With all the new warnings going out recently I’ve created a couple of new pages to keep up with them:

http://omalmalamutes.com/omal/important.htm and   http://omalmalamutes.com/omal/recalls.htm

Growth around gauze - size of a large grapefruit

There are new warnings about the potential of microchips causing cancer in dogs at the insertion site, as well as new pet food recalls.  It’s hard to keep up with all of this so when I hear of anything I’ll be putting it on these two pages.  Recalls is for food & treats, Important is for everything else….

Regarding the microchips:  I think I’d wait until there is more conclusive evidence of cancer – with the way Malamutes can be escape artists and are stolen I think the risk of cancer in a dog that lives a mere 12 or so years is negligible compared to the really valid risks of being stolen or lost.  I mean, look at Mula’s body – it ignored the microchip and instead built a fortress around a sterile piece of gauze Dr.   Schultz of Schultz  Veterinary in Okemos left in her (see photo) when he did a c-section on her ….Fortunately it didn’t become cancerous.  My thinking is that if THAT didn’t cause cancer, I really would be surprised if a small piece of glass would. (Glass is considered an inert material in the body).  I think a bigger risk is letting your veterinarian do surgery on your dog and him leaving behind things he shouldn’t!  Maybe there should be a recall page for vets?

By the way, due to this horrible thing done to my Mulan I want to bring it to the attention of everyone just how BAD Michigan law is concerning our pets.  In the eyes of Michigan law your pet is CHATTEL which means it is LIVESTOCK.  It has no value beyond that of a roaster chicken or some other meat animal.  If your veterinarian harms your pet, he is ONLY LIABLE FOR THE MEDICAL EXPENSES (and believe me, they will try and wiggle out of those too by using hard-ass insurance companies that care nothing about your pet).  There is no accountability the way Michigan law is currently written.  Contact your congressman and state senator – tell them we LOVE our pets and they are not livestock – make Veterinarians accountable. That’s a place to start.

The danger to your pet from salmonilla in food or a microchip pales in comparison to the threat posed by  veterinarians that have no accountability.

I guess development takes many roads…Superman has always thought he was invincible which is only understandable since his name is Superman…and Theodore has always been something of a nerdy bookworm.  Like his name implies, he’s been sort of shy and nerdy, obedient and has not been all that interested in girls – UNTIL NOW….OMG all that has changed.  Suddenly, at one year old, the nerd boy has decided he is a stud-muffin.  He is in love with anything female – and I mean ALL the girls – and I don’t think ANYONE is even in season. First it was Mocha, then Pod, then Jazzy, and then Simone…what is going on here?  Is this a case of Nerd-boys gone wild?  Sweet little Theodore, who was always so sweet, so nice, is now walking around the yard with his nose crazy glued to every female rear end.  I don’t know what brought this on – we’re suspecting maybe Simone the Siren is having a silent season…but sheesh.  So no “socializing” for Theo at least until he gets his head on straight.  It’s actually kind of funny – sort of like Garth of Wayne’s world discovers girls.  I have never seen anyone so happy to go outside and “play”…you can almost hear him chanting Wayne’s World! Wayne’s World! Party time! Excellent!…Bring on the BABES! and banging his drumsticks.  Even Superman is telling him “go take your Ritalin”.  He’s even lifting his leg now! Party on Theodore!

This evening I walked into the bedroom to find Jazzy, Mula and Mocha parked in front of the TV on the bed, side by side, watching Iron Chef America.  They were engrossed and didn’t even notice that I walked in…that only goes to prove TV has gone to the dogs.  Though, for dogs, I can’t argue their preference for cooking shows (they were cooking some kind of fried rabbit dish to the chagrin of Pig, our bunny). 

