Happy 4th

We had a play-filled day for our Independence Day. As is becoming quite the habit, mommy took me to the park. We walked a mile and a half today, and found some new practice sporting fields that mommy said would be perfect for when we started training (other than housetraining, of course). I did really good practicing my "quiet" command, and when we met up with the friends I'd made late last week (the bichon, the shih tzus, and a terrier) I didn't bark OR run from them! Mommy was so proud. But then we met up with the Irish Wolfhounds. I don't know if I'll ever stop being afraid of them. They're said to be gentle giants, but I don't know...they're awfully big!

When we got home mommy put me in the crate and cleaned the dining room floor (that's my favorite place, in case you've forgotten). Then she changed the bedroom around and moved my crate to a different area that she says should be cooler than by the window. While I was crated mommy went to Petsmart again and tried one more time to find a pad for my kennel that I won't chew or move off the bottom. It didn't work, naturally. She even tried velcro-ing the pad to the crate but I still dug it up and moved it! Will she ever learn? I made her laugh really hard, though, when I tried to jump on the bed and only made it half way. I found myself splat against the side of the bed with my front paws ontop of the mattress and my body dangling from there. Mommy was literally Rolling on the Floor Laughing. It's okay. It must have looked funny! I did make it to the top of the bed though. Just need a little running start.

After an afternoon potty break mommy gave me another bath. I still don't like them, but she says she has to give me a bath twice a week until the medicated shampoo is gone (I have terribly itchy skin). I hope it starts working soon!.

Then we played in the living room. I surprised her by jumping over the fencing she uses to divide the dining room from the living room. Twice. Then I jumped clear over a tv tray she uses as an end table and onto the couch. Mommy said she wants to look into agility training for me!

Here are some pictures of me playing in the living room.

A Rescued Dog's Letter to Santa

2006 -- My First Christmas with Mama

2007 - 2010

It's time for my annual reciting of my Dear Santa letter. It doesn't seem like it's been 5 Christmases with mama, but it has! I hope you enjoy my gallery of photos with Santa. With each passing year I look MORE terrified of him than LESS, don't you think?

I hope you read my letter and spread the word that pets are people too and we deserve to be treated nicely...

Dear Santa:

Mama wants me to write a letter to you saying what I want for Christmas. I really just want to eat all 35 of her nutcrackers (most of them have furry stuff somewhere on them, and they ‘re all made of wood, which I also like to eat).

Seriously, I just want people to be more responsible doggie owners. I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to hit a dog (I wasn’t hit, but I know many dogs are) so I want anyone who doesn’t understand dogs to not have a dog until they do.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to get a dog for someone as a present only to not spend time with him/her. Or to give him/her away when they realize how much work we dogs can be.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to hoard a dog, thinking they are doing the dog a favor and providing a good home by keeping him/her in a crate all day, never letting him/her out to go potty, to eat, to socialize or to exercise. I was done no favors by the person who hoarded me; I ended up with an intestinal disease and afraid of a lot of things. I want people who hoard dogs (and other things) to get help for themselves instead of trying to help the dogs.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to ignore a dog, never playing with her/him, never talking to him/her, only treating her/him like an object not to be cared about.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to not spay or neuter their dogs unless they are planning on being responsible breeders that are kind to all dogs, even the runts. And mama thinks that breeders shouldn't breed until there are enough buyers in line to buy the puppies. Good things are worth the wait!

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to train dogs to fight without reason, as a football player did and I know others do. I don’t want any dog to be trained to be aggressive or to be mean. I’m not considering police dogs and others like them in this group; they are trained to use force when needed to stop bad guys/gals, but they’re also trained to stop when the humans can take over.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to donate food to the poor without donating food for their pets. I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to judge a poor person with a pet as irresponsible; people never can know why poor people became poor. Maybe they had pets before they became poor. Maybe one day they’ll be poor too and what will happen to their pets? I hope it never happens, but it could. So Santa, I want people to remember pets when donating to worthy causes.

On the same note, I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to put getting a pet over feeding their children. It may make the children happy for a while, but it won’t feed them and it won’t help the pet when they can’t feed them.

Santa, I just want all pets everywhere all the time to be loved and respected and treated like one of the family.

In fact, I can honestly say I want that for all animals, humans included.

