Black and White Sundays

Keeping It Real

Bast is a charming creature. Most people who meet him remark on how beautiful he is, how sweet and gentle he acts in public, how calm and relaxed he seems most of the time. At least once a day, I get playful offers to take him off my hands or jokes about kidnapping him.

Yeah, he is pretty awesome.

Look at that happy oaf. You want him, right? Wrong.

But let me you the truth about Bastas. He is nasty. Most wolfdogs are, in one way or another, it seems. Corpses are perfume, turds are chew toys and/or snacks, and I cannot begin to tell you how hard it is to potty train them sometimes. Even meals can get pretty gnarly.

Barf.

Why does he always go for their brains first?

Mm, yeah, brains.

The thing about Bast's nastiness is it's always so unexpected. You'd think you can anticipate potential sources of gross, and you can usually, but never 100%.

When picking out a new house, one of my non-negotiable requirements was NO CARPET. I did the whole "raw feeding in a carpeted household" and not even a direct command from Jesus himself would make me repeat that.

I look at this and wonder about my life choices.

Not having carpets has simplified my life immeasurably. Messes that previously required hours of scrubbing and soaking are now swept into a neat pile and sucked up with my all-surface vacuum. Bast, of course, still finds ways to make more work for me, though.

Bast suffers from bad allergies that make his nose run a lot. Because he's basically a toddler, he just eats his own snot all day no matter how close an eye I try to keep on it - Moms, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, his boogie snacks upset his stomach sometimes. No big deal, if he yaks on the floor, I just spritz some vinegar on it and clean it all up.

Except tonight.

Bast lay in the entryway, idly chewing off the bony ends of his chicken quarter, when he abruptly lurched to his feet. He stalked off across the hardwood, padded through the stone tile of the kitchen, trotted down into the painted concrete in the living room, popped up onto the couch beside me...

And barfed snot and raw chicken all across my thigh and down in between the couch cushions.

A whole house of smooth surfaces and he goes out of his way to ralph on me and the couch.

Bast is a charming creature.

Black and White Sundays

Bath Blues

I got several requests for more pictures, so this post is pretty image heavy. I could take and stare at pictures of Bast all day because I think he's an outrageously handsome dog, so here you go.


I don't really like to bathe my dogs a whole lot. For one, I'm lazy and it's a trial. Two, I don't like to dry their skin out with excessive washing. My older dog, Grendel, rarely needs to be washed. She's a clean little critter and can go months and months before she develops a dog funk.

You can imagine my dismay, then, when I got a wolfdog and learned all about the fun world of scent rolling. Now, lots of dogs scent roll, too - it's a pretty standard dog trope to roll on horrible things. With wolfdogs, it's almost compulsive. They all MUST roll on terrible, terrible things.

And they looked totally blissed out while they do it.

We hadn't had Bast for 2 months before his scent rolling behavior became outrageous. While I was overseas, my best friend kept Bast for me and took him for regular walks in a woody area near her house. Bast managed to find a rotted black pig corpse and scent roll in inside the cavernous remains of its chest, like some messed up Star Wars tribute. The smell took weeks to get out of his fur - when I came back from France several weeks later, it was still lingering around behind his ears.

So while I would love to not bathe Bast very often, he also likes to sleep in bed with me, and I'm not keen on sharing my linens with whatever cologne he found - Eau de Cat Turds doesn't really float my boat, you know?

His stankiness not withstanding, Bast also has flea and tick bite hypersensitivity, which requires us to be very proactive about making sure he doesn't get fleas or ticks. To help him out with this, he gets a regular flea bath every few weeks.

I used to have to bathe Bast in the tub, which was frankly exhausting for both of us. Bast's fur is very water-resistant, and there's only so much damage a pitcher can do.

Plus, he gets pissed.

Like, mega pissed.

I slept lightly that night.

.

And the indignity of being tortured for my amusement can be too much to bear.

I'm kind of a jackass.

Now, with a yard, I can hose him off outside, which is a lot easier but still comes with its own set of challenges. As you can probably guess from the murderous stares in the pictures above, Bast doesn't exactly like getting a bath and would rather avoid it. To keep him close by, I just go ahead and leash him and then just spray the hell out out of him while he paces around me, looking every bit a savage, soggy hellbeast.

He unsuccessfully tried the door.

Look how not-murderous he looks here! So proud.

Oops, back to vaguely menacing.

Michael Bay would be proud of my lens flair.

Almost done.

He prefers to do this when I'm right up close and soak me.

I always end these episodes fatigued and covered in wet dog hair, but at least he's clean for a few hours...

Birthday Boy!

Today is a very special day for us - Bastas turns two today!

We think, anyway. With a rescue, it's always sort of hard to know, and the guy who bred Bast isn't exactly a mark-your-calendars sort of guy (or a regularly-change-your-underwear sort of guy), but this is the day we celebrate it as, anyway.

Unfortunately, since I didn't get Bast until he was 9 months old, I don't have the wealth of puppy pics that I would like to have - that's another problem of getting a rescue dog. I do have a few that have been gathered by some of my friends involved with Bast's rescue, though.

Teeny tiny trouble.

Anyway, we try to celebrate his birthday by having special meals. Last year he got chicken feet, his very favorite treat:

And some liver, which he was less thrilled about: 

Here was the whole birthday array. I don't think Chef Ramsay will be knocking at my door anytime soon, but Bast liked it.

Anyway, this year we went with a heartier, meaty array of ground beef, chicken gizzards and sweetmeats, which I thought were beef cheeks but turns out is the thymus gland. The smell was unreal and Bast only wanted to play with it:

Om nom nom, meats.

And one last pic of the grody:

Happy, happy birthday, baby boy! I hope we have many more to come.

Black and White Sundays

Black and White Time

I'm going to experiment with trying smaller, newsreel type updates to help me get in the habit of posting more.

Here's a lovely picture of Bastas where I was playing with the shading. I'm crap at taking pictures and even worse at editing them, so I keep most of my edits to myself. This looked all right, though :)

Terrible Twos

Let's skip the part of this entry where I mourn my sporadic posting and give semi-empty promises to do better (although I do intend to do better...)

It's been a quiet summer here in Bastland. With secure containment, my life simplified immensely; I can now toss Bast outside for 20 minutes so I can run errands as I think of them like a normal person. This is a vast improvement over having to keep a list of things I need to do, drop him off at daycare, and then race around to get everything I need for that week done in one afternoon while he's properly supervised.

Although things have calmed down in the "unexpected chaos" department, that's not to say that Bast isn't still being Bast.With summer here, Bast's very bestest human friend is back to fostering kittens for the local Humane Society and Bast has been enjoying the role of doggy ambassador for socialization.

