Category: Geo

Just got back home from the Dog Show event that was held at the British Embassy. We were there from 2PM and it was a lot of fun. Geo won second place in the Best Puppy competition which was really great. I took a lot of pictures and some video which I will probably post later today with a more detailed account on everything that happened. At the moment I am starving since I didn’t have any lunch yet so I am just gonna freshen up and then go have Chinese food.

I was trying to find out if carrots were healthy for Geo our dog and I found the following list helpful and interesting.

* Apples (they contain potassium, which stimulates the immune system, and pepsin, which helps the stomach)
* Broccoli (rich in vitamins)
* Carrots (rich in vitamins, great treats to substitute for biscuits)
* Cabbage (rich in vitamins, good for digestive system and skin)
* Cucumber (good for teeth and bones due to potassium content; can combine with carrots to promote a healthy liver and kidneys; in juice form, a good diuretic … peel cucumbers unless organically grown)
* Celery (chopped or juiced; can help with arthritis)
* Garlic (removes waste from blood, can help repel fleas; use fresh garlic finely minced)
* Green beans (lightly steamed; healthy and low-cal treat)
* Parsley (can reduce allergy symptoms and aid kidney function; chop finely or boil parsley and add the juice over food)
* Kale (rich in antioxidants and can help reduce allergy symptoms)
* Spinach (very healthy; serve chopped)
* Bananas (in small quantity; a coveted treat)
* Olive oil (a tablespoon a day is good for skin and fur)

* Preparation suggestions: Many veggies can be served raw, lightly steamed or in juice form. For most vegetables such as broccoli and carrots, it is far better to steam them instead of serving raw for improved digestibility and nutritional value. Also, since dogs have small digestive tracts, you can puree vegetables to enable your pet to digest more. If you use canned vegetables, get the salt-free kinds.

* Organically grown benefits: Due to their smaller size and more compact body systems, pets can be more prone to the toxic effects of pesticide contamination than are people. So it is best to feed them produce that is organically certified, which also has higher nutritional value for everyone.

[source]

We took Geo to the vet over the weekend to check and see if his leg had healed. We removed the bandages from his leg and for the first time in 10 days he was able to scratch and lick it, I swear it must have been ecstasy for him. We decided to take some x-rays just to be safe and it turned out his bone had nearly completely healed and that we could keep the cast off him if we could make him not jump and run for the next week. That ofcourse is just impossible since Geo is like a puppy on speed. So we put the cast back on for another week. He should be in fit condition before his big day next month at the dog show.

Starting today I am back at work. I had to cut my ten day vacation short because I am needed back at the office. I wouldn’t call it a vacation actually, it was more like being under house arrest. I couldn’t leave the house and I could sleep late or wake up late because I had to take care of Geo (my dog). Thursday his cast will come off hopefully. For now, it feels good being back at work.

OMG I think I am going to die. Geo my dog just farted twice in a row in the living room where I am sitting and now it really stinks. I am breathing through my mouth from under the blanket and I can still smell his fart. Its really a killer-fart, I swear I am going to pass out before I can finish this post!

I was thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if Geo (our dog) worked during the day like me and Nat? He is naturally a herding dog so he could end up working on a farm or something. It would be cool, I could drop him off to work in the morning on the way to my office, when I am done I could pick him up and bring him home with me. He could spend the day working on the farm herding the sheep and earning some cash which he could use to spend it on whatever he wants. It would also keep him entertained and active. Ofcourse I am not being serious here but it is a cool idea..

