this dog has a peaceful smile.

here are some reasons for smiling today:

it’s guest dog blogger terrah’s birthday!  she took over posting for dog daily photo in april when i went home for my grandmother’s funeral.

it’s friday!

or maybe he’s smiling because he didn’t have to go back to the shelter because he was adopted at the humane society event!

twilight romping.  shortly before turkey.

it was thanksgiving.

cody bear and pickles and i arrived.  turkey was running a bit late.  we grabbed some drinks and hit the patio with the dogs while their bird baked.

cody bear and his hostess, coco,  ….hit the dirt!

it’s hard being a rescue dog.  you have to be on.  all the time you have to be on.

you’re at an event and it’s game day.    but there are other dogs and so many people. music is playing and vendors are schmoozing.

but you don’t have to be perfect.  you just have to be yourself and when the right family arrives they will recognize you as family.  see that you are what they need.  they might need mellow. they might need perky.  they might need soft ears and a bright pair of eyes.  a short coat…or a fluffy coat.  young…or seasoned.

yoda was nervous.   the stress tired him out.  he had a dedicated volunteer who kept him calm and introduced him to families.  ultimately he wound up with two kids and a mom and a dad.  a dad who couldn’t stop rubbing his ears while the paperwork was being finished.

meet the 100th pet adopted from the hssaz’s new adoption center at park mall.  she was adopted this afternoon at the grand opening ceremony.

her new family has not  decided on her new name yet, but it will definitely start with a “P”, matching all the  “P” names in the pack already.

The grand opening celebration was a nice event:  good music, friendly vendors, snacks and super cute animals.

vendors included:

susan g. komen – (thanks for the water!)

kat riegel  – animal communicator – www.mysticmessengers.com

dawg house dog daycare – www.dawghouse.biz

companion animal clinic

reigning cats & dogs pet sitting service – www.tucsonspetsitter.com

zack n boo’s kitchen – www.zacknbooskitchen.com

rpm entertainment – www.rpmentertainment.net

buddy bonez - www.buddybonez.com

chic-fil-a

maribelle cakery donated cakes – www.cakesbymaribelle.com – (oh my god these cakes are delicious!)

domingo degrazia spanish guitar music - degraziamusic.com

color me mine – www.colormemine.com

a guy with cool frisbees i didn’t meet (sorry)

blue bunny ice cream

97.5 bob fm – www.975bobfm.com – (thanks for the free notepads. we love office supplies!)

and us, digital muzzle dog photography - www.digitalmuzzle.com

if you were there and i didn’t include you, i apologize!  i tried to get everyone’s cards, but missed out on one or two because we were manning our station.

anyway….we met so many nice people and so many cool pets! some great cats and kittens, mutts and even some pure breed dogs!  please visit the shop at park mall or the shelter on kelvin to find your new family member!

friday is here!  make sure your dogs are clean and well rested so they can party this weekend!!!

Dad's checking this foster kitty for fleas.

Animals were just a part of my everyday life growing up. We always had cats, dogs, and hamsters, in a mixture of family, individual, and foster pets. I never imagined some people grew up without having animals all over the house; I felt kind of sorry for them, because they missed out on so much.

When I was in second grade, I got to choose my first pet. I picked out a little dwarf hamster (Hamsteina—how creative). She made the drive with us when we moved from Michigan to South Carolina, and was the first in a series of hamsters and the beginning of a kid’s obsession with rodents.

What an ugly mutt!

In 2000, my sister and I got to choose our first big pets. We had proven our responsibility, so our parents took us to local shelters and pet stores to find the right cat for me and the right dog for her. There was one pet store we visited where an employee was walking a Heinz 57 terrier mix puppy outside. I didn’t end up finding a cat there, but my mom asked about the puppy she had seen.

The puppy was from a local pound that euthanizes animals after usually only 3 days. This dog was given a few more days at the pet store because they thought she was adoptable, but her time was up and she was going back to the shelter that day. My mom called my sister to come and see the energetic little puppy, and with just a little time spent petting the scruffy mutt, she fell in love and decided to bring her home.

My sister and her puppy Matilda at the beach!