The kittens, as you can imagine, are less thrilled about this than Bast is, but it looks much better on their adoption papers if we can honestly say "Good With Dogs." Given that Bast loves cats, he's a perfect companion to help get the kittens ready for canine encounters before they're put up for adoption.

In a few weeks, Bast will be 2 years old. For those who aren't familiar with wolfdogs, around this age is the time that many wolfdogs find themselves being rehomed or dumped at rescues, if they're lucky. Others simply get turned out in the countryside, and despite many peoples' mistaken beliefs that wolfdogs are wild animals, they are not capable of fending for themselves in the wild and can easily starve. Sadly, I've seen examples of exactly that situation happening, and I'm sure those heavily involved in rescue have seen many more.

Behold the face of a natural hunter with his kill.

Anyway. Around 2 is when most wolfdogs will hit maturity. In the wild, pure wolves are born in the spring and are not sexually active by the time the first mating season comes around that winter. This is true of higher content wolfdogs as well, and usually trickles down in lesser amounts to lower content wolfdogs. As they move into their second year, the hormonal mojo starts flowing and they change from pups to adults.

When first getting Bastas and trying to absorb all of this information, I was told that around 2 years old, his behavior would start to change, At the time, I had no idea what these people were trying to say. What do you mean, his behavior will change? Is he going to turn on me? I got this impression from people that my dog was a character in a fairy tale with a horrible curse:

Once upon a time, in a far away desert, there lived lived a peaceful, friendly dog who loved to play with kittens and dig holes in the yard. Long long ago, a witch placed a powerful curse on all dogs of his line, that at the stroke of midnight on the eve of their second name day, they would be overcome by the blood of their ancestors and go totally apeshit and eat everyone.

OH MY GOD, HE'S EATING MANFLESH - Oh wait. That's a watermelon.

As can be expected, I was way off. No, Bast is not in danger of "turning on me." There's not some magical switch inside a wolfdog's head that makes them lose their minds and become a wild animal as soon as they hit 2, so if you were hoping with this story ending with me being eaten, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.

Sorry.

What has happened is a gradual increase in the intensity of his behaviors. Minor behaviors that he had as a puppy have intensified - it's like someone found the knobs in his noggin that control his reactions to things and cranked them up a few notches.

It's hard to explain. He's always been a whimsical creature - if you've read through some of my other entries, you're probably familiar with his habit of spooking and disappearing in the blink of an eye. Over the past few months, he's become even more prone to fits of odd behavior. Some of it is not as funny; as a puppy, Bast was always very friendly and outgoing. He never met a stranger and would walk up to anyone he met to demand petting. Gradually, so slightly that I didn't notice at first, he started losing some of his social attitude, until now he's much more guarded, especially around strangers.

I don't mean that he's antisocial - not really. He is still happy to meet most strangers, but he is much more easily overwhelmed in situations now than he was as a puppy. Being crowded around by too many people, especially adult men, makes him start shutting down and give off those doggy warning signs that he's being pushed too far - ears back, eyes wide, panting quickly with his tail low and slowly wagging in agitation. Being approached by someone who can't read these signs causes him to spook and bolt under my legs for reassurance, and I have to gently tell the well-meaning but oblivious stranger that he needs some space to be okay again.

My favorite sullen grouch.

This shutting-down happens a lot more frequently than it used to, a part of his maturity that makes me sad to see.

It's not all gloom and doom, though. Some of it, although irritating, has been entertaining - like his sudden switch to being nocturnal and wanting to be outside all of the time. This past week has been a combination of us both having to adjust to his new behaviors. As soon as it cools off here, Bast wants to be outside - all of the time. He pants and paces in the house until I let him out, and then won't come inside for hours. Nothing will persuade him to come back in before he's ready - not treats, not toys, not threatening to close the door - nothing.

Since his ever-present separation anxiety is an integral part of his personality, I still have to be accessible to him, though, or he busts down the back door in a panic. Our compromise, then, is for me to leave the back door cracked open. This allows him to peek his head in occasionally to reassure himself that I haven't disappeared into the ether, so now while tapping away at my computer, from time to time I see a small black flicker at the corner of my eye. He sticks one eye in, makes sure I haven't abandoned him, and then flits off like a sprite before I can get up to wrangle him inside.

As of writing this, it is now 12:39 AM. I tried to enforce a midnight curfew, but Bast's frantic stomping, punching, and whining to be let out wore me down and I let him go answer the call of the wild. My best friend Cait informs me that there is a super moon in 2 nights, and so I can only hope Bast's wolfy sickness waxes afterwards as well...

All Right, All Right

So after getting publicly shamed on a much more popular blog (I know you're reading this, Rebekah), I realized that yeah, I am a pretty crappy bloggist when it comes to updates. I could give you a dozen excuses like people do - thesis, end of semester, abducted and anally probed by aliens - but probably the most relevant lame excuse is that we have been in the process of moving to a house.

No more second story balcony dog

Now, previously I mentioned that Bastas and I were living in an apartment. This is really, really not recommended for wolfdogs for a variety of reasons that all boil down to "wolfdogs are crazy and need space". After a year of living in an apartment with Bast, I agree with this sentiment whole-heartedly. Although he is extraordinary chill for his kind, Bastas was not made for apartments. He was made for open skies, soft dirt, and room to really work the lead out of his legs, and I'm happy to say that after a year of saving, sacrificing, and countless walks to keep up with his energy, we now have a house and a yard for him to zoom around and crap in.

My favorite amenity about this house is the utter lack of carpeting. I may have mentioned we do a raw diet for Bast because of his kibble intolerance, and let me tell you, raw feeding in a place with carpet was... not fun. I spent a fortune in carpet cleaning solution and basically just shampooed the entire apartment at least twice a month.

Is this the real life?

I won't pretend I didn't enjoy the shampooing a little - seeing that nasty-ass carpet come clean was more satisfying than popping the biggest zit. If you don't know that sort of disgusting, neanderthal glee, you may not understand the joy involved, but those who have that gross trait in common with me - dat feeeeel.


Anyway, Bastas had a great time exploring our new home and actually did a hell of a lot better than I expected - he didn't try to mark in the new house even once and although he's had a few nightmares, mostly he just lays around enjoying the cool floors and extra room.

The naughtiest shag rug

On a college student/teacher's budget, our house is in an older neighborhood and has a lot of add-ons to make it up to 21st century standards. One of the extras is a funny little house in the backyard that houses a washer and a dryer. Since the house was built before washers and dryers, there was no connection for them and the homeowner improvised by building an outside shed.

"Shed" is not really the right word for this building. It's a little more elaborate than just a shed, but not up to efficiency house standards. Since it exists solely to house the washer and dryer and is a little overpowered for that, we refer to it as the Waj Mahal.

