Wordy Wednesday

Sleepy-head Stanley. Lately, after breakfast, instead of going back outside (into the unbearable heat) I find Stanley back in bed, completely content to just lay there. Sometimes (if I have time) I pull him out of his kennel and onto my lap for some snuggle time :)

Back to the Fifties

To say that Matt loves car/auto shows is an understatement. He has been looking forward to this car show all year. The month of June I basically "lost him" to our garage. He spent (almost) every free minute out there working on his truck. Not just any truck, but his 1954 Ford.

When the car show weekend came, he spent ALL of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday there. I mean ALL of it. Getting up at 4am and getting home after 7pm. But it's his thing and he loves it! I wanted to go one day, but couldn't go on Friday (because I work), and Saturday was just a long day, so I decided to go on Sunday (when the show only went until 3pm). Little did I know that we were going to be out the door by 5am! Ugh that was rough.

But it turned out to be a beautiful day, a little hot, but bearable. I of course brought the camera and my new lens (which I'm still in love with and have no plans to use the 30-day return policy) to try to get some photos that captured the day.

The car show is held at the MN State Fair grounds...which also means that tons of food vendors are there!

My cousin, Taylor, is in the metro area for the summer interning at the MN Zoo

Matt's parents came out too!

Probably the funniest thing I saw all day. Someone set up a fake dog, lifting it's leg on a car...and sprayed the ground with water!

Me and my handsome husband (and his handsome 1954 Ford...which is now for sale)

Bump-a-licious

A few hours before Josh and Emily's baby shower, we got together to take some maternity photos. They chose a location by our homes, which I had never been to. So I got there a little early to scope out the situation and hoped to find a spot or 2 that would work. What I found was a GREAT location! Full of a variety of settings and beautiful lighting options! I will definiately keep this place in mind for the future!

I was also pretty darn excited because I had JUST received my new lens in the mail (the UPS guy showed up literally as I was putting the dogs in their kennels and was grabbing my camera bag!). I quickly switched out lenses, took a couple practice shots with the new lens, just to be safe packed the lens I had been using, and RAN out the door.

 (p.s. that light streaming through the trees was completely natural! Love it!)

Wordy Wednesday

The puppies have been so helpful with these late night, photo editing sessions :)

Baby Shower

A few weeks ago I attended Matt's cousin's baby shower. They are due mid-August and are simply adorable. The cake was made by the same woman who made our wedding cake...and it was ah-mazingly delicious :)

Lillie just couldn't resist helping open the presents

Lillie recently learned that if she has food "residue" on her fingers puppies will lick her fingers...which she LOVES!

Yes, these dogs are wearing clothes and being carried around. See, I'm not the only crazy dog-lady out there :)

This is Lillie, the human, petting Lily, the dog  :)

Kongs

I have happened upon a few blogs that have now become some of my favorites. And yes, they are dog related blogs.

One of the tips I read was about feeding from a Kong. Basically it talks about using Kongs (and other treat/food dispensing products) to give dogs their meals from, instead of a bowl. Not to bore anyone with details, but there seems to be a lot of benefits from doing this so I decided to give it a whirl and see how it goes.

One reason (for each dog) that I decided to do this was:

1) Stanley - he eats waaaay too fast and sometimes throws up because of it (appealing, I know)

2) Hank - the post (and other articles I've read) mention how this exercise helps dogs build their confidence. Hank doesn't have confidence?!? I know, it was a hard concept for me to grasp too. But maybe I'll talk more about this at another time.

Long story short, we started doing this about 2 weeks ago. Mon-Fri mornings are hard (because we don't have much time in the mornings), but Saturday and Sunday mornings we feed this way. And they have been getting their dinner this way every night (unless we get home late and feel bad for making them wait so long, I mean they are REALLY good at giving sad puppy eyes).

Over the past few weeks that we've been feeding them this way, I've learned a few things:

1) Stanley is NOT patient and readily makes noises that sound like he is dying from being starved to death, just to make sure we know that he thinks we are taking too long.

2) Hank was very confused at first about this whole Kong thing, although he has chewed on the empty Kong before, he just keeps sitting by his bowl, so we've been giving him his Kong by the bowl. He still takes a while to eat it (which is fine by me) and still leaves some food in the Kong when he walks away.

3) DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF OF THE DOGS. I learned this one the hard way. It was one of the first days and it didn't even occur to me to watch them or separate them. Well, I had literally just turned around to refill my glass of water when I heard a fight break out behind me. Long story short: Hank was apologetic for the rest of the evening, Stanley was grumbly the rest of the evening and has a hole in his lip (that is now since healed), and they are now separated by a "baby gate" during Kong-time (Stanley is in the hallway on a towel and Hank is in the dining room).