So my sister didn’t exactly get the lap dog she originally was looking for (although she does call Matilda her “Poopsie” and insist on putting her on her lap sometimes), the unwanted Ridgeland puppy found a loving home at the last minute. She is completely overprotective of her mom (my sister) and enjoys car rides to the beach every week, beating up her younger brother Eugene, and chasing after any kind of ball (we call her the Brazilian Soccer Terrier).

It’s hard to imagine she might never have made it out of that shelter, and now she is living in the lap of luxury. What a lucky dog!

This is Bear. If you’ve read this blog before, you’ve seen Bear. He’s a three-year-old lab mix – we think the remainder of him is mastiff, which would make him a mastador if you’re into the portmanteau thing. He’s also a shelter dog.

My folks came to visit this past weekend, and they brought their new puppy, Buddy. When they saw Buddy at the shelter, he was severely malnourished. He had worms. Recurring infestations of fleas had left him missing fur in massive clumps. Keep in mind that this is a puppy. They don’t know what abuse he suffered, but he’s deathly afraid of doors. What kind of horrific acts do you have to do to an animal to make it afraid of a door?

Yes, clearly this dog deserved to be abused.

Buddy enjoys crawling into your lap and falling asleep. He plays tug of war with Bear and tries to keep up with the other dogs. His name is Buddy because when they were leaving the shelter, the workers all said “See ya, Buddy!” And someone didn’t want him.

I use Bear as the face of this blog because he’s pretty expressive, in part because he’s got enough extra skin to make another dog out of. We moved to WV in 2008 and visited the Monongalia County Canine Adoption Center about a week after moving into our house. Bear was in a kennel surrounded by jumping, barking dogs, but just sat calmly in the middle. Tiny, a shelter worker, told us Bear had been picked up twice, and the second time the owners never came for him. He’d been hit by a car, too, and has kind of a waddle because of it. Jess and I took him out for a walk and knew he was who we wanted.

The next day, however, we had to leave for a conference in Chicago, and Tiny told us they couldn’t hold an animal. We spent Wednesday through Sunday of that week in a nervous sweat and were there as soon as they opened on Monday. Bear was still there, waiting, and we brought him home.

Even when they’re spayed or neutered, dogs tend to breed dogs. In 2009 we picked up Penny from the same shelter. My family came to visit this weekend and brought Buddy and their other dog, Bella; both are shelter dogs. The four of them are a black, hairy flotilla of dogdom, and they get along fabulously.

Tremble before the Black Fleet!

I don’t know if Bear would have found a home without us. I’d like to think so, but most dogs don’t. I can’t understand why anyone would get a pet from a store when there are unwanted animals like Bear that would be destroyed (read: killed) without you.

Regardless of whether they draw on puppy mills, pet stores supply animals based on demand. If there are pets in shelters, supply is clearly exceeding demand. And avoiding shelters because you want a puppy is misinformed. First, many puppies get dropped off at shelters, and second, older dogs are smart, loyal, and often at least partially trained. Bear was two years old when we got him, and we haven’t regretted missing his puppy years at all.

Even if you go to a reputable breeder, please consider shelters as an alternative. I have no issue with breeders, many of whom treat their dogs wonderfully, but the shelter dog who is not adopted likely has no future. They’re terrific and they need you.

If you’re wondering where to look, I like the Petfinder site, which is updated daily. You can enter your city or ZIP code and get an entire list of shelters and adoptable pets near you.

UPDATE (1156p, 11/11): A friend points out there are also breed-specific rescue organizations, including Miniature Pinschers, Pugs, and Basset Hounds (that second site is more local but is affiliated with the annual Illinois Basset Waddle).

Major Brian Dennis and Nubs the Dog today.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

When Major Brian Dennis of the United States Marine Corps met a wild stray dog with shorn ears while serving in Iraq, he had no idea of the bond they would form, leading to seismic changes in both their lives. “The general theme of the story of Nubs is that if you’re kind to someone, they’ll never forget you — whether it be person or animal,” Dennis tells Paw Nation.

In October 2007, Dennis and his team of 11 men were in Iraq patrolling the Syrian border. One day, as his team arrived at a border fort, they encountered a pack of stray dogs — not uncommon in the barren, rocky desert that was home to wolves and wild dogs.

