A Peek at Life as a Natic

I have added a few more pics of little Preston on our photo gallery.

Envy holding Preston

Click here to take a peek!

Aww!  She is such a cutie!!

I woke up one morning and saw Envy passed out looking pretty funny LOL. 

So we have been feeding Envy raw for a little more than a year and she has loved it.  We know that it is the best for her but there are some downfalls.  Unfortunately it can be very expensive.  To avoid this cost, we go to the Tyson plant here in Cumming and buy 20 lbs of chicken thighs all frozen together for about 12 bucks.  That is a STEAL!!!  The crappy part is that we have to then separate that block of 20 lbs of chicken, individually bag it, and freeze it so that we can use it as we need it.  Then each day we must remove the food from the freezer to thaw for the next day.  Then the bags leak from being frozen, so we have to thaw them in a bowl.  Then feeding is quite dirty.  Since it is all raw chicken or other meats, we have to clean the floors after she eats.  This was the largest of the hassles. 

With a baby on the way, we knew that the floor being littered with salmonella and chicken is not the best idea.  We are moving her back to kibble dog food…. reluctantly.  Alisha and I don’t want to do it, but know with a baby on the way we must do so in order to keep the house safe for Preston.  My mom and I did a lot of research the other night and we decided to try out a relatively new food from Merrick called Before Grain.  The ingredient list is spectacular and is all natural with no grains (dogs should NOT be eating grains in their food and I can almost guarantee that your supermarket dog food has tons of it!!!).

For a previous post about dog food see here.  It will tell you which foods are best and why.  Keep in mind that these foods cost more, but you feed much less so the cost per month is actually the same or less… and they have less waste and is healthier… WIN / WIN!  READ IT!  You will be shocked to read what is in your dog food.  Look up the one you are feeding and read the laundry list of negatives.

Today I went to Rucker, a horse and pet supply store off of exit 17 in Cumming and bought her the Salmon Before Grain.  I got home with the bag of food as well as fresh tilapia and chicken in a Publix shopping bag.  She went NUTS!!!  She didn’t care at all that I had fresh fish or chicken.  She smelled and smelled that bag for at least 3 minutes.  Alisha finally just opened it and gave her some and she went crazy eating it LOL.  Check out the video below to see Envy loving her new food – and that was after she calmed down a bit!! 

This video was shot in HD so click HD for a better quality video.  It may load slower but looks so much better.

A shoutout – Rucker had a great price on this food!  If you are buying food and are looking for a great price, or want to use a much more nutritious dog food, go see them.  They deserve it!

For the ingredients for Before Grain click here.  You will be amazed!

envy always falls asleep in the funniest of positions.  When I leave in the morning she usually ends up sleeping on my pillow… literally with her head on my pillow just like a human. 

The other day we were chilling in the living room and looked over to see her all curled up in the chair:

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of  Courtney and Auggie’s visit at pictures.neilnatic.com  or here.

Envy, Alisha, Auggie (hard to see) and Courtney

On Saturday morning we headed over to Edwin’s office to take some pictures for GSA’s website.  Susan and Hershey (with AnnaMarie of course!)were our photographers while Joe, Edwin, Philip, Geni, Alisha, Kim, and I joked around the whole time.  It was pretty fun.  After our photo shoot we went to a hole in the wall restaurant in Alpharetta that Geni and Edwin swore by… there was good reason to.  This place had excellent food and bagels.  MMMMM  I want some now!!!  While were there we ran into a old friend of ours Chris.  It was really great to briefly catch up with him there. 

After eating lunch we headed back to our house where shortly after Mike and Aubree came over.  Aubree was going with Alisha to meet up with the ladies for Krystle’s bachelorette party while me and Mike stayed back to work on his motorcycle and grab some beers at Taco Mac.  At about 6:00 or so Bobby came over to the house as well to hang and then come to Taco Mac with us.  Shortly after Courtney called to let us know that she was on her way to our house.  We had her drop her new puppy off at our house before going out.  We all went up to Taco Mac for a few hours and eventually the ladies and Spencer met us up there as well.  They stuck around for a little while longer before heading off to grab some dessert and head to the house. 

Envy and Auggie Playing

The guys stuck around for a few more drinks and then also headed to my house.  We just chilled and talked before heading to bed.  It was great to have Courtney around again and her dog was SOOO cute!  Be sure to look at the photo gallery for more pictures of Courtney and Auggie!  That dog is SOOOOOOO CUTE!

Tonight Envy has been sick as hell   Not sure why but when we got home she had thrown up in her crate twice (I think) and has been throwing up ever since.  She kinda had a bit of a variety of food that she does not typically have including chicken livers, chicken, eggs, and a new treat – freeze dried duck and sweet potato.  Other than the duck she has had each of those separately and maybe mixed with one other but never all together in one day.  I don’t know if that did it or there is something else going on. 