Riggs has always loved TV.  He has a preference for medical shows (especially with surgery) and animal shows.  Nothing gets his interest like Veterinary Medical shows.  In a previous life he must have been a village doctor.  He would have been a good one too…he always seems to know when one of the other dogs is sick.   Well, the commercial is on now and everyone has lost interest – the Bahamas just isn’t as good as it used to be!  Or maybe the cruise lines don’t serve enough fried rabbit…

I was really tickled when I checked our Alexa rankings today!  O’Mal Alaskan Malamutes is ranked 784,682 in the WORLD and 206,873 in the US…now that doesn’t seem all that great until you consider the total number of registered domain names  on the Internet is around 240 MILLION, so that’s pretty cool.  Actual in use webpages is around 96 MILLION.  We are the highest ranked  Malamute site, and are ranked higher than Cesarmilaninc.com who is 2,427,409 – and are a bit behind the official Iditarod site at 465,519.  (smaller numbers are better).  Not bad for a personal site at all considering they are big corporations.   We are most popular in the US and Canada, and surprisingly Russia.  Superman’s page is the most popular of the dogs, with Riggs close behind.   The most popular page of all is “arctic names” – it used to be woolies a few years ago.   I usually only look at this stuff every once in awhile so I was surprised to say the least, that we’ve had over 3 million hits a month for several months in a row.  Woah!  I guess I need to write in my blog more since someone is apparently reading this stuff I write .

Theo has had some really loose stools on and off since…well… forever… I ran out of food last week and had to feed everyone another brand.  Surprisingly, no watery poops for Theo! So I’m wondering why and what could be in the Member’s Mark Complete Nutrition (green bag at Sam’s Club) that isn’t in Pedigree.  Bought some more Member’s Mark this week and noticed a VERY strong peanut smell when I put it in the dog food bin – like it was slathered in Peanut Butter. I wonder if he’s allergic to Peanuts!!!! I’m going to call the number on the bag and find out tomorrow. I had noticed a faint peanut smell before, but never anything this strong.  It’s not listed in the ingredients but the Peanut Butter smell is unmistakable – I would recognize it anywhere. Maybe that’s what all the intermittant diahrrea is all about…wouldn’t that be strange? I don’t recall ever seeing “peanuts” or “peanut oil” listed on any dog food bag, but peanut butter is a flavor in lots of dog treats.    Lots of people are allergic to peanuts to the point it can cause anaphylactic shock in susceptible individuals, from just being in the room with peanut products so this can be quite serious.  Wen I find out more  I’ll let you know.

Wow, this is interesting…called 800 number of the  company that makes Members Mark.  There is NOT supposed to be peanut butter, peanuts, peanut oil or anything peanut in the food – yet it smells so strongly of peanut butter it makes me want a peanut butter sandwich.  I told this to their nutritionist at the 800 number and she said that is really strange.  They are sending me something to give them a sample in and also wanted the numbers off the bag – and discovered they make peanut butter cookies in the same plant.  Now they are really concerned.  She wondered if any of the other dogs got sick from the food.  Everyone except Theo  is fine – and he’s fine too because we continued to give him Pedigree instead.  Dan’s theory is someone had some leftover peanut butter from the cookies at the plant and threw it in the dog food…in some ways this makes sense because every once in awhile it would smell peanut buttery – but other times wouldn’t.  And interestingly, Theo would get diahrrea and it would go away – randomly…I never connected the penut smell with his diahrrea but there could be a connection.  However, it was never as strong it was this time – actually overcoming.  She said they also make Pedigree (which agrees with Theo) and the only difference in the two foods is supposed to be soybean meal.  So if it’s not peanut butter, which I strongly suspect it is, it may be he’s allergic to soybean meal – but again that wouldn’t account for the intermittant diahrrea that always lasted a week or so then would go away (about how long a bag of food lasts).  They are going to investigate the peanut thing because it was made in Washington state …(do you also see a China connection here?  like the last dog food problem?).  I told her there are some people (kids esp.) that are so allergic they can’t be in the same room with peanuts  so that could be a real problem if kids start having allergic reactions because of the dog food!  It will be interesting to see what they find out.  If anyone else has noticed this, let me know…I’ll post what I find out after their quality control people test the food sample I send them….in the meantime if you have kids or other pets allergic to peanuts I would be careful.  In a way it was a lucky break that I ran out of food last week and had to feed Theo something different – I would have never guessed this might be the problem otherwise.

