I came across My Itchy Dog's Duck and Neem Sausage Dog Treats on social media and volunteered Otto to be a tester.

Safe to say he loved them!  Well what dog wouldn't like an air dried duck and neem sausage???

Not knowing much about neem I was pleased to find that on the website it tells you a bit more:

Benefits

• neem is good for skin condition
• it boosts the immune system
• repels parasites
• helps keep the gut healthy

The treats are

• suitable for dogs on a raw diet
• contain no added colours, flavours or preservatives
• hypoallergenic

As the sausages are a nice size, not too big or small I've been using them as a handy treat for Otto when we're out and about for a long day and he needs a bit of a healthy snack - with RAW food this can be tricky but these sausages were ideal.

All in all it's a thumbs up from Otto and I on these treats!  You can order some for your dog on the My Itchy Dog website.  See some photos below of Otto tucking in!

We feed Otto RAW dog food, produced and supplied by Natural Instinct. Otto went onto this when he was about 10-12 weeks old and it suits him and us as well. He looks great on it and he is so calm at home whilst being extremely active outside. For us RAW food is as close to what dogs would eat in the wild and that just makes sense to us.

That being said RAW dog food does have some drawbacks, mainly the handling & storage. We have two freezers in the garage and even after a year, we are still constantly having to remind ourselves to get a few packs of the frozen food out so that it is defrosted in time to feed. Add to this complications of going away for a few days with frozen RAW dog food without a freezer and you can understand why some aren't keen. So what are the alternatives?

Well of course there are loads of wet and dry foods that aren't RAW but it's a bit of a minefield that's for sure! One of the newer types of dog food is cold-pressed which means you can have many of the benefits of RAW dog food in a dry non RAW format. The biggest problem with dry kibble food is the extrusion process which cooks all the ingredients and can take a lot of the goodness out. Cold pressing doesn't do this. To find out more about the different types of food I'd suggest you head over to All About Dog Food and take a look at their feeding guide.
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Guru pet food is one of the new cold pressed dog food companies and they recently sent Otto a sample to try along with one of their field trip bones, a handy sized treat which can also be a meal in itself.

Well when Otto smelt the food he went mad for it, trying to jump up at the side and steal it away! This is always a good sign.  With the small sample we gave Otto a few of the little nuggets of food as when trying new food it's good to see how they take to it.  The answer was it was gone before I had time to get my camera ready!

With the field trip bone I was a bit quicker off the mark, as you can see from the photos. I liked the idea of being able to have a treat or meal in a handy size which you can't do with raw food treats. Otto obviously liked the idea too as he chewed through it in no time.

​If you’re interested I'd suggest to learn more about cold-pressed food you check out the Guru website where they have a wealth of information available. If you are interested the various types of dog food and reviews on them from dog owners take a look at All About Dog Food, a really useful website. 

Interestingly for me Guru and Natural Instinct receive similar scores and positive reviews on All About Dog Food. If RAW becomes unmanageable in the future I’d be confident to try switching to Guru. For now I'd be keen to keep using the treat bones as handy snacks for when we're out and about for a day trip. Otto tells me he'd be happy with that too!

In a first of a new series I am going to be posting some of my favourite photos taken in each of the four seasons through the year.  As we've moved out of Winter and into Spring I thought I better post my favourite winter photos now.

Down in the South of England we only had one day of snow this winter, luckily for me on a Sunday morning so I was at home and available to do a couple of photo shoots.  Here's a few of my favourite photos from that lovely winter day.

​I recently saw on social media something advertised that just sounded too good to be true…  Shampoo for pets which doesn’t need water, called Nilaqua Pet Shampoo!  I laughed to myself as I thought "how’s that going to work?" I’ve seen ladies dry shampoo and it never looks great to me.
 
Anyway being intrigued I had to take a look online and wow it sounded brilliant and the YouTube video on their website also looked good.  Put the liquid on, scrub it a bit and then wipe off with a towel…. Simple as that.

Well my dog Otto is a typical German Shorthaired Pointer and can smell poo a mile away and I have lost count of the number of times he has rolled in something stinky!  Sometimes he’ll need a bath 3 times a week, not ideal with a 26kg dog who doesn’t like cold hoses so has to be washed upstairs in the bath.

​I got in touch with Nilaqua and asked if I could try a bottle of their shampoo in return for a blog review…  They kindly agreed and below is the result of my first use after Otto rolled in mud and sheep poo - very stinky!!

So, how did it work?  See for yourself below with my before and after photos...

So my advice to you is if you have a dog that likes to roll in poo or get really muddy and you don't have the time, patience or available water to give them a bath then you should definitely try some Nilaqua Pet Shampoo.  I've already had to use it on Otto a few more times since the sheep poo incident!

To find out more visit the Nilaqua Pet Shampoo website plus follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook.