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!

V.I.P.

Hey great folks. Mama entered me in a contest to find Tucson's V.I.P. (Very Important Pet). I know you think I should win. And I know that you should head over HERE and buy some votes for me. The proceeds from purchasing votes goes to the local Humane Society, and mama will provide one bag of dog food every month for a full year to the Food For People's Pets Program at the Hermitage Cat Shelter! So if I win, TWO animal shelters also win! So what are you waiting for? Get over there and VOTE.

Mama Finds the BEST Toys

Coming Soon to a Shelter Near You!

Well, hopefully something exciting will be coming to a shelter near you! Mama has a couple of projects in the works. First, for those of you on Facebook, mama wants you to go to Facebook and look for the group named Paws Around the World, appropriately acronymed "PAW". Then she wants you to request to join this group. Why, you might ask?

Because mama's got an idea. See, mama's workplace has a "Pet Picnic" every year where co-workers bring their pets to a local park and party down. This past year she started collecting donations of pet food to donate to a local pet shelter's food program. The food is collected and then distributed to families with pets who are struggling to feed those pets. This got mama thinking: Wouldn't it be cool if we could spread the word about projects for pet shelters so more people everywhere would see things going on in their communities that they could participate in and help pet shelters raise funds, adoptions, or awareness? Well "PAW" is aiming to be the means by which we can do just that!

Mama is still ironing out the details of how this Facebook group will work, but here's the gist of it: Say a Beagle rescue in Arkansas is planning a fund-raising event at Some Park. Say they want people to know about it. Say someone on Facebook's group, Paws Around the World, makes a post about this activity on the PAW facebook page. Then say someone in Arkansas, near Some Park, posts the activity on their own Facebook page. Then say that someone has 240 friends who see that activity posted on that someone's status update. Then say that out of the 240 friends who saw the activity on that someone's status update, 10 showed up to the event and donated $10 each. Then say of the 230 that didn't go to the event, 20 people donated $10 to the rescue group. That's $300 donated to the beagle rescue because one member of PAW posted the activity on their own Facebook page!

Now let's say that there are 200 members of the Facebook group Paws Around the World and that everyone who belongs to it makes a status post to advertise that beagle rescue's event (they'd know about it because they read about it at the PAW group page). And of those 200 status updates advertising the beagle rescue's event, 10 readers of those updates made a donation of $10 each from anywhere in the world. That's another $100 raised for the beagle rescue in Arkansas. So from one post made to the Paws Around the World Facebook grouop page, $400 was raised for the beagle rescue in Arkansas because they decided to hold a fundraising event at Some Park.

So get on over to Facebook, search for the group Paws Around the World (http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=117458753114) and request to join! Activities won't start immediately; we'll need to wait until we get some members. And if anyone wants to help organize and administer this group with mama, be sure to make a comment to this post telling her so!

Now the other project: Food For People's Pets. This is a food program in Tucson, Az run by The Hermitage Cat Shelter. The aim of the FFPP program is to collect donations of pet food (not limited to cats) to provide to families in town struggling to feed their pets and at risk of surrendering or {gasp} abandoning them because they can't afford to feed them. Mama tried once before to help the group "get the word out" but is now trying again. We now have a new logo, adapted from the cat shelter's main logo by Deanna Terrell of Legacy Boxer Rescue in Texas. You'll be seeing alot of this logo around here, so get used to it. And while you're at it, get over to The Hermitage Cat Shelter (http://www.hermitagecats.org/) and make a donation to the Food For People's Pets program!

More Summer Fun

Well, at least for mama it was more summer fun. Me? I got to stay home. Let me start from the beginning:

I knew something was up on Friday night. Mama did her laundry, and she never does her laundry on Friday night. Then, Saturday morning, after I woke her up at 4:45 a.m. {evil grin}, she started putting things in a tote bag. No, not doggie things, HUMAN things, like shorts, undies, toiletries, etc. Suspcious, but not too damaging. Until the hair dryer went into the bag. When THAT goes in any type of bag it is NOT a good thing. Sure enough, a few hours later she was gone. Okay, I said to myself. She'll be back by 6 like always.

Only she wasn't. She left me with Grandpa ALL NIGHT. I showed him though: I kept him up until 1:00 A.M., going in and out for hours, clawing at his bedroom door. He finally opened it and I bolted down the hall, laid down and went to sleep. I was gonna be waiting for mama no matter what he wanted! Only mama didn't come back until almost NOON on Sunday! The NERVE.

