I die. To quote the kid from that dentist video, “is this real life?”
I mean… come on, Internet. You’ve outdone yourself this time. Please remind me of this when it’s time for your annual performance review. I smell a bonus in your future.
I’ll be doing a new feature here on Sundays, featuring adoptable pets from local rescue groups. In particular, I’ll be sharing adorable adoptables from the Humane Society of Fairfax County (HSFC) and A Forever Home Rescue Foundation (A Forever Home).
First up… meet Tabasco! (Awesome name, right?) This cutie is a neutered male. He’s described as a terrier mix and weighs approximately 35 pounds. Here’s his bio from HSFC’s website:
He is a real
character and loves to show off his funny antics. He’s great with
people and other dogs, loves to go for walks and is a total lover boy.
He has the cutest puppy face even though he is about a year old and
weighs approx. 35 pounds. He may be an American Staffordshire mixed with
some other type of terrier because of his face and head shape, but
whatever he’s mixed with, he’s adorable. Make an appointment to meet
Tabasco and add some real spice to your life.
Next, I’d like to introduce you to an adorable guy named Wallie. Check out that face – a person would be lucky to have that smile greeting them every morning. Here’s his bio from A Forever Home:
“Okay, let’s get the vital stats out of the way and then I can tell you
all about my friend Wallie. Wallie is a male poodle mix (we think
Bichon) of approximately 7 years of age. He weighs 19 pounds (could stand to lose a few – sorry Wallie, but it’s true) and is neutered and
potty trained. How did Wallie end up with A Forever Home animal rescue?
Well, certainly through no fault of his own. He was badly neglected by
his previous owners and when they decided they didn’t want to care for
him any longer (not that they did much of that to begin with), they
threw Wallie out of their car window at an animal shelter. The shelter
contacted AFH to come and rescue Wallie and the rest, as they say, is
history.
Since then, Wallie has been lovingly cared for in a foster home
as he waits to find his new family. I had the pleasure of meeting
Wallie last week. Wallie is a very sweet fella. You should know that due
to Wallie’s lack of attention in his past, he has developed cataracts
and his vision has been affected. He’s like a furry little Mr. Magoo.
That does not stop him from enjoying life and it certainly does not keep
him from being a loving affectionate guy. Oh, and don’t pass Wallie by
because of his age. Some dogs at age 7 are seniors, but poodles like to
keep us company for a range of 15 to 18 years. Wallie deserves a great
home with people who will treat him like part of the family. I promise
you he will give as good as he gets. If you would like to set up a
meeting with Wallie, please have your people contact his people at A
Forever Home.”
If you’d like to have your people contact Wallie’s people, visit A Forever Home for more information or email Info@aforeverhome.org. To view the other pets available for adoption at A Forever Home, click here.
A Forever Home also has a weekly adoption event at the PetCo in Chantilly. For the address and to find out more info, click here. (If you have your eye on a specific pet, please email for information first – not all pets will be at the weekly event. However, there are a lot of awesome pets in need of homes, so if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and meet some of them!)
Do you have room in your home (and your heart) for one of these pups? Then contact HSFC or A Forever Home. If you know someone else who might be in the market for an awesome companion, please share this post. Let’s find some homes for these great pups!
Bios and photos used with permission from HSFC and A Forever Home.
It’s Friday… thank goodness! (Now I know why it’s always said the other way. IF…TG is not really as catchy as TGIF.)
As always, it’s time for some fun links to send you into the weekend. As a bonus, today’s post includes information about a K9 Kamp giveaway! Read on, friend…
As you know, I’ve been participating in K9 Kamp for the last few weeks. Today, I’m the featured blogger at Peggy’s Pet Place – swing by to check it out. In addition, K9 Kamp is giving away a set of hand-crafted, eco-friendly Fetching Sticks from Molly Products. You can enter by heading over to Peggy’s Pet Place or on this blog after the jump…
While I was visiting my dad, Roscoe decided to wrestle with Emmy (another of my dad’s dogs). Think you can beat my caption? Give it a shot in the comments.
Speaking of getting a workout… it’s time for another K9 Kamp update! This week’s challenge was called Tug & Tone – it involved doing lunges, squats, and other exercises while playing a game of tug, as well as racing your dog.
