Bakelab goodies. From Bakelab.

Artisanal L.A.: This weekend-long shopping, tasting and educational event comes from those who brought you the L.A. Street Food Fest and Unique L.A., so you know it’ll be fun. Artisanal L.A. will showcase the city’s finest local, sustainable and handmade edibles, including treats from Bakelab, Cake Monkey Bakery, Bonadea Drinks, Scoops and The Oaks Gourmet, among many others. For $10 (advance purchase; $15 at the door), you’ll get unlimited entry for two days to enjoy all this plus local craft beer and spirits tastings, a one-of-a-kind tote bag for the first 1,000 attendees, arts and crafts workshops, speakers and chef demonstrations, giveaways, Pitchfork’s Mud Baron giving out seedlings, and gift wrap hosted by Uncouth Gourmands benefiting the LA Regional Food Bank. Partial proceeds will benefit Los Angeles Unified School District’s Edible School Gardens.

The Cooper Building
860 S. Los Angeles St., 11th Floor Penthouse
Los Angeles, CA 90014

Oct. 23 and Oct. 24
11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

The Barkley Pet Hotel & Day Spa: Billed as the Ritz-Carlton of pet hotels, The Barkley is opening up this weekend in Westlake. While there are other shi-shi pet hotels, including D Pet Hotels, what makes this place unique is its inclusion of birds and exotics in its description of “pets.” Now you can house your dog, cat, bird and snake all at the same place! There are overnight accommodations, grooming and spa services, day camp, obedience training, and pick-up and delivery service. The full-service day spa services include baths, body massages, mud-masks and “pawdicures.” Prices start at $45 per night. Not too shabby, huh? If you’d like to check it out, there will be sneak preview tours this weekend with entertainment, auctions, raffles and food with all proceeds benefiting local pet charities. Advance tickets are free with registration.

The Barkley Pet Hotel & Day Spa
31166 Via Colinas
Westlake Village, CA 91362

Preview tours Oct. 23 and Oct. 24
8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Grand opening Oct. 25

The Food Event: Los Angeles magazine’s annual event will also be celebrating the magazine’s 50th anniversary and its November “Mexican Food Lovers Guide” issue. The day will feature chefs, culinary experts and sommeliers with lots of unlimited food, wine and other treats, including the Top Chef Masters panel in the Conversation Lounge. Some of the luminaries scheduled to appear are Susan Feniger of Street and Border Grill, Mark Gold of Eva Restaurant, Laurent Quenioux of Bistro LQ, Ian Blackburn of LearnAboutWine and more. On top of all that is the location of the event, Saddlerock Ranch in the Malibu hills, home to Semler and Saddlerock wines. Nice!

Saddlerock Ranch
31727 Mulholland Highway
Malibu, CA 90265

Oct. 24
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
$95 in advance (for $5 more get a one-year subscription to Los Angeles magazine, too); $110 at the door

What NOT to do: Feed your dog beer (or put a samurai hat on him)

I’ve been remiss in posting about pet-related items and events, so I wanted to make sure I posted about this educational event (that will also have vendors!). If you want to learn about your pet’s health and what to do to help your pet in case of an emergency, then you should check out PAWStronomical, an annual pet health fair organized by the Volunteers of the Burbank Animal Shelter. You’ll learn pet CPR, how to help a chocking animal and how to perform a head-to-tail checkup. And there will be raffle prizes, including gift certificates for animal massages and Disneyland tickets.

Here are the details:

April 17, 2010
9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Woodbury University Auditorium
7500 Glenoaks Blvd., Burbank, CA 91510
Tickets: $15 advance/$20 at door (children under 12: $5 advance/$10 at door)
Raffle tickets: $1 for one ticket; $5 for six; $10 for 12.

Friday: Harveys, purveyors of fancy seat belt hand bags, is continuing its search for the most arty of designs to feature in its Melrose Avenue store and to feature on one of its bags. From 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., stop by the store to help narrow the entries down from 10 to three. Hot dogs, party punch and raffles will sustain you through what promises to be an arduous voting process.

Saturday: D.O.G. pet boutique on La Cienega in West Hollywood is hosting a custom jewelry event for your furry friends. Bring you four-legged friend to the Bling Your Bitch event (not the best name, I know) between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. to check out the myriad charms, crystals and pearls available to create your own doggie jewelry, which can be coordinated to some you make for yourself, too. Prices start at $12 for the Gems4Paws-designed bling. Oh, and there’s champagne!

Sunday: The 23rd Annual Great Chefs of Los Angeles is themed “Go Green, Go Organic” and will feature more than 30 L.A.-area chefs and their food, including the Dragos, Benjamin Ford, Mary Sue Milliken, Susan Feniger, Neal Fraser and Akasha Richmond. Enjoy all the food and alcohol you can handle from 12:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at CBS Studio Center in Studio City. There will also be auctions to benefit the National Kidney Foundation of Southern California. Tickets are $150, but you can get them for $75 through Goldstar.