“We all got out of the Humvee and I started working when this dog came running up,” recalls Dennis. “I said, ‘Hey buddy’ and bent down to pet him.” Dennis noticed the dog’s ears had been cut. “I said, ‘You got little nubs for ears.’” The name stuck. The dog whose ears had been shorn off as a puppy by an Iraqi soldier (to make the dog “look tougher,” Dennis says) became known as Nubs.

Dennis fed Nubs scraps from his field rations, including bits of ham and frosted strawberry Pop Tarts. “I didn’t think he’d eat the Pop Tart, but he did,” says Dennis.

At night, Nubs accompanied the men on night patrols. “I’d get up in the middle of the night to walk the perimeter with my weapon and Nubs would get up and walk next to me like he was doing guard duty,” says Dennis.

The next day, Dennis said goodbye to Nubs, but he didn’t forget about the dog. He began mentioning Nubs in emails he wrote to friends and family back home. “I found a dog in the desert,” Dennis wrote in an email in October 2007. “I call him Nubs. We clicked right away. He flips on his back and makes me rub his stomach.”

“Every couple of weeks, we’d go back to the border fort and I’d see Nubs every time,” says Dennis. “Each time, he followed us around a little more.” And every time the men rumbled away in their Humvees, Nubs would run after them. “We’re going forty miles an hour and he’d be right next to the Humvee,” says Dennis. “He’s a crazy fast dog. Eventually, he’d wear out, fall behind and disappear in the dust.”

On one trip to the border fort in December 2007, Dennis found Nubs was badly wounded in his left side where he’d been stabbed with a screwdriver. “The wound was infected and full of pus,” Dennis recalls. “We pulled out our battle kits and poured antiseptic on his wound and force fed him some antibiotics wrapped in peanut butter.” That night, Nubs was in so much pain that he refused food and water and slept standing up because he couldn’t lay down. The next morning, Nubs seemed better. Dennis and his team left again, but he thought about Nubs the entire time, hoping the dog was still alive.

Excerpt, “Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle,”
Little, Brown for Young Readers

Two weeks later, when Dennis and his team returned, he found Nubs alive and well. “I had patched him up and that seemed to be a turning point in how he viewed me,” says Dennis. This time, when Dennis and his team left the fort, Nubs followed. Though the dog lost sight of the Humvees, he never gave up. For two days, Nubs endured freezing temperatures and packs of wild dogs and wolves, eventually finding his way to Dennis at a camp an incredible 70 miles south near the Jordanian border.

“There he was, all beaten and chewed up,” says Dennis. “I knew immediately that Nubs had crossed through several dog territories and fought and ran, and fought and ran,” says Dennis. The dog jumped on Dennis, licking his face.

Most of the 80 men at the camp welcomed Nubs, even building him a doghouse. But a couple of soldiers complained, leading Dennis’ superiors to order him to get rid of the dog. With his hand forced, Dennis decided that the only thing to do was bring Nubs to America. He began coordinating Nubs’ rescue effort. Friends and family in the States helped, raising the $5,000 it would cost to transport Nubs overseas.

Finally, it was all arranged. Nubs was handed over to volunteers in Jordan, who looked after the dog and sent him onto to Chicago, then San Diego, where Dennis’ friends waited to pick him up. Nubs lived with Dennis’ friends and began getting trained by local dog trainer Graham Bloem of the Snug Pet Resort. “I focused on basic obedience and socializing him with dogs, people and the environment,” says Bloem.

A month later, Dennis finished his deployment in Iraq and returned home to San Diego, where he immediately boarded a bus to Camp Pendleton to be reunited with Nubs. “I was worried he wouldn’t remember me,” says Dennis. But he needn’t have worried. “Nubs went crazy,” recalls Dennis. “He was jumping up on me, licking my head.”

Dennis’ experience with Nubs led to a children’s picture book, called “Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle,” published by Little, Brown for Young Readers. They have appeared on the Today Show and will be appearing on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on Monday.