This week’s challenge was a bit of a mixed bag… Bella’sRacing her was
moderately successful – she tends to get distracted easily, but I was able to
regain her focus by reminding her we had a good tug game going.
Part of the challenge did involve getting in push up position; however, I have wrist issues and had to make a modification. I did some extra lunges instead – Bella didn’t seem to notice my substitutions.
Be sure to check out Peggy’s Pet Place and Kol’s Notes today for more updates, and visit them tomorrow for information on Challenge #4.
It’s almost that time again… soon the leaves will change and start to fall from the trees, which means lots of raking in my future. Last year, I think we ended up raking enough leaves to fill 75 bags. Yes, we have a lot of trees…
Raking leaves always makes me think of my childhood dog Scotti. She loved to chase leaves. We’d rake up a pile, and then Scotti, my sister and I would jump into the pile and play for hours. Those are some of my favorite memories.
Last year was our first autumn in the new house. We were no longer in an apartment, so Bella got her first exposure to this whole raking thing. We tried to convince her to play in the leaves, but she wasn’t very interested. We even (gently) tossed her into a pile of leaves, but she didn’t see the fun in that. I’ll just have to live vicariously through videos of dogs playing in leaves instead:
Tell me… does your dog play in the leaves or “help” you with the raking?
Last month, I was notified by Katie from Tripbase that I had been nominated to take part in My 7 Links. (A huge and belated thanks to Kim from This One Wild Life for the nomination – sadly, it took me this long to write the post. Oops…)
The goal of My 7 Links? “To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share
lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts
that deserve to see the light of day again.” Sounds like fun, right? Here we go…
This was kind of a tough call – I think that a lot of the photos I’ve shared of Bella are quite beautiful. (I’m biased, I know.) However, I decided to go with something a bit wordier: “Lend me your eyes and I’ll write you a blog.”
2. My most popular post
According to my stats, my most popular post (based on page views) was one from my recent series recapping the BlogPaws pet blogger conference. Specifically, the post entitled “BlogPaws Episode 2: Say hello to my not so little friends,” in which I discussed listening to the guys from Rescue Ink give the keynote on the first day of the conference.
(My photo post “Leave(s) it to Bella” was a very close second in the page views category, while I received the most comments on “Take a look at me now,” a post I did as part of the Pet Blogger challenge reflecting on my blogging experience.)
3. My most controversial post
I’m not the most controversial of bloggers. (I love puppies and cupcakes and spend way too much time talking about pop culture, after all.) However, I think that the post that qualifies as most controversial is probably “Dogs in hot cars: when will it stop?” The story I shared in that post was horrifying on so many levels and did inspire some debate.
4. My most helpful post
I’m not sure I’m that helpful either. However, I was a bit torn on which post to list here – some of my recent BlogPaws posts have contained some useful information, but I wanted to go with something a bit older. I do think that “Bella: the Great Houndini” was a pretty useful post – I shared some of our methods of Bella containment and I think that the ideas there would be helpful for others dealing with their own crafty canines.
5. A post whose success surprised me
As you may know, I have a regular feature that I call No Frown Friday. These posts are kind of a hodgepodge of things depending on what I have on the brain that week. I never really know which ones will strike a chord and which ones will fly under the radar. I find it interesting that the most popular of these posts has such an unassuming title: “That’s one way to stay cool.”
(Also interesting – the most commented on Friday post was “Appreciate a squirrel today.” Guess it’s not always puppies around here.)
6. A post I feel didn’t get the attention it deserved
This one was kind of a tough call. There are many posts from the early days of the blog that never really saw much traffic. If I had to pick one, I’d probably choose “She’s cute, but…” This post is a perfect introduction to Bella.
7. The post that I am the most proud of
I knew that the post I selected for this category would be one where I was blogging the change for animals or sharing an important cause. I think I’ve settled on this one: “Blog the Change: Pets of the Homeless” (the first time I mentioned that particular cause on the blog). I think that this is a really important organization, and I’m dedicated to spreading the word about it. (I discussed it again as part of the recent Pay it Forward blog hop.)
So, those are my links. Now, for the fun part – nominating five others to participate! After checking the list of bloggers nominated so far, I think I’m not duplicating… if so, my apologies. Anyway, I’m nominating these great bloggers:
Happy Monday!
