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Cowboy Coffee: PowderXFinn

29/7/2020

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Picking a litter theme can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a frustrating adventure...I've flirted with a few Litter Themes over an extended time for this litter. Well to be exact, since this time last year. Coffee was an idea Jenna and I had early on, and I always liked it. She had intended to use the theme for Ember's litter. But with only the one pup, she opted to not use the theme, wanting to 'save it'.

Recently she gifted me the 'rights' to use the theme so I snatched it right up. I've always liked the idea of using coffee for a litter theme. I learned the joys of coffee while living in Europe as a young feller and have been a die-hard drinker of quality black coffee for the past umpteen years... In fact, you could take wine and bourbon away from me, but I'd go to jail over coffee.

So I have 'Two Gun'd' the theme, meshing my fascination with 'the Old West' with a fairly common and somewhat cliché litter theme. I have not just gone coffee, I've gone Cowboy Coffee! Without further adieu, here is the breakdown by birth order, their registered name, and what it means if you were to break out your Cowboy dictionary.

1) Two Gun's Black Medicine Buzz (M)
- Sioux Indian translated word for coffee (Kazuta Sapa/Black Medicine) = Coffee buzz
2) Two Gun's Barefooted Fandango (F)
- Hot black coffee dance
3) Two Gun's Hurricane Deck Triple Shot (M)
-  A saddle on a bucking bronco w/ a triple shot of espresso 
4) Two Gun's Ace-High Legal Addiction (F)
- First-class coffee
5) Two Gun's Crumb Castle Arbuckle (M)
- Chuck Wagon Coffee = Cowboy coffee
6) Two Gun's Smoke Wagons & Morning Thunder (M)
- Guns & Coffee
7) Two Gun's High Plains Shot in the Dark (M)
- Black coffee with a shot of Whiskey 
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Puppy Essentials

29/7/2020

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You can make owning a dog as expensive as you want. Truth be told, to keep a dog, you really don’t need a lot of fancy things and expensive equipment.
  • Dog Food: Good kibble is critical, but don’t think you need to spend $100 a bag for grain free or single source protein to be buying ‘the best’ for Fido. Much of their price is paying for marketing hype and popularity – not R&D. Yep, that’s right. For example feeding Purina Pro Plan is actually a good choice, while feeding Purina’s Beniful is a rather poor choice…The Dog Food Project is an amazing resource to help you make better choices.
  • Food & Water bowls. There is no limit to what you can spend on a dog bowl, after all I’ve owned Polish pottery dog bowls, but the ones from the feed store work just as well.
  • A simple and sturdy flat collar. For a puppy it should be at least 1/2” wide, preferably adjustable and have a 'D' ring. Once pup nears adult size, around 11-months or so, upgrade them to a 1” wide collar, with a sturdy buckle and ‘D’ ring. Again, you may be tempted to buy harnesses, halti’s, chokers, pinch-collars, martingales, and so on. Please, just save your money. Your dog has one neck, and frankly there is no need for any of those other items. In particular if you train the Two Gun way.

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  • A leash. A simple 6’ latigo leather lead ¾” or a full inch wide is one of the best things you can buy. Treat it with some mink oil occasionally, It will last you a lifetime and only get better with age and use. Another leash worth your time and money is a British-style slip lead these are incredibly useful tools. Lastly, for doing your yard work on recall, even sit/stay, and down/say, retrieving, and field work the most useful lead to own is a biothane long line, like the one I have linked to. But 33' is too long – measure back 12’-15’ and cut it and leave the end ‘raw’. You should then cut the handle off the other end, and create a spare line…either way, cut the hand loop off – it’s only purpose in dog training would be to increase the leads liability by getting caught on every damn thing possible. Please just leave the mountain rope, anything with a ski-handle, or some other gimmick e.g. flexi-leads, and flat nylon lines in the store. They are uncomfortable in the hand at best, or a useless waste of your money.​
  • ID. I have plates riveted to my dog’s leather collars, until then a simple tag works great. Put your phone number on there, not the dog’s name – but some other identifier you know.
  • A dog crate. This will make potty training much easier, and give your dog a home of it’s own within your home. Pup should be able to lay out, stand up, and turn around. Much more in the early days. Once they are potty trained, how much space do you want to give them? Pups travel crate should be a bit tight, but they should still be able to curl up, stand up, and of course turn around. A small kong filled with frozen peanut butter, should be part of your crate training tool kit...

