I am Tilin, a Welsh corgi and wine country dog, aka @winecountrydog.
I started pawin the puter and dooin social media in 2008, after I had life-saving back surgery and had to sit-stay to recover. That is when I came to create wine country dog ezine™ — an independent pet-ezine.
My ancient self does have a few health pawblems, but my ortho surgeon gave me a chance to walk again. Other good vets and Mum have helped too. Myself goin wobbly but strong toward 17th BD in November 2014.
Luv to paw-write and tweet, and travel to meet new furriends and nice humans. Some of them write about wine or craft beer or food and health. Wine country has got nommy fresh whole foods and farmers markets. And wine country means most effurrywhere in world these days eh.
You find that my furbro, Jackie Nippers Corgi, does sometimes join me on adventures and on twitter. Our beloved Ani Meezer rarely does.
All three of us were rescued from diffurrent circumstances. Furbro is a "breeder rescue." We doo encourage adoption of furriends from good animal rescue charities. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Howlo. I am Jackie Nippers Corgi (aka pawlitico™).
You may find me on walkies with furbro Tilin Corgi, and out at wine tastings and regional food adventures up and down Pacific coast. Sometimes on social media with furbro. We like to paw-write tasting notes for wine and food.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Our thanks to Mum (aka winecountrydogma™) for editing, web dev, photography, pro fact-checking, and for grrreat homemade whole food meals. Mum is trained in D.A.R.T. and helps us paw out animal rescue info during disasters.
Many humans know the old rhyme "knick-knack, paddy whack, give a dog a bone."
Dear dog and cat furriends, what too few humans know is that it should be a RAW bone.
We got to thinking about whether humans know not to feed cooked bones the day that dog-ma read a NYT article about a restaurant chef who wanted to donate leftover bones to animal shelters. Cooked bones! Howl.
Pawleeze doo not infurr that we're paw-cultists or mindless devotees of a pawticular food philosophy. We doo not follow any one school of thought, but we've studied the "original Raw Meaty Bones Diet" and the "BARF Diet," etc.
We doo of course subscribe to the logic of the "whole prey diet."
My furriends, consider our digestive systems. You know that we were built to eat raw, whole prey, and that a whole prey diet necessarily includes certain proportions of bones to certain proportions of muscle meat and organ meat.
The compawsition of any raw whole prey diet includes the raw bones of the prey animal. Historically, then, we derived irrepawlacable nutrients — not only calcium, but also other minerals and doglicious nutrients in bone marrow — from frequent consumption of bones.
Therefur, our eating of raw bones is not just fur dental health, which is the most-often cited reason.
Too bad more veterinarians are not actively recommending raw bones. Howl odd, since veterinarians have been warning pet guardians against cooked bones for years. According to one of our vets, who does insist upon raw bones, vets still see many dogs injured or ill from eating cooked bones.
The cooking process makes bones hard and brittle, not to mention indigestible. Eating cooked bones can give us splinters, broken teeth, indigestion, constipation, and even lethal lacerations and impactions of the gastrointestinal tract.
Pawleeze help paw out the word: Cooked bones from any source are a terrible thing for us dogs, and for cats!
The exception to the raw rule is bones that have been boiled long enough to turn soft. Howlever, if the bones are boiled to softness, most of the calcium has been leached out of them and some nutrients destroyed. This defeats most of the reason for eating bones in the first pawlace.
If you're unable to chew a whole raw bone, ask your human to buy ground whole prey, compawlete with bones (not bone meal!). In our area, we have a product called "raw chicken grind." Many meat companies will doo this custom grinding of whole raw chicken or other prey for you. Caveat: To avoid choking on pieces of bone left unground, ask human to consult experienced humans on safe grind specifications. Still, if unsure of the grind, have human run ground meat through sieve to check for unground bone pieces.
Raw bones should always be fresh, even if frozen, and juicy and chewable. Meaty raw bones are lovely. Some of the best are turkey or chicken neck or back bones (without the ribs) that have been skinned. Humans can freeze bones into u-shapes to make us chew them, i.e., to make it hard fur us to swallow them whole.
Paw-notes to humans:
Doo not let worries about getting sick stop you from feeding raw bones. Freezing first will kill off the bacteria.
Choose right size and cut of raw bones. Ideally, talk this over with your progressive veterinarian.
Generally avoid raw pork and sheep bones because of the pawsibility of parasites.
Beware of big raw beef bones that are sometimes hard enough to crack canine teeth.
Beware of long bones like legs or ribs, which are more prone to splintering and/or getting stuck.
Doo not leave us dogs or cats alone to eat raw bones that you've never fed us before.
We're always supervised when eating something new. Only when humans see that we're ok with a big raw marrow bone or turkey neck will they let us be. Even then, humans might keep an eye on us till we're done gnawing.
This is special therapy. Class IV laser uses infrared laser light to penetrate into tissues that need increased circulation and metabolic activity. It seems true that laser therapy can reduce healing time, swelling, and pain, and even give someone increased range of motion.
It was arfully nice hanging out with folks attending Wine Bloggers Conference North America. You know howl much I like taking paw-notes while humans talk 'bout wine and winemaking.
Here I am in the garden of C. Donatiello Winery on 26 July 2009 with @dirtysouthwine and @DrncPno. What an arfully beautiful estate this is, situated in the Middle Reach of the Russian River Valley AVA. Not that far from my doghaus. A fine pawlace to produce great Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
We were escorted into the C. Donatiello Guild Room fur a private wine tasting. I'm fortunate enuff to fit under the table, and that's a good pawlace fur me to paw my notes while humans drink.
You know I don't drink wine. As a new media innovator workin' in the world of blogging and social media, I have an impawtant role at wine tastings: I'm a designated note-taker and canine schmoozer.
It's hard to believe howl the wine blogging and tweeting humans doo wine tastings. They have micro-bloggin' devices and cameras and video cams. They concentrate arfully hard. Tastin' is a serious activity. It's not unusual fur them to have a device in one hand and a wine glass in the other. That is why my paws come in handy. I take notes that humans miss.
Doo you recognize @winebratsf? It is pawsible that she blogs and tweets more observations 'bout wine and life than most wine bloggers. Rumor has it that it's 'cuz she's a Gemini... but I can't woof whether it's true. I don't know 'bout astrology.
Doo you recognize other wine bloggers in these photos? Howl 'bout @norcalwine and @sharayray and @thebeerwench and @winequester?
You can't see dog-ma in these photos, but she was there. And she was whisperin' many pawsitive wine comments to me. Appawently she was very taken with the '07 Maddie's Vineyard Pinot Noir and the '07 Floodgate Block 15 Pinot Noir.
There are other wine bloggers in the group we were walkin' to the cellar with. But my being so short, I had a hard time seeing 'em all. And I got distracted by the enticing smells of herbs on the paths along the way. I was in Middle Reach heaven....
We all followed @cdonatiello into the wine cellar....
Then @dirtysouthwine jumped into a big tank. Furhaps he was dooin' a demonstration of wine blogger hazing rituals.
I sat and watched @cdonatiello pour Bradford Mountain wines of Dry Creek Valley fur arfully serious tasters @sonadora and @winebratsf and some others, including dog-ma. She whispered to me that she adored both of the '05 Zinfandels.
It was so nice and cool in the cellar that, in combo with all the herbs I'd inhaled, I could've dozed off blissfully fur the rest of the day. Howlever, I had my duty to doo — not as a true wine blogger, but as the ever-vigilant paw-note taker and wine tastin' companion!
I wonder if I'll get my pawsonal chauffeur to take me and my little Corgi bro to the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla, Washington.
It was all over the wine twitterverse that the winner of the Murphy-Goode winery lifestyle compawtition would be announced today (21 July 2009).
Hark and bark! Dog-ma (aka chauffeur) agreed with us two social media corgis that we ought to catch up with the winner in Healdsburg. After all, we had a paw of congratulations to extend!
Our chauffeur parked the doghaus mobile behind Hotel Healdsburg.
Off we ran across the foot bridge, past Bear Republic, takin' the long way 'round via Healdsburg Avenue.
We came to an abrupt halt and stared intensely at the human before us. Oh good grief, that human there is an impawstor. He isn't Mr. Really Goode Guy!
We went 'round the corner and did a sit-stay across from the Murphy-Goode tasting room on Matheson Street. We had to paw over the situation. We knew we could sniff out Mr. Really Goode Guy if we used our dogheads.
Oh boy, that's a fancy new tasting room in an arfully fancy wine country town.
Howl, look! There's somebuddy who magically appaweared in front of the tasting room....
It's him! It's Mr. Really Goode Guy Hardy Wallace — aka @goodetobefirst and @dirtysouthwine. High paw! Congratulations, Really Goode Hardy!
Howl exciting that a really nice guy won. We sure doo like this fine Southern sommelier whom we 'spected would become the really goode job guy.
I hope we'll see a lot of Really Goode Hardy in the future. That is, if we can get close to him. If he carries wine rations like that around with him, he'll have a dogzillion friends. The only way we'll ever find him again is if we doo the lowdown corgi crawl through the crowd's legs.
