SacPaws.com

I know I've posted before about certain local dog parks my wife, me, and our dogs do not frequent because of aggressive dogs and their distracted owners.  I have to tell you all about an unfortunate event that occurred at our favorite dog park, Partner Park in the South Land Park area.  First on a happier note we had a wonderful surprise birthday party for my wife Kerry at Partner Park on Saturday, and she truly was surprise as she didn't know I had invited 20 of her friends along with our families to have a picnic.  The dogs loved the party too because of course we were at the dog park so they could run around and play and play and play.  We of course didn't have any food within the fenced confines of the dog park proper but kept that outside on the grass :).

 A lovely woman I had seen at the park before came up to us during the party and wondered aloud" what we were doing, and that we looked like we were having a lot of fun", which we were of course.  She continued into the park and her dog frolicked with all the others that were there.  Right after we were done cleaning up after the party this same friendly woman came up and asked us about dog park etiquette regarding waiting for someone to leash their dog prior to coming into the 'air-lock' area (that's what we like to call it anyway).  Apparently this woman had asked a man who had just arrived to wait until she could get the leash on her dog before he came in with his dog, and he responded rudely 'saying that he didn't see any sign saying that', and she responded 'that it was just common courtesy she was asking for for the safety of their dogs', which he ignored and stormed in.  As she was telling us this story the man started yelling and making threats from inside the dog park that he was going to come and 'take care of her', to which we told him we would call the police if he didn't knock it off.  She looked frightened so we waited for her to get into her vehicle and leave, and then we left while calling the police (non-emergency number since this guy fortunately didn't try and follow her or us) and they said they would go and check it out.

We are wondering what is wrong with people?  Isn't the dog park supposed to be a fun place to take our pets and families, so the dogs and frolic and the families can relax?  Our moral here is to just treat others as you wish to be treated.  We hope the police or at least the other regular dog park folks made this seemingly 'crazy' and aggressive person think twice before behaving in such a rude and scary way at the dog park again.  I must say he seemed to have a lovely and sweet lab, so thankfully dogs aren't always a reflection of their owners.

There are the obvious things that we really shouldn't bring to the dogs parks like our cats, or raw bacon, but there are other things like bottled water.  Check out the article below.  It made my conviction to never purchase bottled water again even stronger.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog...

Yes I know this post isn't really completely pet related, but we have to do our part in the choices we make to protect the earth because our pets can't do it for themselves.

PS - I know there polycarbonate (nalgene style and baby bottles) bottles have been in the news lately as 'gassing' off chemicals that are nasty for us and our furry friends, but there are other options out there such as stainless steel and 'regular' plastics #'s 2, 4, 5 and 7 [non-polycarbonate] (ref: www.lifewithoutplastic.com).

On the same track as our other blog post we also try to help the environment while caring for our indoor cat Butterscotch.  We use natural pine (as in tree) based litter.  They even make a clumping variety that clumps quite well and it is flushable too!  The little also smells wonderful and keeps the litterbox area from smelling bad even when Butter has filled his box.  It is a little more expensive than the clay based litter but so much better for the environment on many fronts.  It is made from fast growing pine trees, a renewable resource, and is totally compostable, biodegradable and flushable.  It also lasts significantly longer than other litters with the whole box needing to be 'changed' only about twice a month.  Check out the company's website that make Feline Pine for more info and coupons.

http://www.naturesearth.com...

There are many other natural alternative to clay and silica based cat litters out there, so for the health of your cat and the planet check them out.

This website http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... has more information on how just making clay based cat little harms the environments, let alone using it and throwing it away.

I saw the note encouraging us SacPaws members regarding our commitment to the environment.  My wife and I are environmentalists and don't drive unless we have to and reuse and recycle everything we can, and try not to buy into the consumerist culture or always needing something new...sort of the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' lifestyle.

In that vein of being conscious of the harm we humans and our furry friends can do to the environment we use biodegradable dog waste bags, as well as biodegradable trash bags for our human non-recyclable wast, made by a company called 'biobags'.  The bags work just as well as plastic bags but are made from organically certified non-GMO corn.  The bags are fully compostable as well as biodegradable.  They don't cost significantly more than the plastic bags and can be found at a lot of local pet supply retailers, as well as our local food co-ops (Sacramento and Davis).  Check out the reviews on the website below

http://www.ecoanimal.com/po...

& check out the biobags website for more information on their products

http://biobagusa.com/index.... .

If you have more than one dog or a large dog they are now make xtra large dog poop bags as well that hold more of our furry friend's poo.

Kerry and I took the Basic (Motorcycle) Rider Course this weekend.  We learned a lot and we really believe it made us better and safer motorcycle riders.  We also bought me an older motorcycle yesterday afternoon/evening & we brought the girls along because they we home alone much of the weekend because we were learning to be safe on our motorcycles.  It turns out Forrest learned something too this weekend....how to drive!   And people wonder how all that dog hair gets all over our car interior!  Check out the attached picture that one of the neighbors of the man who sold us the bike took while we were checking out the motorcycle...don't miss Shasta peeking out from the back seat.



Kerry and I are pretty gregarious people so we have 'random' conversations with strangers at the dog park and when we're out and about a lot, but this one was truly funny.  The gentleman who shot Forrest driving the PT Cruiser is a part-time wedding photographer and was just trying out a new digital camera.  You have to love Forrest's 'glowing' eyes.

Wait until you see the pictures of the pups trying out some of the lovely products we were tasked to test...some of the testing made us laugh so hard we cried.