Was it destiny that Dennis met Nubs and brought him to America? “I don’t know about that,” says Dennis. “It’s been a strange phenomenon. It’s been a blessing. I get drawings mailed to me that children have drawn of Nubs with his ears cut off. It makes me laugh.”

by Helena Sung – PawNation Nov 3rd 2009 @ 6:00PM

Nubbs:  The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine, and a Miracle

Great Gift for Any Child, Veteran and Animal Lover!!

Order Today: Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle

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Tails of Love – Book

Checkout:  Dogwise, All Things Dog! – 2000+ Books and Doggie Goodies

Posted:  Just One More Pet

i know you can’t tell from this picture, but coco actually did like me.  she just can’t figure out why i’ve been crawling around on the ground after her and stuffing a camera in her face.

i was told she didn’t like cameras, but within ten minutes she was actually “workin’ it.”

Bear is generally a good dog, so he gets to stay in our room or sometimes even roam the house when we’re out. Every now and then, though, things don’t go so well. These are those stories.

Went to the gym before the morning walk today. I’ve done this before, and it’s usually fine – I let Bear out for a leak, then put him back in the room until I get back, and then we have our walk. He usually hops up on the bed and sleeps next to Jess, but she moved upstairs last night because her back was giving her trouble (or I was snoring – she hasn’t gotten up yet and told me).

The Scene of the Crime: Last night there was a baguette on this table.

The evidence: Notice the gnawed loaf in the place where I sleep.

The culprit: This hairy grinning bastard.

The sentence: A stern talking-to and half of the usual breakfast (which probably made no difference considering he was full of bread).

after cody bear’s longest stretch without being sick, and after a great period of weighing close to 50 lbs, cody bear has  begun another cycle of gastroparesis flair up.  i am hoping our past work with holistic meds will get him healing faster.

a couple weeks of baby-ing cody bear begins now…

Dogs we’ve been blessed with.

Pippa, a crazy bearded collie. Our local farmer was looking for homes for the litter that his sheepdog had given birth to. We had the runt. A tiny ball of fur that grew and grew and grew. In the end she looked just like a bearded collie and she was nuts. She could climb our six foot wooden gates and run off on her own. She would take off across the fields with me giving chase, shouting and bawling at her. She took no notice. One day when she had been missing all day our milkman knocked on our door and pointed at his van. There she was, sitting in the front passenger seat, grinning at us. She’d been out on the milk round. Another time, a local boy brought her back tied to a piece of string. He’d found her two miles away, barking at the ducks on the river. She would steal chickens eggs, but one day the chickens ganged up on her and we found her cowering in the corner while the birds pecked bits out of her. She didn’t steal eggs again. I was taking her for a walk one evening when she suddenly crouched down as if she was going to the toilet. Then she collapsed. I rushed her to the vet, but she was dead: a massive heart attack.

Cindy a poodle crossed with something else. We got her from the dog’s home. No one would have her because she was ugly. She had curly hair like a poodle but a terrier’s body. When we brought her back from the dog’s home my wife bathed her and trimmed her hair. Then we went inside and sat at the table for a cup of tea. Cindy jumped up on a vacant seat as if to say, ‘Where’s my tea?’ We had Cindy for many years and she gave us no end of pleasure.

Lassie. My wife and daughter visited the dog’s home when Cindy passed on, to see what dogs were available. Outside the home they met an elderly lady who was breaking her heart as she had to get rid of her dog, because the sheltered accommodation she was going into didn’t cater for dogs. Of course my family came back home with her dog. The lady lived in our town and she was well known to one of our neighbours, so she had regular updates on Lassie. On one occasion, we were going on holiday with my sister-in-law and her husband, so Jim and I were given the task of booking our dogs into the local kennels for a week. We got our dogs out of the car and went to the office to book them in, but when I looked for Lassie, she’d disappeared. We searched the kennels forecourt, looked around everywhere, until Jim said, ‘Look at the car.’ There was Lassie sitting in the back seat looking at us. She decided she wasn’t staying, but I’m afraid she had to. We had Lassie for 17 years, and strangely enough, when she passed on, we heard that the lady who’d owned her before us, passed away on the same day.

