Kibble Nibble (Part 2 of 3 Premier Pet Pressies!)

So the 2nd present I got from the good people at Premier Pet was a thing called a Kibble Nibble. Now at first I thought it was a jug that was missing a rope. It was purple like the jug and smelled like my jug. 

Momma opened it an put kibbles inside just like my jug!

I was beside myself excited to get it so yep... must be a jug!

But when I got ahold of it I realized it was different! It had 2 holes and it kept rolling away which my jug does not really do... hmmm

I tried sitting down to see if I could keep ahold of it... nope!

That is when it finally hit me! You are SUPPOSED to let it roll around so the kibbles fall out by themselves. You dont need a rope!

Success! At this rate it will take me forever to get all of the kibbles out!





Here is a little movie showing how it works!



And just an aside to my friends who suggested that I broke my old jug... Why, I never! I would never destroy a toy! Momma simply replaced it due to normal wear and tear! The problem was that the new jug had a cotton rope which works great for many pups but not for my particular brand of slobbers. My slobbers made the rope too soft and it got jammed in the jug and trapped my kibbles. So that is why momma wrote to them whining about my need for slobber-resistant materials!
Note from Momma- Customer service and lots of online reviews say that people prefer the cotton rope because some pups chew the rubber rope into tiny bits (like TeddyNo did with the first jug) but for some reason my Moose who destroys everything has left the ropes undamaged. I really would never complain about a toy just because moose was able to destroy it! If so I would be writing letters everyday! I only wrote to them to explain why I preferred the rubber ropes and suggest that they offer them with both types of ropes and they responded by making us happy customers!!

Return of the Jug! (sponsored by the good people at Premier Pet!)

Most of my readers probably know that I have a kibble jug that I LOOOVE! It had this rubber thing in it that helped me get the kibbles out. Apparently after about a zillion dinners my drool started to melt the stopper thing so momma got me a replacement jug that had a different rope. Long story short it was not really working out for me and momma emailed the people at Premier Pet all whining and complaining (you know how she is!) and then next thing you know I get a package in the mails!
Check it out:


Can you believe it? More ropes! Aren't they nice people??? Momma promises to wash it more often so my drool does not corrode the thing and they will last forever! Yippee. (note from Momma- the jugs now come with a cotton rope which MOST pups prefer but Moose is kind of stuck in his ways you know!)

As if that was not enough of a surprise... they sent me ANOTHER box! Momma sent them pictures of me and I think they just could not resist my Moose face!





Here is yet another 'un-boxing' movie- lucky for me Momma knows that opening presents is half the fun so she lets me do it!

Holy smokes! Did you see there were lots of things in there? She said we will share the other stuff with you guys later 'cuz this is already a long post but you can see one of the things is a fleecy ball (ok, actually called a Pogo Plush and you can read about it here).

It is a squishy ball that squishes like a stuffy (but there is no stuffy inside!) and it also squeaks like a squeaky but here is the rub... the squeaker moves around so it is never in the same spot when I go to squeak it!

I keep squishing it all over and just when it squeaks and I think I found where it is, it moves so it is not there next time and I have to keep squishing it to find it again!

Plus the squeaky seems to be behind some special protective forcefield because I have not been able to silence it yet! Hard work I tell you! Luckily when you get tired from squeaker hunting you can use it as a pillow!

Tricky T-day: Tables are turned edition

I am taking over this tricky T-day post from my momma to see if any of you have any people training advice. Some of you regular visitors will know that I trained my momma to open the door and let me out when I ring a bell. On most days momma is parked behind her computer totally neglecting me and she would probably never think to let me out if I had not trained her. So here is how it works: Momma click click clicking on a keyboard, I go to the side door where I keep the bell, and ring ring, then next thing you know momma comes trotting in and sees me standing there waiting for the door to be opened.

We have a similar arrangement at meal times. Momma click click clicking away at the keyboard and I will bring my jug into the office...

...and plop it on her lap which is the command for 'feed me NOW'. She learned all of this pretty quickly considering she is a kind of air headed blond with a short attention span!

So although this system works pretty well I have decided lately to change things a bit and I am trying to train her to come and feed me by ringing the bell. So it works like this: Momma click click clicking away on the key board, I go to the side door and ring ring then when she is on her way to the kitchen I will trot off and bring her my jug so she can fill it while she 'happens' to be up and in the kitchen!

The system is flawless except that she is apparently confused by the bell ringing having 2 meanings and is being very stubborn about it all. She will come open the door but when I don't go out and show up with my jug she stomps off muttering about 'not what the bell is for' and 'abusing the system'! Do any of you training experts have any tips on how to correct this behavior?



