Fit As Fido

It’s been a few months since we’ve looked to see what that darling and hardworking puppy Endal Junior (or EJ) has been doing. Of course, we all remember the amazing bond between injured veteran and service dog flunky that brought Allen Parton and Endal together. And then there was that famous first transatlantic interview with Endal Junior as he started to fill Endal’s service vest.

Well little puppy EJ is no longer a puppy! He’s a dog and a diligent worker, just like his mentor Endal had been for Allen. This week, EJ and Allen accepted a donation from aerospace designer and defense contractor BAE systems for the Royal British Legion. The staff at BAE decided to form a charity partnership with the Royal British Legion, providing funding for the next two years! Allen has been a tireless advocate for the needs of veterans and, with EJ’s cute mug at his side, who can resist!

Keep up the great work EJ. I’m sure Endal’s gazing down on you with his kindly, knowing eyes, saying, “Well done, little one. Well done!”

BAE Systems at Hilsea support the Royal British Legion

A majestic looking EJ on duty to help service men and women

BAE mascot gets a coveted kiss from EJ

Animal Connection has a full page of links to terrific dog blogs. Wanna learn more about everything dog? Then check out these blogs! You’ll also find blogs about cats, horses, and other animals, too. And there’s a suggestion for a terrific blog that shows two adorable soft-coated wheaten terriers!

Wheatie alerted me with his usual huff that it was time for our afternoon walk. Bundled in my boots, sweatshirt, winter coat, Elmer Fudd hat, scarf, and mittens, we ventured out to see the new layer of fluffy white snow. Despite my layers of bundling, I was blasted by an arctic chill as a biting wind whipped around my face. After a few moments of weakness when I was considering shortening our walk, I decided to add some zing to the walk to generate some heat. So our usual brisk walk turned into a mixture of jogging, lunging, and jumping over snow banks. Halfway through the walk, I was no longer thinking about the cold as I watched the dogs frolic along beside me. Toby is ALWAYS trying to engage Wheatie in play, which often deteriorates into Toby pulling Wheatie’s tail in a last ditch effort for attention. Today, obviously cheered by my antics, Wheatie turned to Toby with a deep play bow! Ah — harmony in the ranks! It’s a beautiful thing! We continued our runs, lunges, and jumps and by the time home was in view, I was beginning to sweat and no longer worried about the cold wind. The added benefits of today’s walk — probably burned more calories and completed the walk quicker so I could return to my mountains of writing work rejuvenated and with added minutes for typing!

Last weekend, we went on a backpacking trip in Central Pennsylvania. Warmer weather had melted the snows to generally less than a foot, making then more reasonable for hiking through. Unfortunately, subsequent freezes embedded the snows in a thick layer of ice, making footing very difficult. What should have been a 20-minute, 3/4 mile, easy hike into camp our first night was a 2-hour crawl as we needed to break through ice with each step to get footholds. After a nice snooze overnight in the woods and a fortifying breakfast of bacon, eggs, and freshly backed coffee cake (our backpacking buddy’s a FABULOUS one-burner cook and baker!), we decided our next planned 12-mile leg would probably take us several days rather than just the afternoon, so we hiked back out the way we came. A short trip, but lots of great stories to tell our friends back home!

Think you might enjoy hiking with your pups? Why not first try some weekend dry hikes. Load up your packs for practice and plan to cook lunch out on the trail. You’ll soon find out if you and your dogs love it and are ready for an overnight adventure!

Tips on successful and enjoyable backpacking with your pooches:
1. Practice regular hikes in the woods so you know your dogs’ limitations. Make sure you and your dog are accustomed to the distances you’ll be hiking each day, especially if you have an older dog. Because you’ll be carrying a pack, your pace will be considerably slower, so it’ll take much longer to hike the same distance you might when just out for a hike. Plan that you’ll make only a couple miles per hour.

If your dog’s going to be off leash for your backpacking, be sure you regularly practice off-leash hikes with your dogs with lots of recall training. Your dog should understand his place in the backpacking group pack — we try to keep ours between us or off the trails at our sides rather than allowing then out in front of the group. We usually start our excursions at night when it’s dark, so I do keep my dogs on leash for the first night. When hiking or backpacking, I have a ready supply of training treats to reinforce recall. Just remember to store your training treats with the rest of your food when backpacking — never in your tent as an enticement to hungry animals!