When last we saw our intrepid heroine, she had just finished lunch on the last day of BlogPaws. What adventures await her in this installment?
After lunch, it was time to head to my final session. I chose one entitled “Copyright Basics for Bloggers & Staying Out of Trouble with the FTC.” Obviously, I’m not here to give you legal advice, but I am happy to share some resources so you can learn about copyright, product reviews and contests. These sites will provide you with some handy information:
After this session, I finally managed to meet Sharon from Grouchy Puppy, thanks to some help from my pal Kim over at This One Wild Life. Sharon was on my must-meet list, but we hadn’t managed to make it happen yet. While I chatted with a few bloggers, including Sharon and Diane from To Dog With Love, we were treated to a special presentation:
No offense to anyone else, but I’m pretty sure that Cosmo was the cutest speaker at the conference.
After this adorable presentation, Sharon, Diane and I did what many bloggers do with downtime – we had a photo shoot! Sharon (and Cleo’s proxy) posed for a few shots with Cosmo. This shot was my favorite:
Sadly, the end of our photo shoot also meant the end of my BlogPaws adventure. Irene was fast approaching, so I headed home to spend the evening hanging out with Bella and hoping my power wouldn’t go out. (Spoiler alert: my power did go out. However, it went out at 2:30 A.M. and was back before 10 A.M., so I won’t complain. I don’t think Bella even noticed.)
Well… that’s all, folks. (I’m at a bit of a loss – what will I ramble about now that this series is done?) I had a great time at the conference and met some absolutely wonderful people. I hope you enjoyed these recaps – if you want to read or revisit any of my BlogPaws 2011 coverage, you can do so by clicking here.
In honor of Petfinder’s Adopt-a-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week, I’m dedicating this week’s No Frown Friday to the less adoptable pets out there. This week’s motto? Appreciate, don’t discriminate!
We end today’s post with a video of one of those less adoptable pets…
Based on how cute this “less adoptable” black dog is, I can only conclude one thing… people are crazy.
Today, I have a special treat for you – a guest post from one of my favorite bloggers! Editor-at-Large for LIFE+DOG Magazine and Founder of Grouchy Puppy, Sharon Castellanos writes to educate and inspire people to focus on the beauty and joy of having a dog in their life. She shares stories and interviews that strive to illustrate how we all have it in us to give fearlessly and influence positively. I was lucky enough to finally meet her in person during BlogPaws in spite of that whole hurricane thing.
I think pets, like a fine wine, get better with age. Below, Sharon discusses ageism and appreciating older dogs. It’s the perfect post to share with you during Adopt-a-Less-Adoptable-Pet Week.
The upside to many of these stories in San Francisco is thatYou may remember my dad’s dog, Roscoe. His cuteness has been documented on the blog before. I went to visit my dad this weekend (sans Bella – she and the hub stayed home). On the technology front, it was a recipe for blogger withdrawal – dial-up Internet and a crappy cell signal. Regardless, it was nice to spend some time with my family, and I still had puppies for entertainment! One of those puppies was Roscoe, who managed to be insanely cute while taking a nap:
I’ll share more photos from my trip another day – I think this photo stands on its own. Do you ever find your dogs sleeping in funny positions?
Oh, and I also wanted to update you on this week’s K9 Kamp challenge. This week, we were supposed to incorporate fetch into our workout. However, there was a twist – after throwing the toy, Bella and I raced to get it! (As you know, Bella and I already broke out the rope toy in order to
complete last week’s challenge. So, of course that’s the toy we used
for the fetch challenge as well.)
This week’s challenge was definitely more intense than
our walking from last week. Bella’s pretty fast when she’s got her eye
on a rope toy. However, she also tires out relatively quickly, so we
broke it up into several chunks of 10 minutes or so each. (Also,
probably a good thing it wasn’t me asking her to fetch the rope bone and
bring it to me… she’s never quite mastered that game. She always
takes the toys back to Toy Corner instead. She’s like a homing pigeon.) It was a fun challenge!
Be sure to check out Peggy’s Pet Place and Kol’s Notes today for more updates, and swing by tomorrow for information on Challenge #3.
