GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: dogs

Our Labrador Charlie Pup Had A Canine Stroke

One of our dogs had a canine stroke, here’s how we found out and the recovery.

Light grey oval in Charlie’s spinal cord indicates a canine stroke.

A few weeks back we noticed Charlie Pup slipping when she ran around corners on our wood floors. This progressed into a general wobbly back end, losing control of her back legs. We thought it might be hip dysplasia, so we went to see Charlie Pup’s doctor. Canine stroke was not even in my list of possibilities.

Hear me talk more about Charlie’s stroke on this episode of the GardenFork Radio Podcast.

Charlie Pup’s doctor watched her and immediately said that this condition was not hip related, but neurological. She suggested and we agreed to take her to the see a neurosurgeon at the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan. Our vet helped us make the arrangements and did an x-ray and blood tests to rule out a few causes.

We’ve been to AMC in NYC before, with our other Labrador, Henry about 10 years ago. Its kinda like the Mayo Clinic for dogs.

So we drive from Brooklyn to Manhattan, park the car in the hospital parking lot, and take the elevator to the waiting room. The doors open, and I see a rooster, an iguana, a parrot, and a bunch of NY people and their dogs and cats.

Kinda like a live version of a New Yorker Magazine cartoon.

We get to see Dr. Abby Lebowitz, a neurologist and neurosurgeon. Super nice doctor who also has a Labrador. Dr. Lebowitz and her team take Charlie and want to do some motor function tests. So we get to wait in the waiting room with the cast of characters.

We met Dr. Lebowitz after the testing and learn there can be several causes for Charlie losing control of her back legs. We are given the option of having an MRI right away, or we can have Charlie on confined rest for 3 weeks and see if she improves.

We opt for confined rest, as an MRI is not cheap. Having been through several back-spine treatments myself, I know the body can heal itself for some back issues.

I didn’t realize how confined the rest had to be until I read the instructions they sent home with us. Really confined. We didn’t do a very good job the first week, but I re-read the instructions and the confinement was done right.

We kept Charlie Pup and Henry up near the front bay window in Brooklyn so they would have sunlight and see outside most of the day. Charlie Pup is bonded to our older Lab, Henry, so we have to keep them together. Our neighbors lent us two sets of folding dog fences that worked great to keep them in their small area.

Here is the bolster orthopedic dog bed we use for Charlie Pup, the dog fence, and Henry’s flat orthopedic bed.

I was surprised the Labradors did not just push the fence down. But it worked very well.

We are lucky to have a small backyard in Brooklyn, so the pups went outside 4-6 times a day. We would walk Charlie Pup in the yard on a leash. She likes to bolt out the door to chase squirrels. She was not allowed on stairs either.

After 3 weeks of confinement, we realized her wobbly legs were not improving. We talked with Dr. Lebowitz and scheduled the MRI.

Charlie Pup spent the whole day in the offices of the neurology department. We are told she was very popular. They did an MRI, X-rays, and a sonogram.

At the end of the day we met with Dr. Lebowitz and we learned that Charlie Pup had had a canine stroke, and it is causing her to lose control of her back legs.

This is a relief in a few ways, its not a ruptured disc that would require surgery, or spinal stenosis, which would mean steroids.

Charlie Pup is to take it easy and slowly progress back to her normal activities. We might try some physical therapy; aqua therapy sounds appealing as she loves to swim.

She will always be a bit wobbly in her back legs, but its good to know what happened and how to proceed.

Listen to me talk about what can happen if your dog has wobbly legs on GardenFork Radio.

March 14, 2018
DIY Dog Tug Toy – GF Video

Learn how to make a dog tug toy in this DIY GardenFork Video. Our dogs tear through store bought toys, maybe the toys are made for smaller dogs, not sure. So I bought 100′ of rope and now we make our own dog rope toys. This video is one of several we are working on for Dog Toy series. Sign up for our newsletter to find out when we post new vids.

One precaution here: In this video we are using a polyester rope, and some dog have issues with this kind of rope, it can get stuck in their stomach. Our pups do not have this problem. I suggest you use cotton rope, which you can get at a camping supply store or a good hardware store.

This tug toy is not perfect, the dogs manage to tear it apart in a week or two, but then I just make up another one. And they love it when they see me with the large hank of rope making them a new toy. Moose, the black lab, loves to get hold of the whole hunk of rope, which makes a mess of it.