The thought "howl strange and dangerous are fireworks!" keeps swimmin' round my doghead.
Never met a dog or any other four-footed who likes fireworks. Never asked other furriends, but I 'spoze birds and bees and bugs and others dislike noisy explosions too.
Yet all the nation's a stage fur fireworks on a July 4th evening. Howl, what are fireworks: the humans' tribute to freedom, or a cathartic release of pent-up human anger? Imagine if other species lit colored fires and made explosions. Humans would think we're out of touch with Nature, to woof the least.
Consider the iconic pic below.
The little Yorkshire Terrier is being made to ride in a wee wagon, towed behind a huge human on a terrifyingly large tractor. Howl small and vulnerable this dog is! Not just physically small — also small in terms of what's impawtant to many American humans on July 4th....
Just think 'bout howl this Yorkie dog must feel! Could humans make sure all dogs — and cats! — are somewhere safe on the big noisy holiday?
Pawleeze, American humans everywhere, look out fur animals' needs come the next 4th of July. It'd be wonderful if the emergency veterinary clinics and animal shelters didn't fill up every year after the fireworks explosions.
In 2002, Japanese toy company Takara sold their first Bowlingual Voice™ device fur computer-based dog-to-human language translation.
We doggiggled. Cute idea, but what human would buy it?
Fast forward to last week, when twitter pal @hollygomadly sent us the link to the Youtube below, which shows Japanese dogs sendin' Bowlingual messages to their humans.
"Onaka ga sukimashita!"
Nothin' new 'bout that. Ha howl!
That demo of Bowlingual Voice is one of the funniest things we dogs have ever seen. I'm sure that Meowlingual is just as funny.
The Bowlingual device is called a "translator," but it's really an emotion analyzer. It categorizes dog barks into one of six standardized emotional categories and then provides a phrase to represent that emotion.
Bowlingual and Meowlingual are "for entertainment purposes only." Of course our dog and cat communications cannot be translated easily into words, if at all. Howlever, barks and meows can be intuitively translated by discerning humans.
Now, what's needed in the dog world is a device fur humans to wear that analyzes their thoughts and emotions, and then translates them into something that makes some doggone sense consistently.
Suki desu ka?
Paw-note to dog-ma: Jack, Meezer, and I wish you a happy B.D.
I hurried through the vineyard to the Paws for Love event at Foppiano winery on June 6th. The event, called "Painting Paws and Petite Sirah," was a fundraiser benefit for animals in Sonoma County, the North Bay, and beyond.
Below you see the Paws for Love "Vineyard Barrel Dash", a unique canine agility course that was created from wine barrels especially for this fun fundraiser.
We sat-stayed and watched clever dogs go 'round the agility course. I didn't doo the course 'cuz of my back pawblem. And Jack Corgi didn't doo it 'cuz he's shy. But we compawletely enjoyed watching and meeting all the dogs on the sidelines.
What a beautiful setting fur a get-together! This is one of California's oldest family-owned wineries, founded in 1896. Foppiano is well known fur its old vine Russian River Valley Estate Petite Sirah.
In the background you see some of Foppiano winery's beautiful old vineyards. In the distance, you see fluffy clouds hangin' over hills to the northeast, beyond Healdsburg.
Doo you notice, below, that wine barrel hoops were hung fur dogs to jump through? Such a pawfect activity fur a wine country event.
Below we see handsome Java Schnoodle, winner of the agility event, with his human, Heather, and her mom, Audrey. Sitting and talking to Java and family is none other than pioneer California winemaker Louis J. Foppiano!
Truly, Lou Foppiano is a living resource of wine industry history. Howlever, my favorite story is about Lou Foppiano the great dog lover: It's said that he always had Chihuahuas around him while he was working, and that the dogs would crawl up his arm and sit on his shoulders. Howl I love that!
I overheard humans at the event say they enjoyed tastin' the Foppiano wines. (Appawently the Cabernet was especially well received and tasted more than once by the same folks.)
After the agility event, Paws' founder, Ms. Ellyn Boone, did painting with dogs on the winery's front lawn. Well, not directly on the lawn — that'd be silly. The dogs made their paintings on paper, so that their humans could frame their works of art.
Howl can I adequately convey to you what a great time was had by all? I'm not just woofin' this to be nice. I've never been on a more enjoyable, dog-mellow outing. And fur such a great cause!
The Paws for Love Foundation provides resources and funding to shelters, rescue groups, and individuals who impawrove the health, welfare, and adoptability of unwanted and abused animals.
High paw fur Ms. Boone!
Paw-note: Congrats, Java! I hope I see you at the next Paws agility event.
