in September either. Also, now that we have the puppy I barely have time to do much else but watch her so I don’t think I’ll be using it anytime soon.

So I need to get active, even if I don’t feel all that up to it. The puppy helps in that department. She’s a ball of energy and I often once I sit down I’ve got to get up two minutes later to see where she’s disappeared to. Labs chew everything so you’ve got to keep a close eye on them … plus she’s not yet fully house trained and still has accidents.

If the doggy diet/ workout doesn’t work maybe I’ll have to try something like Miracle burn, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to work.

Wish me luck!





List of Dog Swimming pools in North America and the UK

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When I was out walking the puppy this evening we met a man who was walking his 18 month old German Sheppard / Collie mix. Very nice dog – quite, patient with a very excited lab pup who was jumping in his face possibly nipping at him.

The man told us that when he first got his dog he took it out to the park when it was young – perhaps three or four months old, and it got knocked down by a bigger dog. His pup was unlucky enough to have been injured by the fall. It had a damaged cruciate ligament and it looked like the dog would need to have surgery.

The poor man had to keep his dog fairly inactive while the injury was healing and of course going to the park was not an option anymore.

While he was waiting to see if his poor pup was going to need surgery he discovered that there was a dog swimming pool not too far away at Dundas and Broadview. He got his dog swimming and it’s ligament healed! No surgery!

I’m so happy that we ran into this man.

We have a very exuberant Labrador Retriever puppy and as you might already know Labs love water, or well, most of them apparently do! We’d already planned on taking Midnight to the beach here in Toronto in the Spring and onward, but perhaps we can get her in the water earlier!

I just did an Internet search to see if I could find the dog swimming pool and I found a list of dog swimming pools throughout North America and the UK. The page is really slow to load, but be patient, perhaps you’ll find a swimming pool to take your dog to that’s not too far away.

The place that we’re going to check out is called Fit Dogs. Now, this was created mainly for arthritic dogs or ones in need of exercise but here’s the description:

Bring your dog for a swim in a safe, clean, indoor pool in a pooch-positive environment.

The aboveground pool is 8- x 20-ft. around, with a water depth of 3 ½ ft. It’s heated to approx. 87º F to promote circulation and relax muscles. A gentle, chemical-free salt chlorine generator keeps water clean and silky. Wide, rubber-topped ramps allow for safe and gradual entry and exit. The facility is air-conditioned.

Your dog can do laps, fetch, have hands-on support, or be tethered to the poolside to tread water – whatever suits your goals and your dog’s preferences.

All sessions are private – no one else’s dog will be in the pool. If your household has more than one budding or avid swimmer at home, he or she is welcome too.

K9 life jackets are available for new swimmers.

It’s not really expensive, but neither is it cheap. 15 minute sessions cost $18 and 30 minutes costs $25, but it might be nice to do once or twice through the winter to get Midnight used to swimming and water so that she’ll have a ton of fun when we go to the beach with her.

Not that I’m that worried about her not having fun at the beach. I gave her a bath on her second day with us and she did really well in the tub. Of course I made it fun and put toys in the shallow water for her.

Fit Dogs also has other services such as learning – videotapes for dog owners to purchase that will help them with training and training sessions, special foods that are hard to get or impossible to find in pet stores and they also have “play” options:

* Urban outings – 45–60 minutes along hilly trails with suitably grouped doggies and lots of playful, positive interaction with Fit Dogs staff
* “Boarding” in the country – ½-day romps on a 100-acre property near Richmond Hill
* Puppy starts – shorter private visits and introductory socialization to help your pup start off on the right paw
* Visits to older & infirm dogs – these guys melt us; we’ll work with you and your dog’s needs
* Fitness classes – for humans and their dogs to get moving and have even more fun

Midnight will be taking puppy training classes at Pet Smart starting on Friday. We’re doing this more to socialize her with other dogs and people than for the training. I’m sure we’ll all learn something, but I’ve been making some fantastic progress with her here at home.

Treats make good training tools!

She now goes on “good walkies” courtesy of a treat now and then as she walks. She pays more attention to me rather than pulling on her lead as she wants the next treat. Same for doing her business outdoor or inside the house on her training pads. Every time she goes, especially in the right place indoors, she gets a treat and lots of praise.

I am glad to see that Fit Dogs offers some puppy training classes and what sounds like group dog walks. I’ll have to check into that as well.

We got our dog as a companion for me here at home since I’m stuck at home due to my illness and also as incentive to get outdoors more and for me to get some exercise. So the more that I do with Midnight the better for the both of us.

Anyway, the main reason why I wrote this post was to let you know about dog swimming pools. If you have an older dog, perhaps one with arthritis pain, swimming might help the dog a lot. So check out that list of dog swimming pools and if you’re lucky maybe there will be one in your area. Wouldn’t it be nice if your dog was able to get around better?

Every thing is new to our puppy

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We’ve been having a lot of fun with our puppy.

It seems she was raised in a barn so just about everything within our home is new to her.

The poor thing didn’t even know how to climb stairs – even short two step ones, until she got here. I was fine with that though because the stairs inside our house are hardwood and I think they might be quite slippery for her, plus the stairway is open along one side so there’s literally a risk of falling off them.

My husband has been teaching her to climb the stairs outside the house. I didn’t know he was doing that, but she can now climb the front and back stairs!

And now she can climb the stairs within our house too!

Last night when Chris went to bed she headed for the stairs and ran halfway up them before she realized what she was doing. Then she got nervous and stopped. Since I think our stairs are a hazard for her I’m going to have to find a way to block them off. With only one stairway wall though we can’t even put a baby gate at the bottom though, so I’m thinking of putting some boxes on the stairs to block her way.

Now, I was saying that everything is new to her. For example, I don’t think she’d ever heard a radio, seen a television set, or heard a phone ring. It’s been fun to watch her reactions to them. They don’t scare her at all, but she’ll occasionally bark at the TV. I think she thinks the people on it are really in the room. I’m sure it doesn’t help that we have a large screen television set so the people are fairly large.

She’s obviously never been around microwave ovens either. She turns her head from side to side when the microwave is on listening to the hum and trying to figure out what it is. Then when the timer goes off and the microwave dings she barks. I can’t figure that out since she doesn’t bark at the phone when it rings.

I think she’ll have been exposed to just about everything in our home that moves or makes a sound soon and then she won’t have these funny reactions anymore, but it sure is fun to watch her.

Great deals on electronics at TechBargains

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The holidays will be here soon and if you are like me you’ve started to shop and you’re probably watching for sales and bargains so that you can get some great gifts for your family and friends.

You might want to check out Techbargains.com. They have all kinds of deals on electronics such as HDTVs, GPS systems, cheap digital camera, iPods, LCD displays, Notebooks, cell phones and many other products that would make ideal gifts.

TechBargains has exclusive deals coming out all the time. If you really want to get a bargain it would be in your best interest to sign up for their email deal alert which you can customize to fit your interests. By this I mean that when you sign up for email deal alerts you can add keywords or pick a specific category and when deals come up for products in those categories or that match your keywords you’ll get an alert.

There’s also an email newsletter each week that highlights the best deals of the week.

Other ways to keep an eye on deals and bargains at TechBargains would be to subscribe to their RSS feed or visit their webpage using your mobile phone. You can even sign up for their mobile RSS feed if you prefer to use your cellphone to keep track of potential deals on great tech products.

I like that the site is constantly updated. They even do updates on weekends and holidays so no matter when you check the site you can find some new bargains.

I found that the site is very easy to use. You can navigate easily by using the tabs at the top of each page. For example if you wanted to check to see if there were any coupon deals for Dell products you could just click on the coupons tab and then select Dell at the top of the page. Otherwise you could just scan through the whole list of coupons to possibly find a discount on an item that you want to purchase.

There’s also a tab for rebates. I love rebates. Sometimes you can get quite a discount on an item that has a rebate coupon.

There are thousands of items listed at Techbargains. Once you find an item that you want to buy you can read the product descriptions and even do product comparisons. I think you’ll find Techbargains quite helpful as you shop for holiday gifts for your loved ones this year.

Don’t you hate when you have to buy extras to make something work?

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You know, when we bought our HD DLP television a few years ago .. 2004 I believe, it didn’t even come with any HDMI switches. In fact at that time you really couldn’t even buy this type of connection in Canada, but of course if you want the best performance out of your HD television or say an HD DVD player (like we have) you really need one of these connections.

I can’t tell you how much that ticked me off when I found out that it didn’t have an HDMI connection. Oh sure it has the outlet for it, but the vital connection wasn’t included in what was then a close to $5000 TV?

I think I’m going to get one of these switches now so that we can hook up the HD PVR and the HD TV. Who knows, maybe we’ll get a second one so that we can also connect the HD dvd player with one as well. Naturally all of these items work with lesser connections but I bet the picture is so much better with an HDMI.

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