My Birthday Blizzard

According to my parents, I was born during a blizzard. I tried to find snow totals for that storm on the Internet, to no avail. I’ll just have to trust them. Since they’ve told me the story at least 40 times, and I’ve heard them tell others just as many times, it must be true. Right?

The Predictions, courtesy of Julia Smith

Before the storm arrived, well in advance, the weather guys said it was going to be a big one. As you can see from the map on the left, we were in the “totally screwed” region. We were supposed to get 20 to 30 inches. I was so excited. I love snow. I really wanted 30 inches. Really.

The dogs love playing in the snow, too. But keep in mind, Meg’s back is 21″ high. She’s our tallest dog. Belle’s back is 18″ high. And she’s got short legs. K has longer legs, but the top of her back is still only about 20 inches off of the ground.

I could not wait to see how the dogs reacted to that much snow. I told Hubby to make sure I was awake first thing in the morning before her let the dogs out. I wanted to get it on video. I did.

Throughout the course of the day, I got lots of other pics and video, too. I’ll have to share more of them later. Between playing in the snow, cooking and eating, I just did not have time yesterday. And now I need to go and shovel some snow. I’ll do a longer post later.

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. 🙂

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…

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.