Look at our furriend Emma Corgi herding! She knows how to communicate to give each individual sheep safe directions. It's in her body language and her special Corgi communication ability.
Herding and droving is what we Welsh Corgis do well and have always done well. Like other working dogs who herd, and like cutting horses, we see the world in terms of keeping individual animals and flocks organized and safe.
Emma is a happy Corgi. She gets to do what she loves.
We Corgis are not lap dogs. We are not toy dogs. Not a play thing or a puppet or a toy.
We don't want to be kept in little crates in apartments and brought out just for show and cuddles.
As Emma paw-elegantly stated, "Working/herding/water dog breeds are great, just as long as they can live the lifestyle they were bred for (by humans). Otherwise, they are frustrated, develop behavioral problems, and end up in shelters being destroyed."
There's been so much controversy lately over dog breeding. I feel that I must bark about maintaining the strength and vitality and health of traditional breeds, especially working and herding breeds.
My Corgi feelings are hurt that humans mix up overbreeding with breeding, as if it's bad or elitist to be a working dog.
We want us dogs to be healthy and happy. What we don't want is to reduce the dog population at the expense of breed integrity.
Pawleeze reduce dog overpopulation: Reduce breeding as a source of human income!
And pawleeze help humans understand us better. If they did, very few of us would end up abandoned in shelters!
Paw-note: You can rescue a wonderful Pembroke or Cardigan Welsh Corgi through CorgiAid and Golden Gate PWCF and other organizations.
We're overjoyed to see furriends like Gerdy Burro get to go home. Gerdy had been evacuated to the Santa BarbaraEarl Warren Showgrounds along with other animal furriends who had to move out of the path of the Jesusita wildfire.
Gerdy was joined at the fairgrounds by 120 horses, 20 rabbits, 22 chickens, 3 roosters, 27 goats, 10 opossums, 5 parakeets, 4 pigs, 2 mules, 1 cat, 1 cockatiel, 1 llama, and 1,200 human firefighters too. That's according to the CDFA Public Affairs office.
As with all fairgrounds in California, during an emergency, Earl Warren is used as a staging area for fire and law enforcement officials, and for the OES & Caltrans Operational Area Satellite Information System (OASIS) portable communications hub.
We live well north of Santa Barbara — out of fire's reach this time. Last summer, we were on the edge of devastating fires in Mendocino and Napa counties. For days we lived in a surreal world of smoke and particulate-filled air. It made both Tilin Corgi (aka winecountrydog) and dog-ma sick to their stomachs.
Something that makes me sick is what I infer from the photo of a burned tree silhouetted against the barren background of the burn area in Santa Ynez Mountains.
How many wild birds have no home to go to after the Jesusita fire? . . . How many perished in the flames and smoke? . . . How many wild animals, burned and injured, are slowly dying out there somewhere?
The price of wildfires isn't measurable in dollars.
My buddy Tilin @winecountrydog decided on May 7th that he had to help somehow. He started sending twitter updates to help direct humans transporting companion and farm animals as they were being evacuated. He also tweeted to connect Santa Barbara tweeps with each other. He used a hashtag strategy that enabled his tweets to be seen by the maximum number of peeps in the target area.
Tilin got help tweeting from dog-ma, who took over for him on and off. You'll have to ask them how it felt to watch the evacuation unfold on twitter. A helpless feeling, I 'spoze, especially when they were exchanging tweets with a Santa Barbara fellow who didn't have long to pack and leave.
Dog-ma helped Tilin a lot by finding reports and making phone calls to clarify what alerts needed to be tweeted. They also followed twitter updates by the few tireless agencies, media, and individuals who were tweeting fire and evac news.
If their tweets helped even one human to get furriends to the fairgrounds shelter, or to find the addresses and phone numbers of small-animal and wildlife shelters, it was worth their effort. If they helped someone avoid a closed road or evac area, or to find the food bank, a human shelter, or the Red Cross, it was worth it.
Pawbably those tweets did help the animal shelters get more supplies and equipment sent their way. The shelters urgently needed kennel crates, exercise pens, cleaning supplies, and food for dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, opossums, raccoons, and other furriends.
Fortunately, Santa Barbara humans are wildfire-evac-savvy. I think they responded about as well as humans can do when a natural disaster strikes.
All around Santa Barbara, from Santa Maria to Carpinteria and beyond, humans at animal shelters, pet and wildlife rescue orgs, humane societies (including the SMVHS), and pet resorts/daycare facilities pitched in to help transport, shelter, feed, and foster. A huge amount of supplies and equipment were herded into place to provide prawper care.
If only one could believe that devastating wildfires like this won't happen again.