(I think I'm really funny.)

I've written before about how smart Bastas is. The boy is crazy-smart, and it's hard to explain just how intelligent he is to people who haven't met him. When you talk to Bast, there's a light in his eye that seems like he's actually, actively trying to understand your words, not just listening to your voice. We hadn't been in the new house but a couple of hours before Bastas figured out how to open the back door and let himself in and out. If I want him to go out and stay out, I have to lock the deadbolt on the door, which causes him to stand at the French doors and glare accusingly through the glass at me.

Of course, it wasn't long before Bast figured out he could open the door to the Waj Mahal, too, so now I have to lock that door lest he get into the laundry and spread my lacy panties to the four winds. I think most people would generally consider opening doors to be a pretty complicated task for a dog, and indicative of quite a bit of smarts, but here's the thing...

The entrance to the Waj Mahal has a big ass dog door in it.

I have led him to this door and showed him how it works many times, and yet he still chooses to go through the trouble of jumping up and pushing the entire door in himself.

Today, I stood at the back door of the house watching him as he pawed at the white door and casually let himself into the laundry hut, unable to tell if my dog is a genius or if he's retarded.

Children Come in Many Forms

Late last night, I lay stewing in a lavender bubble bath, a glass of red wine on the rim of the tub and a book in my hands. My small conure, Figgis, sat atop my forehead, leaning down across my face to comb through my eyebrows - all conures are born beauticians, if you didn't know. Last I saw, Bast had curled up on my bed, making sure that my feather pillows stayed flaccid and covered in hair before bed time. This is a typical evening here, if only for a little while.

Being a lower mid content wolfdog, Bastas is mostly dog with a generous dollop of undomesticated genes floating around. This does not mean he is a wild animal - one look at him sprawled across my bed, his paws wrapped around my linens (he prefers the pillow on the right), makes it abundantly clear there is no savagery in him. His mixed heritage just means that he is a dog who is a little fay around the edges: a loving, gentle creature with a healthy helping of whimsy and caprice. While his favorite daily activity is simply laying on the couch with some part of him touching me - a paw on my thigh, his forehead against my side - he occasionally hears a song that most humans have lost touch with, and he needs to get up and cause mischief.

Soaking in my bath last night, I heard the creak of my bedframe as Bast rose to his feet. I don't need to see him to know exactly what he looks like at that moment - eyes squinted, ears back, stretched up on tiptoes with his back arched and his bushy, fox-like tail extended out behind him. I heard the soft thump of his paws as he dropped off the bed, but as Bast makes very little noise when he moves, after that I heard only the quiet popping of my bath bubbles and the rustling of Fig's feathers as he settled on my hair.

I turned back to my book, but I was not fully re-immersed in it before I heard a slight shift on the carpet and became aware of something watching me. Bast stood in the door way, orange eyes softened to a warm, butter-squash hue by the low light, watching me with his head cocked to the side as if listening. I reached one hand out to him and said, "What is it, baby?"

Acknowledgement being apparently the only impetus needed to answer the call of the wild, Bast's eyes widened, his body dropped to the ground, and he shot forward in a black blur - to snatch my underpants off the bathroom floor. The sudden motion startled the parrot on my head, who shrieked, stretched, and shit down the front of my face.

As I sat in the tub, partially-digested raspberries plopping off my brow into the bathwater, listening to Bast's claws dig into the carpet for better traction to escape with his panty prize, I glanced down at the clock on my e-reader. 12:02 AM.

Happy Mother's Day to me, from my furred and feathered children.

To the Windows, To the OHMYGOD

Just a brief story! I apologize for the lack of updates - I've been hip deep finishing my master's thesis, and so blogging unfortunately took a backseat. But all of my revisions are due Friday, so hopefully I can get back to bringing the sillies.

Okay so, when trying to understand Bastas, I had read several times that wolfdogs are "single event learners". They're super smart at figuring things out, however in practical terms, this usually results in trouble for their humans. For example, they only need to figure out how to escape containment once; after that, it's easy as pie to get out again, and it becomes a dance of staying one step ahead of them.

In Bast's case, single event learning has the consequence that Bast only needs to have something bad happen to him once in order to develop a deep-seated, lingering emotional complex about it. I have to be very careful not to accidentally startle him, or else it requires weeks of positive conditioning to get him okay with something again.

When we're in the car, Bast almost invariably has his head out the window.

Free as the wind blows.

It doesn't matter how fast we're going - highways, neighborhoods, whatever. He leans his narrow, pointy head out and leaves drool streaks all down the side of my car. While the slobber on my car is annoying, he does do a pretty good job of keeping people from driving in my blind spot.

Last month, Bast and I were arriving home after an outing. I can normally tell him, "Hey, get your head in the window," and he will respond to my voice and come back in the car. On this night, though, after checking to make sure his head was out of the window, I turned forward again as the window rolled up. While my back was turned, Bast snuck back to the window and jammed his head in it just in time to get caught as it rolled up.

Although he had only time for one wheeze and buck before I quickly unrolled the window, it was enough to put the fear of God into him. He doesn't worry about having his head out of the window while driving - that joy was not taken from him. However, now when I arrive at a destination with him, you can guarantee you'll find him sitting on the other side of the seat, eye-balling the window mistrustfully and staying perfectly still while the window rolls up.

It's been 3 weeks now and he still does this every time.

Nothing Inspiring, Just A Story About Poop

Reflecting on Bast's oddities, I remembered an amusing story that took place shortly after I got him. When I first got Bastas, his house-training left a lot to be desired. He marked in the house constantly, I'm sure driven by his insecurity and fear in yet another new home, and his illnesses gave him frequent and persistent diarrhea for the first few weeks he lived here. House-training came back to him relatively quickly, but the first few months were pretty... Well let's say I'm betting Bissell's stock inexplicably rose a few points last summer.

Part of the difficulty in potty-training Bast was that I was unable to read his body language. Now I know him well enough, and he knows me in turn, that we can have simple exchanges of ideas and communicate easily, but in the beginning, there wasn't a very clear difference between the "I want to go play outside" dance and the "I'm about to shit all up in this place" dance.

One morning after stepping out of the shower, I misread his nervous prancing. It turned out that, no, he did not want to just go outside and sniff every blade of grass between here and the Mississippi, he really *did* need to go out for business. Of course, I didn't realize my error until he'd hunkered down in that distinctively vulnerable dog squat and laid the first half of a big o' fudge dragon on my white carpets. I yelled, dismayed, and scrambled to get him collared and leashed to finish outside. In my haste, I flung open the door before I clipped his leash.