2. Be prepared for everyday needs. You’ll be packing lots of gear for yourself — remember to pack your dog’s gear, too. My dogs have small Urban Hound packs to carry their gear:

- Ziplock bags with a meal of food in each
- Training treats
- Collapsible bowl for each dog
- Hair care products

Wheaten terriers need LOTS of hair care and if you neglect it while out backpacking, you’ll REALLY regret it when you get home and have hours and hours of dematting to do. I take a slicker brush, a couple different dematting tools, and 2 travel size spray bottles of conditioner and detangler. Each morning, lunch, and evening the dogs get a through go through with each brush and dematter, followed by spritzing and a final slicker brushing. Sounds a bit silly and over-the-top, but when we get home and I just have a quick bath to give instead of trying to get a comb through matted hair, it’s all worth it!

3. Be prepared for mud and dirt. We have a sheet to put on the bottom of our tent as a dirt collector and also pack a towel to dry wet and muddy wheatens. And sometimes, you just have to give them a bit of a soapy scrub before going into the tent. Winter backpacking is great, because problems with dirt, mud, and bugs are minimized.

4. Be prepared for rain. I always pack my rain gear and rain coats for my dogs in the top of the pack so they’re easy to pull out when needed. If you dog gets cold, you’ll also need a coat. Choose clothing with bright colors to improve visibility in the woods.

5. Keep Fido hydrated. Staying hydrated is essential for happy backpacking for the entire pack — including Fido. You still need lots of fluids on winter hikes — and so does Fido. The collapsible bowls are great for giving drinks as well as dry food.

6. Take your camera so you can capture your adorable pooch and backpacking mates.

7. Be flexible. Don’t be afraid to change plans as needed, like we had to this weekend. Keep a positive attitude and approach each trip like an adventure. Then you’ll have lots of great stories to tell over steaming cups of hot chocolate back home — whether you walk only a couple miles, like us, or 20!

8. Layer — layer — layer. When you’re backpacking, you’ll be generating lots of heat and energy, so you’ll only need a couple layers — even in the dead of winter. Once you break for lunch or to set up camp, though, you’ll need extra layers to help keep in heat. And you can tell I don’t worry about looking stylish with my Elmer Fudd hat — may look a bit silly, but man is it toasty! Leave your less functional fashion items at home — though we sure could have used a good pair of stilettos on this trip for getting through the ice!

A friend of mine just went to the doctor for his 50-year-old check-up. When he went for blood tests, they told him he had to try again the next day, because the doctor had ordered a fasting blood sugar test as a screen for diabetes.

According to the American Dianetes Association, nearly eight percent of the US population has diabetes!

- 18 million people are diagnosed with diabetes
- Nearly 6 million HAVE diabetes but have not been diagnosed
- Over one and a half MILLION new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in adults every year

New regulations published in the journal Diabetes Care from the American Diabetes Association (ADA) may make the fasting glucose test a thing of the past for many people. The ADA is now recommending checking a hemoglobin A1C level as a better screen for early diabetes.

What is hemoglobin A1C (Hb A1C) and why is it recommended?

- Hg A1C gives an average of what your blood sugars have been over the last three months.
- Hg A1C is routinely used to monitor blood sugar control in patients who have diabetes.
- The ADA recommends that a screening Hg A1C score of 5.7 to 6.4 percent indicates pre-diabetes. Levels of 6.5 percent or higher indicate diabetes.
- People may be more apt to get a blood test if they don’t have to fast before getting it. So the Hg A1C may help screen people who have trouble scheduling fasting blood work.

And what about Fido? About one in every 10 dogs will develop diabetes. Diabetes typically affects dogs 7 to 9 years old. Breeds more prone to getting diabetes includes Dachshunds, poodles, Cairn terriers, beagles, and miniature Schnauzers and pinschers.