From Momma: This is the funniest thing to me that he has put together that ringing the bell is another way to get me out of the office and into the kitchen! Clearly I must have fallen for this a few times and reinforced it before I realized what he was doing. Such a sneaky Moose! Now that I am on to him it does not work anymore though so he will probably give up trying eventually. Not your Typical tricky T-day post but I could not help but feel he was the one shaping my behavior!

Momma's new toy

This afternoon the brown box man came by and momma got all excited, not quite kibble time or walkies excited but more like new toy excited. It looked kinda like the loud fur-stealing monster we already had but it must be different because momma definitely does not look so happy when she is playing with that one!

She pulled this one out of the box so I could check it out. At first I thought it must not be a fur stealer because it does not smell like my fur but then she turned it on and it started making noise just like the other one! I was worried it might be a Swedish activated robot dog like Nanook told us about when they got their 'dog tornado'... it even says 'cyclone' on this box. Ruh roh!

I decided to make nice and brought my jug over as an offering. He did not seem interested so I gather he has his sights on my furs but I decided to at least act brave while he is looking!

Welcome to my house. Here is my jug. You can sniff it but it is mine!

Dyson you say? That is a strange name...

Are you a boy Dyson or a girl Dyson?

Between you and me and the fencepost (now that is a story for another day!) I was relieved when he showed no interest in my jug but then to my dismay he went clamoring all around the kitchen for about 3 minutes and, just as I suspected... look at all of my fur he collected and is displaying like some kind of trophy in a case!! Momma can call it the Sooper Sucker but it is still a Fur Stealer to me!

Hitting the bottle

Well, Moose has started hitting the bottle! OK, actually it is more of a jug... specifically a Tug-a-Jug! It is a new toy I got him to help keep him busy. The video shows his first attempt at playing with it. It is made out of a lexan-type (like Nalgene) bottle with a rubber 'rope' that pulls treats out of the bottle when it is done just right! He played with it for almost 30 min, still did not get all the goodies out and then promptly fell into a deep sleep! At first he was not very good at it so I filled it up pretty full so it would be easier but I just gave it to him a 2nd time and as I write this he has figured out that he needs to leave it flat, push the rope in with his beak then tug it back out to get the kibbles. He is nothing if not persistent, and I think pretty smart for a labbie!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope today finds you all feeling loved! My momma has been scurrying around in one of her cleaning frenzies.

She cleaned my jug which she says was covered with some disgusting combination of drool, kibble and fur.

She cleaned my water bowl stand which was similarly covered with some substance that does not exist in nature so she had to take it outside and hose it off! (I made myself scarce during that though lest the hose get turned on me!)

Then she started cleaning all of my drool marks off the floor which required picking up rugs and beds and such.

Luckily I am not too picky about where my bed is so I was able to get a nap in during all of this!

Cleaning drool marks and furs and such tends to make momma kinda grumbly so I suggested that it would be a perfect opportunity for her to follow the suggestion on Wally's blog today about taking time to remember why she loves me.

Well she discovered that there is not enough space on this blog for her to list ALL the reasons that I am the best doggie in the world but here are a few:

1. I sleep late! No waking momma up to go out or even for food!

2. I never let her work too late without taking a break (at least to feed me or for walkies!)

3. I am very helpful! I will get my collar for walkies and my jug for meal time and even pickup my toys!

4. Even though I am a Señor Moose I still play like a puppy Moose!

5. I always make her laugh!

To Wally's Ma ape and the Peppy sheppy's, thanks for sharing Wally with us and making us think today!


UPDATE: I (and my girlfriends Swissie and Jetta) sent momma a valentines day card! She was very surprised when she found it in the mailbox tonight and was not sure how I pulled it off but suspects that Swissie swung by the post office to mail it during one of her recent escapes in Miami.

Hungry Hungry Moose

I got a new food bowl! I think it is defective because it takes me FOREVER to eat my dinner! When I eat out of a regular bowl I can eat my whole dinner in 40 seconds so momma started having my eat my dinner out of my Jug which took me about 20 minutes. But when momma replaced the last Jug there was a different kinda rope in the new one that is really not working out well. :-( Why do they always mess up something perfectly good by changing it? So for now it is back to a bowl. Boring!

Here I am demonstrating this terrible contraption! See how my beak barely fits in it and I can't hardly open it all the way? Torture! This must violate some sort of geneva convention or something...