Charlie Pup and Moose are the main users of the tug toy, Henry will want to play with Moose, and then Charlie Pup jumps in. Not sure if this is a dominance thing or just Charlie Pup being jealous, or maybe its just dogs being dogs. But it is a blast to watch, below is a video of the dogs playing with the tug toy. You can watch more Lab videos on their YouTube Channel here. As you can see, it works very well, and it wears them out, which is a big goal of mine. Sleeping dogs are a good thing at the end of day, and this works well for that.

I can barely hold onto the rope when I play with them, its amazing how much pull strength they have. Their jaw clamps onto that rope and then they pull back with their hind legs. I let go the rope, lest I wreck my back.

Do you make your own dog toys? Let us know below:

October 7, 2014
Sweet Potato Dog Treats Recipe : GF Video

Homemade Sweet Potato Dog Treats Recipe in this how-to video. We’ve bought sweet potato dog chews from the store, and they are expensive. Prompted by a GF viewer who sent us some sweet potato dog biscuits, we decided to try and make these.

The Labradors Love Sweet Potato Dog Treats

Charlie Pup Loves These

As you can see in the video, our dogs love the chews, and they were easy to make. I’m thinking you can also use an oven to dry the potato chews, a convection oven would do very well.

A couple of thoughts about making dog treats here. Be very careful with the knife, don’t use a dull knife. You can also use the side of a box grater, if it has a slicer on it. Or use a mandolin, but again be careful.

We did not peel the potatoes, and did not use any sweet potatoes that had started to get mushy. Firm good looking potatoes only.

There were several reasons for making the home made dog treats. First was just how expensive the sweet potato dog treats cost in the store. A bag of them goes quickly, and so does your money. Second was the concerns about food safety in general, and a few things we’ve read about dog treats from other countries being made with unsafe ingredients. I don’t understand people who do things like that, but it happens more often than it should. Homemade food, to me, is just plain safer.

We liked the dog treats that we sprayed with vegetable oil, they were a bit more leather like, not as crisp and hard, but its a judgement call on your part.

We have more dog treat recipe video here on the site, click here to watch them. This is our first potato based dog treat, but i’m sure we’ll do more of them as we go along. Let us know your dog treat ideas in the comment section.

Sweet Potato Dog Treats Recipe
Ingredients
• 2 sweet potatoes
• 1 can vegetable oil spray
Cooking Directions
1. Slice the raw sweet potatoes into dog treats. You can either do round discs by cutting from the end of the potato, or cut long slices. I slice them 1/4\” thick.
2. Lightly spray both sides of sweet potato with vegetable oil.
3. Put in dehydrator for 24 hours. Rotate the racks halfway through for even drying.
4. Keep in zipper plastic bags.

January 21, 2014
In Memory of Mij, Labrador Video Memorial : GF Video

Mij, our neighbor’s Yellow Labrador Retriever who appears in many GardenFork videos, passed away recently. I went through a lot of the video clips we have of Mij and put together a DVD for his family, and then we decided to share it with all of you as well.

Here is 12 minutes of Labradors, also appearing here are Moose and Charlie Pup when they were puppies.

April 27, 2013
Whole Wheat Tuna Dog Treats Recipe – Adorrable Dor

Wholewheat Tuna Dog Treats -Adorrable Dor

Hey Allemaal! -which means everyone in Dutch-
Finally we are getting some decent spring weather, and boy do we need it. I think we are about 3 to 4 weeks behind normal spring growth and my garden is poised to explode with greens and all kinds of flowers. Now comes the really difficult part of teaching Roshi to stay on the paths and grass and out of the vegetable and flower beds. As she is a darling Labrador in full puberty this is a hit and miss experience at the moment. But I already decided to keep the veggies limited to lettuces and legumes this year so if she damages anything in youthful folly it can be replaced easily.
A note about the Sweet Potato dogtreats I made early March, because there is a high moisture content they must be either used within 10 days or so or be kept in the refrigerator. The last couple of treats I made spoiled I’m sorry to say.

These Tuna Treats are also quite high in moisture but should keep 2 weeks without problems, that is if you can keep your dogs from stealing them. That’s what happed to Ellie -Roshi’s breeder- when I made her these treats for her 5 grown Labs. Within half an hour Roshi’s mom Esmer stole the container full of treats from the kitchen counter and all Labs pounced and devoured the lot, destroying the plastic tub in the process. The garlic in this recipe is optional but most dogs seem to have no problems with it and garlic helps with flea and tick control.
The picture shows Rosh enjoying her new bowl rack –is that what you call this contraption in English- so she does not stretch her neck and spine too much when eating. Credit goes to my husband, he cleverly fashioned it from an Ikea IVAR bookcase sidepanel.