Symptoms of doggie diabetes include:

- Sluggishness
- Excessive water drinking and urination
- Unexplained change in weight

Find out more about diabetes in dogs here and talk to your vet about concerns you may have.

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Did you ever notice how Fido turns an unpleasant situation into opportunities for fun? Early this morning, Toby was waiting for me to get off the computer and, rather than waste time complaining, he used the opportunity to explore the wonderful smells of my laundry hamper! It’s all about the attitude!

After weeks of daily, fluffy snow, our many inches have been melting down as warmer temperatures have hit us the last few days. Although I do try to keep up with poop pick-up in the yard, snows are very good at covering the evidence before I can find it. So, when we gave the yard a scan before this morning’s walk, the melt had uncovered a “wealth” of buried treasures.

If this happens in your yard, before you can sigh, “Ugh. It’ll take 10 minutes to pick that all up!”, take a lesson from Toby and find a way to take advantage of what might otherwise be seen as an unpleasant situation. You can do like I did and turn chore time into a healthy exercise session. While I was scooping this morning, I realized that I could do a deep squat or lunge with each scoop. So as I approached the little piles, I put my feet about shoulder width and squatted for each pick up. And, when there were piles by my sides, I used the opportunity to do some side lunges during pick up. Adding these simple exercises helped me jump-start today’s activity and made a smelly chore a bit more fun. I was also motivated to pick up the pace on our morning walk as I felt a gentle tug in those butt muscles I’d been working out doing poop pick up.

You’ve all seen the commercials on TV challenging you to add cereal to your diet to help you lose weight. A new study scheduled to be published in the journal American Journal of Clinical Nutrition proved that extra fiber from cereals does indeed help you lose weight, including that pesky belly fat!

In this study, nearly 90,000 healthy Europeans were monitored for an average of six and a half years. Those having diets higher in fiber were more likely to lose weight and lower their waist measurement. Interestingly, fiber was cereals was associated with greater weight loss than fiber from eating fruits and vegetables!

For every 10 gram per day increase in fiber intake from cereal, there was an average weight loss of 77 grams per year (that’s about a quarter of a pound). And waist measurement decreased by one-tenth of a centimeter each year.

One serving (a cup) of Raisin Bran, for example, gives you 7 grams of fiber.

So eating cereal isn’t going to quickly make you skinny. But when you’re choosing calories to add to your diet, remember that cereals are a good choice to add important fibers and help promote weight loss.

So, like the commercials say, you need to ADD cereal to a good weight loss PROGRAM — cereal alone can’t BE the weight loss program!

So tomorrow morning, enjoy a nice cup of high fiber cereal. Then whistle for Fido and take a brisk walk as a great way to start your healthy day!

Iams Home for the Holidays Program had a banner 2009-2010 season — with nearly 1.4 million pets finding forever homes this last holiday season.

If you didn’t get involved this last season — it’s not too late! Check out these Fit As Fido tips on getting involved with your local animal organizations. You don’t have to wait until your 2010 wreath goes on your front door to start getting involved and making a difference in the lives of both animals and those people who benefit from their love!

Of all the speeches I’ve heard, one of the most memorable is Dr. King’s famous “I have a dream speech.” I think the power in Dr. King’s compelling words come from his deep sincerity in his message and a seeming self-awareness that he had limited time to impact the world around him. Dr. King was a true Reverend, focused not on sound bites, but on a rich, full message that compelled it’s listeners to act. You can be sure that Dr. King considered non-participation to not be an option for any of us.

We’ll soon be remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. As Dr. King says, “Now is the time….” So how will YOU spend your day of remembrance? Will it be a day of extra chores, shopping, lunch with the girls, or watching cartoons with the kids in jammies? If Dr. King were here to celebrate the day, I bet he’d use this as a day of service to others.

So, in the spirit of Dr. King, let’s spend his day finding a way to help someone in need. You might consider:

- Taking the kids to an visit elderly neighbor or relative.
- Collect food for your local food bank.
- Visiting the sick in the hospital.
- Get together with someone in need of a friend.
- Or making a commitment to join a volunteer group in your community.

And if you have a social dog, consider making a commitment to become a therapy dog team.