More new stuff!

Aside from the new fountain we showed you yesterday, Moose got a new jug! The old jug had been 'modified' by Teddy so we waited until he left to replace it and here it is! Moose eats his dinner out of it every night so he has been lost without it!

Moose also got an outdoor bed! He really needed one because my gravel yard and cement patio were causing some bald spots on his paws. This too had to wait for Teddy to leave since he surely would have shredded it! I just got a cheap one b/c I am not convinced he will use it and at the moment there is no way to keep it out of the rain so I did not want to get an expensive one that would get ruined right away. So I found this crate pad... I know it looks a little small for him but even on his big indoor beds he will lie half off of it!

He's Back!

The other day I woke up from my nap and momma was going on and on about seeing big bird while I was sleeping! I thought she was crazy but then yesterday while I was enjoying my breakfast she called me into the office all frantic.
As if! I don't leave my breakfast for anything so she came in and took my jug (with breakfast in it) and put it up on the counter and made me come look.


Once I had finished breakfast I was able to focus a little better... WTF? That is a big bird! I am not sure what she expects me to do about it though. She told me that I was supposed to be woofeling to guard the Moose Lodge from trespassers. I tried but the bird did not seem too worried about me. So I gave up and demanded to be compensated for my services!

Udderly Awesome Toy!

Moose got another new toy today, I know you all are thinking that he is spoiled rotten! I stopped going to any great lengths to find him toys when I figured out 2 liter bottles made him happier than anything I could buy! But because he is confined or on leash 24/7 I feel he needs some excitement! Most of his other toys were used to keep him active so they are not a good idea for now. Anyway his new toy is a recycled rubber part from an actual cow milking machine! I ordered it from a place called Helping Udders which donates a decent portion of all sales to a dog charity of your choice! Since LRRoF was not on the list, we donated to Military Working Dogs.
The toy feels more or less like a Kong, but because of its former intimate association with cows it has a certain 'eau de bovine' that doggies love! When I first gave it to Moose he wanted to chew on it but kept stopping to sniff it too so I am guessing he was pretty curious about the smell! They sell others that are configured for tugging or tossing but since we are encouraging low key play we picked just the plain rubber part. If Moose was allowed to tug with it I think he would really go nuts for it, but just chewing on it seems good to him too! I also got another kind of toy but will wait until he is bored with the current set to introduce that one (at least I will try!) This morning he picked up his jug and stared at me wagging his tail when he wanted his Kibble so he seems to really love that toy!

Provisioning

After our recent near-disaster with running out of kibbles, I went to the store and bought a small bag to tide us over until my next trip to the city where kibbles are cheaper. We were nearly out AGAIN when I came home to this scene! I apparently left the lid off of the Vittles Vault and Moose lifted the bag right out and polished it off! In case the photo requires interpretation, that is a shredded kibble bag on the ground and a very guilty looking Moose!








So, I finally went to the big store up in Miami and came home with the mother lode! We were also low on training treats so stocked up on those too. They were out of his usual Kibbles so we got the next best thing since obviously it could not wait!









Then came time for Moose's favorite part... transfering of the kibbles! This is the part where I have to pour a 33lb bag of food into the vault and there is ALWAYS some spillage! He of course is there to watch and clean up, but he also brings his jug over in case there are any handouts too be had!

Wordless Wednesday: 'Still Life with Pensive Lab and Jug' edition

TreatStik? More like CheatStik!

Moose has been extra restless today so I caved and gave him the other new toy that I got from Helping Udders which is called a TreatStik hoping it would keep him busy for awhile. To me it looked like it was going to be too easy to get the treats out so I broke up a few of his Snap biscuits into small irregular chunks that might be harder to get out along with a few of his kibbles and Charlee Bears both of which fit easily through the hole. It was pretty hard for him to get the treats to fall out of the hole so I probably did not need to make it any harder. Usually these toys are easier if you put more in it, but the way this is designed I think it is harder when it is pretty full or very empty. When it is full the kibbles end up too crowded to easily fall out and that is how it was when I gave it to him. He was getting maybe 2 or 3 pieces out every minute until the session abruptly ended after about 10 minutes! You will have to watch the video to see how it ended! I have some ideas on how to make it last a little longer next time though it might not be pretty. You will have to stay tuned for that!


In the end, the Tug-a-Jug has been the real winner! He has been bringing it to me with his tail wagging a mile a minute when he is ready for kibble time. He has gotten really good at it though, he can get his whole dinner out in about 15min so I will have to work on making it harder!