Jess. Jess was a German Shepherd. We didn’t own her. She was my younger daughter’s dog but she spent more time with us than with her. What a character that dog was. She gave us no end of laughs at her antics. She was one of the breed who could almost talk and I used to have my grandchildren in stitches imitating what Jess was trying to say. Well, what I thought she was trying to say. When taking her to the beach in our car she would catch a first view of the sea as we drove down the hill towards the coast, and she would start to howl, causing a terrific noise all the way to the beach. My wife picked her up and she jumped into the boot of the car, but evidently the lid didn’t close properly and down the road the lid sprang open so Jess jumped out. Realising the car was still going she started to chase it causing the people around huge amusement. The guy driving the car behind her nearly had hysterics.

On New Years day at about three in the morning our phone rang. It was our daughter and she wanted to know what to do with Jess. While they were out of the house, Jess had stood on hind legs and knocked a six pack of beer and a bottle of wine off the kitchen unit. The wine had smashed so she drank that, then she bit through each can and drank those as well. She was now lying on the floor snoring like a train. I told my daughter to let her sleep it off. The next day she had a terrific hangover as she lay down all day with her paws over her eyes. Jess was the only dog I knew of who could open the fridge and steal food. We regularly came home to find the fridge door open and food missing, the remnants of it strewn everywhere.

Molly. She was another crazy dog. My eldest daughter had Molly. She was a beautiful white dog with black patches. She was a Boxer crossed with a terrier. She could run like the wind and keep it up for hours. She would race around the sandy beach from one end to the other, then do it again. She would dive in the lake from a great high bank to take a swim.

Ralph. Her latest dog is a Hungarian Vizla, and I think this one will cure her of ever having a dog again. It’s an absolute nightmare! His favourite food is socks and gloves, with a dessert of wood, twigs or table legs. He even likes paint. When she rubbed the skirting boards down, and primed them, he came behind her and licked all the paint off. She had to take him to pick up the kids, with paint all around his mouth. The other day, he sicked up a glove that they’d been looking for for three days. When I was visiting them, I watched as my son-in-law reached into his mouth and dragged a sock out of his throat. He’s almost destroyed the table legs, the chair legs and the kick boards in the kitchen. But, as people keep saying, he’s just a puppy. Puppy maybe, but he’ll be lucky to see his first birthday.

The latest addition to the family is Betty. She’s a Jack Russell Terrier and she was badly abused by her first owner, consequently she’s very nervous. But she’s an excellent house dog and raises the alarm as soon as anyone opens our gate.

www.digitalmuzzle.com

digital muzzle dog photography

tucson, az

Most days, Mutts seems like a very lonely voice on the comics page. Its gentle, whimsical characters are surrounded by crude, loutish contemporaries. Its appeals to support animal shelters are drowned out by jaded, sarcastic punchlines. Its appreciation of nature’s simple pleasures are overshadowed by surreal, hyperactive dreamscapes. And it’s touching, old-fashioned sensibility is shown up by dated icons from another era. But with other strips focusing on the merits of volunteering this week, it seems as if Mutts has finally come out on top.

I’ve got mixed feelings about the Fancy Nancy series by Jane O’Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser.  On one hand, Nancy is a bright, confident girl who likes learning new words and being thoughtful to her friends.  On the other, what she really loves — her whole raison d’etre — is to be fancy.  And heaven knows there’s enough princess lit geared to little girls.

So when kiddo received Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy, I had qualms.  Would Nancy go for a purebred papillon, like her neighbor Mrs. Devine’s dog Jewel?  Would she convince her parents they absolutely needed to go to a breeder, where they could find the fanciest dog?

Happily, the answer to both of those questions is NO.  Nancy does dogsit Jewel for a day, but when her parents stop by the local animal shelter after an evening out (eating what I can only assume is pizza with Daiya “cheese” at King’s Crown), she falls in love with Frenchy.  In the end, even Fancy Nancy finds her dream dog is a rescue.

To O’Connor and Preiss Glasser’s credit, the shelter message is crystal clear — but kids might need to be told that Frenchy is not only a shelter dog, but a mutt.  (Nancy’s dad’s reference to a “La Salle spaniel,” a nod to the name of the animal shelter, might be too subtle for some.)