Do They Know It's Christmas Season Three

I bet most of my old dogbloggers have forgotten me, as it's been a while since I've been here. In fact, I've only had two posts or so this whole year! But mama knows that I insist on posting this video every year, and Thanksgiving is the best day for it since it kick off the Christmas season. This video was made several years ago by Pappy and I think it still deserves a replay. From dogbloggers current and past, here and there, Happy Holidays.

A Little Fun

http://www3.theuglydance.com/?v=tsczexenk6&ref=nf


Enjoy :)

Wow

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. Christmas, actually. I'd be mad at mama if I could be. I'd give her the silent treatment if it didn't mean I'd have to give up barking. But I can't be mad at mama. It's been a tough couple of months since the new year hit.

Sometime at the end of January grampa disappeared. He moved in with us three years ago so mama could spoil him a bit. But at the end of January mama went on some tree vacation (she said something about making a tree of her family) and then grampa disappeared. Mama came back, but grampa didn't. Mama said he went to the bridge to play with Skipper and Mandy. She said I can visit her other blog, Orations of OMcHodoy to see pictures of him "in print.

So we've been rather out of sorts lately. Mama and my friend comes by daily now, to make sure I'm okay during the day. I even have my own room now, so when mama isn't here I can have free roam of my bedroom and the hall. Course, there's nothing in the bedroom or the hall except my crate and a blanket for me to lie on. But it's mine and I love it.

Last week our friend took me to a new park down the street. It's so pretty I have to show you.

There are baseball fields. And mountains at every turn of your head! Lots of space for a playground for the kiddies, and colorful basketball courts for two-legged creatures to play on.

But wait, you say. What about someplace for the furbabies to do? Hmmmmmm?

There's a big dog area....

And a small dog area.

I, on the other hand, just wanted....

OUT!

STUFFIES!

Mama gave up buying me stuffies a long time ago, since I get them opened and stuffing out withing seconds. Literally.  I guess Santa didn't know this, cuz look what he brought me for Christmas:

Aren't they cute?  But don't they look kinda, well, odd for stuffies?  That's because only their heads are stuffed!  Who ever heard of stuffingless stuffies? What fun are they??????? 

Well, actually, I'm learning that they are VERY fun.  See, instead of stuffing their bodies, they added more squeakers.  SIXTEEN to be exact. Yup. The bodies are made up of 16 squeakers: One in each "square" of  their bodies.  I wonder why mama only lets me have them for a few minutes at a time?

That took me all of ... oh... 30 seconds?  But mama found ways for me to have fun with them and make them last a bit longer.  She throws one, and when I get it she throws the other in the opposite direction so I drop the one and chase the other, and so on....at the end she gives me just a few minutes to chew on them...

Then last night she took me to Petsmart and we bought yet a different kind of stuffie:

She didn't get a good pic of this without me chomping on it, but it's a squirrel.  What's so different about this stuffie?

This one opens at the bottom and then i nside is another pouch that has the squeaker. So instead of having stuffing stuffed in it that I can eat, it has a fuzzy pouch that gives me more to chew on.  And there are 10 replacement squeakers that mama can use for when one loses it's squeak!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and a great New Year! I'll leave you with a cute, albeit dark, video of me discovering the gifts Santa left me!

Dear Santa Tri-Dux

I hope you're not tired of my seasonal re-prints, but there is still a great need for awareness, so here's my second topic for re-posti;ng.

Dear Santa:

Mama wants me to write a letter to you saying what I want for Christmas. I really just want to eat all 37 of her nutcrackers (most of them have furry stuff somewhere on them, and they ‘re all made of wood, which I also like to eat).

Seriously, I just want people to be more responsible doggie owners. I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to hit a dog (I wasn’t hit, but I know many dogs are) so I want anyone who doesn’t understand dogs to not have a dog until they do.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to get a dog for someone as a present only to not spend time with him/her. Or to give him/her away when they realize how much work we dogs can be.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to hoard a dog, thinking they are doing the dog a favor and providing a good home by keeping him/her in a crate all day, never letting him/her out to go potty, to eat, to socialize or to exercise. I was done no favors by the person who hoarded me; I ended up with an intestinal disease and afraid of a lot of things. I want people who hoard dogs (and other things) to get help for themselves instead of trying to help the dogs.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to ignore a dog, never playing with her/him, never talking to him/her, only treating her/him like an object not to be cared about.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to think it’s okay to let their dog run loose without training, without supervision, in places where dogs have no business running loose.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to not spay or neuter their dogs unless they are planning on being responsible breeders that are kind to all dogs, even the runts. And mama thinks that breeders shouldn't breed until there are enough buyers in line to buy the puppies. Good things are worth the wait!

