Turbo's 7th Birthday Party 2012 !!

We had just celebrated our dear Turbo’s 7^th birthday last Sunday at Bishan Park Dog Run area with many of our furry friends!  21 people and 14 dogs turned up for the party!  Woohoo!  And very thankful for the good weather! Yeah!  ;D

Writing as Turbo...

The night before the party, Mummy and I were busy packing the party packs…Err…actually Mummy was busy packing the party packs n I was busy supervising.  At the same time, I was hoping some snacks would drop to the floor so I can have it, and I also kept asking Mummy if I can have some snacks please, as the smell of the fish crackers were so strong n nice, couldn’t resist! Kekeke!

All party packs are ready!  Pink for the girls, blue for the boys and big brown ones for the big doggies. Roger that! 

At Bishan Dog Park on Sunday morning, waiting for my friends to arrive!

Me n my big family!

 

My birthday cake was specially made by my Mummy’s friend Keren!  As Mummy was not very well lately, Aunty Keren very kindly helped Mummy prepare my cake!  Thank you so much Aunty Keren, its v beautiful and yummy!  =)

Here’s me, my Daddy n my Mummy!  I am a happy boy!

Me with all my friends!  Thank you for coming to my party!  It was a blast because of you!!

Whether its salmon, pork or chicken that you are having, hope you love the food from my party! 

Oh I must show the inside of the cake too, it looks beautiful!  Slurp!

And not forgetting my PRESENTS!! Thank you so much!  Actually your presence at my party is already the best present for me, these are really bonuses!  

After a great day out in the sun and the grass, time for some afternoon nap with my new toy.

Enjoying dinner, cake n salmon!  =)

Hope all of you had a great time today!  =)

Xoxo,

Sky, Kara and Turbo

Home-Cooked Food VS Raw Food Diet

Before we started home-cooking for our dog, we were seriously considering about giving our doggie raw food diet after he kept having skin flare-ups while on kibbles.

We were thinking about commercially-developed raw food but were quite sceptical if the food could have been mishandled at any point during the transportation from overseas to Singapore, or from the suppliers to the pet shops, we just feel insecure about it.  Anyway in the end, our Turbo helped us make the decision.  As a close couple friends of ours are feeding their dog with the raw food diet, they gave us a few nuggets of it to try feeding Turbo, to see if he likes it.  For your info, Turbo is not a picky dog at all and he eats almost anything.  However, when we served him the raw nuggets, he smelled it, licked it and then went away, not wanting to eat it at all.  We have never seen him reject food like this.  Actually we also didn’t like the smell, it smelled very fishy somehow.  No offence to anyone feeding your dog the raw food diet.

So then another question is whether we want to just buy raw salmon and give him, or we cook it for him.  I heard that when you feed raw salmon, they can start to smell very fishy and salmony all over their body.  Also I am not sure about bacteria in the salmon cos you know for us humans if we have salmon sashimi, it must be the really really fresh kind, so we were not so comfortable giving the raw salmon we get from supermarkets or wet markets.  Even if we are ok to give the raw salmon, it will have to be the more expensive kinds so that it is really fresh.  We then decided to cook the salmon as well as other vegetables for Turbo and see if his skin improves.  It really did and his skin condition is so much stabilised now as you can see from the pictures in the previous post.

We also took into consideration for the pricing.  Although it is not cheap to give home-cooked diet, moreover if you also take into consideration the time involved in preparing the food, it is what we feel is the best for our dog that helped us make the decision for insisting on home-cooked food.  According to this close couple friends of ours, they told us that they give their dog at least 8 nuggets of the commercial raw food a day (morning and night) and each nugget costs about $1, which makes the cost of her meal to about $8 at least in a day.  

Our home-cooked food for breakfast probably costs about $1 (oats plus sweet potatoes / apples / bananas) and for dinner about $5.50 to $6.50, depending on what type meat you choose.  This comes up to about $6.50 to $7.50 in a day.  It is cheaper than raw food diet and what is more important is that it definitely smells and tastes so much nicer.  You can imagine yourself eating your dog’s home-cooked food as they are all made from human grade ingredients but you cannot imagine yourself eating the raw nuggets right?  At least seeing that our Turbo enjoys his home-cooked food so much makes us really happy and all the hard work is definitely worth it.    ;D

Quoted from http://animals.howstuffworks.com/pets/how-to-care-for-a-dog3.htm :

Avoid Raw Foods

You'd think things like raw meat and eggs would be more "natural" for a dog's diet.  After all, his cousins, the wolves and coyote, eat their food raw.  But domestication has made our dogs' digestive systems a little more sensitive.  Raw meat, poultry, and eggs may contain bacteria -- such as salmonella -- that can make your dog very sick, so it's best to always serve these foods cooked.  In addition, raw egg whites interfere with the absorption of biotin, one of the B-vitamins. 

Home-Cooked Food for Dogs with Skin Problems

Turbo’s skin had been well eversince when he was a puppy until he was 2+ years old, about half a year after spaying him.  It got better after some medications but kept coming back again and again throughout these 4 years, the time between one flare-up and another was also getting shorter and shorter.  He was on anti-biotics at times when he got really bad flare-ups, good thing is that he reacted well to steroid cream but it is not good for him to take too much steroids, it made him thirsty and have bald patches, and it only treats the symptoms but not the root of the problem.  So these 4 years he has been having skin problems on an on-off basis but it never really go away.  In fact, it got worse last year and we were applying cream for him a few days a week, then it got better for a few days and started coming back again.  The constant cream-applying drills, days and nights on the e-collar, and the cream/ointments on him is making our floor very oily and sticky (btw, we are clean freaks!), it’s just so sad and heart-breaking to see him suffering and itching like this.  =(

See how inflamed they could become, he must be feeling terribly uncomfortable.  :(

We also brought him to do food allergy testing but it showed he wasn’t allergic to any food apparently, which is uncommon.  We were really helpless.  We thought he might be allergic to something in the environment, so we bought a S$500+ Air Ionizer which is said to help reduce the allergens in the air, which might have helped a little, we are not sure, but no harm trying.  We also started to shower him more frequently to keep him clean, which was recommended by a doctor during one of his visits to the vet.  As much as we can, we would shower him every day or every alternate day with water and twice a week with the medicated shampoo, we then slowly stopped the medicated shampoo and used an organic Neem oil shampoo instead (this one we are using smells pretty nice, not smelly at all).  We think the frequent showering does help to keep him clean so as to avoid environmental allergens even though it’s a lot of work, but it does not exactly prevent flare-ups.

We also thought he might be allergic to the preservatives used in Dog kibbles and snacks if the food allergy test is hmm... accurate?  So we decided to start him on a home-cooked diet where we know exactly what he eats.  Usually they are ok with most veges, so it was mainly the meat we were closely monitoring.  After about one month of home-cooked diet, his skin has improved tremendously!  We realised we were not applying cream and ointments for him anymore and he wasn’t licking his body already.  I continued with the home-cooked diet for a few months or coming to half a year now and his skin is so nice and stable now.  His coat is also getting denser and he doesn’t seem to shed as much anymore.  You can also rest assured if you order our home-cooked diet because our own dog is taking the exact same food.  ;D

Cheeky Turbo showing off his good skin for photo-taking, kekeke!  ;P

See the difference!  Even the old scars are gone!  =D

 

We still give Turbo doggie treats but we are very selective what to give him.  We try to only give him those all natural or organic ones or those freeze-dried from original food kind, so no preservatives, usually those only have less than 5 ingredients kind, so he still gets to enjoy treats!  Sometimes we just give him fresh raw vegetables like celery and carrots to chew on or some fresh fruits like blueberries (anti-oxidants good for skin) or papayas (heard from a friend that it’s good for the skin), even better than commercial snacks!  Fresh and natural!  Try that!  ;P

We hope that your dog will also benefit from our home-cooked diet, actually we would also be happy if your dog benefits from your own home-cooked diet, what is important is the dogs are healthy and happy.  ;D

 

Welcome to our website! ;D

Hello Everyone!

First of all, thank you for visiting our website!

Just a little introduction about ourselves... We have been married for 4 years and are currently residing in the Central area of Singapore with our lovely doggie, Turbo Lee.  Turbo is a mixed between a Schnauzer and a Scottish Terrier.  He is celebrating his 7th birthday this 19th May 2012 and thus we chose to officially launch this online pet shop on this special day.  =)

We love Turbo very much and he has brought us so much joy and laughter throughout the years, so we only want to provide the best for him.  We hope that not only our Turbo gets to enjoy the best things in life, but other dogs can get to enjoy them too.  ;)

Here is our family picture taken at Turbo’s 6^th Birthday Celebration at K9 Café May 2011, and Turbo looks really happy!  ;D

Yours Sincerely,

Sky, Kara and Turbo Lee  ;D