Wholewheat Tuna Dog Treats
If you have tuna in water no problem, substitute the 2 tablespoons of water for olive or vegetable oil.
1 small can of tuna in oil
2 tablespoons of water
300 grams or 10.5 ounces of whole wheat flour
2 eggs
4 cloves of chopped garlic

This recipe uses a kitchen blender but you can easily mix and knead this dough by hand, just chop the garlic very finely.
Preheat your oven at 200 C or 395 F.

Blend the tuna, water and garlic in the machine, add flour and eggs. Whizz again until it forms a firm but slightly sticky dough.
Remove from the blender and add a little flour if it is too sticky to roll out comfortably.
Using a rolling pin, glass or just your hands, roll or push the dough to a thickness of about 1 cm or 1/3 inch. It will puff a bit in the oven, so will make a substantial treat.
Distribute the treats evenly on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper. Bake for about 30 minutes until nicely golden brown. You can leave them in the cooling oven for an hour or so, they will crisp up even more.
I use Roshi’s Labrador cookie cutter but you can use any shape that takes your fancy, this is a very well behaved dough.
Of course using a glass or the empty tuna can, even cutting into strips will work just as well.
This recipe is adapted from the Hondenkoekjes met Tonijn recipe from the www.hondenkoekjes.nl site.

April 26, 2013
Dog Treat Recipe Success!

Katja watched our Sweet Potato Dog Treat Recipe video and made these great looking dog treats!

In an email, she says:

I made your Sweet Potato dog biscuit recipe today. My slightly picky Labrador pup –I know a contradiction in terms- loves them.
Really liked the dogbone cookiecutter you used and looked online for one. I didn’t find a large one but it will do fine for a small treat.
They also had a couple of dog breed cookiecutters and I got the Labrador one.
It’s kinda fussy with the sticky sweet potato dough but they came out ok.

I know some Labradors that are picky about their dog treats – Henry wont eat carrots, and of course, Charlie Pup inhales them.

The dog treat dough for this recipe is kinda sticky, I think the sweet potato makes it that way, its also full of potato strand like stuff, so that adds to it. But with a good cookie cutter, or just a tin can, you can cut out the dog treats.

I really like the Labrador cookie cutter Katja used here. You can find some cookie cutters online here.

We have a few dog biscuit recipes, click here to watch them all

Have a dog treat recipe? please share it or your treat ideas below in the comments, thx!

March 4, 2013
Dog Treat Recipe Sweet Potato Dog Biscuits GF Video

Homemade Dog Treat Recipe! These dog treats are easy to make, and our dogs love these dog biscuits. I’m wondering if there’s a difference between dog treats and dog biscuits, maybe dog treats is a more general term and dog biscuits refer to baked dog treats like these sweet potato dog treats we made for the Labradors.

While working on this recipe, I found the amount of milk you add varies depending on how large and how moist the sweet potato is. You want the dough to be kinda dry, like pie crust dough, not wet. I’ve reduced the amount of milk in the dog treat recipe here, after mixing in the dry ingredients, you can add more milk or water if the dough is too dry to work with a rolling pin.

You also might consider adding in brewer’s yeast or powdered garlic to these dog treats, if you’ve found those ingredients help your dog’s health, or flax seed perhaps? What do you think?

I add flax seed oil to our Labrador’s breakfast to supplement their omega 3,6,9 intake. Keep flax seed oil in the fridge, btw. If you want to buy flax seed oil, its usually kept in the fridge case of the health food store.

If you don’t have a dog biscuit cookie cutter, you can use a glass or tuna can to cut out round dog treats, but its fun for kids to make dog bone style treats.

Here are some dog treat cookbooks you might want to check out, and let us know your dog treat recipes below:

Sweet Potato Dog Treat Recipe : GardenFork.TV
Ingredients
•   1 Medium sweet potato
•   2 cups whole wheat flour
•   1 cup whole oats
•   2 eggs
•   3/4 cup milk
Cooking Directions
1. preheat oven to 350F
2. poke 4-5 fork holes into sweet potato, microwave for about 8 minutes, or use the \”bake potato\” setting on your microwave. let the potato cool before handling it!
3. mix the two eggs together in a small bowl, set aside
4. remove the sweet potato from the skin and mash with a fork
5. add the dry ingredients together with the mashed sweet potato
6. add in then eggs and milk. you want a thick dough that isn\’t sticky, you may have to adjust the amount of milk.
7. flour a board and roll out the dough, you don\’t want a sticky dough
8. roll out to 1/2\” or 1/4\”
9. cut out dog treats with cookie cutters or a glass or a tuna can or just use a knife to cut out whatever shape you like.
10. grease a sheet pan with cooking spray, butter etc. put the dog treats on the pan
11. pick up the leftover rolled out dough and form it into a ball again, and roll it out into a sheet, and cut more dog biscuits
12. bake for 30 minutes or until slightly browned on top.

February 24, 2013
Labrador Charlie Pup In The Tub

We have a spring in back of the house that overflows into an old clawfoot tub, and after a hike in the woods, Charlie pup runs ahead on the trail and jumps in to this tub. She loves it. What does your pup do like this?

April 10, 2012
Roasting Turkey on a Charcoal Grill

oil skin with olive oil, salt & pepper if you want

Here we show you how to roast a turkey on a grill. we are using the charcoal method of cooking a turkey on a grill. the photos here will show you how to make your turkey tasted great on the grill.

add a meat thermometer

prep your charcoal burning grill, ours also has a propane lighter

light off and gray up 30 briquettes

divide, 15 per side

add a drip pan between the coals and add the grill

add the turkey (this is our T-Day bird, an heritage breed, Bourbon Red)

vents full open, top and bottom. start your timer: 1 hour intervals

relax. best of all, the turkey is out of the kitchen

every hour add 8 briquettes to each side. it usually takes 3 – 4 hours of cooking

Sydney naps in the ginger lilies near the grill, visions of turkey dance in her head. (obligatory GF dog pix)

A great bird roasted on the grill

December 24, 2011
Cooking Oils and Dog Discipline : GardenFork Radio

Call us: 860-740-6938 and ask us a question or leave a comment! Cooking Oils, does it make sense to cook with extra virgin olive oil, what’s that word umami?, foraging is starting to take over the restaurant scene, whole house humidifiers and more on GardenFork Radio.

Harold McGhee’s article on using different cooking oils and does it make sense to cook with extra virgin olive oil is here

Chefs using foraged food in restaurants article is here

Do you forage food? tell us below:

December 1, 2010
Chicago Italian Beef, that’s ours… : GardenFork Radio

This week: weather is the #2 search term, Brooklyn tornadoes, Chicago Italian beef, honeybees, alternators, cooking politeness, food photography, dog photography, filareefarm.com, localharvest.org, and Eric on driving the Ford Escape Hybrid

photo by WallyG

September 23, 2010
How to Make Applesauce Recipe : GardenFork.TV
Learn How to Make Applesauce as fall starts and apples ripen. We get apples from our local pick your own orchard or from our neighbors who have a very nice apple orchard. After you’ve made applesauce, you can can it, watch our hot water bath canning video.

How to make applesauce the GardenFork way

Making applesauce is not rocket science. It does take some attention, making sure you don’t burn the bottom of the pan, but is easy to do. This is something you can do with your children, get them involved in cooking.

Your first choice is are you a skin on or off kind of person. I leave the skins on when cooking down apples to make applesauce. The skins add the red-pink color to the sauce and also thickens it a bit more. I think there’s also a nutritional benefit to the fruit skins.

Next up is do you want to remove the seeds and core before or after cooking down the apples. You can core the apples before adding them into the pot, or just put whole apples in to the pot and deal with the cores later. You can also just quarter the apples and remove the seeds later.

If you are leaving the skins on, you’ll need a food mill. These are great tools to have around anyway for other projects. You can use it to make tomato sauce and de-seed other fruit pulp.

Also important when making applesauce is a pot with a thick bottom so the sauce does not scorch, or you can use a heat diffuser. The key here is to cook down the apples, but not burn them, low and slow works well.

So there you go, some pointers on how to make applesauce, below is the recipe.
How to Make Applesauce Recipe : GardenFork.TV

Recipe Type: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Author: Eric Rochow

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 1 hour

Total time: 1 hour 15 mins

Serves: 32 ounces

This recipe makes it easy to make your own applesauce.
Ingredients

3 lbs ripe apples

1/2 cup water

1 tablespon Cinnamon
Instructions

Core and cut the apples into quarters.

Add cored – cut apples and water to the pot, put pot on high heat.

When the water and apples start to sizzle, turn down the heat to low, cover, and let the apples cook down.

Add the cinnamon.

Mash the apples down occasionally, until the apples become sauce.

If you like a smoother sauce, cook the apples down longer, taking care not to burn the apples.
3.3.3077
August 19, 2010
Big piece of burr comb on a beehive frame pic

June 4, 2010