Max is our sweet Lab/Golden cross – when we adopted him five years ago, he was a spry 10 year old – but now at 16 his face has gone almost completely white, and he’s gotten arthritis in his back legs and hips. We’ve been worrying about his decline, as he’s had more trouble with the stairs and going from sitting to standing. He really liked his new memory foam bed, but he still was very stiff – so I decided that some how I would find a way for Max to get a massage.

Marmot and Max on Max's memory foam dog bed!

I had heard a rumor that there was someone in town who did canine massage, so I Googled it and found her, and she came out to the house a week later. She spent over an hour with him and the next day, he obviously felt fabulous because he was running in the yard again! We’re thinking that with how great he seemed to feel afterwards, we might do regular visits with her!

So, we have two giant Labradors- they’re adorable, but they are 200lbs of dog who eat 30lbs of dog food a week, and put out quite a bit of dog doo in our yard. We tried composting it traditionally (above ground in a mesh-type composter) but we needed it to decompose faster. You can buy commercial kits, but we were unable to find anything as big as we were hoping for (we made a 30-gallon bin) and the 10-gallon systems are easily $50-60+ online. Onto the interwebs for inspiration, and a Saturday project later, we have a working doggy doo waste bin for about $41.

To do this project we used a large heavy-duty plastic garbage bin with lid, some rocks (we bought a bag of river rock), and some septic tank bacteria solution.

1) First, we cleared an area where we wanted the doggy doo bin, at least ten feet away from the vegetable garden. We chose an area under some bushes where it wasn’t easily visible, but still right near the yard for easy waste disposal.

2) Marmot dug a hole, deep and wide enough that the garbage bin can sit in it, but not so deep that we can’t still get the lid on.

2) We  cut the bottom out of the garbage bin, although you can always drill holes in the bottom too.

3) We put the bin in the hole, and packed the dirt around it, building up towards the top.

4) Poured the rock into the bottom.

5) And then added doggy doo! I’ll spare you a picture of that, and highlight one of our adorable doggy doo suppliers instead.

6) Last step was adding some septic tank bacteria solution, which we’ll do about once a month. The bottle we bought is enough for a 500-gallon septic tank, so with a 30-gallon bin we’re thinking the bottle should last over a year.

And ta-da, we have a great doggy doo composter that will allow the doggy doo to degrade and be absorbed back into the soil!

With the heavy-duty garbage bin ($31.99), river rock ($2.59), and septic treatment solution ($6.99), our total was $41.57.

Halloween was our first real holiday in the New House, and we got inaugurated with over 75 kids, $35 of candy gone in just over an hour! We also gave ourselves a great introduction to the neighborhood, with the first doorbell had Brewer crashing through the door and bolting down the street with me in hot pursuit. Nothing like barreling down the sidewalk after your idiot dog, with parents and their trick-or-treaters looking at you like wow, never seen a fat lady run that fast. Note- Brewer was not in the lobster costume yet, which I was told by a neighbor would have really added to the hilarity. I grabbed Brewer about two blocks down and hauled him back home, with Marmot (who had been in the shower) coming downstairs just in time to ask, why the hell are you sweating?

I put his non-sweaty self on candy duty...

Because we don’t have children (and because, according to Queen B, we have an inordinate amount of spending money for stupid things) we bought Halloween costumes for the dogs. Now one of the challenges of having two large dogs (88lbs and 105lbs) is that the XXL costumes from Petsmart are a little snug. But we were not disuaded by this small detail, we stuffed the dogs into them anyway. If I can stuff myself into a pair of killer shoes, the boys can suffer for an hour of costume wearing!

Brewer the Lobster...

Trying to get them to sit still for a picture!

Max the Shark

And yes, even the cat’s costume was too tight. But I’ll admit, it was on clearance at TJ Maxx for $2 (the inmate costume I really wanted was sold out) and it was actually an XS dog costume…who knew she was that fat?? I’m starting to see a pattern here…

Happy kitty!

So we decided to deliver pumpkin muffins to the neighbors from Max the Shark and Brewer the Lobster…Neighbor Bob shook his head, and told us we need to have kids already. lol

Yum!

The pumpkin muffins were a-ma-zing, its a recipe my sister Apple B. found on Allrecipes.com, the Pumpkin Bars II recipe and she just put the batter into muffin tins. Note: the tablespoons of baking soda and baking powder should actually be teaspoons. lol The awful part is that Brewer has taken up counter-surfing as a hobby, and ate about 12 of them.

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!

(taken with the new camera, and touched up, just a bit, with Picnik!)

So we decided that the chaos level with moving, having the whole house pulled apart and being painted, both working full-time, and both being in school just wasn’t enough chaos for us.

Enter: Brewer

Making himself at home...

A 7 year old chocolate lab we got from a lab rescue one state over. He was an owner surrender when his family moved to a gated community, although I don’t know how anyone could give him up! It took him a few days to settle in, but he’s tossing around tennis balls, chasing at the cat (who is so not amused), and playing in the sprinkler. Max is tolerant of his little brother, but thinks Brewer doesn’t understand the danger of water, because they = baths.

The boys...

Let the chaos continue!