Poor Bastas, already nervous in a new home and now concerned that I was mad at him, understandably took off out the door like a rabbit. While Bast is one of the fastest creatures I've ever seen, his fearful escape was somewhat hampered by the fact that he wasn't done pooping, and so instead of his usual graceful lope, he scuttled off like a big, black crab with a broken-off turd hanging out of the back of him like some nutty-brown banner streaming in the wind.

Clad only on my bare feet and silken bath-robe, I took off down my balcony after him. It was early in the morning and in an effort to not shout and wake my neighbors, I kept calling after him in that bizarre whisper-shout, the kind you hear moms use to chastise their kids in church - "BASTAS. NO, BASTAS, COME BACK. BASTAS, I'M NOT MAD JUST C'MERE."

As Bast reached the stop of the stairs leading down to the courtyard, two things happened - first, he finished his dookie dash, stood up straight, and met my eyes with a shocked expression; second, I remembered that I had left the front door wide open and my conure was free-flying in the house. We both reached our decisions simultaneously.

Bast, fearful that I was after his brown gold, dashed forward, snatched his shit log, and tore off down the stairs. I whirled around and ran for the front door to assure that my parrot was still inside and secure her in her cage. I scooped her up, put her safely away in her cage, and turned to find Bast standing in the front door watching me, as if sad I hadn't continued to chase him across the neighborhood half-naked and whisper-shrieking at him to drop the turd.

He came back empty-mouthed. I never did find out what happened to that turd.

Ponderous Morning Thoughts

Semi-serious post here, so if you're looking for giggles, hold tight and I'll post something funny later.

When it comes to wolfdogs (or any dog, really), most people have their favorite look. My favorites of the woofer varieties are the black phases, like Bast, and the Arctics. I'd love to have another dark werewolf someday, or a lovely tan and cream Arctic-type like Bast's beautiful little sister.

With as nuts as Bast is, I'm really not interested in any higher level of wolf content than he is. Lower mid content is just about perfect for me, since I like house pets. I want my dog to be able to come in and chill out on the couch with me without constantly worrying what they're up to or if they've peed somewhere. With Bast, he has more dog than wolf and is thus more mellow and trainable, but still has the beautiful, exotic looks and capricious personality of a wolfdog.

I like my pets to have solid centers but be a little fay around the edges.

I recently found out hat a breeder I greatly admire has a litter of lower mids mothered by one of my very favorite Arctic-types. It's like everything conspired against me to create a creature that would most tempt me - lower mid, beautiful parents, lovingly raised and socialized by an attentive breeder. Be still my beating heart, etc.

My mind whirled trying to see how I could make it work. I'm moving soon to a place with a yard, Bast needs a friend his own size and age, I need this, go do it yes.

But as I was envisioning trying to finagle a puppy, into my head popped the image of a recent rescue that's been tugging at my heart. A little 9 month old boy, covered in mange and scabs, scared, abused, emaciated and malnourished; I couldn't help but see the similarities to Bast in the pound when we found him - the same dog, terrified, shutting down, in desperate need of love and a good meal, flinching at every sudden move and never smiling.

And then I realized why the idea of a puppy was bothering me. Not that getting a puppy from a responsible, ethical breeder is a bad thing - far from it. I wish more people would research and take the time to buy their animals from people who care what happens to them.

But if I'd had a puppy from a breeder, I couldn't have gotten Bast and made sure he never had to worry about going hungry or being afraid again. Bast does need a friend, yes, but I want the opportunity to give a home to some dog who needs a bit more kindness in their life, because I know that unarguably, I can provide a good home some day to another dog in need.

This may mean I have to wait a bit longer - rescues are notoriously exacting in their standards for homes, and many may not think me a good option for a variety of reasons, but when the day comes when I can be there for another Bastas, I don't want to be short on space because I just desperately needed to have a dog that looks a certain way.

Apex Predator

I haven't had a lot of time to write lately - I apologize about the dearth of posts. Rest assured, Bast has done a lot of stupid things to report, but I thought I'd give a mini-entry of one of my many failures instead and give him a break.

This afternoon I was preparing Bast's raw food for the week, which involves separating everything, setting aside enough for the week, and then packing up and freezing what I'm not going to use in the next few days. I usually like to do this with gloves on because of a bad experience with salmonella poisoning when I was young. For those who aren't aware of what all salmonella does to you, I'll give you a summation: you vomit and shit yourself until you become afraid you might die. After several days of this, your fear shifts, and you're terrified you won't die and will instead live out the rest of your miserable (and hopefully brief) days being wrung out by violent contractions that expel everything moist in your body.

So yeah, gloves.

I was in the process of trying to shake out an empty chicken bag and needed my bare hands. Since my other hand was, of course, coated in gore, the only logical option my tired mind came up with apparently was to grab the chickeny glove with my mouth and tug it off.

I stood there for a moment, meat-splattered, yellow glove dangling from my bare teeth, raw chicken fluids trailing down my chin, and briefly contemplated my supposed position as the most intelligent creature in the house.

Please, lord, I hope I die quickly.

Sweet and Sour Halfbreeds

My friends and family joke often that Bastas and I have an emotionally abusive relationship. To quote my best friend, "If you had a boyfriend that treats you the way Bast does, I would be staging an intervention." This morning was a good example of the sort of emotional blackmail of living with Bast.

Every morning, I like to wake up a few minutes early so I can fire up the Keurig, have a cup of overpriced coffee, and read the latest news. Bast accepts this part of my routine with impatience, since he wants a chance to go outside and frustrate me by not paying attention when I call him. This morning, he was unusually insistent that I take him out, but I foolishly ignored him and told him to let me enjoy my coffee.

I did enjoy my coffee. I did not enjoy the turd he dropped in the other room while I wasn't paying attention.

Okay, well, my bad. He told me he needed to go out, I ignored him, so this one was on me. I went to clean up his leavings and caught him staring at me from the corner of my eye. I turned, irritated, and asked, "What, Bast?" He scooted forward and placed something on the floor beside me. I picked it up, curious, and saw that it was a glove. Bastas loves gloves, so I wasn't too shocked to see him with one, but upon further inspection, I realized this was THE glove - his most coveted glove that he stole from me last autumn and has been hoarding ever since. I've been making do with one frozen hand shoved in my pocket to escape the cold since he bogarted the mate and stashed it somewhere so hidden, I had yet to find it.

I frowned at the glove, the looked at Bast. He swayed his tail in a slow arc with his ears down, as if to say, "Here's that thing you wanted. Sorry I shit in your bedroom." I smiled, ruffled his fur, and we suited up to go outside.

However, since the cosmic scale had apparently been balanced by his unusually kind gesture, all bets were off and he streaked around like a maniac, refusing to listen to me or come when I called in the park. I was able to distract and calm him for a while as we're relearning how to "stay". While in the course of opening the bag of rewards, however, I dropped THE glove. Bast darted in, a giant black mamba, snatched the glove and tore off like his ass was on fire.

