The Calm Before the Storm

So, I was sitting here thinking to myself, “what can I possibly blog about today?” when an e-mail arrived from my new friend, Julia. She saved the day! Because I was about to say something boring like, “It hasn’t started snowing YET. But it will. Predictions vary, but we could get a couple of FEET.”

The e-mail contained a bunch of doggie pics, which I decided my faithful fans deserved to see. I call this collection of images Weird Shit People Do To and With Their Dogs. Thanks, Julia!

These images got me thinking about what other weird dog pictures might be out there.

So I googled “weird doc pics”. These are just some of the gems I uncovered…

Sorry, but that’s all I have time for.

And, by the way, it hasn’t started snowing YET. But it will. Predictions vary, but we could get a couple of FEET.

UPDATE

I was reminded that I forgot to add my girlfriend Tracey’s baby girl, Snowy Day, the toy fox terrier who was less than thrilled to be dressed as a pumpkin and then in a Santa suit. Truth be told, I think it was the gold lame booties that pushed her over the edge. She was SO not happy that she refused to move. So when Tracey stood her on the floor, she just fell right over!

Unhappy Halloweenie
Unhappy Snowy Santa
Really Unhappy Snowy Santa

I would have loved to get a picture of Snowy laying frozen on her back, with all four bootie-clad feet sticking straight up in the air, but we were laughing way too hard. You just had to see her face. She was pissed. It was priceless.

If you’d like to see a slideshow I made for Tracey a few years back, click the link below:

Snowy Day’s Tour of America

Oh, How We Love the Snow

My dogs LOVE the snow. I love that they love the snow. As if you couldn’t tell by the gazillion snow dog pictures I post.

Seriously, I just love watching them play in the snow. Meg enjoys the snow at her own leisurely pace.

Meg burying her face in the snow.
Meg rolling in the snow.
Meg tunneling through the snow.

The younger dogs enjoy racing around the yard in the snow. Of course, they love racing around the yard in the grass, too.

K chasing Belle.
K and Belle wrastling.
K and Belle wrastling some more.
K and Belle wrastling still.

They play like this a lot. It’s much more entertaining when they are outside. When they’re indoors, it gets sort of noisy.

Wanna see something funny? Yeah? Well first, look at this.

Our cute little Belle.

Isn’t she cute? I mean, really, doesn’t she just have the cutest, most innocent looking little face?

Well, today I captured the funniest/scariest/weirdest picture of Belle ever. See for yourself…

Now THAT is scary.

While I was outside, I also captured this interesting image.

Meltwater

Later, I got a couple more sunset shots. The colors in both were enhanced using Photoshop Elements.

Sunset Sky
Another Sunset Sky

The weather folks are saying we might get another blizzard.

More snow dog pics to come if we do!

World of Pets Expo

This past weekend was pretty fun for me. Friday night was spent cleaning out the basement. That was NOT fun and it’s nowhere near complete. I’ll explain the basement thing some other time.

K and I at the American Brittany Rescue booth.

On Saturday morning, Amy and the grandkids came for a visit. I didn’t have time for pictures as I was busy helping Amy remove some of our basement treasures.

Then I had to leave for the World of Pets Expo that was held at the Timonium Fairgrounds. The fine folks at Annie’s Pooch Pops pay for American Brittany Rescue to have some exhibition space. Those of us who volunteer for ABR and have Brittanys of our own take our dogs to the expo so people get to see what a Brittany really looks like.

Fortunately, no one asked me if K is an ABR dog, because she came from the National Brittany Rescue and Adoption Network. I volunteer for both groups.

Notice I did not say “dog” show? It was a pet expo. There were all sorts of pets there. Birds, cats, alpacas, monkeys… even a contingent of people from the American Gerbil Society.

I did not walk around nearly as much as I would have liked to since K was with me. She did very, very well, but I think the crazy sounds (squawking parrots) and smells (miniature horses and alpacas) were sort of freaking her out.

Eurasian Eagle Owl

This is a Eurasian Eagle Owl. Obviously, it’s an owl typically found in Europe, but it reminded me of the Great Horned Owls we have in the US, which I think are very cool. I would have asked the guy about him, but when K and I walked by, he was sitting in a pen that had a sign reading something like “world’s largest rodent, eats 9 pounds of food a day” and talking to someone else. I didn’t want K to spook the owl, so I took a quick picture and we moved on.

One of the reasons I like doing stuff like this, in addition to helping the dogs of course, is that I get to meet and talk with lots of different people. I get to see lots of dogs, too. In fact, when I arrived, I could not find the ABR booth. I saw a couple with two liver-and-white Brittanys. They saw us and exclaimed, “Look another Brittany!” (Britts aren’t that common in Maryland) We chatted briefly and then they directed me to the ABR booth.

I took quite a few pictures, but most didn’t turn out very well. I didn’t feel like lugging my big camera, so I relied on the little point-and-shoot I recently bought. It just did not do well on indoor pictures. I will, however, share some of the images from the day.

The picture below is Julia Smith and her dog, Cooper. Oddly enough…

  • He is also a liver and white roan, one of the least common color patterns for Brittanys
  • Cooper was adopted from ABR in 2004 (the same year we adopted CeCe)
  • He was fostered by the same foster family in Virginia (Kelly and Jeff Murray) that fostered CeCe
  • He is the reason Julia became an ABR volunteer (CeCe is the reason we got involved, too)
Julia and Cooper

Here’s another picture of Cooper.

Cooper

I have some other shots to share, too, even if they are not the highest quality pictures in the world.

Andrea and Sam

Andrea, the Maryland ABR Coordinator, is Chester’s mom. She has another boy dog, Bodie, who I could not seem to capture in a decent picture.