After stepping on Geo last night I was hoping by today morning he would be ok, well, he wasn’t. He was still limping in the morning so me and Nat decided to take him to the International Veterinary Hospital. We arrived there at 8:30AM to a beautiful sight of around a dozen dogs with a dozen handlers all lined up outside the place doing some training. We later found out these dogs were mostly used for narcotic and bomb detection, really cool. We continued going in and asked to see the Vet, after waiting for a while outside on the green grass we were called in. Our usual vet only comes in during the afternoon so today we had another Italian vet except this time it was a woman. She did some physical tests on Geo and recommended we take some Xrays just to be safe. Good thing we did because it turned out he fractured bones. Now geo has something like a cast around his leg and he is going to have to be in it for up to 3 weeks depending on how fast he will get healed. The vet was very nice and although Geo looks like a dork now with his one green leg I am really glad he is going to be ok. I am going to hopefully get 10 days off work so I could be with him at home. I feel really guilty for what I did and even though he loves to runaround and play its not going to be possible until his leg heals. The vet told us he is lucky he is still a puppy because they heal a lot quicker. She gave us some calcium pills and told us to give him a lot of cheese to help speed up the healing process. The whole thing cost us only KD34 which is pretty decent and now Geo is sleeping in the living room while I am watching the Discovery Channel. I am sorry Geo!!

While running with our dog Geo on the beach I accidentally stepped on him! I was wearing my heavy timberland boots and I accidentally stepped on his front right foot. Geo started screaming in pain and I just went down on my knees and started hugging him. Fadibou was there with his dog Miki and that helped Geo forget about the pain a bit. While there we called the International Veterinary Hospital because according to their brochure they are open 24 hours a day in case of emergency, well thats bullshit. They told me I couldn’t bring Geo in because they were closed and I would instead have to bring him in tomorrow morning. What the fuck is that load of crap. If I get into an accident I go to the hospital right away, I don’t wait till the next day. Why do dogs have to wait till the next day?? I need to find a new fucking vet, they really pissed me off. Geo is back home now I don’t think his foot is broken but he is threading on it very lightly and is very quiet and sad. I think he is in shock from the incident and is really exhausted. I also think he might have either fractured his foot or sprained it. If by tomorrow morning he is still not stepping on his foot I am going to take him to the vet. It really sucks and I am really fucking clumsy.

Thursday afternoon I drove all the way to Ahmadi so that I could take Geo our pet dog to the International Veterinary Hospital. I read from peoples comments on my site that IVH was the best veterinary hospital in Kuwait and I now believe that to be true.

I used to take our previous family dog to the vet in Shuwaikh near the Friday Market. That place was really dirty and I never felt comfortable there neither did my dog. But then again my dog never felt comfortable leaving the house and he “hated” strangers. Still, when my dog got sick that hospital really didn’t do anything and we finally had to put our dog to sleep. Since I didn’t want the same thing to happen to Geo I decided to take him to the best vet in Kuwait and all signs pointed to IVH.

Driving out to Ahmadi from my home in Salmiya took 30 minutes. The map on their website was very easy to follow and we never got lost. When we arrived to the hospital it was like arriving to a ranch in Arizona or somewhere in the Australian outback, it didn’t look anything like your usual Kuwait. To get to the hospital you have to drive off the main road down a paved path surrounded by desert bushes on the side and very little if any buildings around. You then come in through a large gate where you find two signs, one pointing to the emergency entrance and the other towards the visitors parking. We parked in the very clean and very spaced out parking lot and walked towards the main hospital building. I couldn’t believe how gorgeous the place was, there was green grass everywhere, large palm trees, no trash and everything looked really good, better then our hospitals!

We walked into the hospital and told the employees that we had an appointment and then we took a seat while we waited for our turn. The waiting room was very cozy, the benches had cushions on them and their were tons of magazines to read. Their were 4 other dogs in the waiting room with us, 3 labrador puppies and one Japanese breed. Geo spent most of his time playing with the Japanese dog which was very cute. When Geo finally got bored we took him back outside to play on the grass where he met another dog and started to play with him. Finally around 15 minutes later it was our turn to go in.

