For the past few months, our dog has been pacing and pacing and pacing around the house at night, I *think* trying to tell me that she needs a more comfortable spot to lie. (Or maybe she just needs more cookies? Who knows. Maybe we need a dog-whisperer?) She stares longingly at our bed though, so I am pretty sure she’s lodging a (loud clickity-clickity-on-the-hardwood) complaint against her current beds.

The kind folks at Obasan, makers of the finest organic, all natural beds for HUMANS, have agreed to let us (well, the dog, really), test drive an all natural wool and organic cotton dog bed. The Obasan dog bed is being custom made as I type this, as are all Obasan beds for humans too. With organic mattress stores in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, Obasan has had years and years of experience in refining the art of bed making. And they are about to open a new store in the Toronto area – location to announced shortly!

We can’t wait for the dog bed to arrive. Maybe the endless pacing will end. I am longing for the days of hearing sweet doggie-rabbit-chasing dreams. (No real rabbits were harmed in the posting of this entry.)

Review to come! Here’s hoping we ALL sleep soundly soon.

Questions for readers: What do you look for in a dog bed? Where does your dog like to sleep? Do you happily share your bed with your dog? Let us know!

Proper Television is seeking EXTREME dog lovers for a fun, high profile new series where real-life dog owners show off their dogs for a chance to win a CASH PRIZE!

From the Producers:

“Each episode will begin with 3 dog owners showcasing their dogs and telling each other why their pooch is the best around. After this, the owners will take each others dogs out for a day on the town. Each episode will end with the owners talking about what they liked and didn’t like about each others dogs, then voting on which one they like best.

We’re looking for dogs that are:

• Spunky
• Cute
• Cool
• Tough
• Friendly
• Sassy

We’re looking for owners who are:

• Opinionated
• Funny
• Wacky
• Candid
• Proud
• Paternal

Think your dog has what it takes? We’d love to hear from you!

Email Jesse at jesse@propertelevision.com before March 21st for further details!

P.S. Participants need to live in the GTA.”

PSSSST.  Win a free dispenser! Read on!

I’ve been a dog owner for more than twenty of my adult years. I’ve picked up a lot of poop in that time. In the past few years, because we now use our own grocery bags when we shop, I’ve had to re-think where I get poop bags. No longer can I re-use plastic grocery bags for this purpose. So, I’ve bought a lot of poop bags – and never the same brand, as I have yet to find the ultimate poop bags.

WANT TO WIN A FREE GREEN EARTH POOPBAG DISPENSER?

Super. We’ve got a few to give away. Tweet this article, including our
Twitter name (@torontodogs_com — note the underscore)
and our website (Torontodogs.com) and / or comment
below for a chance to win.

While I don’t usually give this topic an overt amount of thought, here are the requirements of my dream (!) poop bags (aside from the magic kind that would make the poop disappear):

• Decent for the environment. OK, so poop is gross. It needs to be contained but doesn’t need to be preserved carefully in plastic for the next 100 years.
• The bags need to be large enough to do the work they are meant to do and still have room to tie a knot at the top
• If in a roll, it’s important that the bags separate from each other fairly easily, even with mitts on! Rips leads to grossness!
• Not overly perfumed (actually, why do they need to smell at all? My goal is to get rid of the poop bag asap. I am not storing the poop!)
• After I pick up poop, I’d rather not look at it thru the bag – a see thru bag is definitely not ideal!
• Easy to access – how can I store them so that I can easily access one (or more!) when needed without turning my pockets inside out. Also, how many times have I found myself out for a walk and eek, found that my pockets don’t contain any poop bags at all. Also, not ideal!

As a society, we’ve put men on the moon (or have we?!) yet in my experience, we hadn’t been able to solve the apparent puzzle of creating a good poop bag! Come on people! Get to work on the important issues!

Soooooo, a few weeks ago, I saw a tweet by @greenpoopbags and was reminded of their cool looking poop bag dispensers I had been seeing at local pet shops but had been reluctant to try, mostly because I’ve got a few poorly performing other brands at home, and well, I thought, are these nifty dispensers and bags really better?  I must have recently been subject to yet another torn /too small / leaking poop bag fiasco because I immediately tweeted back to them, asking what made their bags so great?

I told them that I had yet to meet a poop bag I liked.

Not deterred by this inferred challenge, Green Earth PoopBags quickly offered to send me some samples to try.