Finally… an anonymous big-ass (literally!) dog.

K and Clifford, the Big Ass Dog

Clifford is a Newfoundland. I forget how old he is. Maybe about 4. But I do remember that he weighs 165 pounds! And he is not overweight.

Clifford

The same folks also had a “little” brown Newfie puppy, who at 15 weeks weighs 34 pounds, which is more than Belle or K!

Wanna know the puppy’s name? She is Emily Elizabeth. šŸ™‚

Clifford was very sweet, and very well taken care of by his family. All I kept thinking, though, was, “My lord, I’d hate to see one of his poo piles!”

And that was my Saturday. Sunday was a really, really fun day, but I’ll have to tell you about that tomorrow. I have to get to work…

Chester, the Orange & White Brittany

Most of my readers know I have several dogs. They’re all Brittanys. Technically, the plural form of Brittany should end in “ies”, but I prefer using Brittanys.

All of our dogs came to us through breed-specific rescue organizations:

C, who we lost in November 2008, was our first dog. She was rescued from a breeder and adopted through ABR.

Meg, who turns 11 in June, was our second dog. She was an owner-assisted placement through ABR. An owner-assisted placement is what you call it when an owner contacts the rescue group to surrender a dog, for whatever reason, but agrees to keep the dog until a new forever home is found.

Belle, who will be 3 in June, was our third dog. She was surrendered to ABR by a family who was losing their home to foreclosure and could no longer care for her.

K and Belle make the goofiest faces as they play...

K, our fourth Brittany, who will be 4 in June, came to us through NBRAN. She was dropped at a kill shelter by her previous owners who could no longer afford to care for her.

... but they sure have fun playing together.

Why switch rescue groups? We were looking for a very specific dog to add to our family. We needed to find one that was a certain age (young) with just the right temperament. ABR didn’t have any dogs fitting the bill at the time, so we discovered NBRAN. I’m glad, too, because K is an amazing dog. And, through NBRAN, I’ve met lots of really wonderful people.

American Brittanys come in three different colors: liver & white (like Belle), liver & white tri-color (like Meg) and orange & white. Their coats can either have a clear (Meg and Belle) or roan (like K) pattern with ticking (freckles).

I figured I’d give you this little bit of background before introducing you to Chester, an orange & white Brittany, who happens to be the latest addition to our pack.

Meet Chester.

I’m not sure of Chester’s exact age, but he’s definitely a senior. I think the vet estimated him to be around 11 or 12. He looks much older, however, because he has some sort of spine issue that makes walking sort of difficult. He also tends to get a bit confused. He’s gotten stuck behind our sofa twice now because he couldn’t remember how to back up/turn around.

He’s a sweet old guy, though. He’s pretty quiet, but paces a lot while in the house. It isn’t easy for him to sit either because of the spine issue. Plus, this place is new for him.

Belle keeps forgetting Chester is here. All of the girls hang out with me while I work in my upstairs office. Chester doesn’t do steps too well so he’s been staying downstairs. A couple of times now, when Belle has run downstairs and seen Chester, she’s started barking. She barks pretty loud, too, which has set the poor guy’s heart a-pounding.

K doesn’t seem to be thrilled by the old guy, but I think that’s just because he doesn’t play. Meg, being Meg, is mostly indifferent to him.

"Mama, he won't play with me."

Hubby says he reminds him of Duke, our first long-term foster dog. Oddly enough, Duke and Chester were both pulled from the same kill shelter on the same day in late 2004. The lady who fostered Chester had just lost a Brittany of her own named Duke, and knew fostering a Duke would be hard on her. SO she opted to foster Chester.

Chester is what this particular lady, the Maryland state ABR coordinator (she coordinates for other states, too), refers to as a failed foster. Chester was not the failure. The failure was all hers. You see, once she’d had Chester for a while, she couldn’t bring herself to give him up. So she adopted him. She’s had two more failed fosters since then (Bodie and Sam), too.

The lady (Andrea) had to go on a business trip. She put Bodie and Sam in a boarding facility, but didn’t want to subject Chester to the same, with his various issues and ailments. So he’s staying with us for a few days. I picked him up on the way back from Carol’s house yesterday. He’ll only be here until Friday evening.

Belle is checking Chester out.

Yep, Chester’s just a temporary addition to our pack, which I could have said at the very beginning of this post, but thought it would be much more interesting to let y’all think we had completely lost it and added a fourth dog!

He's not very speedy.

Sorry, but I just could not resist. šŸ™‚

Chester enjoying some sun.

It’s very weird having four dogs here…

Meg Update & Some Strange Excitement

Remember how sick Meg was?

"Oh, Mama. I don't feel good..."

After her brief (thankfully), but very scary bout with pancreatitis, Meg is back. See for yourself…

As for the STRANGE excitement…

This "strange man" mysteriously appeared...

Last night, while the girls were all outside, a strange man showed up in our kitchen. The minute she saw him, Belle started barking. Of course, K came running to investigate. She saw the strange man and started barking, too. Loudly. They both meant business. By that time, Meg showed up. She was barking, too, but her heart wasn’t in it. Especially after the strange man opened the door (the little girls were still barking), removed his big glasses (the little girls were STILL barking) and his yellow hat (barking continued).

The “strange man” was Hubby. I don’t think the little girls liked the yellow hat.

Later, after we finally convinced the little ones to come inside, things had settled down.

Thinking nothing of it, Hubby put the hat back on so he could return to the basement (he’s in the process of finishing it).

Well, that set the little knuckleheads off again.

They must really hate that hat.