Now, I am stupid in some areas, but I learned quickly with Bast not to chase him unless we're playing - he is much faster than I could ever be, and chase is one of his favorite games. Chasing him just results in me panting along behind him, furious and impotent while he darts around with wicked glee. So, I dropped back from him and watched him streak off with my glove, pacing with care with his eyes on the ground. I knew what was coming - it's what happens to every single glove he finds:

He was going to bury it.

And he did.

And I just watched as my newly discovered glove disappeared under a mound of fresh earth.

After he was done, I approached the mound of dirt, scraped around with my boot a bit until I found it, and shook it out. It was, of course, filthy - caked in dog slobber with a good bit of dirt now ground into its fabric. Bast stood a few feet away, watching with a sullen sulk as I raided his horde. I shook the filthy glove at him and shrieked in triumph, "I GOT A GLOVE OF DIIIIIRRRTTTTT!"

Although I can't wear the glove still, I count this morning as a draw.

There is no Bast. There is only Zuul.

In the time of my life BB (Before Bastas), I had a much more cavalier attitude about leaving my things out unattended while I was away from the house. After all, it was not exactly if my chinchillas were going to spring out of their cage and eat my shoes, and my fat old shepherd mix could not care less about chewing on anything besides her own food.

Bast, however, is more than happy to get into just about anything and everything in my house and has ruined the carefree "Leave my shoes by the door because they're fine" environment. BB, I had no reason to count the potatoes in the pantry - if I left the house with 6 potatoes, odds were there would still be 6 potatoes sitting there when I returned, barring supernatural interference. Now I walk in the kitchen, notice there are 2 spuds missing, and start wondering at what point in my day am I going to find a surprise starch squirreled away somewhere in my things. Bast rarely destroys what he finds - he just takes it and puts it elsewhere for shits and giggles.

The exception to Bast's non-violent pilfering is leather products. Anything made of dead cows is on the menu, I have learned to my sorrow. Belts, shoes, jackets, boots, bound books - Bast is an Equal Opportunity Destroyer. Although it only takes a few beloved possessions shredded to learn your lesson about not leaving things out in the open, tricking Bast is a little more complicated than simply putting your things away (which as an adult, I should be doing anyway, but, you know...)

At first, putting my leather goods away in the closet sufficiently protected them, but the infuriatingly clever Bast was not stalled by the closet doors more than a couple days - his versatile, monkey-like front paws are more than dexterous enough to pry open the sliding doors to reach the forbidden fruits of my belongings. When my most beloved leather jacket fell prey to the Big Bad Wolf, I started lobbing everything onto the highest shelves of my closet. Putting things up higher than even I can reach them for the most part resolved the issue of shredding, but it doesn't stop Bast from sliding open the closet doors and making a huge god damn mess of everything in his quest for the leathery Holy Grail.

I needed something to keep him out of the closet period, but my options were limited. A lock wouldn't work (no place to put it), and neither would spraying a bitterant - Bast loves the bitter apple sprays sold at most pet stores as deterrents. Of course he does. The little freak.

As in most areas of dealing with Bast, outwitting him to protect my things became an issue of psychological warfare. If physical deterrents wouldn't keep him out, it was time to go deeper and tap into the the most basic fear of every dog, befriend the most hated of enemies, make a deal with the foulest of Devils.

I parked the vacuum cleaner in front of the closet door.

Like most dogs, Bast has an instinctive hatred of the vacuum, that deceptively passive appliance that spends most of its time silent and roars to life a few times a week. Because Bast is a naturally skittish creature who needs to be frightened only once by something to develop a life-time complex because of it, he has never really gotten okay with the vacuum. Occasionally, he will stand his ground against this buzzing nemesis by actually staying in the same room, but that bravado lasts until it swoops anywhere close to his direction - one hint it's coming toward him and he becomes a pitch black streak retreating to another room.

I have two closets, and fortunately, two gate keepers to stand sentinel over them - my beloved Dyson Pet Vacuum and the lumbering Hoover Carpet Shampooer, which makes up for its lack of speed and agility by being even noisier and more obnoxious than the vacuum. Each one guards a closet, and completely stymied my leather-raiding dog.

If having strategically placed vacuums isn't weird enough, you have to also remember that I am absolutely incapable of acting in a socially-acceptable manner about the smallest things. Pleased with my ingenuity at enlisting the help of my appliances to act as gargoyles against Bast, I greet each vacuum by shrieking, "I AM THE GATEKEEPER!," every time I pass by.

Hoover and Dyson have yet to tell me if they are the key masters, though, so the portal remains locked thus far.

Everyday Goblins

This morning I got that, "I'm being watched" feeling while leaned over the sink brushing my teeth. Having seen too many horror movies, I halfway expected to look up into the mirror and see a demon/serial killer/alien/predator/poltergeist hunched over my shoulder, but it was just Bast standing in the doorway, watching me with ears folded back and amber-orange eyes the size of full moons. I pushed my toothbrush to the side and asked, "What, Bast?" Despite tooth-brushing be a common occurrence around here, the sight of me frothing at the lips and my distorted voice was enough to trigger Bast's terrified flight response - he peeled out with such force that his claws dug furrows into the carpet in his haste to escape the minty fresh demon attacking my mouth.

One of the more unfortunate misconceptions about Bast's kind is that they make great guard dogs. Some people think that mixing dogs with wolves will give you this super-territorial animal that aggressively defends its turf from invaders - I think if you asked these people where they got this information, you'd find that the most interaction they've had with an animal with actual wolf content is when their Grandma read them Little Red Riding Hood as a child.

In reality, dogs like Bast have a tendency to be timid and shy. The joke is that they make great watch dogs - they will hide and watch as someone strange invades their home, and watch them leave with all of their owner's belongings. This is certainly true of Bast, who I think would rather chuck himself out the window than help me combat any would-be attacker.

To help with this innate shyness, good breeders socialize their puppies extensively. They introduce them to a variety of situations to help familiarize them with the sometimes overwhelming human world and prepare them for venturing off to their new homes. Although Bast was socialized very well by the rescue who scooped him up, he still occasionally wigs out when he encounters something new (or, as in the case this morning, with something not-new that is nevertheless not-okay no matter how routine it is).

I never know what's going to spook him. Sometimes, I can anticipate something being scary, prepare for it, and then get no reaction from him whatsoever. Other times, normal activities accidentally terrify him, and I have to go find him in his hiding spot to soothe and coax him out. He can also react either way to the same thing in different situations. For example, when we go walking in a nearby park, he usually likes to stop and watch people playing tennis. We can loaf for half an hour at time while he watches the tennis balls sail back and forth. Another time, we were walking close by and he saw a girl just carrying a tennis racket. Distracted by a conversation, I was totally unprepared for the intensity of his panic; his terrified bolt somehow bruised the back of my thigh from him crashing into me while also yanking my arm almost out of socket from the front.