This was interesting…Superman went to his first dog show last Thursday and nothing unusual happened.  He came home and apparently told Gracie and Pod all about it.  Gracie, who has been to many shows  considers it a complete social event – feeling she must “hug” everyone she meets.  Apparently she told Superman he needs to be doing this because when we went back to the show Saturday – he wanted to hug everyone he met – EXACTLY like Gracie does.  He NEVER did this before – he’s not a “hugger”, even at home,  but she is.  I strongly suspect he came home and told her all about his exciting day and she told him – you messed up boy! - you MUST hug people.  It’s very important.  It is part of the whole experience of going to a dog show.  So he decided to follow her advice and give hugs.  Don’t tell me they don’t have “conversations” because there is NO WAY he would have started to do this had he not been told to by Gracie.  It’s just not his style.  Scary isn’t it???? (makes you wonder what they say about us?  Hey, this one is a sucker for sad eyes and that one can be bought off with a paw…now, if you want to go bye byes….)

Interesting article posted on Facebook…  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/628a8500-ff1c-11de-a677-00144feab49a.html (warning: it’s long)

I found this really interesting because of a couple of things…we have malamutes which are a “primitive” dog – about as close to a wolf as you can get without having wolves, and yet they are housepets – not strays and not outdoor dogs.  The dogs of Moscow  seem to fall somewhere in-between wolves and regular pet dogs as well.  This article talks about how Andrei Poyarkov, 56, a biologist specializing in wolves has dedicated himself to answering some interesting questions about Moscow’s strays that also inhabit this ’shadow world’ between wolves and pets.  One of his comments I found particularly provoking:

“The second difference between stray dogs and wolves is that the dogs, on average, are much less aggressive and a good deal more tolerant of one another,” says Poyarkov. Wolves stay strictly within their own pack, even if they share a territory with another. A pack of dogs, however, can hold a dominant position over other packs and their leader will often “patrol” the other packs by moving in and out of them. His observations have led Poyarkov to conclude that this leader is not necessarily the strongest or most dominant dog, but the most intelligent – and is acknowledged as such. The pack depends on him for its survival.

This is interesting because we have been concentrating our breeding program on trying to eliminate the dog aggression malamutes are known for.  He touches on this trait saying wolves are more aggressive and have tighter packs than dogs.  What I’ve noticed as we’ve slowly gotten more and more dogs that are less dog aggressive (we have 4 girls now that can actually live together!!!) there is this moving between packs he speaks of.  While Jazz, Riggs and Mula are a pack…and Theo, Simone and Mocha are a pack…there is a huge overlap and they even can float into the packs of Superman/Pod or Holly.  This is a new development for us in that before there were always very strong lines between the “packs” when we had more than one.  Now that black/white line is turning to gray.  It’s become more complicated, yet the dogs themselves have become less aggressive.  I think he’s on to something here. 

I also see some interesting similarities between the Malamutes we have and his “Metro Dogs”.  They are a primitive dog that has adapted to life in a house.  It’s almost a special niche…and while they don’t have to forage for food, or figure out train schedules they DO figure out our schedules and “work the system”.  It’s a really good article and I highly recommend it.

It proves you can’t win them all!  Superman got dumped at today’s dog show after winning Thursday…mainly because Dan didn’t wear his mini-skirt!  One exhibitor had a skirt so short you could see her crotch!  (I’m not kidding).  I guess if you need the win THAT bad…but oh well, it’s just a dog show.   The weight pull after was interesting.  We really should do more of that kind of thing with our dogs – weight pulling and sledding are what these guys are really meant to do – and it would give Simone a purpose in life besides gettting into trouble.