Today, the samples arrived. And I’ve already put the biodegradable roll version to the test. Here’s what I like:

• The plastic dispenser is nice looking, well designed, washable, attaches to leashes or belts, and has a large enough hole so that bags are easily dispensed. I’ve used other dispensers in the past and one problem I’ve come across is that when the roll of bags inside the dispenser gets smaller, the roll can fall out. I will report back again on whether or not this happens with this dispenser. So far, the dispenser is great.
• The bags in the roll are BIG. Big enough for my large labrador’s stuff. Enough said.
• The bags separate well from each other. No torn bag bottoms. Hurrah for that!
• The bags are not see thru – while there is no disguising that there is poop inside, no one has to see the texture or colour! More hurrahs!
• According to Green Earth PoopBags’ website, the Earth Rated^TM biodegradable PoopBags harmlessly dissolve into carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) in as little as 24 months – NICE.

The company also makes COMPOSTABLE bags (corn based) which I am anxious to try as well (and look at that, I’ve received some of these as samples to try out too. Will test shortly.) Aside from the fact that they apparently break down in 40 days (awesome), I like the fact that these bags aren’t scented.

The BIODEGRADABLE bags do have a scent – the company calls it “naturally scented with lavender and fresh smelling.” It’s a fine smell, I suppose, and it definitely isn’t overpowering or awful. It is light, and um, lavender smelling. I guess I wonder why poop bags have to have ANY smell. I don’t want to open my cupboard where I keep my coats and dog leashes and have the first thing I am reminded of  poop. Or an old lady. Or the combo! Ha!

(I will admit that I’ve been accused of being a super sniffer in the past – I have a very good (bad?) sense of smell. There are upsides and downsides to this, ah, talent! And yes, I will agree that a scent of lavender is WAY better than a scent of poop.)

What are your must haves in a poop bag? Come on, we’ve all thought about it for at least as long as the time it takes to pick up poop!

I’d recommend trying Green Earth PoopBags. Let me know what you think – comment below.

WANT TO WIN A FREE GREEN EARTH POOPBAG DISPENSER?

Super. We’ve got a few to give away. Tweet this article, including our
Twitter name (@torontodogs_com — note the underscore)
and our website (Torontodogs.com) and / or comment
below for a chance to win.

I love to see new, Canadian products for sale. Even better when they are all natural. So I was in LOVE with Nothing Added Dog Treats the first time I saw them.

Well, sort of.

I LOVE the idea of them, and my dog LOVED them completely. I just had to get my head around the REALNESS of the products.  They are NOT dog cookies.  Far from it, in fact. There is no hiding what’s inside the package.

SINGLE INGREDIENTS.

ALL NATURAL.

AND SHOCKINGLY REAL.

The good news is that your dog is a carnivore!

Yes, I am a vegetarian and while I realize my dog is decidedly NOT a vegetarian, there was no disguising the fact that I was about to reward my dog with real rabbit ears. And duck feet. And lung.  And liver. And beef snout. I held my nose (which was unnecessary, as there is no real smell as these treats are dehydrated), and gave my dog some treats.

It was gone in 0.2 seconds and she looked at me with the happiest look on her face. Happier than I’ve ever seen her. Even happier than she looks after she’s rolled in very smelly dead stuff!

Wow, we were on to something! Healthy, natural treats that she loves more than life itself!

I did a little more research and contacted the company behind these amazing (to my dog) treats. It’s a great company. The owners started the business as a means to supplement their dogs’ raw food diet. As word spread, friends and local dog owners who wanted to give their dogs treats with ‘nothing added’ came knocking at their door.

All meats are Canadian-sourced. Except for their green tripe, of course, all meats are human grade from government inspected facilities. The company owners have met and have maintained personal relationships with all suppliers.  LOVE IT. (Wish I could say the same for all of MY food choices. I am working on it.)

Now using a larger production facility, all meats are processed immediately upon arrival. Thousands of pounds of meant are dehydrated each month and the business uses only one chest freezer. Meat is not sitting in a freezer for weeks or months before it is processed.

The verdict?

We will without a doubt be replenishing our supply of these treats again. Soon. I recommend them highly. And so does the resident product tester. In fact, she’s drooling excessively as she waits for one right now.

Nothing Added can be found at pet stores around the Toronto area and nationally as well. Visit their website for more information on where you can find these treats with ‘Nothing Added’. If your favourite shop doesn’t carry them, ask them to contact the company.

Follow Pauline Burdett of Nothing Added on Twitter.

