Furry Love: Cesar Millan's Book

M and I are a fan of Cesar Millan and we love watching his Dog Whisperer show.

Some of our weekends were spent watching it on netflix for hours. 

His books are easy to read and straight to the point.  The "How to Raise the Perfect Dog" book is perfect for those who have no experience in raising a puppy or like me who wants to learn more in order to understand our furry friend. I already know some of the topics so I just glossed over them. It discusses not only how to train the puppy for good behavior but also other essentials like vaccines needed, list of harmful plants for dogs, suggested daily schedule, his views and opinions like on spay/neuter issues.  He raised 4 different breed of puppies just for this book so he narrated his experiences from them. What I like in this book is that they enumerated the list of  our "unwanted" puppy behaviors, why they do them and ways to addressed them. As I finished this book, I felt like I became a part of his journey while raising his 4 pups.

puppy snowbell

In case of Snowbell, what we are trying to address is her issue of jumping to us as a greeting whenever we went out, even if it is just throwing out the trash.  Accdg to Cesar, this issue can be resolved by ignoring them when you enter the house. It is heart warming and cute because she is still small but when she's big already that will be difficult.

In the second book, "Cesar's Rules: Your way to train a well behaved dog", is more of like his Dog whisperer show, where he discussed the idea behind his show's tagline (I rehabilitate dogs, I train people) and his advice of (Exercise, Discipline, Affection) and why in that order. He also discussed training methods/techniques of other professional dog trainers and narrated some of his dog rehabilitation cases. This book also discuss how to walk the dog properly - which I'm still trying to improve because Snowbell sometimes pull and bite her leash. We really like to let her out off-leash but we need to follow our place admin rules :/

So these are the books that keep me sane from the daily waiting time, commute and traffic :)

-=jewel=-

Movie Night with Domino's Pizza

After buying some stuffs from SM hypermarket, we went to Domino's Silver City and availed of this promo:

We ordered 1 Solo size and 1 medium size. Instead of paying P698, we only paid P298.

While waiting for our orders, pichur2x

Eating pizza while watching Total Recall :)
This veggie pizza has corn, black olives, tomatoes and mushroom.

Veggie Pizza

The Classic Pepperoni pizza, we didn't forget snowbell, she got the crust ;p

Pepperoni

yum I would love to do this movie+pizza night again, such a treat for a stressful week.

Their promo runs until April 15 :)

Valentines Day: Seoul Garden, Robocop, BreadStory

I prepared breakfast for mike - toasted rye bread, rye pancakes, hotdogs and egg. The sugar cookies are from my niece's party giveaways, pangdisplay lang ;p

For the rye pancakes, I used rye flour, olive oil and coco sugar only. My first batch failed - I followed a recipe online complete with eggs and baking soda but it failed, they were bitter and not edible T_T So I just made my own recipe ;p

me: ok lang ba ung rye pancakes?
mike: ay pancake ba ito???

Later that night we were at Galleria, we dropped by first at Saizen to buy some stuffs. I found some Vday related items 

 We chanced again BreadStory 's Buy1Take1 :)

We didn't check the movie sched, turned out only 1 cinema  is for Robocop and screening time was 10PM, it was  only 8PM  :/

We decided to dine at Seoul Garden Hotpot located at Galleria's 4th Level

(originally we just planned to have a takeout from BK or Mcdo while watching as we assumed there'll be early screening time)

Refillable Appetizers

We had a chicken hotpot with rice (Php278 + sc) which is already good for two. We were asked if we like a kimchi or ramen, I chose the latter. It has Enoki mushroom, veggies and very soft chicken meat. 

Complimentary Wine

We still have time so we used my BDJ coupon at Coffee Bean, Buy 1 Take 1 Tea latte. 

I ordered Green Tea and Morrocan Mint Tea, hmmm we love mint tea but this one didn't appeal to us 

Matcha and morrocan mint

Then movie time. As usual, I love fighting/battle scenes of all sorts.

I also like the first person camera view (my fave scene), feels like a game. I don't  have any issues with violent scenes but I always prefer "wholesome" movies. So a little loveydovey scene here made me cringe. But overall, I find the movie awesome :D

Furry Love: The Other End of the Leash

snowbell lives with us now here in manila :)

at 2 months old 

still her fave position

It is nice to have a furry little one that makes us smile everyday with her funny sleeping position, quiet and sweet nature. She didn't whine or cry on her first night and easily adopted to her new environment. I chose her because she is a submissive type, she observes me quietly and I noticed when she was only about a month old that I will not have trouble to give her a potty training. She just know what, where and when to do it naturally. 

Back in Laguna, we don't teach tricks to our dogs but they know how to behave in a pack because they see my father as the pack leader. We let them out of the house off leash to do their thing and they will go back by themselves in a few minutes. Sometimes, they take too long to play and run outside so my father will call and wave at them to go back. It's always funny to see them going back, head down and somewhat looking sorry.

Here's a video of Bok opening our door to go back inside , he just figure it out himself :)

Owning a dog is a responsibility, we must be ready to allot time and effort to fulfill their needs and also to understand what they are trying to communicate to us. To help gain more understanding about our furry companion and to learn how to be a pack leader, M and I started reading books. 

$11 from Amazon (kindle format)

I am finished with this book, "The Other End of the Leash", which is informative in differentiating dogs nature from humans. Only that the author talked a lot about primates and all chapters remind the reader that she has a PHD and  a professional animal behaviorist :/ She tends to repeat and prolong a concept too. So you may want to wait for Amazon to include it in their sale list before your purchase.

On a positive side, I did learn a few things that I am applying now like using our body, not hands to block the dogs when they jump or come to us. When Snowbell want to go up on the bed, I face the other side, turn my back on her and ignore her, she will then go away in a few seconds.  

They can observe slightest change in our action so we need to be consistent and aware of our moves when we are training them ie when training them to sit, be consistent with your hand signals and face expression.
Variation of  our voice also have a relation on what we want our dogs to do. She also explains why dogs "misbehave" if their energy is not directed towards the fulfillment of their dog nature - we must allow them to work (sniff, dig,walk,run) outdoors. Also some photos in the appendix are also helpful for illustrating the concept. 

The author owns 3 dogs that help her in sheep herding. I like it when she share a bit of story about their experiences and training.

We also downloaded other books from Amazon, some are free. Can't wait to read them all.

I am now reading Cesar Millan's book and will share it on my next Furry Love blog post.

This is one of her "what is this human trying to do?" look in addition to tilting her head ;p 

Snowbell , 3 mos. old

Healthy Inspiration: January Healthy Eats

 I'm trying to get back on the groove after the holidays, birthday treats and other celebrations. I felt that Christmas indulges is not over yet until the end of my birth month ;p (plus the tikoy and hopia bec of Chinese New Year)

Some of my meals are still my old favorites and here are some of the photos I managed to take for the past days

Salad lunches

Broccolli

Bokchoy or Pechay sauteed in Olive oil + garlic bits

Boiled bokckoy, carrots and ginger

Black Rice 

Turmeric Lugaw w/ Bokchoy and garlic bits

Snacks

fruit smoothies

It is now a struggle to wake up in the morning as it's super cold! Sometimes I just want to have a hot coffee and a toasted bread. Most of the time I prepare my turmeric lugaw with eggs or chicken. I will also try to prepare healthy soups this coming days of Feb.

Stay healthy!

-=jewel=-