Showing is merely a beauty contest and with a lot of  fluff and puff – especially when you have so many judges that don’t even know what they are looking at.  Once long ago we were told by a judge our dogs are “too pretty – and pretty dogs can’t work” – I would love nothing better than to prove them wrong because even though we don’t do a whole lot with them, I know they can.  In shows you don’t get to see them in their natural element where they really excel.  Running around the ring is nice, and the dogs are beautiful, but it’s not like pulling a sled.  All Superman wanted to do today was go outside because the weather was a bit colder – as much as he liked all the attention, the kids, and seeing everything – he would have been happier out running on a team somewhere.  I’m just not an outdoorsy type (my idea of enjoying the great outdoors is through a window with my hot chocolate by the fireplace LOL) and Dan has limited time.  Maybe once we get up north and have the great outdoors at our back yard it will happen…one can only hope LOL.

We haven’t gone to too many dog shows lately due to the economy, and all the politics and fixing going on…so this is our first show in almost 2 years and what a return.  Superman at his very first show took Winners Dog and a point.  It felt good.  It was fun again.  He’s a really typey malamute (typey means he LOOKS like a Malamute SHOULD look…) and we noticed all the new faces out there.  Funny, but now WE are the “old timers” in showing  LOL!  Seems only yesterday we were the newbies with our pet Penny trying to figure everything out.

 The one thing we noticed in our excursion back into the show world is the quality of the dogs…it’s not there.  We as a breed are losing “type” or that nebulous quality that makes you go – now THAT’s a Malamute!  What I’m seeing is badly set tails, skinny or too boney legs, girls with bulky masculine heads  (girls should be FEMININE), and the muzzles are either too blocky or too skinny, and the heads are just too narrow and eyes too round (like Mocha’s eyes)…where have all the good heads gone?  

But it was fun, we had a nice time seeing some old friends and meeting a few new ones.  The Rock Finanical Center in Novi, MI is a great venue for a dog show – lots of space and not too noisy.  We were even lucky enough to park close.  I took a few videos with my cell phone and will be posting them in the video section once I figure out how to convert them (Verizon apparently has a new format for recording).  Funny, the videos seem so noisy but it doesn’t seem that way when you’re there.  This was an indoor show and they have started doing something new – starting the show at noon.  They used to start at 8:00 am so that’s kind of a nice change (not having to get up at 5:00 am or earlier – now we can sleep in!).  This was a Thursday show which is also becoming more common.  With shows combining forces there are more 4 day shows than there used to be.  It’s nice for people that have flexible hours and jobs but not so good for people that have to work at a “real” 9-5 job.  The weekday shows always seem a little less pressured and more fun to me, maybe because they have fewer entries.

Anyway, congrats Superman and Dan on your first win at Superman’s first show.  All that practicing has paid off! We know you’re a beautiful guy and anyone that can sail over a 6′ fence effortlessly has to be well structured – now we have “official” proof LOL.  Maybe Dan has finally gotten his male “special”! (he’s been wanting to show a nice boy for years but it’s never quite worked out).  Wish us luck for the rest of the weekend….I’ll keep you posted on what happens HERE on our new blog page. 

I decided to go with Wordpress due to all the cool plug-ins available I can play with – my goal is to give our visitors a voice too.  So for awhile anyway, this blog will be “under construction” as I add some neat little do-dads and get them working – such as the newsletter subscription and the ability to reply to posts among other things.  I want to keep making the site bigger and better and more useful for you…so bear with me while I expand and experiment!

Well, finally bit the bullet and am making a “real” blog.  I was able to import old posts and everything so we’re off to a good start.  Now if I can just remember to write in it!  I do enough “logging in” at my day job (web design) and this is supposed to be fun so logging in to a Blog is twice the effort but I’m going to give it another attempt.   I’d also like to add other widgets and things to this page(s) to make it more intereactive so stay tuned.