So the other night I was on the phone with Courtney configuring her new Dell laptop and I went into our room and saw that Envy was laying in this adorable and twisted position… I just had to share :crackup:
As always, you can find more pics of Envy at http://envy.neilnatic.com
No she is not getting fat, although she is quite lazy. We have decided to switch her from a healthy kibble diet (Innova Evo dog food) to an all raw diet.
As you may have read, my mom started feeding Envy raw while we were in Destin and she really seemed to like it. We were constantly struggling to get creative and add new safe human food to her dog food every day and she just was not into eating it. The food that we were feeding her was excellent quality food but she just did not mind skipping a day or so. Innova Evo is a no-grain kibble and did not have all of the shit that the supermarket and pet store food has in it such as animal by-products. If you are feeding your dog this type (supermarket / pet store food) you should really consider changing over to a much better food… if you dont go raw like we did. If you are wondering why or what can possibly be bad about your food, take a few minutes and check this out. It will really surprise you:
Feeding raw does take a little bit of knowledge but honestly not much. Basically you need to feed them meaty bones so that they get both bones as well as meat. It can be pork, buffalo, rabbit, deer, chicken, whatever.. they will usually eat it all. You must also balance this with organ meat such as livers, hearts, etc. You do want to stay away from feeding large bones with little meat though as the balance are important for their diet and poop 
Too much bone and they wont get it out… too much meat and it will… well flow
Many feel that this kind of diet encourages their dog to “crave blood”, become completely aggressive, and change the pet into an animal. Not true, not true, not true… dont believe everything that you hear… afterall both me and my parents own pitbulls and they are not snarling demons right? Trust me. Those are myths. There are links at the bottom of this post to some sites the debunk these myths.
I really thought that feeding raw made total sense and knew that it was better for Envy but thought it was kinda odd. All in all, it is kinda gross having do work with raw meat all of the time, but in a sick way I kinda enjoy when she takes in parts of chicken thighs and legs and starts chomping right through the bone. Turkey was even crazier. Those bones are a lot larger and thicker and she would just chomp right through them. It was rather entertaining. :crackup:
Now that we are feeding raw we really expected our “dog food” costs to rise conciderably. We would pay about $50 dollars per bag of her Innova Evo and it would last somewhere between 5 – 6 weeks at best. We figured that with her eating a chicken leg quarter plus hearts or livers daily that we would be spending quite a bit more a month… until we realized that we live right near the Tyson plant Cumming that is! I had heard a rumor that you can pick up chicken for MUCH less if you go to the Tyson plant. I had Alisha run by there one day and asked her to take like $40 bucks or so. She called me on her way out and had picked up 3 boxes of chicken leg quarters for the $40!!! We allowed them to defrost a little and then cut them up into individually wrapped daily servings. We found that there were 28 leg quarters in each box and we had three boxes. That means that we have 84 chicken leg quarters or damn near 3 months of food for her! I would say that is a hell of a deal… we would have nearly spent $120 – $150 bucks in that same time frame.
We are really glad that we made this switch to raw. We know it is much healthier and more natural for her to be eating this way. We hope that you choose to do the same or at least look into purchasing dog food that is MUCH healthier then Purina or Iams.. i assure you it is pure garbage for your dog… you saw what happened when that guy ate McDonalds for 30 days.. you are essentially doing the same for your dog. The new food will be cheaper (if you look at how much you feed per day it equals out if not saves you money) and you will feel better about what you are putting in your dog’s body. Plus healthier food means less trips to your costly vet
Here are some links that used to learn about how to feed a raw diet:
Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of Sasso’s Creek at pictures.neilnatic.com or here
We went over to Mike and Aubree’s house on Monday evening and had some dinner and planned to take Envy and Max on a walk through the back side of their neighborhood. As we got back there we let the pooches off their leashes and let them roam freely through the unfinished part of the neighborhood. They had a total blast just smelling and peeing on everything.
As we came around, we saw that there was a gorgeous creek down a huge hill that we decided to check out. We brought the dogs down as well and tried to talk them into going into the water. Surprisingly both of them ended up walking through it eventually. It was a blast.
On the way back we saw a gigantic ant hill that I decided to destroy. I picked up a rock that was two times the size of my leg and dropped it right on top of the ant hill…. unfortunately we found that the ants didn’t give a shit that we just ruined their ant hill. Barely any ants came out and it was not impressive.
Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for pictures of us at work at pictures.neilnatic.com or here
Yesterday morning I woke up on a mission to buy some mulch for our house. I was really set on getting rubber mulch, but becuase of how hard it is to get a hold of and its crazy price, I decided to just suck it up and buy the regular stuff.
