Doga for Life

Just a note since I think someone requested advance warning, but if you are in the Chicagoland area, Maizy and I will be teaching Doga for free THIS Sunday, October 3rd at the Bark for Life North Shore walk and fundraiser event! We are teaching from 12:30-1:00, so catch us while you can!

If you are interested in knowing about upcoming Doga events, you can sign up for my email updates at www.nicolesopko.com (you will also get information about yoga events, but I send out updates once a month only unless something special comes up so it will not overwhelm your inbox).

Bonus: Picture of Maizy driving home from our big day on Sunday which involved participating in the Chicago PAWS walk and then going to clean out the boyfriend's garage! I thought she looked very cute the way she was sleeping and you can see that we were transporting home her new crate floor!

Crates and Crafts

So, I don't know if any of you have had the same experience, but those plastic crate pans that come with most brands of crate really stink! About two years ago, I replaced Maizy's (for around $60-70) and once again last month, it had broken. It didn't make sense to spend more money on a crate pan, so she was existing without for a few weeks while I figured out what to do. I considered trying to find the right size of metal crate pan or make some kind of metal floor for her, but I soon realized that it wasn't the best solution. Add to the situation that Maizy is a massive chewer and that I was buying her new blankets from the thrift store every few weeks, and I decided that the solution to our crate floor situation had to be dual-purposed.

After some discussion with my brilliant boyfriend, we came up with a plan. And so, this past weekend we cut down a piece of plywood (with the aid of a neighbor who couldn't bear to see me using the manual version, and rushed over with his electric saw in order to do the cut for me quicker than his estimated "three seconds"), dug a scrap of carpet from the depths of the boyfriend's basement, and created a masterpiece!

Tada!

I present to you: Maizy's shiny new carpeted floor. This was a simple and cheap solution (we already had all of the materials laying around) and is working out beautifully so far! And Maizy is very happy with the results as her initial reaction to her new floor was to hunch up into "resource guarding" posture lest one of the other dogs even THINK about relaxing on HER new carpeted board!

This obviously isn't a good solution for a dog that has regular accidents in their crate (Addison!) or who has a sensitive stomach that can lead to barfing (Wrigley!), but this is the perfect solution for all of Maizy's issues. If it isn't, I don't know that yet, but will keep you updated in the following weeks to see if there are any major issues with her carpeted floor.

I've also included one bonus photo, which includes all four pups in their crates with the doors shut and their dinners sitting in front of them waiting VERY patiently to be given the "okay" before diving in. They are such well-beahaved sweetstuffs (sometimes).