Tennis racket slicing through the air? Ooo neat. Tennis racket being idly carried? FLY, YOU FOOLS.

Once, he freaked out while I was changing my bed linens. I wasn't shaking the sheets toward him, but as soon as the fitted sheet came off, his ears laid back and he bolted from the bedroom. He then stood in the doorway as far back as he could while still keeping one eye around the corner and watched me until the scary linens fit securely on the bed where they belong. Once everything looked normal again, he bounded back into the room, popped up on the bed, and went straight to sleep on the no-longer-horrifying sheets.

I don't know what goes on in that narrow little head of his. All I can do is keep a firm grip on the leash and hold tight.

The Odd Couple

For those that don't know, I actually have two dogs. Bastas, of course, and a shepherd/elkhound mix named Grendel. I've had Grendel for going on 8 years now - she was a birthday present from my friends when I was in high school and has been a constant feature in my life ever since. If you're wondering why I don't have a blog for her, it's because Grendel is, bless her heart, a colossal grouch and every single blog entry would be reiterations of "What is Grendel pissed off at today?"

Her grouchiness posed a serious problem when trying to introduce Bast into my family. Bast, although subdued and skittish, was still only a 9 month old puppy when I got him, full of playfulness and joie de vivre. Grendel, on the other hand, does not do "play". She does not like fetch or tug of war. She doesn't like chase or tag or any of that nonsense. Grendel is extremely territorial - one of those dogs that has to stop and pee on every other blade of grass when we're out walking. She carefully sniffs other dogs' leavings before adding her own on top of it: in doggy language, a clear "fuck you" to any other dogs in the neighborhood. When we're approaching the end of our walks and she's all out of pee, she just squats or hikes over whatever spot she's claiming and pretends to pee on it.

When you think of Grendel, think of those squadrons of elderly ladies who go power-walking at the mall. You know the ones I'm talking about. They move in platoons of 3 or 4, elbows swinging at precise angles, sensible, thick-soled sneakers that match their zip-up track suits striking the ground with deliberate vigor. They scoot about at a swift 5 miles-an-hour, weaving through the shopping crowd with a stiff-legged gait that could be most accurately labeled as "goose-stepping". Getting in their way earns you a disdainful huff at best, at worst a passive-aggressive smack on the hip from one of their 40 pound handbags.

You get the idea. That's Grendel on walks - tail curled over her back, straining into her harness with a barely contained eagerness to reinforce her dominion over the neighborhood via urine stains.

Seriously.

For Grendel, life is about one thing and one thing only: defending her empire of peed-upon territories. Her manifesto would sound a lot like the text from "Green Eggs and Ham":

Would you like to chase this ball?
Would you like to play at all?

I would not like to chase that ball.

I do not want to play at all.

I do not want to meet new friends;

I've an empire to defend.

I do not like to joke and sing.

I only like to piss on things.

So, introducing an exuberant puppy did not go over well. Bastas harassed Grendel tirelessly, and at 8 years old and used to being an only-dog, Grendel was not inclined to be gracious to our new manically happy pack member. So ungracious, in fact, that I couldn't keep them in the room together without fear of one or the other being injured.

My best friend Cait provided an elegant solution; moving into a new neighborhood, Cait needed an alert but sedate companion to keep an eye on her place but not destroy things when left unattended. Since Grendel spends most of her time lazing, in between bouts of snarling viciously at UPS guys, this seemed like a great temporary arrangement while we got Bast healthy and he settled down a bit.

Grendel moved in with Cait and got a new territory to defend, and we bring Bast over for carefully supervised socialization visits to teach him some manners. Everyone is much happier with this arrangement, and it seems to be working so far: Bast is learning to play more gently with Grendel, and Grendel tolerates him to an extent that I don't have to worry as much about her ripping him a new bunghole.

For this week, though, Cait is out of town, giving me both dogs in my place. In theory, this is not a huge problem - I already walk Bast 3 or 4 times a day, and Grendel's part slug and spends most of her day sleeping anyway. Should be fine for a week, right?

The devil's in the details, of course. Bast and Grendel are diametrically opposed in almost every aspect. A few examples include:

• A noise outside the door brings Grendel instantly to her feet, barking and ready to face any challenger. Bast usually slinks into the kitchen and peers mistrustfully around the fridge until the scary sound goes away.
• Despite never having gone hungry in 8 years, Grendel gobbles down every bit of kibble like it could her last. Bast, who came to me emaciated and malnourished, sometimes decides he's not that hungry for a couple days at a time and would rather just not eat, kthx.
• Grendel knows some basic English and in proper, loyal dog-fashion is slavishly obedient. Even being lightly scolded for something crushes her soul until she is quite literally debilitated and rolling on the ground in shame. When Bast gets shouted at, however, he calmly looks over at you, assesses how mad you are, and then decides whether to continue what he's doing or take off running. He knows when he's doing wrong - he just doesn't care.
• Grendel pees on everything outside of our den to mark it as her own. It took me forever to break Bast of peeing inside to mark it as ours, and then to quit eating his own turds outside to prevent predators from swooping out of the sky to kill us and take our home.

If I'd just let the leashes go, my life would be much simpler. 

Their differences are at their worst when going for walks. Taking them both for walks at the same time is a lesson in patience. Grendel charges forward every step of the way, tugging and straining to reach the next pissing check-point. She always has and I've never been able to correct her leash manners despite working on it for years. The best we can come to is a sullen truce where she just propels me forward at a pace slightly faster than I'm comfortable walking. Her business cannot wait for my puny two-legged walking speed.

Walking Bast is like walking a well-trained kitten. For the most part, he pads calmly at my side until something distracts him - a leaf to chase, a smell to roll in, a grasshopper to pounce on, the voices in his head say "go this way!" He dances around me, occasionally remembering that he's supposed to stay at my side and go at my pace before his mind is completely captivated by something new. Our walks together usually involve him rolling on something horrid that he's found, such as this episode where he found the remains of a decapitated duck and had to grind its putrescent funk into his fur:

I will never know such bliss.

Alone, I can deal with each of their walking quirks. Together, their combined craziness is almost too much. Grendel spearheads our dysfunctional little pack while Bast stays by my side for the start. We look like this until we reach our usual walking area:

Behold the power of MS Paint

Grendel's tugging is obnoxious at this point, but our little solar system is more-or-less functional until we cross the street and get to the museum where we walk. At this point, Bast's psychotic little mind enters the first stages of sensory overload and he starts to peel off to investigate things:

They both have 6 foot leads, so they can orbit up to 12 feet around me. Bast will get distracted by things and then remember he's out on a walk with his SUPER BESTEST FRIEND GRENDEL and go join her for a few minutes:

As Bast becomes more and more distracted by the wondrous world around him, order begins to break down.

