One thing nobody ever warns you about malamutes is that every once in awhile you get a “screamer”.  Screamers rarely  howl, almost never bark…when they get excited or want something they scream.  Superman does this…in fact he’s been driving us crazy for about two weeks now.  First Pod was in season, then Mocha, and I think someone else is close…so it’s been non-stop.  It makes you want to tear your hair out!  Fortunately, unlike our previous screamer, Shadow – Superman at least sleeps at night.  Shadow would keep us up 48 hours straight…it got to be a bit much!  Superman at least takes a break at night! (thank goD).  If I had to guess, I’d say maybe 5% of malamutes are screamers.  We’ve had a few over the years…Shadow, Star, Superman, Simone…they are always the most beautiful dogs of great intensity.

Give me the mellow Hoovers and Riggs’ any day!  While they know what they want, they are patient and calm.  They don’t demand, they wait.  They are patient and calm.

If you haven’t heard the piercing screams of a malamute in love it’s disconcerting.  It’s also hard to talk on the phone or even think.  It goes through your brain like a hot knife.  The hardest part is the more you yell at them, threaten, want to kill the more you realize it t does no good at all.  Dan has taken to whacking the crate with an empty soda bottle – which gives you a few seconds of silence.  It doesn’t last.  It probably won’t work tomorrow. Actually, nothing we’ve ever found works for long.

So who are these screamers?  The really smart, intense dogs that know what they want and hope letting out piercing screams will somehow get them  what they want.  They are demanding, strong willed dogs that would probably be great on a team (we haven’t tested this theory but with their stamina I can’t imagine them ever tiring).  I really don’t know how they keep it up – you’d think they’d lose their voices…I mean if YOU yell for hours nonstop  eventually you’d lose your voice – right?  Not Superman and Shadow…they may rest for a few minutes, but then it starts up again.

Sometimes crating them near the object of their desire helps.  It gave us some quiet when Pod was in season because her crate was next to Superman’s – but the minute she went outside or left his sight it started.  It was enough to make you deaf.  The wailing didn’t stop until Pod returned.  Heaven help us all if Pod went out to play with the other girls.  For the few days she was in standing heat she had no life – for our sanity she HAD to be near Superman.

So if you don’t have a screamer, count your blessings… and, no it’s not something you can predict as a puppy.  You find out at about 6 months to a year later when they “grow up” a little and decide they know what they want – and want it now!

If you have a screamer – you have my condolences…and my blessing to use industrial strength earplugs.

Ahhhh…spring is in the air.  The birds are tweeting (no not the Twitter kind of tweet …) and the malamutes are blowing coat.  The birds are happy because they have soft, warm nest material of dog hair.  Our birds are especially happy – we just gave 7 malamutes baths today.  Three of those 7 are shedding.  I’m not eating dinner (I’ve already eaten enough hair thank you), so  I thought I’d blog about it. If you’ve ever given a malamute a bath you know it’s an experience.  Ask any groomer.  Groomers  do this every day, they should get a medal or something.

You pour the water on a Malamute and nothing ever gets to the floor…it’s absorbed like a giant sponge.  You keep thinking, “once I get him/her wet” I can put on the shampoo…. But that never happens…the water just keeps getting absorbed and the dog STILL looks dry!  So you finally give up and start putting on the shampoo anyway.  However,  it is also absorbed into the Bermuda triangle of Malamute hair.  A whole bottle later, you take a stab at lathering.  A malamute has an oily coat – which doesn’t mean a whole lot until you try and get the shampoo to make those nice soapy bubbles.  It doesn’t happen. You see a few, but you never really get a good lather going.  If you insist, you’ll be here all day so eventually you give up and just start rinsing.

On que, which means as soon as you are close enough, the dog does one of those doggy shakes suddenly releasing  all that water and shampoo at you.   You are soaked to the skin.  I got smart this time and put holes in a garbage bag for my head and arms – which kept my torso somewhat dry – but generally that was sort of like trying to use an umbrella in a hurricane – pretty useless but better than nothing.

This time we decided to wash the pack outside.  Personally, I miss the warm water of the bathtub, but they generally don’t seem to mind.  Except Jazzy, she’s a wimp.  She likes her comfort and cold water outside on a nice day is for drinking – not bathing in her opinion.  She made sure she shook a lot to make sure I knew it was COLD water.

Our plan was to put one dog on a grooming table and while I washed, Dan dried another dog on the second grooming table.  A regular Malamute assembly line.  Simone thought it was much more fun to jump off the bathing table and run around the yard, through the dirt pile, and back each time I thought I’d made progress.  So much for our coordinated plan.  We spent much of the time chasing Simone while Theodore (who was being good on the drying table) looked on wistfully.  Best laid plans….

Time to rinse.  Again the water disappears into our endlessly-absorbent dog and I rinse and rinse and rinse but  still see soapy water coming out.  Feelingl around I realize there are pockets of soap – almost as if there is a soap dispenser hidden somewhere under all that coat.  So I keep rinsing.  In what seems like 2 hours later, I  have a very wet, very annoyed, dog.  But she’s clean!

Over to the next station, out comes the G-force dryer and Dan starts drying…and drying ….and drying.  Just when you’d  think you might be close to done, you’ll  find a wet spot and realize the entire dog is still soaking wet underneath – only the surface is dry.  Consigned that we’ll be here awhile, we  grab the cell phone to order carry out.

If the dog you’re drying is blowing coat it’s even more fun.  Once a spot gets dry, enough hair starts swirling around your head to make you think you’re in an Antarctica whiteout.  It sticks to your glasses, goes in your eyes, ears and mouth and up your nose.  How much more fun can this be!  The amount of hair is endless.

The yard (because you were wise enough to do this outside) looks like a winter blizzard and the birds are scooping up hairballs as fast as they shoot off the dog.  One bird did a back flip and plucked a waifting tuft out of thin air.  Which begs the question – when your yard is coverd (and I mean COVERED) in malamute hair – all stuck in the grass and embedded in the deck how do you clean it up?  Do you even try to clean it up (it IS natural, right, or so I tell myself).  If you don’t clean it up you’ll have to look at it for the next few weeks, because while the birds love the hairballs for their nests, they aren’t ostriches…they only need so much.  We opt for using the dryer  as a yard blower to get it off the deck.

At any rate, we’re almost done – the dog is almost dry and looks great.  We look like drowned rats.  We’ve taken another entire malamute out of each dog – 2 or 3 for the shedding ones.  On to the next dog…. Our reward for an afternoon of eating hair balls and being drenched….7 gorgeous dogs that smell great.  It’s the little things in life.  As for the birds, I see them in the trees slapping their foreheads saying “too much of a good thing”.

Don’t just pass up a shelter dog based on what you’re told…give them a chance.  This is a powerful video that was on one of my many dog lists.   A dog that may seem “vicious” may just be scared and need a hug.   It brought tears to my eyes (no, it wasn’t a malamute – but does it matter?)

watch?v=_LqSHfkLvHk

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.