Bark & Fitz Westboro’s very own dog walker and community angel extraordinaire, Rolph Almstedt, single-handidly raised $1,170 for the Ottawa Humane Society with the support from Westboro Village folks who are lucky enough to cross paths with Rolph on a regular basis.

According to Rolph, the best part of his day is when he’s walking a dog.

They visit the ‘dog friendly’ stores, shops and grassy church grounds and stop to chat on occasion with fellow dog lovers taking a stroll in the trendy shopping and dining area. Rolph cares for the dogs like they are his own and he extends his love of dogs by helping to raise funds for B.A.R.K. rescue and the Ottawa Humane Society.

For this year’s Woofs & Wags Walkathon for B.A.R.K rescue, he raised over $840–combine that with the Humane Society’s Wiggle Waggle Walkathon pledges and Rolph has a total of over $2000 in donations for two local animal rescue organizations that rely on the Ottawa community’s support. Stella, Molly, Bogart, Prince, and Corduroy (just to name a few) give Rolph two paws up on behalf of all the rescued dogs & cats from local shelters. Thanks to people like him, the OHS and B.A.R.K. get a little help to cover some of their vet bills and operating expenses. If Dog is God spelled backwards then Rolph is an angel in disguise and we are honoured to have him watching over our family pets.

We also think that Rolph deserves a special award for being such a huge part of representing the dogs of Westboro, so we have made him one! Rolph is the official Dog Ambassador of Westboro Village and we are so happy to be presenting him with this award.

Continue reading →

You see it all the time in light coloured dogs, they have the cutest faces but there is a slight, or more than slight discolouration around their eyes. Most of the time it’s a brown or reddish colour and all of the time, it doesn’t look the best. The staining is actually caused by a type of yeast infection – more specifically, red yeast. The staining is believed to be caused by excess tearing and when the hair on the dog’s face is wet, it becomes a breeding ground for bacteria and yeast. Not pretty, and not hygienic when you look at it from this perspective.

People have been struggling with this for a long time. When we got Paddington, I noticed that giving her yogurt actually helped her quite a bit, but when Corduroy started to get bright red stains on her face, the yogurt did nothing and I knew I needed to try something else.

I tried the topical ointments, I tried washing her face more, I tried brushing her face more – nothing seemed to work. I didn’t want to use any sort of bleaching product on her because that just doesn’t seem safe to me.

When we picked up Corduroy from the breeder, they had told us about a product called Angel’s Glow. They said it was the only product they tried that actually worked, and they have been breeding Maltese and Shih Tzus for about 10 yrs. When Corduroy started to have the really bad staining, I went on their website and ordered the smallest sized bottle, just to try it out.

Continue reading →