Geranium

It was lovely and sunny this morning so I went outside with my camera to take some photos of the flowers in the garden. While I was there it got a bit breezy and the wind blew the door shut, locking me out the house. No matter, I walked around the Thomas' room and called him - but of course he studies with music on so did not hear me. I also missed a delivery while I was outside as neither I, nor Thomas, heard the doorbell...Luckily we have a spare key hidden which I accessed to let myself back into the house again! And after all that palaver I have this pretty geranium to show.

My research on dog food continues - such divided opinions about the BARF diet (biologically appropriate raw food diet) vs dry kibble. Those feeding a raw diet swear by the results saying their dogs are much healthier, leaner, more muscular, better teeth etc. Vets on the other hand generally do not approve of the raw diet as they say it is an unregulated industry and can bring serious bacteria into the home. There is so much written about it with so many forums and facebook groups, it is hard to know which is the best option reading all the conflicting advice. It seems bringing up a dog is harder these days! 

The other area of dog parenting that makes me smile is the socialisation issue. Puppies cannot go out until they are fully vaccinated at about 12 weeks - however the important period for them to be socialised and get used to sounds, noises, people, smells etc is between 8 and 12 weeks. So a way around this problem is to go out with your puppy but to carry it or put it in a puppy sling. I was telling Gavin about this on the weekend and he thought I was going mad suggesting we do this - when we happened to meet a woman at the cafe who had her Labrador puppy in a sling. She was saying she is Irish and grew up on a farm where the dogs just ran around the farmyard and got on with it, now here she was like a daft woman carrying a puppy in a sling!!  I had to laugh!

I am about to go to London to meet Gavin as we are going to the Michael Bublé concert at the O2 tonight. It is a bit of a schlep to get there but hopefully the concert will be very good.