What does Kong time look like?? Like this:

What's in the Kongs: some of their dry kibble-y food, then a bit of food (mashed bananas, mashed carrots, or a dollop of pb), then some more kibble-y food, then sealed off by a little more of whatever the other food-of-the-day was.

I had also read a tip to make the Kong last longer: fill like explained above, then freeze. We tried this for Sunday dinner (when Matt's brother, his gf, and our niece came over). It definitely kept the puppies occupied the entire time we ate dinner! It was awesome! And I'm sure they loved the cool treat from the excessive heat.

What Dog Blogs was I talking about? These 2 are my current favorites:
~ Love and a Six-Foot Leash - written by a couple who has their own "bully" dog and also fosters "bully" dogs from a shelter local to them and helps them get adopted into a perfect furr-ever home. Great stories, great photos, and great advice/tips on general dog care and training.
~ Lucky Dog Rescue - written by Ashley (the owner of the rescue and boarding organization that  focuses on "bully" dogs and is in Meridian, Mississippi.

Sarah's new cats

Earlier this year my sister suddenly (and tragically) lost her cat, Claude. Over the past few months I know she has been debating whether she wants to get another cat or not. Recently she has felt a little stronger about doing this and was waiting until she found the "right" one.

Well, she found an adorable cat at a shelter by her (the same shelter she got Claude from). He had no tail. She went and spent some time with him and loved him. But a few days later when she was ready to make a decision, someone else had already snatched him up.

She was very sad, but I had told her that the shelter I volunteer at was currently running a "sale" on adult cats (because they were so over-run with kittens and the adult cats were severely getting passed over). She had decided she didn't want a kitten and would rather get an adult cat that needed a home, but wasn't as crazy-hyper as a kitten was. We looked on the shelter's website and she found Chester...he has no ears.

But alas, when she went to go check him out, someone had already snatched him up too. (We thought that cats with "missing parts" wouldn't be wanted, but according to the shelter, they actually go pretty fast. There must be quite a bit of people out there who feel bad for these guys).

Well, I had known of a cat that I thought would be perfect for her. The only problem, he looks like Claude did and she said she didn't want another cat that looked like him, it would be too painful. So I didn't tell her about him.

On my way home from work one day I called her and asked what she was doing. Her response: sitting in a kennel...petting some cats.

Apparently she had gone to the shelter and happened upon the puppy room (which is typically reserved for litters of puppies and their moms, but because there were no litters it was being used for cats who liked being by each other). I asked if she was going to be there for a bit so I could stop by and see her, she said yep.

Sometime between us hanging up and me getting there, she decided that she was going to adopt not 1, but 2 adult cats. She just couldn't decide between the 2 that were together and when she learned that they had been there for quite a while and were getting "lost" (as in loosing a reason to live), her bleeding heart self couldn't walk away without them.

The ironic thing: one of the cats (Magic) was the exact cat that I had thought would be perfect for her. He looks very much like Claude and I know that it's been hard for her to see Magic and think of Claude, but I think they are healing each other. Magic is about 6 1/2 years old (that's about how old Claude was) and was getting to the point at the shelter where he was starting to disengage from people and other cats. Since joining the shelter, I've learned that that is a very serious point to be at, one that can be hard for animals to recover from.

I keep telling her how proud I am of her for not only getting another cat, but 2 cats AND adopting them from a shelter instead of buying from a pet store. AND she chose to get adult cats instead of kittens. AND she chose a black cat (which can be sooo hard to adopt out) and a torti (which can just seem kinda crabby and therefore sit at the shelter for a while).

Like I said, I know it's been bittersweet for her and although she is very happy with her new babies, there is a part of her that will always love and miss Claude.

Roberta (appx 5 years young)

Magic (appx 6 1/2 years young)

His resemblance to Claude is uncanny!

Back story on how these 2 got paired up: they didn't arrive at the shelter together and hadn't been in the same kennel until recently. They both had been at the shelter for quite a while and were getting crabby in their old age ;) so they were given the "luxury suites" (aka the puppy room). Originally they were separate but for a couple days in a row, the morning crew came in to find that Magic had jumped over the side divider wall (which is about 6 feet tall) into Roberta's kennel side...where they were snuggling together. After a few days of him doing this, getting put back in his own kennel, and being found in Roberta's kennel again in the AM...it was decided to just leave him over there. He remained over there, with Roberta, until my sister adopted them.

The interesting thing is that if he had chosen to jump forward or to the other side, he would've been able to leave the room completely and hide who knows where (probably in the comfy bedding closet). But day after day he chose to jump into Roberta's side, rather than jump out on his own. We at the shelter thought it was pretty telling of how lonely he had become: he would rather jump into a kennel of a cat he had never met (and didn't know if he/she was friendly) than sit by himself any longer.
These 2 have now taken up residence in the loft of my sister's townhome, yep they have an area for all their stuff that is the size of a small bedroom...and the run of the entire house also :)