Attempts to reinstate order at this point involve me tugging sharply on Grendel's leash to signal a halt, pirouetting through the stranglehold of leashes around me, and then threatening to drop both dogs off at the night deposit box at the pound. The dogs, blithely unaware of how close they're getting to being dropped off in a field somewhere, resume their prior activities as if I hadn't interfered at all. 

I stumble along behind them, wondering why I even like these animals and what choices in my life lead me to this point before announcing that I'm tired and we're turning back. Grendel will do an immediate about-face and continue chugging back the way we came, but Bast instantly begins pouting at having to go home and starts to lag behind me, all 6 feet of his leash extended, so that my arms look like crazy pinwheels as I hold onto Grendel surging ahead and drag the ornery sulkbeast along behind us.

I need to invest in obedience classes.

Translation Barriers

You often run across people who will say that animals, particularly dogs, can't speak. I disagree; they just don't speak our language. It's the same as going to a foreign country, noting that you can't understand someone, and coming to the conclusion that the must not be able to speak. Pretty silly when you think of it that way.

Bast is a very effective communicator, although it took me a while to understand his language. There's a very subtle difference in Bast-speak between, "I'm hyper and want to play with you," and, "I'm hyper and I'm about to pee on something you cherish." I ran through an astonishing amount of carpet cleaner and white vinegar before getting that one down.

Bast, in turn, is learning some English and a smattering of French, since I shift between the two when talking to him. The combination of me learning his body language and him beginning to understand short phrases improved our relationship immeasurably. Now when he comes to the end of the couch and stands stone-still, staring at me like the little girls in The Shining, I can ask, "Are you wanting a snack?" and be rewarded with a lot of prancing and wiggling that I guessed the correct nuance of his stare.

I speak to him as if he were a person - no baby talk, here - and he keeps pace with my side of the conversation without much difficulty. I occasionally have to repeat things for him, if he tilts his head and indicates he didn't understand me, but we're like old friends now, conveying entire ideas with just a raised eyebrow or an ear laid back.

It's amazing how without being able to speak English, Bastas manages to win the majority of our arguments. I chalk his persuasive prowess up to my weak will where he's concerned, and the fact that reasoning with him is like trying to reason with a toddler pitching a fit. After all, smart as he is, he's still a dog and subtle shades of arguments escape him. This evening, we had an extended exchange of ideas where, as usual, he got his way.

I was typing away at my laptop when I noticed a pair of orange eyes staring at me:

Bast: nose-poke-hey-I-need-something-from-you
Me: What's a matter, pookie? Are you hungry?
Bast: head-tilt-ears-back-no-that-is-not-what-I-meant
Me: What, then? What's your problem, bebop?
Bast: I-need-to-go-potty-tap-dance
Me: Christ, are you serious? I just got out of the bath, my hair's still wet.
Bast: head-tilt-I-don't-understand-you
Me: A bath. You know, with the soap. You watched me do it, you sit in the bathroom and watch me every time I bathe because you're a creeper like that.
Bast: indignant-foot-stomp
Me: We went out like, 4 hours ago. You didn't take care of it, then?
Bast: taptaptapwhinewhinetaptap-I-didn't-need-to-go-then-but-I-REALLY-do-now
Me: Ugh, all right, all right. Don't shit in the house until I get my clothes on.
Bast: taptaptappantpantpantwhine-commence-frantic-circling
Me: Gah, I mean, don't shit in the house AFTER I get my clothes on, either. You know what? Just don't shit in the house, period. I'm getting my coat, I'm getting a poop bag, and we're going out. YOU WIN, DOG.
Bast: twirling-in-sheer-pleasure-aww-yisssssss-walkies

And thus I found myself wandering the streets at 10:00 at night in 30 weather, being tugged along by a creature radiating smugness with his every step.

The Prince of Pout

When I got Bast, I honestly expected him to be like any other dog, but maybe just more high strung. I had read before that having a wolfdog can be a very different experience from a normal dog, but I learned over the past few months that it's one thing to read, "These animals are weird," and another issue entirely to experience the weirdness in person.

To be fair, Bast is remarkably chill for his kind. He is, a bit atypically, a fantastic housewoof and does very well indoors. Although he has a lot of total energy, he's a crepuscular little critter and prefers to do his frantic zooming at dawn and dusk. The afternoons are most definitely for naps, and if these naps are disturbed, I can expect an all-out fit. Trying to rouse Bast to go run errands in the afternoon is like trying to wrangle a cranky toddler - he'll refuse to get up from his nap, have to be physically manhandled into his harness, and then be dragged down to the car with his legs locked stiff, his ears plastered to the back of his head, and his eyes narrowed down to venomous orange slits while he glares at me for this upset in his day.

I don't mess with naptime unless I absolutely must. It's not worth the fight and the subsequent sulk, and nobody puts the pout on like Bast. For example, here was an afternoon outing where I took Bast out to run errands. To try to make it up to him, I stopped by McDonald's and got him a kiddie cone. Unfortunately, although he kept trying to nose into the front seat to get his rightful dues, I wouldn't let him eat in the car because he makes an almighty goddamn mess.

He turned his back to me and sat like that for the rest of the ride home, only forgiving me when he finally got his ice cream cone.

Another time, he needed a bath because was stinking up the place after rolling in something - I forget now what it was exactly, but his favorite perfumes are fox turds, dead carcasses, and pond scum, so it was likely one of those three. He glared pure hate the entire bath:

So you see, Bast is more than capable of expressing complex emotions such as lingering resentment; he is a being that practically oozes sulking and moodiness.

Meaties

Hi all! Sorry it's been a while since my last post. If you're a friend of mine on Facebook, you know I've been working through the unexpected surgery of my fat old shepherd mix, Grendel, who was diagnosed with cancer, then un-diagnosed, then rushed to surgery for one of the most impressive piles of bladder stones the vet had seen. She's recuperating fine and is back to normal, aside from her stubbly, shaved belly.

Bastas, in his typical egocentric fashion, was disappointed at Grendel's period of convalescence - his playmate was confined to the leash and not allowed to run around until her stitches healed, and Bast had to be kept separated from her because he's enormous, energetic, and completely oblivious to the social cues of other dogs.

With his forced estrangement from his buddy, and the cooler weather coming in, Bast has been brattier than usual the past few weeks. He's never been the most... placid... of creatures, but he's really kicked it into high gear with the coming of autumn. As he matures, he occasionally tests his boundaries with me to see if any of the rules have changed, small things like, "Okay, it wasn't all right to play rough before, but how about now?" As someone used to having an obedient shepherd to work with, training Bast is a challenge. He absolutely thrives on attention, whether positive or negative. For example, when he wants to go out and play, he will search until he finds a shoe and then throw it proudly into the living room. Either he knows I don't go outside without shoes, or he can count on getting in trouble immediately and getting my attention for assaulting my footwear.

Think of all the determination of German Shepherd and the cleverness of a Border Collie. Now gives those intense qualities to an animal that has absolutely no desire to use its intelligence for good and you get Bast. He's a furry super-villain.

To fuel this evil mastermind and keep him in tip-top dastardly shape, Bastas eats an entirely raw diet. As I've mentioned previously, when we first adopted Bast from the pound, he was emaciated and sick. Bast weighed in at 36 pounds when he was 9 months old - as a comparison, his more well-cared-for younger siblings weighed in the 60-70 pound range at 9 months. Yikes.

We could not find a kibble that he would tolerate when we first brought him home. Every one that we tried made him vomit and diarrhea - in most cases, he would throw the kibble up almost whole within half an hour of eating it. I worried that because he was so skinny, he was scarfing his food and thus the barfing, but even when he slowed down his eating, he kept chucking up every dog food we tried.

In desperation, I looked online and started researching raw diets. It made sense to me - he's part wolf, right? So meat, yeah? Yeah. Bast took to a raw immediately. Within a day of eating some chicken breasts, his vomiting stopped completely.

Well, hell. As in a lot of areas of with Bast, I was sort of in over my head with this one: So, he can just eat raw meat? How do you feed raw, just buy some meat and toss it out there? What kind of meat? How expensive is this going to be? Aren't bones bad for dogs? How much do I feed him? Is he going to get sick? Is he going to turn into a blood thirsty monster with an insatiable need for raw flesh?

So I Googled. I mentioned in a general sense in a previous post that I learned what I could about raw feeding, but I've had a lot of curiosity and questions addressed to me about raw feeding, so I thought I'd go into a little more detail about feeding my beast of evil.

So, everyone take a huge grain of salt - I am not pretending to be a raw feeding expert. I've been doing this for only 6 months and I'm always researching it and refining my methods to make sure Bast gets everything he needs in his diet. I'm just telling my friends what I do since everyone is curious.

Okay, disclaimers done. When it comes to feeding dogs, kibble is a relatively new invention. Think about it - you think people two hundred years ago were going to PetSmart and picking up a bag of Purina? Seems kind of silly when you actually sit and think about it. So yes, dogs can eat raw meat. In fact, they can eat more raw meat than we can. Bast isn't limited to sushi and steak tartar; he can eat raw chicken and pork, as well. His stomach is way better equipped to handle raw meat, although I am still cautious and make sure that everything is still handled in a sanitary manner.

Raw feeding isn't just buying steaks and throwing them on the floor, though. Muscle meat like that doesn't have all of the nutrients that a dog needs to be healthy. Processed foods like kibbles are regulated to have certain vitamins and minerals that dogs need, whereas meat is, well... meat.

Bast needs more than just muscle meat. He needs organ meat as well, things like liver, kidneys, hearts, and other offal. He also needs raw bones. There are a lot of raw feeding models out there that help you gauge how much of what component you need. We follow the BARF model for Bastas - Biologically Approved Raw Food, or Bones and Raw Food. This model suggests a balance of approximately 70% muscle meat, 15% organ meat, and 10% bone for meals. Some models suggest 80/10/10 or variations thereof. We follow this as best we can, although it isn't always exact for a variety of reasons.

To find out how much I was supposed to feed him, the raw diet models suggest anywhere from 2%-3% of a dog's ideal body weight. Since I wasn't sure what Bast's ideal weight was supposed to be at first, we just sort of winged it until I figured things out. Now, he hovers around 65 pounds, so he gets around a pound and a half of meat a day. Some of these calculations can get very in depth. I occasionally refer to this chart, which I did not make but I don't know who did so I can give them credit: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AodxoS5aN6MtdEJrNXlXU2toOVl6ZFZCNXRKTVU1T2c&usp=sharing

You can see, it gets sort of complicated. As if this weren't difficult enough, Bast refuses to eat organ meat, which is the most nutritionally dense part. Liver contains a number of the vitamins he needs, but he won't touch it. Not raw, not cooked, not frozen, nada. Not happening. To make sure he gets what he needs, I supplement his diet with a multi-vitamin.

Bast's absolute favorite part of his raw diet is the bones. Normal people's homes have comforting sounds - the pitter-patter of little feet, grandfather clocks ticking in homey parlors... You know, soothing crap like that. My place is filled with the sharp cracking of bones as Bast pries them open to eat the marrow inside.

But dogs aren't supposed to have bones, right? Ah. Dogs aren't supposed to have cooked bones. The process of cooking softens the bones and causes them to splinter - this is why cooked bones can break apart and seriously harm or even kill a dog if ingested. Those splinters go into the stomach and start tearing things up. A raw bone, however, is very soft. It folds and grinds and is easy to digest. Bast's very favorite meal is chicken drumsticks, although he doesn't get them as often as he'd like because he winds up getting too much bone matter in his diet and gets chalky little turds.

All this sounds pretty gruesome! A lot of people ask me - won't feeding your dog raw turn them wild? No. No, it does not. The idea that giving dogs raw food turns them into savage beasts is a myth, but like many myths, rooted in a small, misunderstood truth. We all have known a dog in our life that has food or toy guarding issues - fighting with other dogs, growling at people approaching. This is a kind of resource guarding where dogs are trying to protect their food or high value toy from others. Any dog is capable of it.

People say things like, "Well, I know for a fact raw meat turns dogs crazy. My dogs always eat dog food, and I threw them out some meat once, and they went crazy fighting over it." Well no shit, captain. Here you have a group of dogs used to eating plain ol' dog chow, and all of a sudden you toss one piece of meat in for them to fight over? That doesn't have anything to do with meat turning dogs into savage killers; it has to do with you tossing a high value treat into a volatile situation.

So, no, feeding Bast raw is not going to make him "turn wild" or any other weird superstition like that. I can hand feed Bast his raw meat, and I can reach right into his mouth and take it from him.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with a raw diet. Although it began as a necessity for Bast's barfing, it's easy to see that it's done wonders for him. Bast radiates good health and temperament - glossy coat, clean teeth, fresh breath, and endless energy for mischief. I take his health very seriously and am always checking on new resources to find out if I could be doing this better. Because the risk of screwing up could result in malnutrition, I want to stay on top of his diet and make sure he gets the best. He's worth it.