We had 5 buckets (cubic yards) delivered to the house, which looked like far too much as soon as we saw it. I spent the next 4 or 5 hours wheel-barrelling it to the different areas of the yard to spread around and cover the faded pine bark we had there before. I could barely move by the end of the day…. and I am not even done. We have a crap load of mulch just sitting in the driveway and of course, it rained last night which will make it a disaster to finish / cleanup.
While I was out working, my two “helpers” were not quite as productive:
Well, my back is killing me but at least the yard looks great! :thumbsup:
This weekend was Easter as everyone better know by now. Although it is certainly 3 weeks too early, we still celebrated by eating great food and spending time with family.
On Sunday, we got up at a decent time and started to get ready to head up to Alisha’s dad’s house to eat. Before we left Alisha gave me some Reeses Eggs (my FAVORITE candy ever) and a homemade card with painted chocolate candy. I was sooo excited!
Once we got to Alisha’s dad’s house Kara and Tiffany surprised Alisha with her own Easter egg hunt! the eggs were filled with almonds and sugar free candy. She was more than excited about it ha ha.
We all hung out and then ate some delicious Honey Baked Ham, EXCELLENT Mac and Cheese (with a white cheese… MMMMMMMM), mashed potatoes, and much more. The food was excellent as were the tasty desserts!!!
We then headed out and went to the house to drop Envy off. After doing so, I decided to take Alisha out to learn how to drive a manual. She actually did very well and only stalled like 4 or 5 times the whole day. She made it into 2nd gear, but then her patience and our time ran out.
We then went to Kimberly and Alan’s house to sit down with my side of the family and eat some dessert. We caught up with the recent events and chit chatted for a while before we called it an early night and went back to the house.
As soon as we got home, Alisha decided that we needed to snap some pictures… I reluctantly agreed.
Thanks for the food and the family time! We had fun!!
Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for more pictures of our fun in the snow at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.
Saturday morning we headed over to Alisha’s parent’s house to help them move and settle into their new home. It had been snowing since around 9:00 AM so there was quite a bit of snow on the ground when we got there.
We took the kids and Envy outside to play in the snow for a while and we had a blast. Paul was a snowball throwing machine and even Envy was just walking around and enjoying the rare occasion. Me and Paul had a snowball fight that lasted forever which eventually had Danielle joining in as well.
After that we had Kara take a few pictures of me and Alisha and then I headed off to make a snow man. I tried to get a good one going, but the first two bases I made fell apart as I went to put them into place. Because of this, I decided to go with a smaller version and left it at that.
After our fun in the snow, we came inside to dry off and warm up. We helped arrange the house, unpack, and move things inside to help get them settled. It was a fun and beautiful day and it really made a moving day much better than it usually is.
Dont forget to check out our photo gallery for more pictures of our fun in the snow at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.
Yesterday was not only special because it was Paul’s birthday, but it snowed for the first time in what feels like forever!! It actually came down relatively hard. It coated the ground giving everyone enough time to enjoy themselves as if we were all kids.
It began snowing around 4:00 PM as I was just reaching the house. Alisha insisted that I take envy out to take some quick pictures of her in the snow. Envy did not appreciate this much. She HATES being wet and would not stay out long at all. She stayed by the door until I opened it as she looked back in misery. Because the pictures would be so cute, I went inside and encouraged her with treats. This worked for a few shots, but then she actually refused the treats and stood by the door to go inside. We got some good pictures though so it was all worth it.
We then went out to dinner at Rice for little Paul’s birthday. After eating some delicious sushi, we headed outside to play in the snow as it continued to come down nicely. Paul had a blast. This then quickly turned into a snowball fight between me tiffany and Alisha’s dad.
Once we got into the neighborhood, we stopped to take a picture of the snowman that was down the street. It was actually pretty large. I then got Envy and had her come outside to take some pictures. Once again she was absolutely miserable. We used treats once more to bait her into some great pictures.
After we were done using Envy for pictures, Alisha decided to make a snow angel in the back yard. Once she was done, she got up, ran inside, and changed as she was absolutely soaked.
It was a great day and it was really nice to be able to hang out in the snow again.
Don’t forget to check out our photo gallery for more pictures of Envy’s birthday fun at pictures.neilnatic.com or here.
December 27th is Envy’s birthday and Alisha’s mom made sure that it was celebrated appropriately. She had a custom cake made for her at a local pet bakery and sent it down to us. Envy was thrilled!
She made a huge mess and enjoyed every bit of it.
Great idea mom! She loved it!
