Finally, A Noseventure

Well, Alpha Mom did kinda make up for her heartless abandonment of me. First of all, she came home last night, which was great cause for celebration. But today went even better. I thought that she and Blog Mom were going to take me for a walk and I was all psyched for that, but instead we got in the car.

So, I got psyched about that instead. They didn't tell me where we were going, but being a dog, I'm an optimist and assume it's going to be someplace great. And this time it was. We went to the Willow Rock Horse Farm, where my very big brother and his friends live.

This is not my brother. This is Shorty who is the greeter there. He's getting ready to greet me. I can't imagine where he got the name "Shorty" from, can you?

Now this is my very big brother, Sarge. His full name is Sergeant Pepper, but everyone calls him Sarge. He was hanging out in a paddock when we arrived.

He's very friendly and is usually glad to see everyone, especially if they come bearing carrots. Doesn't he have a nice face?

I think he's got a nice profile, too. Sarge was hanging out right near the Family, as I think of them. They deserve their own post and will get one soon.

The big guy is William and the minis are Dolly and her daughter Bells - or Belles. Not sure which. More about them in a new post very soon.

It seems that this horsey is being held prisoner. I wasn't able to find out why. He seemed pretty calm about it, I must say.

 There goes Shorty, helping out with something else. He sure keeps busy.

What a beautiful day for this outing. And so many sights to see and smells to sniff it's hard to think what to do next.

I didn't catch their names, I'm afraid, but they seemed to be a pair of good friends.

Everyone comes up to the fence as you pass. For one thing, you never know who might have a carrot on them.

This is Gala. She's an Arabian, but she's not all snobbish about it at all.

Time to find some cool shade. There's plenty of that inside the barn.

Gabe was in the barn, too. He's Gala's son and he felt it was time for a Little Something. I just thought I'd have a nice drink.

It's been a lovely day, but it was time for me to go. Back in the car and home to a long afternoon nap.

Note: Blog Mom has informed that she'll probably be home late for the next two nights. That means we have a forecast of only partial visiting and a probable lack of posting for a couple of days.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

Tomorrow is Memorial Day here in the U.S. and that makes this Memorial Day weekend. Today is also May 30th which is when the holiday used to be before they made a bunch of holidays fall on Monday to make three day weekends. That was about a thousand years before my time, however.

In my opinion, the Memorial Day part of the weekend really starts on Sunday, mostly.. Saturday is more regular except for the Veterans of Foreign Wars selling poppies to raise funds  at the entrances to most supermarkets and other big stores. Blog Mom likes to buy poppies from everyone she encounters, even though they're not real. She says our war veterans need all the fundraising they can get since we keep making more of them all the time. The main purpose of Memorial Day, though, is to honor those who died in the line of duty. 3 pm tomorrow is the National Moment of Remembrance, so a lot of ceremonies will take place then.

Whatever you're doing this weekend, I hope it's going real well for all of you.

I've Been Abandoned!

I am despondent. Please don't mistake the photo above for a  comfy afternoon nap. That is me sinking into a black hole of despair.(Ok, there might be a little napping going on there.) I've been left behind. Alpha Mom left early this morning  and won't be back for 672 days more than 24 more hours. The only ones left here are me, the two cats, Blog Mom, Daddy, my human brother and the foster bass player. The house seems so EMPTY! This is going to upset my night time sleeping schedule quite a bit, too. The normal routine is  that right after my evening nap is over Alpha Mom and I go up to bed. I sleep in her bed for a couple of hours or so and then I spend the rest of the night in my own bed. The one that's in her room. I have three, actually. One downstairs and two upstairs. I'm kind of a collector.  Now I know that Daddy and Blog Mom would be delighted for me to sleep in their bed, but it's kind of Simone's territory.

I don't think she'd think that four's company, do you? And I'm just not sure I want to cross her. Soooo....I guess either Blog Mom or Daddy will have to sleep on the couch while I try to struggle through on the loveseat and/or my bed. I hope Alpha Mom is satisfied if I end up with bags under my eyes tomorrow.

Saturday Blog Hop

We're finally doing it. Better late than never. Thanks, Life With Dogs!

Major Success Story for Rescued Pit-Pei

You gotta love this one. There was this headline: Horribly abused dog wins Sunriver Resort contest.

A large margin of online voters agreed that the victim of one of Oregon's worst animal-abuse cases should be the next Director of Barketing at the Sunriver Resort.
Tivi, a Sharpei-pit bull mix, was found on the side of the road two years ago -- his muzzle taped, bones broken, his body doused in gasoline and burned, then left for dead. 

This week, he took a commanding lead over nearly 300 other entrants in a contest to find the next public face for the Central Oregon resort's pet-friendly lodgings.

There's more about prizes and how he's been adopted by a wonderful, loving human. He still has to wear clothes because of damage that some of the burns left. Then there was a link to his Tumblr blog. . He and I have a few things in common. We're the same age and we don't  like walks in the rain for instance. Anyway, I read through his whole blog - which is mostly photos -  and fell in love with him and with his human, Jonathan, and I thought I'd like to share because I bet a lot of you would enjoy it, too. His life has had a major upgrade and it's looking like happily ever after for Tivi.

(I hope Jonathan doesn't mind that I sort of borrowed this picture. I just wanted to show how cute Tivi is.)

Mayzie's Family Tree

As probably everydog in the whole world knows by now, Mayzie knows all about her dee-en-ay, but she's not telling us yet. First there's this contest with fabulous prizes and green papers going to charity besides. If you haven't entered yet, you should really go do it right now. I'll wait right here 'til you get back and then we can talk about it because we might as well. We have to wait a week to find out anyway. I didn't care a bit who Mayzie came from, but now that she knows, I can't wait to find out. I guessed that she had a Boston Terrorist granpawrent. Blog Mom liked that but I told her it was my guess and she had to come up with something else. I think she might have said French Bulldog after that. Alpha Mom said GSD. See, we were all trying to account for the ears. Clearly someone had a Brindle gene, but also there was someone with mighty good hearing in Mayzie's family tree. Simone thought American Staffordshire Terrorist, which is certainly possible, but it's not where she got the ears. Happy said Maine Coon. He's not bright at all. Maine Coons have long hair. Also they're cats. Silly Happy.

Besides its being fun, what I'm thinking is - well, everyone loves Mayzie. You can't help it. She's adorable. If it's known what's in the recipe for a Mayzie, maybe she could become a designer breed. It could happen. I was reading about Ocicats recently. Yes, really. They sounded interesting and very nice. It's said they might like dogs. Anyway, the Ocicat breed was developed by accident. The breeder was after something else entirely and it all involved three different breeds. It took a while to realize they were onto something, too. They just neutered the first one. Well, it could be like that with Mayzie.No one realized at first that she'd be a hugely popular breed, but I bet she would. I bet then all the movie stars would show up in People magazine with a Mayzie on the leash. You'd see Brangelina with their 862 kids and a purebred Mayzie. Jennifer Aniston would finally give up on men and just get herself a Mayzie. So, what do you think? Right now, Mayzie is one of a kind, but must it always be that way?

Lost and Found

I have to tell you what happened to some friends of ours. About two and a half years ago they lost  Pinocchio who was their Shih Tzu. He disappeared right out of the yard, leaving behind his family and his collar. His human girl who, although very young at the time, was never any kind of fool called it right away. It was a dognapping, she said. And between the collar and the fact that there was no sign whatever of Pinocchio to be found it did seem like that was what happened. A lot of time went by and it seemed like there was nothing to do but accept that Pinocchio was gone for good and they had no clues as to his whereabouts. This would be bad enough at any time of life, but the family had already suffered about as devastating a loss as a family can. The girl's Daddy had only recently died of cancer while still in his thirties. Still, they eventually had to move on and they got a little girl Teacup Shih Tzu named Lily and got on with life, because really, what could they do?

Well, just a few days ago, Pinocchio's Mom got a call from the local animal shelter. He was microchipped, you see, and they had him there at the shelter. As it turned out, he was found right on their own street. It's looking very much that wherever he was, he was just biding his time until he could make an escape and when he got the chance he lit out for home. His own real home, that is. No Stockholm Syndrome for Pinocchio. When his Mom and his girl went to down to the shelter he was in a cage and as soon as he saw them he went all ballistic with excitement.  And when they had to step into another room to complete paperwork he cried and cried the whole time. But now he's home and everyone is happy except maybe for Lily. I'm sure she'll be just fine with it once she gets used to the idea.

Reunited and it feels so good

 You have to love a happy ending. I do wish that Pinocchio could tell his humans, and the authorities, just where he was for two and a half years, though. Anyone who would steal any dog, let alone a kid's dog deserves a visit from the police dogs. Or just the police. The other thing that I think is kind of interesting about this is that, while there are exceptions, most dogs adjust to rehoming. All of us rescue dogs have had to do it and most of us are quite happy in our new situations. This little guy was not having it. He was the victim of a crime and he seemed to know the difference between that and adoption. Good for him.

Cats! Part Deaux

It's about time I finished introducing my cats. When we left the subject of our family felines Simone was living happily ever after with Stevie, and only incidentally, Blog Mom and Daddy. The only fly in that ointment is that there is no "ever after" in real life. Things change in good ways and bad ways and just in ways, all the time. One way that things changed was that Happy joined the family. He had already been named. He certainly wasn't happy when he joined this family.

Happy in a more characteristic pose

Happy was a victim of a landlord/tenant problem. One of the neighbors had been renting an apartment in his house and then he had to sell in a hurry and the tenants had to go, also in a hurry. Seems they forgot to pack the cat and Happy was left behind and considerably traumatized by this abandonment. That's not hard to understand.

Of course, once my family found out about it Happy was invited to stay with us. Or ,rather, them. These events predate my arrival by a couple of years, at least. He didn't want to come in for the longest time. He liked people, but was terrified by other four leggers of all types. If Happy had been listed on Petfinders it would have said that he'd prefer to be an only pet. The only thing is, with the number of cats available for adoption at any given time, and Happy being a gray tabby - not exactly a rarity - it was thought that he might be better off learning to adjust than to take his chances at the local shelter.

They let him stay in the garage and fed him there for a while, but Alpha Mom took him to the Vet for a check-up, shots and a neutering right away. Seems his original people had forgotten to do that, too, and he was left free to roam around the neighborhood creating more homeless kitties. After a time the humans here decided that the garage thing wasn't working out so well. It was constantly filled with other cats, most of whom had homes of their own, and they were eating Happy's food up. He was getting skinnier and skinnier. They insisted that he had to at least eat inside. He did and gradually got used to things like soft furniture and warmth on cold days and such and got big and plump and healthy.

Here's what Happy is -confused. Since he was outside for a long time he's allowed out when he asks. He just pretty much stays around the yard anyway. He has a strong urge to go out at night, too. As soon as it's dark he starts asking to go and will get kind of crazy if someone doesn't let him right out. The thing is, he's neutered. He doesn't need to hunt. He doesn't really know why he's out there once he's let out. So as soon as the door is opened again he comes back and has a bite to eat. And then he starts yowling and insisting that he must go out again. With the amount of coming and going in this house that whole process gets repeated at least five different times during the evening.  It's fairly entertaining, actually.

 Simone, of course, wasn't happy about Happy joining the household. She isn't exactly a "more the merrier' type. She tried to say she wasn't having it, but found out that she didn't quite have that kind of authority. She had to adjust, of course, but she's still probably less than thrilled about the whole thing. Stevie didn't mind. He never really minded anything. He didn't mind my arrival either. The others did, of course. But they had to adjust to that, too. Now, with the exception of an occasional brutal attempted attack on me, we're rubbing along all right, I think.

An Award and TGIF

Our very good furiends Buddy and Ginger have conferred The Versatile Blogger Award upon this blog. They blog at Pawprints in the Sands of Time in case you haven't found their blog yet. I think most of you have, but it's a must read in case you haven't sniffed it out yet. I want to thank them and their Mom very much for this. She's a doctor and still finds time to type for them. Isn't that wonderful? I think it is.
Now part of the rules state that you should list seven things about yourself. I did that recently for another award, so will repost that, updating where necessary.

1. I'm multi-lingual, conversationally, but I only understand commands in French. I posted about that not too long ago.I hate vegetables and kibble - not necessarily in that order.
2. My humans have adjusted to the kibble issue but are not happy about the veggies. They worry that I'll get stopped up and constantly plot to get veggies into my diet.
3.  I like sidewalks. We don't have many in the residential areas around here and I'm so happy when we take walks in town where they're on every street. It's one thing I miss about the city. My humans worry that for a generally pretty smart dog I don't have a lot of traffic sense and they have to keep reminding me to keep to the side of the road when we're walking. I say that it's not a question of not having traffic sense. What we don't have is sidewalks. Cars on street, foot traffic on the sidewalk. You know where you are with a sidewalk. Of course there have been instances where that system has broken down and cars wind up on the sidewalk or in the window of a building, but no system is foolproof.
4. Cheese. This one is very redundant but no post about me, Lola, would be complete without a bit of cheese appreciation. 
5. As a Shar Pei, I belong to a previously persecuted minority that was almost rendered extinct and not so very long ago, either, historically speaking. All Shar Pei know this history, but some other dogs might not. We do plan to talk more about this in the future.
6. I am perfectly lovely to my cats, even if they fail utterly to appreciate my good nature and behave as though I were about to attack at any moment. For Dog's sake, I don't even engage in guarding behavior with my food. What else could they possibly want from me? 
7. Blogging is one of the best things Blog Mom and I decided to do. Not only have we met the most pawsome other dogs, humans and some great cats, we've gotten even closer than before. A dog's typist has to pay close attention so as to properly represent said dog's words and thoughts. Although it must be said that recently exhaustion has rendered her a little...limp. We expect that to be a temporary situation, however. 

As we've been doing lately, we're passing this award on to everyone who follows and/or visits us regularly. We're just not great at making choices like that.

Wordless Wednesday - Feline Edition

The tragically misnamed Happy

Peaceful Weekend

I want to thank all of you for your kind comments. Of course, the thing of it is that we miss YOU when we can't keep up. It's just not the same if we don't know just what you've all been up to. You make us smile and amaze us and sometimes we have to worry for someone, but in any case, if we're not in touch it doesn't feel right.

Us, we weren't up to all that much this weekend, but that wasn't all bad. Daddy felt quite well on Saturday and he and Blog Mom went out to the store. Alpha Mom and I had a nice morning until it was time for the groomer and my bath. There's some upheaval there, I have to tell you. A couple of weeks ago I had a week off from the dreaded bath because, according the alpha groomer, they had a "family thing" and were closing the shop. Well, when we went back the next week it was entirely different people running the place. It had been sold! It was a little upsetting because even though I hate baths, I rather liked the people, but I'm always up for meeting new people and the new people running the place seem to be very nice young women. They also have a Golden Retriever on staff, helping out with receptionist duties so I have to like their hiring practices. We'll see how it goes, but I do have to mention that they neglected to put a new bandana on me this week. It's not that I lack for bandanas, but it's just a nice touch. In other woofs, the jury is still out and I still hate baths.

Today, Daddy was sleeping a lot. That usually means he doesn't feel so great. I try to help out be licking him awake whenever I feel he's been sleeping too long. He seems to appreciate it. It was a beautiful day, just like yesterday, but Blog Mom felt she needed to stay close to home, so she and I spent some time together in the back yard. She felt bad about the lack of new pictures and was hobbling around on her lame foot with the flashy beast hoping I'd do something that looked different from the ten zillion pictures that we already have of me in the self same yard. It was kind of pathetic.

Because here's the thing - I generally do the same thing back there every day. First I check for birds and/or squirrels to chase and chase them as needed. Then I check the perimeter. Just in case.

I sniff around in case anything is new. Nothing much was new today. Not since yesterday. If  nothing interesting is doing in the adjacent yards, that's pretty much it until I get bored. Then I either go inside or nap out in back depending on the weather and my inclination. I declined to play ball. I just wasn't in the mood for that, plus I really prefer to have the human do the fetching. I just like to get hold of the ball and kill it and then kind of fling it and run back to the human sans ball. Then the human goes and fetches the ball and we do the whole thing over again. Let's face it. Blog Mom was in no shape to fetch. So I suggested that we just have some face time. I'd lend her an ear if she wanted to talk.

So we chatted a little. Not about anything really. Just companionable conversation, you know. 

We shared a few laughs.

There's really nothing that beats good company to put things in perspective. If I do say so myself

I've Been a Bad Blogger

During this past week or so I have been a terrible blogger and in the last day or so, I've even fallen behind with some furiends' blogs. I hope to catch up some this weekend. Blog Mom says it's been rather fraught here lately. "Fraught" is a word she tends to use at the times when her face gets all tense and things are going wrong. Things this time around involve going to human vets a lot, mostly with Daddy. Plus she hasn't got her lame foot fixed yet, because the foot vet is waiting for approval from the insurance company. So far he only got approval to look at it.

Then there were the plumbing problems. Humans absolutely require a lot more plumbing than we dogs do. All this has resulted not only in a lack of blog posts, but also a bit of a dirth of new pictures of me, Lola. I'm putting in an older one so you won't forget what I look like.

Me, when people had time to take my picture

Some of this, of course, is to be expected when you adopt older and special needs humans. If Daddy had been on Petfinders he would have had one of those little hearts under his name.Thank Dog that Alpha Mom is still in pretty good shape. I don't regret it a bit, though. Older and special needs humans need dogs at least as much as younger humans do. Someone has to do it, and they show their appreciation every day, even though you really can't tell it by our recent blogging frequency.

A Sad and a Happy

First The Sad: Like quite a lot of us, I first heard of Digby when Booker urged us to go visit because he was very ill. He fought long enough to get to know him a little and what a courageous little fighter he was. When it comes to us dogs, it's not the quantity but the quality of our days on earth that matters. (That's a thing we Shar Pei have to keep in mind all the time.) It sure seems like Digby got a lot out of life, but our hearts go out to the family that will miss him most.

The Happy is that it's Madi's Gotcha Day. Always a reason for celebration. Being that Madi is a cat, I wanted to show some solidarity with her in this post and conjure up one of her own pawple to convey my congratulations.

I hope it was a great Gotcha Day, Madi. And many, many happy returns of the day.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms - Whether you're Human, Doggie, Kitty, Bunny, Gecko or even Squirrels - Here's to Moms of all species!

Oh, and speaking of Moms, Simone is so on Blog Mom's list - and not a good list, either if you get my drift. Blog Mom has been saying to everyone how Simone has mellowed lately and become such a nice, mentally stable kitty. And it's true, she has been much more pleasant. Except this morning she was sitting on Blog Mom's lap while they checked e-mail and I was just passing by on the way to my bed. It was time for my morning nap, you see. I didn't even glance Simone's way. I wish we could all be closer, but the truth is the cats and I generally confine ourselves to a stiff nod if we must pass in the hall or on the stairs. Otherwise we just ignore each other. That's their choice and not my idea of how families should interact. So I was just passing by, thinking no thoughts about a pussycat whatever. Simone got all stiff and hissy and Blog Mom told her to knock it off, but she paid no attention and took a swipe at me, claws out, too. Attacked me, in other words. She missed, but Blog Mom is so disappointed in her she said. That's the worst - when they're disappointed in you. Simone knows it, too, because she's been sitting on Blog Mom most evenings since this big personality improvement she was supposed to have had. Not tonight. She's over on Daddy who wasn't in the room for the brutal attempted assault.

Blog Mom says if Simone keeps it up she just might reconsider the idea of getting me a little brother. She says that one of the reasons they, so far, have decided not to is because these cats are not fond of dogs and I don't bother them. I think Blog Mom's thinking is along the lines of "If you're going to hiss and scratch maybe you need something to hiss and scratch about."  I doubt if Blog Mom will go through with it. I'm pretty much using up the canine portion of the family budget very nicely, for one thing. I'm not sure how I feel about it myself. I like company, but I have it awfully good being the one and only dog, but I think it's good if Simone contemplates the possibility and develops a little appreciation of....well....of me, Lola.

Suryia and Roscoe

This story isn't new, but it was new to me. So, if you've already seen it, well, it's probably still fun to watch again. Plus there's important public service information at the end.

Thinking Good Thoughts About Mona

Well, the upside of this foot problem is that Blog Mom is home today. The down side is that she's still not much use, but I told her that if we did nothing else we must do a post to send be well wishes to our very good furiend, Mona and her Mom. She is having surgery and while we're sure she'll be fine in the long run, our wishes for today is that she is fine right now, this minute.

Mona, we're all thinking about you today and sending all the  positive vibes we've got and that's a lot.

Blogging Might Be Slow For a Few Days

I just wanted to let my furiends know that we might experience some blogging and commenting delays for a while. Blog Mom has gone lame! Yes, JUST like a horse.She had an x-ray and she's got bone spurs. She's waiting for a referral to an appropriate vet.

Why in the world would this slow down blogging, you ask? Does she blog with her feet? She doesn't, but that would be something to see.  Well, at first, it didn't affect our more sedentary activities. Not really. This has been coming on for a while. But as the pain has gotten worse, Blog Mom has become less useful in all areas of life. As of this evening she has taken to spending a fair amount of time lying about on the couch, moaning and whining. It's times like this that you really have to feel sorry for two-leggers. It's not so easy for them to just pick up one leg and go about their business with what's leftover as we so often can. I've put my nurse's hat back on and I feel that my special "I know you don't feel good" licks have been some help. At least we can put this post up.

In between bouts of dramatics, we'll attempt to visit as usual, but I doubt we'll be able to visit everywhere in a timely manner until we've cleared this up somewhat..

Send Me No Carrots

You know, being a blogging dog has been almost all good. The wonderful furiends - well, I can't say enough about how great it is to be part of such a warm, friendly, furry community. And, for the most part it's only enhanced my relationship with Blog Mom, since we're partners in this endeavor. I'm the more important partner, of course, but partners nonetheless.  There is just one little fly in my ointment and I wondered if anyone else out there was having similar problems. It stands to reason that anyone who is obsessed involved enough with her dog to help the dog blog is going to give a fair amount of thought to the care and feedng of us. I'm for that. But it seems that there's a fairly large contingent of us who have been brainwashed  into enjoy eating rabbit food healthful fruits and vegetables. And they blog about it. And Blog Mom reads all their blogs.

Well, live and let live, I say, but it's been giving Blog Mom ideas. Do you know what happened just yesterday. Well, she went to the grocery store and brought back bags. The unwritten rule here is that when she does that,  there should be something for me in at least one of the bags. I was innocently rummaging through, trying to help out by pointing out which bag she should look in first, when she took out a bag of carrots and offered me one! I was gobsmacked, I tell you! I was so shocked that I almost turned down the snausages that she'd also bought.  I think that Blog Mom is getting me confused with one of these:

The fact of the matter is that I think of myself more like this:

I am a predator. I give chase and bring down my prey, be it roast chicken or ravioli. I am a carnivore. Also a cheesevore. Not a vegevore, Moms!

Thank You, Bunny!

Yesterday was big. I got mail. It's only happened once or twice before, from my Aunt Donna in California, mainly. So, what could this be?

OMD. It's my GABE giveway from Bunny! I did pick out the color myself but I still had no idea it would be so beautiful! I am totally going to rock in this.  It's a no-pull harness (we'll see about that) from Wiggles, Wags & Whiskers. As you can imagine I wanted to try it on right away. The problem with that was that the Moms felt that it would be best all around if I waited until someone was ready to take me for a walkie. They might have been right. I would not have taken kindly to getting all dressed up and then being told that we weren't going anyplace after all. I only had to wait until this morning. It just seemed longer.

As  you can see, I did my best to be ready with a coordinating collar. It's not too matchy, matchy is it? I rather like it. I think the whole thing brings out my red highlights quite nicely. It's a very sturdy harness. So well made.
And the parts that go around me behind my front legs - velvet. Yes, I said "velvet". I feel even more like a queen than usual. So, let's try it it out.

You can kind of see why the Moms and my other humans felt that a no pull harness would be a good kind of harness for me. It feels good. I can still pull, but Alpha Mom says that whether or not it helps me deveop better habits, it definitely gives her more control  She and I took a long walk with it and her arm is still in its socket, so I'd say the harness did its job.

I should add that the double leash training mode is optional and this wonderful harness will take a regular leash, too. Bunny sent it with everything, which she didn't have to do. We'll have occasions to use it both ways and I'm already planning color schemes for when we want to use a single, longer leash. I think spring into summer my red leash with the silver reflecting pawprints would be a kicky combo. And I'm considering my hot pink one, also with silver reflecting pawprints, for a midsummer sort of surfer look. Too daring and wild? What do you think?

Since I was in a good mood after the walkie, I agreed to model the collar, too. But now I think a nap is in order.

Dozing in the warm sun, after a long walk. It doesn't need to get a lot better than this.

I do want to thank Bunny once again for a  most generous and welcome gift.  We will be getting a lot of use out of it.