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  • Chew ‘toys’. Puppy nyla-bones are fantastic. Plush toys, rawhides and rope bones, if you elect to offer them need to be offered only when you can supervise their use. Otherwise, you could be in for an expensive trip to the vet when a pile of fluff, rope-shreds, and a squeaker make into into the gullet.
  • Regular toys. Some Drents love their toys, most seem to be quite cat like in their toy love. The more you spend, the less they care…but offer them a torn off flap of a cardboard box or paper towel tube – wow, what an amazing toy!
  • Dog beds. Either your Drent will never chew it’s bed and you can spend as much money as you are willing to believe you are boosting their comfort. Or they will be a bed shredder. So work them up and supervise. Otherwise a Drent, much like a cat, will sleep comfortably on anything that isn’t precisely the floor. A sheet of paper or hand towel can also make for a great Drent bed.
  • Grooming tools: What you will need is a single row Undercoat rake (a double row is better), a Coarse/Med Comb, a Pin brush, a Fine tooth comb, a Boar bristle brush, and for the Pro a medium stripper blade for the ears. Good tools last, we like Safari.
  • A veterinarian who listens to you, and that you trust.

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The Dutch Dog Blog debuts on Feedspot's Top 200 @ #124

17/7/2020

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So I thought it might be fun to submit my blog to Feedspot, a blog ranking site, to see if the Dutch Dog Blog 'held and water' so to speak. We know by using Google Analytics we get a rather surprising amount of foot traffic. The only way I know how to put something into perspective is to compare it against others. Better yet, get a third party to do the comparing, afterall, they have metrics they use and apply them uniformly across the board.

With that, this humble little blog turned up at #124 of ALL dog-related (sport, health, training, etc.) blogs that they track. In the category they placed me, Dogs and Animal Blogs, I'm in with some pretty big corporate blogs like Dogtra, The Bark, The Whole Dog Journal and many other 'big shots'. It's just little ol' me doing all the writing and occasionally Jenna spot checks my comma use. The photography tends to be mostly hers. So we are a small team trying to make an appeal to what we thought was a very small audience - primarily our clients and to help our prospective clients get a better understanding of who we are.

All in all, darn pretty cool and if you are reading this, you have helped contribute - Thank you.

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X-Rays are in!

16/7/2020

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The ultrasounds were only good enough to detect pregnancy in the girls, the vet only saw 2 in Tule and 3 in Powder...hard to get excited with numbers like that. So today we have a much more positive result with the x-rays! Current clients are busy playing the matching and guessing game: how many pups per litter, and to shake it up a little bit, how many boys and girls in each litter. Price is Right rules, and in the event of a tie, the early bird takes the worm. At stake is one of the few remaining and highly coveted Two Gun coffee mugs!
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This just in...we are now a Gunner Kennels affiliate!

6/7/2020

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A couple of weeks ago Gunner Kennels sent us an email asking if we would be interested in becoming an affiliate partner with them. We get similar offers fairly regularly from all kind of places, but the "deals" tend to be dubious at best, so we simply decline. This morning we had a great conversation with Virgina, the Gunner Partner Program Manager, and decided moving forward would be good for our clients and friends, as we would be able to offer discounted prices on Gunner Kennels. Shipping is free, and the further you are from TN, the bigger this savings is! To ship a G1 Intermediate from TN to WA is nearly $200 (they are 48# afterall) and drop shipments to any address in the nation are totally possible all at no charge. Basically the ordering needs to be run though the Two Gun account to qualify for the discount, taxes will apply, but shipping is free! If you are interested, please inquire.
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Coat Care for your Drent

5/7/2020

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PictureSee those crazy ear tufts?
As a long standing and current representative of the Drentsche Patrijshond Club of North America and a Preservationist Breeder of the Drent I field a good number of questions on a very regular basis. One of the questions that I’ve get hit with several times every year is Drent coat care.  In general, most start off more or less the same, “…I am reading about people saying you need to trim a Drent, and/or cut the hair on the ear and/or body hair to keep it from getting to long. Also, since I have you how much effort do you put towards grooming/combing to help with seasonal shedding?”