Ideal for girls — and open-minded boys — ages 3-7.  (Publisher says 4-7 but kiddo loved this series when she was 3.)

MADISON, Wis. – State prison officials said an inmate is in solitary after he tried to escape from Columbia Correctional Institution. Department of Corrections spokesman John Dipko said 49-year-old James Frederick was supposed to pick up food carts when he bolted for the perimeter fences. He had stuffed his clothes with newspapers to protect him from razor wire that lined the top of the first fence. He also had a large bag of raisins with him.

Peanuts Charlie Brown Good Grief Mug

Frederick tried to climb the first fence, but still cut his hand on the razor wire and fell to the ground.

Dipko says Frederick escaped from Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution in 1981 but was recaptured.

The Columbia escape attempt occurred about 5:45 a.m. Tuesday, October 6th, 2009.

Mutts 4-piece PVC Figures

Me included, of course. I’m as strange as it gets. But in particular, what I’m talking about is what goes into making up a human. We’re different from those around us based on our actions and choices (and our physical mumbo-jumbo), but I wonder what causes us to make those decisions. What makes us decide to go right at a fork in the road, what makes us say those awkward things to those we interact with, and what makes us decide that those things we hear are awkward in the first place? Ah, lot’s of deep-meta thinking here, with no real answers in sight. Ah, it’s a Monday. Bleh. 8′oclock classes.
I know personally, a lot of the guidance in choices I make from day to day comes from the music I listen to. The lyrics, the crescendos in volume, the loopy choruses that fill a lot of the music I listen to, and the nice raspy harmonies that compliment the main singing quite nicely; all of that reflects how I act on a day to day basis. Sure, it’s not the only thing, of course. A lot of my actions also stem from copying what I deem to be “successful” traits I find in another person or influence, or from nature (the best teacher there is!). By listening to what I call “good” music, I tend to have a better outlook on life, as opposed to when I listen to “angry” music or music with unsettling lyrics, which usually puts me in a darker mood. Perhaps I’m more susceptible to the subtler influences of music, and perhaps that’s because I listen to so gosh darn much of it, but I have this deep feeling that everyone is affected by what music they listen to. We all tend to listen to our favorite music a lot, thus memorizing the lyrics and usually the tone by which the artist sings it. We get a nice feel for what emotion the artist is trying to create, and then we absorb that feeling and let it color what we see in our everday waking lives. Our favorite music becomes our personal gospel temporarily, what with our habit towards memorizing and chanting lyrics and taking the lessons we’ve learned from the music. Perhaps we just listen to music that reflects how we feel a lot of the time, but I like to think that it works the other way around and that music listens to us. But then that would probably mean we’re in Mother Russia or something, cause, as we all know, everything happens backwards there.
So, listen to this music, absorb it’s wholesome goodness and let the playlist play you.

To download files, click the song title with your middle mouse button to go to the MP3 hosting site, then follow directions to download. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezie. If for some odd reason, you don’t have a middle mouse button and you find yourself quite perplexed, just right click the song titles and click the option that says “Open Link in New Tab/Window”. Also, welcome to the internet.

Animal Collective- Chores
Devandra Banhart- Baby
Crystal Castles- Knights
Bloc Party- One More Chance
Dr. Dog- The Old Days
Passion Pit- I’ve Got Your Number
Menomena- Running
Kings Of Convience- Boat Behind
Iron & Wine- Naked As We Come
High Places- The Storm
Animal Collective- Winter’s Love
The Beatles- Mother Nature’s Son

Happy Fun Time Monday Bonus MP3!!!

ja just 5 oktoobril ilmus ka selline nunts raamat mu kahe hästilemmiku – Eckhart Tolle ja Patrick McDonnell’i koostöös.

Intervjuu Eckhart Tolle’ga

Guardians of Being celebrates and reminds us
of not only the oneness of all life
but also the wonder and joy to be found in the present moment,
amid the beauty we sometimes forget to notice all around us.
Every heartwarming page provokes thought,
insight and smiling reverence
for all beings and each moment.

Trick or Treat Begging Dogs Bag by catherinesherman
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