And if you haven’t had enough, stop by Stinkers Truck Stop‘s one-year anniversary party. The oh-so-ironic Silver Lake bar will be having drink specials, a DJ and swag giveaways from 7:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Because you need to close out the weekend right.

Dogswell, the pet food company that started out six years ago with dried meat (jerky) products, now has a full product line of dry and wet food, biscuits, and wraps and veggies. Dubbed Veggie Life, the treats are made from fruits or vegetables wrapped in chicken jerky. I had picked up a couple of samples at the America’s Family Pet Expo back in April, but I had forgotten about them. Since the expiration date read 1/21/2011 (scary, right?), I figured it was safe to feed them to my dogs in a taste test.

As I’ve said before, I have two pugs. Now, pugs are not the most discerning when it comes to food. They will pretty much eat anything that you give them (except mine won’t eat lettuce). So this post is more about how I perceived the food than how my dogs did because they just gobbled it up.

I like Dogswell’s products. I’ve been a fan for years. Rory and I would feed Sushi, my older pug, the Happy Hips chicken breast jerky because she has arthritis in one of her hips, and this treat contains glucosamine and chondroitin. And we’d give the Vitality line to Zelmo because he has a history of skin problems, and these treats contain flaxseed and vitamins A and E.

So when I saw the Veggie Life wrap treat samples, knowing the pugs love both chicken and fruit, I snatched them up. The chicken-wrapped sweet potato comes with the Vitality ingredients, and upon opening the package, I could immediately smell the sweet potato. It smelled fresh, and both the chicken and sweet potato were still pliable enough for me to rip them apart so both dogs could have some (the samples came individually sealed). Of course they loved it. Next I opened the chicken-wrapped banana that come with the Happy Hips ingredients. The banana is basically a dried chip, just like what humans eat, and there were two chips wrapped in a piece of chicken — perfect for my two dogs. They loved this one as well.

Chicken and sweet potato (L), chicken and banana (R)

These wrap treats would be perfect for big dogs as they could probably eat one whole with no problem. But my doggies are too small to feed these to them whole (they tend to try to swallow things whole), so I have to rip them apart and give them the pieces little by little. But I’m used to that.

Zelmo (L) and Sushi (R) eyeing the chicken and sweet potato wrap

In addition to the chicken and sweet potato varieties, there is also a chicken-wrapped apple treat. And you can get the sweet potato alone, too. All the treats come in both the Happy Hips and Vitality lines. They aren’t cheap at $7.99 for a 5 oz. bag, but if you’re looking for a healthy dog treat — all of Dogswell’s products are free of hormones, antibiotics, byproducts, gluten, wheat, corn, soy, flour, and artificial colors, flavors or preservatives, according to the company’s Web site — these are worth it.

The brush would be even cooler if Bamboo could eliminate the act of having to open the shampoo bottle and squeeze it; if the shampoo could dispense itself somehow, that would make it just about perfect. The size of the brush is a good one, too — it’s comfortable even in my small hands. You can also use the brush dry, but it doesn’t pick up much hair on my pugs since their short hair doesn’t clump together; this might work better on a longer haired dog.

Sushi loves her Bamboo brush -- she just doesn't like being photographed while enjoying her brush.

This is the first post by filmmaker (and my boyfriend!) Rory Delaney. This video was shot and edited by him.

If you’re like me, you’re always on the lookout for cheap excursions in LA. And since I’m a beach guy and a dog guy, a combo of the two packs the perfect punch. Unfortunately, LA city officials couldn’t agree less and forbade dogs from Santa Monica Beach all the way down to Redondo. (If you have a rebellious streak and press your luck, know that if you and your pooch get busted it’s punishable by a $600 fine). And while there are official dog beaches in Long Beach and Huntington Beach — Maya and I used to frequent Huntington’s Bark Beach when we lived in Anaheim once upon a time — the last thing I want to spend my free time doing is battling Orange County traffic with two revved-up pugs on my lap kicking my bladder repeatedly.

So I started taking Sushi and Zelmo to Malibu. And though you can still get stuck in traffic on PCH, at least you can stare out at an ocean view instead of an industrial panorama of Downey or the Wilmington oil refinery. The first beach I took them to in Malibu was El Matador Beach, a relatively secluded spot on the northern end of town past Pepperdine University. And while technically El Matador also forbids dogs, there have been several other pooches roaming free whenever I’ve chilled there. The catch with El Matador is you have to walk down a series of steep stairs to get to the water so if your dog is spooked by declines, beware. But when you do finally get down to the beach your reward is a bunch of cool rock formations and miniature caves where your dog can explore with little risk of any surprise police encounters. However, if you do get busted, don’t come to me looking for six hundred bones because I’m pleading the 5th.