The vet was a very nice friendly guy and Geo ended up liking him a lot. When the vet asked us what we were feeding the dog, we told him raw meat… to our surprise the vet didn’t try to convince us it was not good for him like most vets would do. Instead, he turned out to know about the raw meat diet and how its the best diet for Geo. He started asking us if Geo was getting all his vitamins and proteins and what else we were feeding him. We told him we were also giving Geo raw eggs twice a week, One large yogurt spoon twice a week and brown toast with honey once a week. We also told him Geo wasn’t getting any Vitamin A or B since he wasn’t eating any of his vegetables, so he gave us some vitamins to give to Geo once a day until he started eating his vegetables. The vet then started asking us questions about how we were treating him and how the toilet training was going and he started giving us advice and tips which we already new about. And thats what I liked about the vet, he was telling me stuff I already knew, but the thing is I had to research my ass off to find out and learn all this stuff from various websites, breeders and people with different opinions. Its not stuff you learn at vet school but stuff you learn with experience after years of raising dogs yourself and this vet knew all the best methods and techniques and that gave me a lot of confidence in him. My previous dogs vet never asked me any thing and never gave me any kind of tips. This vet on the other hand was giving me a lot of tips and telling me all the right stuff. He’s amazing, he knows what he is talking about and I could have a decent conversation with him about my dog. We told the vet we wanted to start Geo on worming and he agreed and gave him the medicine. Finally we were done and we walked out thanking the vet. Our bill? KD12.500 and that included KD7 for the visit, KD1 for the worming medicine and KD4.5 for the vitamins. Not bad at all. I scanned the full price list and I have it linked at the end of this post for those of you that are interested.

Once we left the vets office we decided to walk around outside and discover the hospital more. We past by their pet shop which was pretty cool and had a ton of stuff. We also past by the agility course which looked like something Geo would really enjoy once he grows up. Finally we let Geo run around a bit on the grass before we decided to head back home.

I was really impressed with the hospital and I feel a lot more better knowing something like that exists in Kuwait. The only downside to the place is the location but I couldn’t find anything else and thats why I am going to give this hospital a 4.5 out of 5.

Click here to view pictures of the hospital
Click here to view the prices at the hospital
Click here for the IVH website

This is a picture of our dog Geo I took over the weekend.

Nearly every time I take Geo for a walk, someone asks me if Geo is for sale. Yesterday night we went to Marina Crescent (it was packed like Venice Beach btw) and their were tons of people who asked me if he was for sale. Not only that one guy asked me if Geo could mate with his female German Shepherd! I was like dude, Geo is just 10 weeks old, he is a puppy, he doesn’t have balls even. Do a lot of people sell their dogs here? I mean its such a weird question to ask a dog owner, why would I sell a member of my family? I doubt other dog owners would sell their dog either, unless their dog just got puppies and they are selling the puppies. Its really strange.

Top 3 things our pet dog Geo fears the most:
1) Little girls on rollerblades
2) My Hoberman
3) The Roomba

Top 3 things our per dog Geo loves the most:
1) Little boys high on sugar
2) The Egyptian gang under our house
3) Ethernet cable

We took Geo to the Marina Crescent beach tonight. The weather was pretty cold but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. I came to two conclusions today, the first is something I have known for a while now, I am unfit, the second thing is that when Geo grows up he is gonna kick my ass. Geo is a really fast runner, although he is still a puppy he could keep up with me when I was running. If he can keep up with me now I can only imagine how fast he will be once he grows up. Whenever I watch a movie and there is a criminal escaping police dogs I always imagined myself doing better if I was in his spot. Well thats bullshit because I could barely run for 30 seconds before collapsing from exhaustion tonigh. Damn I need to exercise. On our way back to the car Geo saw his friend Bozo, a white Labrador puppy he met on his first beach visit. They played a bit before we had to tell them goodbye and go home.The picture on top is of Geo chasing Nat on the beach.

