Our puppy Nala and her food

I think for this post I'm going to talk about how we raise our Vizsla puppy and in general how it feels to be a first-time puppy "owner".  I say owner in quotations because I feel more like she is part of the family, not a material thing I own.  She has definitely met all my expectation in terms of the happiness I knew she would bring me and hopefully she is a happy dog too.  Of course she comes with frustrations because she is still a puppy and learning her boundaries.  I feel she is a completely different dog in the house with me and at the dog park.  At home, she can't stand being out of my sight for long.  If I go to the bathroom, or leave the room, she immediately leaves whatever she is doing and goes to look for me.  So since having her, I've learned to always have company in the bathroom even when i'm showering, lol.  As I sit and type this, she is laying next to me with her head on my legs.  However, at the dog park, it's a different story.  She forgets who we are and immediately runs off to greet and meet every single dog until she finds one that wants to play with her.  I see most dogs follow their humans at the park, so wherever the human walks to the dogs follow.  It's the opposite with Nala and me, wherever she runs off to, I'm following.  Mostly to make sure she doesn't get into trouble or plays too rough with a smaller dog.  Sometimes I wish she would like to stay close to my side at the dog park while still playing and running around.


Never having a dog as a pet before, I had no idea what to feed her, how much to feed her, or how often.  There are so many choices at grocery stores and pet stores it's almost overwhelming.  But my fiance and I did our research and asked around and we found that Orijen Puppy Dry Food was by far the best dry food we could give our growing puppy, even if it's not the cheapest of dog foods.  It has a high calorie content, which puppies need as they grow, so essentially we have to feed smaller amounts because it fulfills her energy requirements faster.  One can find the calorie content of any dog food brand at Pet Food Calories and for the most part, Orijen had the highest for puppy at 480cal/cup.  Other general brands that you find at grocery stores like purina or imes have somewhere in the 300 range, meaning you have to feed more but even though they are cheaper brands, in the long run it ends up costing more.  And besides being cheaper, they have less protein.  Orijen has about 80% protein while these other brands have about 30-50%.  You only have to look at the first four ingredients to know what is a good food choice for your pet.  We make sure never to feed her grains even though they are not an enemy, they are a biological food source for dogs in the wild.  So to Calculate Feeding Amount for our puppy, we use the link to enter her "ideal weight", her energy amount, and calories per cup for her food.  Her ideal weight is based mostly on visuals, such that we can still feel her ribs and from above, we can see a waistline.  At almost 6 months, she weighs 35lbs and she looks about right.

In about a week, she has her appointment for a spay.  It will be a tough day for me, knowing my little girl is going under the knife and I can't be there during the process.  The veterinary clinic will keep her for about 8 hours, and that's the longest I've ever been away from her so that will be tough.  But to finish off this post, I'll leave you with some short videos.

She loves Fall leaves

Going on a test run while on our hike.  We seem a little wobbly in the beginning but it's because it's muddy and slippery.  She will be a great running buddy when she's older

For Halloween, I decorated her collar with some ribbons and she's going crazy over it.