And Nothing Added is on Facebook too.

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Welcome to the new Torontodogs.com. Yes, we know. Groan. It’s been a while since the last site launch. A long while. But, we’re here still, and now look better than ever. We’re calling it our mid-life crisis – we’ve had a few nips and tucks and think we’re looking pretty swell. What do you think? We’d love to have your feedback. Hey, you can even comment below! (What? Interactivity? How early 2000s of us.)

Maybe you are new here or can’t remember what the old site looked like?

We know, we know. Look forward right? Not back? Right. But we want to show you just how far we’ve come. For about, ummm, the past 8 years, the website had looked more or less like the image at the left.

Ugly right? Ya, we know.

So we’re pretty proud of where the site is today. But, being brand new, not everything works. We know this. Problem is, we may not know what exactly ISN’T working properly. We’re working around the clock to get it right, but if you find an error, please let us know!

If possible, let us know what you were doing when the error happened — which page were you at, and which page were you trying to get to – if you can remember. We’ll make a note of it and add the fix to our to do list. Thank you.

We’ve got a lot more planned in the coming weeks. Want to be the first to know about new things on Torontodogs.com? Sign up to receive our newsletter.

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I TOTALLY BELIEVED IT after watching the reaction of my dog. But then, the second time I played it, nothing. Crickets. No reaction at all. She lay perfectly still. Not a flinch.

What do you think? Even more hilarious is that apparently this company put up scented posters in some German towns, appealing directly to dogs. Read more from The Toronto Star.

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Enter WikiTO’s guide to “Free or inexpensive places to take your dog.” Check it out.  It’s just getting started, we think, so there’s a good chance that you can add some places to it, as per the spirit of Wiki.

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After living happily as a family of 3 (2 humans, 1 dog) for years, our family is growing. We’re expecting a baby. This news is requiring some adjustment on all of our parts – the rock ‘n roll studio is being relocated, the spare rooms will be needed for more than just ironing and dust collection experiments, and our sprawling piles of stuff are being purged. We’ve discussed the impending arrival with our 7 year old gentle-giant of a dog but we’re not convinced he ‘gets it’. His reaction is usually to pick up one of his stuffed animals, and to shake it vigorously until the stuffing comes right out of it. On second thought maybe he does ‘get it’ – maybe he’s showing us what he thinks of the news.

Enter the Sounds of Baby – an innovative CD that purports to desensitize your dog to the sounds that will be entering your home with your new arrival. We’ve had the CD for a couple of weeks now and dutifully play the it every day while playing with the dog, feeding him breakfast, and hanging out as a family. In our daily lives, our dog is very noise sensitive – bagpipes nearly kill him, saxophones terrify him, and thunder sends him running for the hills. Even a car door slamming can have disastrous effects. The first day of playing the CD provided the most hilarity, as our dog stood nose glued to the speaker for the duration its playing. The next time, he did the same, while occasionally looking at us as if to say, “let the baby out of the box!” On the third day, he sat nearby, looking from time to time at the speakers but also looking generally fairly unimpressed — progress!

There are 3 tracks on the CD, ordered by increasingly alarming sounds. We’ve just progressed to the 3rd track which contains mostly crying and louder toy sounds. We are not sure at this point who the desensitizing is working most on – the humans in the family or the dog! The dog though is definitely relaxing more each time the CD is played – he no longer is on high alert throughout but does absolutely notice and react to some of the sounds. So far, the CD is an interesting experiment and we recommend it to any family that is expanding to include more of the human variety. We’ll update this review as we progress closer towards the due date of our baby.

To read more about the Sounds of Baby CD and to order a copy for your own growing family, visit www.soundsofbaby.com

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A Toronto-based, non-profit organization, PAWS hosts a series of innovative and fashion-inspired events to raise money for dogs in need of advanced veterinary health care. On Thursday, Sept. 22 from 6 – 10:00 pm ET, PAWS will culminate its summer-long lemonade stand with a recipe that celebrates the day and night in equal parts, per the Fall Equinox. The PAWS Lemonade Stand is situated on the patio of The Beaconsfield, 1154 Queen Street West. Already this summer the PAWS Lemonade Stand has inspired memorable recipes from the likes of Brassaii, Harbord Room, Malena and The Drake Hotel, as well as bloggers It All Starts With Butter and Foodie and the Beast; and just as satisfying, thousands of dollars in donations. More info at Facebook – Paws for the Cause.

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