I mentioned the other day that Geo my dog will be on a raw meat diet. This means I have to buy him fresh meat every other day and luckily there are 3 butchers near my apartment. The problem I figured I would face buying 1KG of the same meat every other day is the curiosity of the butcher. If I start passing by the butcher every other day, over time I will become a good customer and I am sure he will also want to start a conversation with me and maybe even ask me what I am doing with the meat. I don’t want to tell him the meat is for my dog because I don’t want him to give me the crappiest meat he has. I want the best for Geo and thats why the butcher must never find out the meat will be going to my dog. So I had to create a story in case he does ask me what I will be doing with the meat and its a good thing I did because yesterday he asked.

Around 4 days ago I past by one of the butchers which was recommended to me. It was my first time visiting a butcher but I had spoken to my mum earlier and she told me what to tell him. So I go in and I tell the butcher and I need 1KG of cow meat. I want sirloin, without fat and diced up and split into two packages each containing half a kilo. Five minutes later I walked out with the meat, it cost me KD2.

Yesterday I was planning on going to another butcher so that I could spread out my meat purchases so that I don’t arouse suspicion but my mum recommended I stick to the same butcher all the time that way I can get the best meat. I guess it works like sushi places, the more you visit the better the quality of fish you get. So I went back to the guy and I repeated the same thing I told him last time, except this time he started asking me questions. He was like you want it steak? I was like I want the same thing you gave me last time. He is like but you want it steak? I was like umm, you know chopped up into pieces.. like 2 days ago. He was like what will you use it for? I told him I just started a low carb diet and I am grilling the meat. He was like in that case take the fillet, its a lot better. I was like how much does a kilo cost? He was like KD2.5. I was like no its ok, just give me what I took last time, I don’t want to spend this much money for dinner. He was like listen I will give it to you for KD2, and I am telling you once you have this meat you can’t go back to the other one, you will love it. So he gave me the meat and it looked really good, so red and soft and no fat at all. I paid him KD2 and left.

Geo is really getting the star treatment from Nat. yesterday for breakfast he had 2 boiled eggs and 3 brown toast. For lunch he had chicken with basmati rice and for dinner he had leftovers from lunch followed by honey on toast. Now if she will only start cooking food for me!

Update: I just realized something, the older Geo gets the more food he will eat. What am I gonna tell the butcher when suddenly I am buying 5KG of meat every other day?

Update 2: Fuck I just realized, 5KG of meat every other day means I will be spending KD150 on raw meat a month. Fuck! I miscalulated. Its KD150 if I am feeding him 3 times a day but once he becomes an adult its only once a day meaning KD50 a month which is pretty decent.

Yesterday evening we took Geo to the Marina Crescent park to meet up with Fadibou and his puppy Mikki. Turns out Geo and Mikki really liked each other and they spent most of the evening playing together on the grass and sand. Only problem is that Geo is 13KG while Mikki is 1.5KG. So Geo was like hurting Mikki accidentally while playing. Anyway we walked further up the beach and met with 3 other puppies. the oldest being 3 months old. All 5 dogs spent around an hour running around playing with each other in the sand. They were 4 males and 1 female but Mikki was the star, all the dogs seemed to want to play with him. Geo had a lot of fun and I was hoping all this playing would get him tired enough to put him to sleep early and I was right.. for a while. Geo ended up going to sleep at 10PM in his fenced off area and we went to sleep right after since both me and Nat hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before. Everything was fine until around 12:30AM we woke up to Geo’s whining and barking. He must have woken up in the middle of the night and realized he was all alone downstairs and he just went ballistic. The book we read said this would happen and that we should leave him alone but he was just too loud. I called up my brother next door and asked him if he could hear Geo and he told me he could very clearly. So not to get in trouble with the neighbours we solved the problem by Nat sleeping on the couch in the living room with Geo on the floor next to her. The living room has hardwood floors so in case Geo decided to “go” during the night it wouldn’t be that a big a problem while our bedroom is carpeted and would be a lot more difficult to clean. So now hopefully next week we will be replacing the carpet in the bedroom with hardwood, that way Geo can sleep with us in the bedroom, the only way we will ever get some sleep..