So what I’ve done here is to try and capture what a person really needs to know about Drent coat care: body & ears:
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Drent hair, tends to be pretty fine, but surprisingly dense, so regular combing and brushing almost totally eliminates the need to bathe your Drent. Even if they get really dirty or a little bit muddy, just put them in their kennel to dry. Once dried, take them out and brush (outdoors preferably). This works great unless the mud is super goopy, and your Drent ends up with dreadlock-like looking mud mats in their fur. Then you will want to get after that with a hose or some other running water with some pressure behind it before it all dries hard. Otherwise a nice comb and a pin brush are what is needed most of the time to keep your Drent looking smart!
 
Drents do not have a true undercoat, unlike breeds like Labs, Golden Retrievers, huskies, etc. But they do have a decent amount of hair, and they do pretty good in cold in environments, in particular if they have been given a chance to acclimatize (they will grow a denser coat). The Drent may not as good as a Lab in icy cold water, as they do not have the sebaceous oiliness common to the retriever breeds, but way better than a GSP, or English Pointer, based on my experience. I've managed to hunt over both breeds with my Drents. Working in heat is very much up to the individual dog and how well they have been acclimated to the heat…
 
Like most breeds, Drents tend to shed twice a year. Managing the seasonal change is generally handled with a comb, followed by a pin brush, finished with a boar bristle brush. At the height of a Drents shed, we recommend using an undercoat rake with a set of double-row pins. I have pictured a rake with a single row, which is fine, but the double is...well twice as good. Start with the undercoat rake to loosen and get the bulk of the hair which is ready to come out. Start cleaning your Drent up with your combs, working from coarse to fine. Then when you are about to wrap the grooming session up break out your pin brush, the dog will love, they feel amazing, and it’ll do a nice job of sweeping up much of the stragglers. At this point you may see some dander, and so enters the Boar brush. The boar bristles will clean all that up and help to distribute the natural oils, making the coat nice and shiny. If the bristles whiten, take the brush outdoors and pat/rub the bristles on a stone or brick – that is all dander you don’t want in your house. This is also great for people allergic to dogs, like me. As a side note: humans are not allergic to the hair, hairs, or fur – but we are allergic to a dog’s dander (and saliva - so there really is no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog, it all BS and marketing). By reducing the dander on the dog it makes the dog easier and more pleasant to be around.
 
Usually a brief weekly grooming session handles everything pretty well, and between shedding seasons, you might get to skip for a few weeks. That is if your Drent doesn't carry the brush to you for the extra attention. Normally, we trim nails every Wednesday, and each dog gets a quick brush down. Having four they all line up for their turn - it's a nice trick.

​​On trimming a Drent with scissors or shears: the only Drent that may potentially require a trim would be one which has been 'fixed'. Spayed/neutered Drents do have a tendency to blow their coats out, becoming shaggy, with a full curl or more in the coat. Otherwise, only savages trim their Drents. If you need to trim your Drent because their coat is blown out naturally, your Drent has an 'open coat' and does not meet standards. My older female, Jorja, has been fixed, and so as a fuller coated Drent she gets quite wooly. Trimmed down for hunting season is for everyone's benefit due to how much debris, burs, and awns her open coat can collect. Outside of that, just say no to clipping your Drent's coat.

As for ear hair, we say, "stop the madness". Most say yes, some say no. To be clear, we are in favor of controlling ear fur madness. While living in the Netherlands, at Paxson's first dog show, I was given some counseling about his out of control ear fur. These tufts are also very susceptible to sun-bleaching, which further to alter the correct framing of the face, and expression of the Drent.

​After, taking my lumps, I am on the bandwagon - stop the madness. Great rid of the lightened and/or frizzy ear hair it really does help the expression of your Drent. When you keep up with it, moistened fingertips and some gentle plucking will turn the trick - at first your Drent may not appreciate it much, but they soon get over it.. Losing the bubble can call for the need of a few tools, a fine-tooth metal comb, or even the heavy artillery a medium hair stripper. The end result is a properly framed face. Booker is a very willing model, have a look at the before and after photos and decide for yourself... Now you know why Booker earned his Champion title - ears plucked please.
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The Arsenal. L-R. Single row Undercoat rake, Coarse/Med Comb, Pin brush, Fine tooth comb, Boar bristle brush. Ctr: medium stripper blade
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    The Drentsche Patrijshond for the North American Fancier
    The Drentsche ...
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  • Two Gun Home
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      • Should you own a GWP or Drent?
      • What is a Drent?
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    • Fizz (Spinone)
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