She said she went to a friend's house in Phoenix for a Barbecue. Mama's become quite the fan of the grill here at home. The last thing she made was chicken:

She said she knew I'd understand her absence when she told me WHO she was going to meet: Do you remember that I've often made posts on here about mama's friends Donna and Joe who were adopting a baby from China? Well, they adopted her in January and mama finally went up to meet her this weekend! I suppose I'll forgive her, since I was as excited as mama when they FINALLY brought Lauren home. Mama shared some pics of her with me today. There is even a dog in some of them: Christine's JRT Ruby, who mama says loves to dive into the pool again and again and again and again; she'll dive in for as long as people keep throwing balls for her to catch!

Here are the pics mama took of Lauren:

Summer Fun

It's been quite a while since I posted anything. That's because mama and I have been busy having lots of fun. Well, at least it started out as lots of fun when mama brought home a new food-stuffable toy for me:

But then we had a weekend visitor again. You must remember Maggie, the cute yellow lab puppy I introduced you to back in about March? She's not so little anymore. When she first got here she stayed in the open floor:

While I hid beneath the table across the way a bit:

We eventually got a bit closer, though:

I survived the weekend quite well: Maggie finally got the message that my ears were NOT stuffie toys. So it wasn't too bad.

Then Saturday something weird happened: Mama went to a friend's house for a pool party and this time, she took ME with her!

When we first got to the pool, I sat next to her sitting on the pool deck and let her spoon water over me. Then she put me IN the water; I didn't like that so much. Mama's grittin' her teeth cuz I'm working so hard to get to the side and out of the pool! Mama wasn't surprised that I wasn't a swimmer, but she was impressed that I didn't go beserk at the mere sight of it either!

One thing I don't understand, though:

Why did mama make me take a bath on Sunday when I was just swimming on Saturday?

This Video Needs No Introduction

Some Birthday

So, last Wednesday was my assigned birthday. I'm FOUR! Thanks to my well wishers! I wish my own mama was one of them. Did I get a fancy toy? NO. Did I get a trip somewhere? NO (but that's probably a good thing since long trips make me carsick). Did I get a birthday cake? NO! Mama says a cake would have caused both my mouth and my butt to explode. I could have lived with that!

So what DID I get? A trip to the vet on Saturday (my extracted tooth site is almost all healed). And a trip to the groomers (yuck).

Oh, wait! I did get something special. What do you think of my new blog header and color scheme?

Maggie May

A few months ago, mama posted some pictures of Maggie, a yellow labrador retriever puppy that visited us. You might recognize this photo:

Now this next photo is a bit darker, but you might compare and contrast the expression on my face between the above photo from a few months ago and this one:

Can you just see how, er, thrilled I am to have another animal in this house? NOT!. Especially now since she's grown so much and is twice my size. She's not near done growing yet, either.

I was a good host, though. I shared all my toys as I chomped on hers:

Mama would have posted a picture of Maggie trying to chew on ME but she was too busy trying to redirect her to take a picture of it, though it wasn't for lack of opportunity to snap the shot. Mama kept telling Maggie that *I* was not a chew toy, but Maggie was so playful she didn't want to hear it!

Mama thought Maggie, being a lab, would love to play in water. I'm not so sure she does:

She went in the pool to fetch a ball but really didn't embrace the water. What kind of lab is she, anyway?

Maggie does two things as well as I do:

Sniff:

And sprawl:

In spite of Maggie's obsession with my ears, which mama says was nothing more than Maggie trying to engage me in play, mama was very impressed with Maggie's training. Last time she was here I commented on how her walking skills SUCK. Well, no more. Now she walks almost as good as I do ('cept she doesn't yet sit automatically at the end of every curb like *I* do!). She also knows sit, and will do so on command even if she's in the midst of an activity. She also is very good at going to her "Spot" and staying there until released. She was so good at this, in fact, that mama is now trying to teach ME to go to my spot and stay. Gee, thanks Maggie.

I'll close with a few videos of Maggie's visit with us. Mama had fun, and said I was a stellar host. What impressed her most, though, was that I didn't show a single sign of fear as I normally do when big dogs are around.