But I know that's not true.
My comfort is in knowing that Tilin "twitter paws" and dog-ma will help with disaster response, and they'll teach me how to help too.
Pawleeze visit Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network online to see how you can help with the rescue and rehabilitation of orphaned or injured wild birds and small mammals.
Many animal furriends will be very grateful that you care.
Paw-note: Nosetaps to Parsons, Saxon, and Nicholson.
It's terroirific when a human makes great wine. It's even better when a human like winemaker Rod Berglund explains to us dogs and our humans de-tails about his winemaking.
We visited Joseph Swan Vineyards in the Russian River Valley again recently and sniffed out some fantastic terroir. Furhaps you know that the late Mr. Swan was one of California's Pinot pioneers.
Ms. Marsha Peep accompanied us. She was touring Northern Sonoma County in search of nice tasting rooms.
Ms. Peep enjoyed tasting the estimable wines. She likes Pinot Noir a lot.
Our dog-ma appawreciates Joseph Swan wines very very much. How can we tell? Not only did she hang around and taste and chat with Karen, but also she did the unthinkable: She asked Karen fur another taste of one of the wines.
Dog-ma won't tell us which one, but we're betting it was the Great Oak Syrah.
Paw-note: We must mention how much we missed seein' Pappi the winery dog runnin' round. Pawleeze pay tribute to the late great Pappi by enjoyin' photos on the winery site.
The fourth day of April was a super-nice spring day fur walkies in Dry Creek Valley!
This is the view from the deck at Mutt Lynch and Wilson wineries.
We were happy to meet Sophie, a very sweet mini Schnauzer. Sophie had a tremendous view of the valley from Rachel's lap.
Many of us dogs were out fur the Barkus Wine & Treats event at Mutt Lynch Winery. It's a fundraiser fur Healdsburg Animal Shelter.
We wanted to walk around and greet everybuddy and eat treats. Dog-ma made a donation and we made a beeline fur some treats that had dropped on the winery floor.
I was, as usual, more outgoing than my buddy, Jack Corgi. Actually, Jack was feelin' uncharacteristically cranky. He asked if we could take him home and let him sleep it off.
I think that poor dog-ma barely got to taste the Merlot Over and Play Dead and the Chateau d'Og Cabernet Sauvignon.
I noticed that Patch the winery dog was interested in a big hunka green stuff. It reminded me of florist's clay — you know, the clay you put at the bottom of a vase to hold the flower stems. Is it pawsible that Patch does ikebana?
Paw-note: You can check the Mutt Lynch calendar of events or pawmail them to get the date fur the next Barkus event!
Have you ever seen Dotty Dalmation riding a bicycle? His viddy is a huge hit!
I admire how easily Dotty mounts his cool yellow and green bike, places his paws correctly on the pedals, and sit-stays comfurtably on the saddle. He then deftly pawsitions his front paws on the handlebars and pedals off nonchalantly.
Here is Dotty pedaling around a city street in Japan. This is actual film footage, not a stunt.
Furriends, pawleeze do not try this at home unless you're wearing a safety helmet.
I always paw-point out the safety angle. You know I'm the kind of dog who wears a seatbelt harness fur car travel.
Paw-note: None of the dog helmets I know of have been tested by human safety engineers. Sometimes some type of protection is better than none, but not always. Poorly made protective gear can create a false sense of security or be the cause of injury.
Standing right in the middle of Kunde's Magnolia Lane Sauvignon Blanc vineyard, sommelier Chris Sawyer explains how humans open screw caps by magic. Winemaker Jeff Kunde looks on knowingly, holding a bottle of same.
Next, twitchhiker does the screw cap bottle-opening trick brilliantly! Anastasia Schuster, aka @AccessInspirati, watches carefully. I bet she can now do the trick too!
Does it make sense fur humans to drink right from the bottle? Below, sommelier Sawyer's obviously in favor of using a glass fur tastin' the next wine. Jeff Kunde pours his '05 Reserve Century Vines Zinfandel.
Humans look so yappy when winetasting. Makes me wish we dogs drank wine.
Twitchhiker apparently enjoys the old vine Zinfandel.
Having finished his Zin, twitchhiker takes a break to twitter.
Howl, just imagine: Paul's the first human to travel the globe by the good graces of twitterers!
Twitchhiker looks cool in his new Kunde vest, below. He's the nicest human, really, and he's raising funds for safe drinking water in schools in developing nations.
Our pawpetual question: Why do dogs and cats get canned and kibbled foodstuffs 'stead of fresh foods? If you live 'ere in wine country or other place where fresh whole foods are plentiful, why not support local markets and make your own pet foods?