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to train dogs to fight without reason, as a football player did and I know others do. I don’t want any dog to be trained to be aggressive or to be mean. I’m not considering police dogs and others like them in this group; they are trained to use force when needed to stop bad guys/gals, but they’re also trained to stop when the humans can take over.

I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to donate food to the poor without donating food for their pets. I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to judge a poor person with a pet as irresponsible; people never can know why poor people became poor. Maybe they had pets before they became poor. Maybe one day they’ll be poor too and what will happen to their pets? I hope it never happens, but it could. So Santa, I want people to remember pets when donating to worthy causes.

On the same note, I don’t want anyone anywhere anytime ever to put getting a pet over feeding their children. It may make the children happy for a while, but it won’t feed them and it won’t help the pet when they can’t feed them.

Santa, I just want all pets everywhere all the time to be loved and respected and treated like one of the family.

In fact, I can honestly say I want that for all animals, humans included.

Do They Know It's Christmas Tri-dux

It's become a tradition for me to post this video, created by Pappy that featured many of our Dogs With Blogs pals singing Band-Aid's song, "Do They Know It's Christmas". Mama has always been touched by this song, whether sung by humans or lip-synched by doggies, and quite honestly, so have I. So I bring you another worthy re-run to kick off the holiday season! I know that some of the dogs in this video are now running free on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, so I hope their families find peace in knowing their furbabies' legacies live on.

Reading Is Fun

Mama gets so frustrated with me sometimes. She tells me all the time that someday she's going to read an entire book without ME feeding on them. Yes, I said FEEDING, not READING:

My response to mama is that she's already made it through one book without me getting so much as a piece of fur on it:

I'm sure Rich and Cary appreciate my leaving this book alone. How could I not? It was a book about a dog, after all! Now if only mama would make good on her promise to call Rich and Cary to meet for lunch, I'm sure they'd appreciate getting their book back!

Ruler of the Roost

A couple months ago, mama's car, a 2000 Honda Civic, died an expensive death. First, it wouldn't start. It wouldn't take a start and the battery, starter, solenoid and alternator all tested fine. Unfortunately, the ignition module and coil did not, and they were replaced. The next day, the car stalled out in the middle of a busy intersection. Just died, right in the teeny weeny spot in the intersection between the place where the double left-turn lanes separate. Scary stuff. Some nice guys walked into the intersection to push her out of the way, and the car was towed to the dealer this time. They replaced the spark plugs, one of which had a hole in the side and caused a major misfire. What? All that from a bad spark plug? That was actually replaced the day before with the ignition system? After getting all the labor and spark plugs refunded from the first shop, mama had to replace the CATalytic converter at a crazy cost. But guess what? The car was losing gas mileage, and struggled up even small hills. Mama was furious, because she bought the Honda brand new in 2000 because of it's reputation to last forever. Mama swears she took care of it, but it never ran the same after the spark plug thing so she got rid of it.

And got something called a crossover SUV. WOOOHOOO, right? Well, for her maybe but not for me.See how high off the ground that is? Well, okay, so it's not like an 18 wheeler or anything, but for a small dog like me and in comparison to the Civic, this thing is up there! Believe it or not, I can jump in it (barely, but I can). But for some reason mama won't let me jump out of it. She says she's afraid of me getting something called arf-ritis if I land on the hard pavement too much, so she's been picking me up and lifting me out of it. You know something? I hate being picked up!

Well, today she got something delivered by some big brown truck. She said my being picked up to get out of the car days are over. Here's why:

Mama says it's really better suited for the back of the vehicle but I don't ride back there so she says I can use this as long as she is right there with me to hold it steady as I get in and out. Here's a little video of me being "bribed" to use it:

You might notice that the entire back seat of the car had a makeover to make it just perfect for me. I'm not a big fan of car rides (sometimes it makes me sick, which the cushion is supposed to help prevent by raising me up a bit), but even I have to admit: This is a back seat made for a king!