I have setup her bed in our bathroom and an airmatress for me and I am staying here for at least a while to make sure that she does not end up throwing up on the carpet.  She has thrown up each time outside which is nice (as well as a first.. she never cares where she throws up) but being up here I may not have enough time to get her outside if it is coming.  I thought that she would have thrown up by now being that we have been up here for well over an hour, but thankfully she has not!  Hopefully she is over it and we can start to rebuild her stomach back up.

She had been sick for quite some time previously but fortunately we have had her back on a full raw diet for the last 2 months or more without any episodes of throwing up.  It has been so nice.  I really hope this was just a fluke and we are not on our way back down a rough path.  My guess is that it will all be fine and it was just a weird episode.  We shall see!  Wish us luck!

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Envy’s new steps at pictures.neilnatic.com  or here.

Saturday morning my dad came over to build some steps for Envy so that she doesnt have to jump on and off of our new bed.  Being that it is a lot higher than our old bed, we really dont want Envy to jump so much as it is pretty rough on her joints. 

My dad brought over some wood that was leftover from another project at his house and we began to plan how we were going to do the steps.  Let me tell you, this is a lot more complex that you would think.  It took us almost 5 hours to build the 3 steps that we built not including the time to apply the wood putty and spray paint them. 

They are great and turned out perfect.  After 5 coats of paint, there are parts that just will not take as well as the rest, but the flash makes them look worst than they really are.  All in all… they are PERFECT!  Envy hauls ass up and down them with ease!

Thanks a ton dad.  I know this was a lot more work than either of us expected, but it turned out great.

While eating a bone, Envy was surrounded by children playing and petting her as she chewed.  Paul was even crawling all around her acting like a dog himself

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of our Christmas at pictures.neilnatic.com  or here.

Christmas came and went so quickly this year.  It was all really a blur.  Like normal we headed over to my rents house on Christmas Eve for the Natic gathering.  It was great to see all of the family again.  Because we decided to not do the adult gift exchange, we agreed to play some games to get everyone together to have a great time.  Alisha and I picked up Dirty Minds, which really turned out to be a hit.  It was absolutely hilarious.. especially the one about the shower :crackup:  We had a blast!

When we got home from my rents, we opened the presents that we got from Alisha’s mom and grandparents with Kara.  We always get a box that has stockings and other gifts from both her mom and her grandparents.

On Christmas morning we headed over to Alisha’s dad’s house to join their family and have an early dinner.  We had a great time as the family, the Lucas’s and Anne’s parents all spent some time together and had a great dinner.

Thank you to everyone for all of the gifts.  We really appreciate it.  Most importantly the time that we spent with each of you over the year has been the most important.  Even those that are further away, we love you all the same!

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for more pictures of Envy at envy.neilnatic.com  or here.

As many of you know, we love our dog Envy like a child.  In fact, for now, she is our only child.  This past weekend she was a trip.  We had to take a ride in the car but the back seat was packed with stuff so she had to sit up front with Alisha in the TL.  She was not thrilled about it but she made the best of it :crackup:  She got tired of sitting up on the ride and decided to lie down on the floorboard of the TL at Alisha’s feet.

A few days later, we had the bed made and were getting ready to head out when Envy decided that she was going to lie on our bed anyway.  The only thing that you could see was her cute head sticking out from behind our 10 pillows :crackup:

En, you are a trip!

*edit* – these pictures and other more recent pictures are added to the end of Envy’s gallery.  To see the newer pictures, just click the last page of her album in our photo gallery.

As you should know, Envy has been eating a raw diet for quite some time now which she absolutely LOVES!  Unfortunately, I happen to not love it as much as she does because she was being stubborn and would only eat when I would cut it up into pieces for her.  I have been tired of spending 30 minutes to feed her lately and decided tonight I was going to try something new tonight. 

I took out her chicken to feed her tonight and thought as i was slightly defrosting the pieces I planned to cut up and feed her, I would just try to hand her a full piece of chicken and see what she did.  After a little coaxing, she was eating it right off of the patio without me cutting it up or doing anything.  She ate like a champ too.  She ate nearly two leg quarters and a chicken breast before calling it a night.

I am SOOOO glad that she ate on her own without me babying her.  Now I don’t have to waste so much time feeding her everyday!

Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Envy at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.

Many of you have seen Envy’s odd obsession over light reflections.  You know when you see the reflection of the sunshine off of your watch?  Yeah; That.  Well this of course works with a mirror as well.  Alisha used to use a mirror and do her make up on the bed while watching the morning news and such and Envy soon started to associate the mirror with light and not she obsesses over the mirror.

Well this morning while Alisha was getting ready she opened the cabinet door where we keep the mirror and Envy would not move from that cabinet.  She was sitting or standing with her entire body inside of the cabinet and just staring at the mirror the whole time.  She would not move for anything!

Check out the video of her to get an idea how serious she was about this mirror!  :crackup:

Also check out her album in the gallery at http://envy.neilnatic.com for more pictures of her in the cabinet  :crackup: