Peeps on Parade and Pip, too.

I know we're late. In some timezones the weekend is all over already. But we figured we could just get a short Peeps post in before it was too late. Thank you to Sarge for this interesting idea.

 Now the Moms will not show up in photographs. They are either vampires or ghosts or maybe in the Witness Protection Program. Daddy doesn't mind, though. Perhaps it's because no on told him Blog Mom is posting him to the blog. Hee hee.

That's Daddy on the left. Franklin's the one on the right. I think the one who got cut off  might be my human brother. There are like a zillion pictures of him on the web. Here's one we...er.....borrowed.

That was when he was out on the road all the time, which he is not now. Which, believe it or not, is one of the reasons we haven't been online as much, lately. It's a long story, but the short version is he changed his life around some and now the house is more full of peeps more often, keeping my Blogging assistant much busier than she used to be. I like having more people around, but it's a bit annoying not to have my blogging assistant at my disposal. Still, things like that never stay the same for too long around here. We just have to go with the flow, is what I'm told.

Daddy's the one who's home with us the most. He's retired and not always well. But he loves us HUGELY and spends tons of time seeing to it that we have everything he thinks we want or need. He worries about us a lot, too. We're not sure why because we're fine, thank you, but he means well. Music has always been his great love. Classic rock is his favorite. He also likes sports quite well and he builds model cars as a hobby now that he's home all day.

Daddy and Blog Mom are married. Blog Mom works during the day as a bookkeeper at a not for profit organization. She loves her job. She isn't as crazy about domestic chores. Daddy does as many of those as he can if he's feeling well. Sadly, he doesn't cook. Franklin lives downstairs with them all the time and sleeps with them at night. I live downstairs with them during the day and early evening if Alpha Mom is not home.

Alpha Mom works in the same place as Blog Mom. Alpha Mom has worked there much longer. She's an attorney there. On weekends there's Sarge, of course. He's our equine brother who does not live here at home. He's a draft cross. Alpha Mom has loved all animal, but especially horses and doggies all her life. She is a vegetabletarian, too. I live with Alpha Mom when she's home, which is not as much as Blog Mom, and I sleep with Alpha Mom at night.

We still have our foster bass player.  In fact he's been here for four years, so Blog Mom is getting less optimistic about finding him a forever home. Here's a photo:

He's not only a fine bass player, he's quiet, housebroken and knows most basic commands. Franklin and I want to keep him. So far so good.

We want to say Happy Blogaversary to Mr. Pip. Looks like we didn't quite make he deadline to join in the Superhero fun. Blog Mom actually got her dates mixed up about that. But that doesn't mean we're not enjoying all the super creative superheroes who have shown up there because we are. And most of all, we just are so glad that we've had this chance to get to know Pip.

Thanks from me, Lola

I want to thank everyone who came by, sent their well wishes and even sent new furiends to visit. It really lifts a girl's spirits to have so many supportive friends. I'm feeling quite well on the Rimadyl now. The only bad thing is that I do still need it to feel well and will probably have to do a second round of it and then go back to the Vet. But now I can go up and downstairs again, and get up on the furniture and even run around a bit, so I'm not complaining.

I was feeling like this. 

But now I feel more like this. Better, right? 

 Our spirits were really lifted today when we learned that Hero is on the mend and healing at last. There could be no better news. Our tails are wagging right off our butts and not just the doggies. The humans are that happy, too. Hero may be a boy dog, but I still think of him as one of my BFF's. Keep on feeling better and better, dear friend. You're going to need all your strength for dealing with your baby sister when she arrives.

 I guess I should say thanks to Franklin for stepping up here on the blog and also for allowing me to get rest and not bothering me too much when I was feeling especially bad. There'll be a little something extra in his doggy dish tonight. I'm also considering add him to my by-line on post and comments. What do you think? Is he ready? He'll have been with us for six months in a few days. It's beginning to seem quite permanent.

Dear Friends

We have to talk to you. We have been away from Blogville too much lately, but it might not get that much better before the holidays are over. We know we're not the only ones in this fix, but we'd still like to list our excuses reason for being absent so much. We wouldn't feel so badly about not posting new posts, but we've been so behind in visiting, too. That's where we start to feel like putting our tails right between our legs, because we just love every one of you. You know that, right?

1. Being a rather ecumenical family our holiday season is long this year. In fact, we hope our next post will be about Alpha Mom's Second Annual Latkepolooza, which we enjoyed immensely. But that's the thing. Chanukah started on the first of the month, just a few days after Thanksgiving and then there are two Gotcha Days coming right up (Blog Mom's and Daddy's) and of course the whole month is Christmas when you count all the getting ready for it. So that's the main thing.
2. Daddy has a higher than average number of medical things going on this month, too. Blog Mom goes with him. He hasn't been feeling great the last few weeks and that keeps Blog Mom just a lot busier than when he's OK.
3. Now Blog Mom has a Mysterious Ailment. Hopefully a little antibiotic will take care of it, but she's all swollen up around her eyes and the whole area. Actually, she's starting to look a bit like a Shar Pei, but you know - it's not nearly as cute on her as it is on us. Anyway, she's not feeling so great and has not been able to keep up helping me visit everyone as well as we'd like.

We just don't want anyone's feeling to be hurt and we certainly don't want you to forget us, or think that we forgot you. That's really all we want to say. We hope everybuddy's holiday season is coming along just great so far.

New Friends

I've been meaning to post about this for a while. Now seems like as good a time as any to think about a happy thing, along with keeping the sad things in mind. If you know what I mean. I few weeks ago, Blog Mom was on Facebook. ( She still won't let  me have an account.) She was reading the Sean Casey Animal Rescue page, which is my alma mater, as you may know. Well, there was another blogging doggy from Sean Casey so of course, I had to go visit her blog. She's a very cool black Boxer mix - with a little Shar Pei! Her name is Lucca and her blog is called Lucca and the Incredible Case of Awesomeness. She doesn't blog every day. Well, neither do I, lately. But if you have time go by and say hi to her. She doesn't bite. (That's a doggy related joke.)

Now, today, we got our 100th follower. I guess that's a milestone of sorts. He's a Bichon Frise and his name is Chester and I bet some of you have met him already. His blog, Pooch Tales,  is quite new and he's going about making new furiends. It turns out I have a number of things in common with Chester as well. He has a younger sibling and has had to make adjustments. He's also a rescue as are lots and lots of us. And he's a serous cheesehound. If you haven't had the pleasure as yet, by all means go meet him, too.

Awards Round-Up

We are very late with acknowledging some awards we've gotten. So late, in fact, that we're not sure we've got them all. As always, it's Blog Mom's fault. We did want to get this week started off right and try to get caught up with that.

We were given the Versatile Blogger award by Sam and also by George a shamefully long time ago.

Thank you so much, Sam and George. I may or  may not be versatile, but timely is clearly not among my attrtibutes.(Not my fault.)

A teeny more recently - this one is only inexcusably late on this, rather than unconscionably so  - I received these lovely awards from Hero (you have to see the artistic way he did that post if you haven't). Zelle also passed these to me, and was the first so far to include Franklin. He wants to send a big wet snuffle and snuggle  to Zelle for that. I also received these from K-9 Katastrophe. I want to thank each of you for including us. It makes me  feel warm and even fuzzier all over, even if I'm just awfully late in posting them.

 And if that wasn't enough, those wonderful folks at K-9 Katastrophe gave us the Doggie Bloggie Award, too! That works out especially well what with this being a Doggie Blog and all. Thank you, Ruthie!

Of course, there are rules to all awards and I guess I tend to break those. No longer able to pick out just five or 10 or even 15 blogs to award, I want to share these with everyone that we follow or visit with, here or on their blogs. That's because they're all great blogs, I am grateful for everydog's friendship and I think our furiends have some of the best Doggie Blogs anywhere - even in the cases where the furiend in question is a kitty.

Then comes the part where I'm supposed to  list a given number of things about me, Lola. I love that part, but I can't do it tonight. It's late and it's almost time for lights and good night and I wanted to get this up and thank the givers before another dog year passes us by. I think you all know just about everything there is to know about me anyway and if anything really interesting happens I come skittering over as fast as I can to post about it.

I want to apologize because I wasn't able to visit a whole lot of blogs in the last couple of days. Blog Mom kept going places instead of being here to work the computer for me. I know I've missed some important things and will be trying hard to catch up in the next couple of day

For George

As many of you have probably read, our furiend George, of Welsh Terrier fame, was just entered in an informal sort of dog show by his well meaning, but perhaps a little misguided, Dad. It seems that dog shows have not, so far, been the best venue for George to shine. George did not win. Or place. He came in last. This is incomprehensible to Franklin and me both. George is a Terrier of so many talents. Not only does he have a super terrific blog, he's just a wonderful travel writer. He's a  Morris dancer. We only learned what a Morris dancer was from George, so there you go! He's an educator, too. That's just scratching the surface, I'm sure, but on top of this multitude of abilities, George remains a regular dude and will accompany his Dad to the pub for a pint any time at all. Plus, he's very good looking, don't you think?

 

Well, we know that George is Best of Breed in our hearts so we are presenting him with our own blue ribbon for first place. We hope he'll accept it in the spirit in which it's given.

 

George, you're the best! 

Write A Post, Help a Dog

 It's a movement, fellow doggies! Pedigree is making it so easy to help our fellow dogs in shelters. For every one of us who becomes a fan of or likes The Pedigree Adoption Drive on Facebook, then Pedigree will donate a bowl of food to a shelter. AND, for every blog post we write about it, they'll donate a twenty pound bag of their Healthy Longevity food. What's not to like about that? Nothing is what. Donations of food help shelters take care of more of us and help to give us more time to find our perfect forever home.  This page on Pedigree's site will tell you lots of different things we can do. The blogging drive  kicks off today, Thursday, September 16th and goes through Sunday, so time is shortish to get your post in.



 I know I don't have to tell you about all the dogs who wind up in shelters ( like yours truly and Franklin and so many of our friends, too.) or how adopting one of us transforms lives, but there are some points that should be driven home during this event:

• Each year, more than 4 million dogs end up in shelters and breed rescue organizations. Pedigree created The PEDIGREE Adoption Drive to help shine a spotlight on the plight of these homeless dogs 
• This year the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive is raising awareness for homeless dogs by donating a bowl of food to shelter dogs for everyone who becomes a “Fan” or “Likes” The PEDIGREE Adoption Drive on Facebook. So far more than 1 million bowls have been donated.
• Special for BlogPaws West: For each blog that posts about the PEDIGREE® Adoption Drive through September 19th, PEDIGREE® will donate a bag of their new Healthy Longevity Food for Dogs to shelters nationwide. It’s simple: Write a post, help a dog.
   

Now, I learned about this from three different blogger friends. It was posted on Cooking With Dogs, Bocci's Beefs and Life With Dogs, so thank you to all of them. You can leave a link to your post at Life With Dogs'Special Edition Blog Hop starting this morning to make sure your post gets counted.

Well, No Time Left for a Real Post, But How About a Dance?

It looks like my post about the awards is going to have to wait another day or even two. There are a number of excuses reasons that Blog Mom is having such a hard time getting up to date here. One of them is that she hasn't been able to do much of anything since really injuring her leg earlier this summer. Now it's gotten to the point where she can function a little better. The ankle is not normal sized yet and the calf is still weak and she needs a cane to balance, but that's a big improvement from where she was, believe it or not. Sooo...she's had lots of catching up to do and she's on a tear in the house. She just went through the kitchen and the living room is next on her list for a fall cleaning and minor face lift. She says it's past time that we have to "beat back the crazy". More about that if there's anything interesting to report there.

What's important is that it's a happy day in the dogiverse, because Miss Molly's Mom is reporting much improvement on that front and Mona's Mommy posted a happy update on Shelby. It's enough to make a doggy want to dance. As it happens, my wonderful Aunt Donna sent us a link to a video of a very talented Merengue dancing dog, so we though we'd share that one with you. It sure did get all four of my feet tapping.





Now I have about an hour before bed, so I'm going to use that time to try to catch up with some of my furiends.

Thursday and I'm So Behind

I'm a little behind here.

I need to apologize to all my wonderful furiends. I haven't visited anyone at all today. I mean, I've read a few blogs where I could but I haven't so much as left a word. You know I love you all, right? And I'll catch up as soon as I can, but maybe not for another day. Our usual morning session on the web got cut short and tonight's not looking good either. That kind of thing happens from time to time and I'd be catching up with everyone instead of posting this Blog Mom culpa, but there are major events that have passed by while I was kept from my blogging duties.

This morning I did just get a chance to read that it's National Dog Day, which I didn't know was a thing at all. Thank you, Mayzie. If not for furiends I wouldn't know anything at all, I think. Of course, the day's about over now, but I sure hope everydog had a great one. Mine was so-so. To tell the truth I'm a little off my feed, which is making the Moms and Daddy just a tad nervous and that's part of the reason that I've had trouble getting online. They're too busy watching me and worrying  to keep up with everything they need to be doing. Like helping me blog, for instance.

There was another very impawtent event that I did not post about at the proper time, which was yesterday. It was Alpha Mom's birthday! She turned 385 in standard dog years yesterday, August 25th. We didn't forget her birthday. In fact, Franklin and I got her a netbook and she really likes it. ...Oh, OK, I'll tell the truth. We didn't buy it all by ourselves. The kitties chipped in, too, but only a little. But I think that it's only right to say a formal Happy Birthday to one of the best Moms in the whole world here on my blog. So, better late than never.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALPHA MOM! 

with love from me, Lola

Happy Barkday, Sugar

Sugar is nine years young today. She looks much younger, doesn't she? And she is having a blog pawty to celebrate. She says that all you have to do to attend the pawty is the following:

1. If you wish to celebrate and pawty on my Barkday, simply do a blog post on Tuesday, August 10th (my Barkday). About WHAT? Well, on how you would Pawty on my Barkday ... adventures will be doing and of course the delish treats will be eating
2. On my post on August 10th "My 9th Barkday,"
3. Feel free to use any photos in my blog to use in your post.

Easy Peasy, right? Well, I love a pawty. I'm assuming a lot of Golden Retrievers will be there, so it should be very social and fun. Goldens might be the most social doggies I've ever ment. I think starting with a good game of Pin the Tail on the Kitty is a great way to break the ice.

Then it would be pretty cool to work up an appetite (as if we needed to do that) with a good old fashioned squirrel treeing competition.

And then it would be time for a little something. I would love to try Sugar's Mom's Cheesy Bone Treats, maybe along with a little chopped liver. There's nothing like chopped liver for a pawty, I always woof. And maybe a nice cheese platter. Then, of course, the big moment and a ginormous cheesecake and we bark Happy Barkday to Sugar. Sounds like a great time to me, but I'm certainly open to other ideas and look forward to reading what others have thought up. Whatever goes on, I hope that Sugar has the best birthday ever.

Weather permitting, I will chase a squirrel in Sugar's honor today. I would love to toast her with a bit of chopped liver as well, but that one's not up to me. Failing that we'll think of her when as we munch on a tea time lamb and rice buscuit - not party fare, but more likely to be available

100th Post and Very Belated Award Post

Well, this milestone kind of snuck up on me, I'll tell you. Here it is, my 100th post and I had nothing. Nothing special planned at all. Due to my blogging assistant's injury - which is finally healing - we don't even have new photos. I had to use one from a month or so ago so you'd remember who I am. Another thing that almost got by me was that Road Dog Tales gave me a Versatile Blogger award a while ago and I am terribly late acknowledging that here.

Thank you so very much for thinking of me and I'm sorry for the tardiness. As many of you know, the rules that accompany the Versatile Blogger award include listing 7 things about oneself.  I thought let's put that together with my 100th post, mix well, bend the rules and post a list of things I've learned about being a blogging dog. So that's what I'm doing here, right now.

1. Big Welcome Licks: The pet blogiverse is incredibly welcoming to newcomers.  In my first post I cited two early inspirations. One was Hero and the other was Wimsey. Both came right over to say, "Hi" and Hero has become a very special blogging furiend ever since. Soon after that, yet another VIP (Very Impawtent Pei) Bolo posted about my blog and sent more new furiends over and pretty soon we were right in the middle of the pack! It was just a warm, wonderful beginning!
2.  Does Good and Promotes Animal Rescue: Some blogging pets are from rescue and some are from breeders.It doesn't matter where we came from. We're all for saving our fellow animals from homelessness, abuse, BSL and other horrors. Many blog posts raise awareness of particular situations.There are often contests or other promotions to benefit our less fortunate brothers in fur - or scales, or feathers for that matter. And sometimes we can come together in a concerted effort to make a difference to one furiend in pawticular, as in the case of Shelby. Lots of furiends are trying to help Mona's Mommy and the Pittie Pack help her. It's not all fun and games, pawple. We can be rather serious when it's necessary.
3. Pet/Human Project: Blogging turns out to be a project we do together with our humans, just like training. Those are always good. If they're going to help us blog they have to pay close attention to everything we're doing, thinking, feeling. Not that they didn't before, but blogging doesn't hurt, does it? And who's to say that knowing something will make a great blog post doesn't tip the balance when they're deciding if they should take us along or leave us home? Plus, I've developed my skills as a model. Where I used to be annoyed by the flashy beast, now I pose for it. I figured out that whatever it is, it's all about me, Lola! Well, now I guess it's about Franklin, too. And sometimes the kitties. But it's still a good, not bad, thing.
4.  Good Training: For the humans, that is. From advice about problems we may be having to news about the newest product out there that we might enjoy, our humans have access to a huge number of knowledgeable and informed pet pawple. That can only help them take care of us even better than ever.
5.  Few Aggression Issues: You have to figure with all these pet bloggers from all over the country and the world, there must quite a few humans who would have different views on a lot of things. And yet, we pretty much all get along and learn about each other as individuals, which makes all the difference. We're thinking that if everyone in charge of the country and the world was required to bring a pet everywhere and if everyone at super impawtent meetings sat down and talked about their pets before getting into issues there might be a better chance at reaching understandings. What do you think?
6. Oh, the Places We Go!: The only real way to learn about far away places is from pets who live there, don't you agree? From the steeples of Raleigh, NC to the jungles of Maylasia, we learn about the world. We get to join our furiends on their walks in India, Mexico and Chicago and travel to Airstream festivals, which we never even knew about before, and out west where the buffalo roam (and our cuzzin coyotes, too). We go to Collie-rado and Central Park and all over our  NYC. We have time traveled in Canada. Almost every morning we get to visit a village in rural France and we got mail (and pressies) from Singapore! And there is so much more than we can put down here. Our horizons have been way broadened by our furiends all over this country and the world.
7. Support System: It's a fact that bad things happen sometimes. We get hurt and we get sick and someday each of us will cross the Rainbow Bridge, which is such a sad time for our humans. There is nothing like having furiends and human friends who really, really care.  You know when we send or receive healing vibes we're not just being  polite. We really care about each other and we really feel it one of us is sick or hurt. Whatever the outcome, we'll be here to provide as much support and encouragement as we can during those times and celebrate when things turn out just fine. To that end, we want to dedicate this 100th post to one of our newer furiends, Miss Molly-Pops, who is very sick and in the hospital right now. She and her Mom are never far from our thoughts while they go through this ordeal.

We want to thank you all for coming to visit and teaching me, Lola, all about what it is to be a blogging dog and why that's such a wonderful thing to be.

Thank You to Sue, On Behalf of My Little Brother

We have bark a big thank you to Sue at Dogs-N-More and also the Portuguese Water Dog Blog for devoting a whole post to welcoming Brooklyn. That was so very nice of her and we can't thank her enough. That is why we love the pet blogiverse. It's the friendliest place ever

Say "Thank you to the nice lady, little brother.

. Brooklyn will probably  be the dog formerly known as Brooklyn shortly. It turns out the whole family agrees with me, that while Brooklyn is a pretty good name in general, it doesn't suit the kid. He's not at all cool. Or tough. Or anything you might associate with a name like "Brooklyn". In fact, he's kind of nerdy, in a very nice way. We agreed it might be best to keep part of his original name, so we're strongly leaning toward "Brookstr", leaving off the "e" to be all Web 2.0 about it, like Flickr and Tumblr and whatnot. We have to get used to it ourselves, after calling him Brooklyn for a week.

Sending Huge Vibes to Mango and Other Items

A lot of others have posted about this by now but one more never hurts. We have our paws crossed and are sending good thoughts and much love to the Relentlessly Huge Mango, who had a seizure last night. Woofs can't express how we hope and pray that Mango is just fine and that this turns out to be an isolated incident, which is possible.

Feel better and stay well, huge furiend

Mona and her Mommy have a PayPal button on their blog now, by popular demand. Now you can send green papers to help with Shelby at the click of a button, almost. Even if it's just a little, I know that would help. And continued good vibes for her healing are much appreciated by her Guardian Angels, too. Also, spreading the word that the PayPal account is up and running couldn't hurt either.

Lastly, Blog Mom is hoping to return to work tomorrow. She's been home since Tuesday because of the injury she sustained when adopting Brooklyn. If you didn't read that part, she stepped backward into a hole in the dog run at the shelter and strained her Achilles tendon and tore a calf muscle. The Vet told her to stay home all last week. He said total recovery would take 6 to 8 weeks, but was a little vague about how much better she needed to be to go back to work, so she's going to give it a try. She figures she's only a little better, but most of the improvement came in the last couple of days so maybe she's on her way. Sooo....we don't know how well we're going to be able to keep up with everybody this week. She's way behind at the office and expects to be pretty tired after dragging the foot around all day. We'll try to keep up. But we figure we're sure to miss some posts.

Have a great week, everybody.

Pressies from Zelle

I got some lovely gifts today from the very lovely Zelle. She didn't have to, but she did. Besides being great pressies, I believe I'm the first one in my family to get mail from Singapore. Normally we'd have a photo of my opening the box and savoring each item. Things aren't normal here right now, however, what with a brand new little brother sticking his nose in everything. However, all is not lost. My box was pretty much just like Hero's and his is properly displayed in his post. I also don't have a photo of the doggy biscuits. Because they're in my tummy. Oh my Dog, they were delicious! I have e-mailed Zelle to find out what they were. I'm not normally a fan of the biscuit, but I loved those. I hope they're something that can be gotten here in the U.S. and that they're not something I'd have to count on one of the Moms to make from scratch.  Of course, the handmade star was the star of the package and I have photos of that.

I feel pretty! Oh so pretty!

I had to go show this off a little. Walkies are a problem because we don't have too many humans who can walk right now. Blog Mom is off to the Vet again tomorrow. After her mishap with the hole in the ground at the dog run all her lower leg and ankle are blown up to twice their size. Daddy always has big trouble with his feets these days. Luckily Alpha Mom is not broken. Yet. And our foster bass player was at home, so we had four good legs and I got to go show off out in the world just a bit.

Of course I didn't want Brooklyn to feel left out. He might be driving me a little crazy and maybe he is a bit of a dorkface, but he's still got feelings. I let him wear the pawty hat for a while. After all he just came out of confinement himself.

Brooklyn always seems to be in a pawty mood, so a pawty hat is most appropriate for him.

Thank you so much, Zelle. This was so extra nice and thoughtful of you. And every time I wear my star, I'll think of you. Your Mom is so creative and talented, too.

Grey Pei Hits The Stage

What do you get when you cross a Greyhound with a Shar Pei? Acting! This beauty is playing Sandy in a Sioux City production of Annie, after which she'll be available for adoption. I bet she won't have any trouble finding a furever home. The question is, will she be content to be a stay-at-home dog after this, or will she long to try her luck among the bright lights of Broadway. My advice would be "Stay!". It's ruff out there. But with a smile like that she's going to get offers, I bet. Do you think she's wearing eye liner or is that just natural beauty?

While I'm here, I want to apologize for spotty visiting and very light commenting the last day or so. My assistant is having a lot of trouble with her sinuses  and pain and up half the night and all that and while I've been reading as many blogs as I can without much help from her, she keeps whining instead of typing the comments I've been dictating to her. If we can get her fixed up, we should be back in decent form over the weekend. She better hurry. Simone says it's her turn to have her picture up. I don't know where Simone got the idea that this is in any way a group blog, but I'm a little afraid to set her straight.

Post-post Q & A

A longish post or so always brings up questions or comments that require a response, doesn't it? Oh, that's a question, too. I appreciate everyone's kind comments and just want to respond to a few things  that have come up in the last post or so.

First, this isn't a question, but Hero mentioned how my leash matched my bandana in the Wordless Wednesday post, which was the same outfit as the horse show post, of course. All I can say is Twix is one lucky girl. Hero is a dog who gets bored if he's not risking life and limb on some exotic nature based adventure and  yet this Indiana Jones Pei also notices a girl's outfit. That's a dog in a million. Just saying.

Next, I wanted  to answer Puddles' question about who was on the Belgian draft.  Puddles asked if that was Alpha Mom on the horsie and I can see where I might have been unclear. To quote Alpha Mom herself, "Not even close!" Hey, I didn't say it. Alpha Mom is younger than Blog Mom but she's still almost 55. She could be that girl's Mom, easy. Both Moms are also built a bit more...how to put it...comfy....soft and comfy...than that girl was. We didn't know her. We were just ogling her horsie and she was kind enough to let us take the photo.

Sam,  Alpha Mom was so excited when she read about your horses that if she had a tail she would have been wagging it. We found some of your horse posts and those Friesians are so beautiful. She would love to compare notes any time.

This last one is harder to discuss. Mayzie asked about the poo, which I did bring up. She was bewildered when I said  you had to watch your step. Several commented on how tempting it must have been to have a good roll. Look, I don't want to lose your respect. I'm honored that Mayzie calls me one of her BFF's and i feel the same way, and would be heartbroken if she feels differently about me after this, but I have to be honest. I cannot live a lie. I never even thought about rolling in it. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the smells wafting in the air. Oh, I can smell it all right now if I think real hard. And I can appreciate that Mayzie must have smelled absolutely pawsome after her roll in the poo. But I'm Pei and we're naturally kind of clean. Yes, we hate baths, don't care for soap or medicinal smells, but most of us don't roll in poo, bother the litter box or eat any excrement. We are almost born housetrained. I don't want to offend or embarrass Bolo or Hero and for all I know they may prefer to be up to their tiny ears in poo. I'm speaking in broad generalities here. Well, there  you have it.  I hope this won't interfere with any friendships that we've formed. I value them greatly. I can't help being different in some ways. I was born that way. I hope you can make allowances.

Tomorrow Is Red Bandana Day

Tomorrow's the big day. It's Red Bandana Day as hosted by The Portugese Water Dog Blog. I don't want to take a chance on missing it, so I got all ready and I'll just be sitting here, waiting for tomorrow to come.

Blog Mom was so proud of me for posing for this photo. There was a high degree of difficulty because first she told me to get on the bench, which I did, and then she got ready to take the shot and THEN she saw that the camera said that the memory card was write protected. So, I had to stay while she took the card out and fixed it and put it back in. That must have taken close to a minute. Then I still had to stay there while she took a few different shots. Now that's my idea of a long stay. It went right into mutliple minutes. She told everyone how good I was and there was lots of praise of me, Lola, so I guess it was worth it.

While I have you here, I want to apologize if we've missed visiting some blogs in the last couple of days. I'll be totally honest with you - it was all Blog Mom's fault. First she was home early on Monday, but she had some work she had to do on the computer that had nothing to do with blogging or with me, Lola,  and it took hours and hours. She ended up being busy for longer than if she'd just gone to work. Then, on top of that she got home from work TWO HOURS late last night. Yes, really. I was so worried! She didn't call me or text me or anything. She thinks that's a silly idea because I don't have a phone. I say, whose fault is that?  Anyway, we're going to try very hard to catch up with anyone we've missed as soon as possible. We don't like to fall behind with our furiends' doings.

Update : The post is up and everyone looks wonderful. It was such fun to see so many of my furiends there and there are so many interesting four leggers that I've yet to meet, that being the idea of the whole thing. This has been pawsome fun and thanks much to our hosts for doing it.

My Absolutely Ordinary, Pawsome Saturday

Sometimes there are noseventures and sometimes there are quieter days that are just as good. This was one of those. First, my bump went down almost all the way. Alpha Mom says she can see a teeny scab and it looks like it was a bug bite. That's kind of funny, because if it was, it probably was the petting that made it get so big, just like Mayzie said in a comment on the post below. So that was good. Then Alpha Mom and I went to the groomer for my bath. Remember when I said that the jury was still out on the new owner?. No more. They are just pawsome. I don't want to disparage the old owners. They were very nice, but these ladies just totally get me. I like them so much that sometimes when the bath lady is washing me I just have to put my front paws up on the side of the tub and give her kisses. And she kisses me back! Now that's a meeting of the minds if you ask me. Of course, these little visits would be even nicer if I could stay dry, but it's kind of worth it. Plus there's the excellent receptionist.

This is where I go. It's Head to Tail Dog Grooming in Lake Ronkonkoma, NY. I'm writing all that out because if anyone happened to be searching for a dog groomer in the area and found it here I'd want them to know all about it. That's because I hope they do very well and keep the business forever. If I must be bathed, I want them to be the ones to do it.

This is Baily, the receptionist at Head to Tail. She's great at her job and make everyone feel welcome and at ease. And of course, she'a  beautiful blonde, which the males probably like a lot.

This close-up doesn't really do her justice, but I just wanted you to see what a nice face she has. Don't you think that getting a Golden Retriever to be the receptionist was genius. I mean, who can do it better? No one, that's who.

Now the thing is that these grooming sessions run right through my morning nap, so I'm forced to double up in the afternoon and didn't much notice the comings and goings for the next few hours. In fact when Blog Mom came in from the supermarket she thought I might be dead. I wasn't. Not even close. But she was a little freaked. Once I woke up and cleared my head we went out in the back for a most impawtant photo shoot. It was for  Red Bandana Day at the Portugese Water Dog Blog. The photos for that came out great if I do say so myself. We'll probably put one of them up on June 10th, because that's the day. After the successful photo shoot we all hung out in the back yard together for a while, which is always nice.

My humans talked to Sambuca's Mom while I talked to Sambuca after I got some squirrel chasing out of the way.

It was pretty warm out there, though and after a while I called my humans to come in the house. They're very good at recall and came as soon as I called. Then, to top off a lovely, family kind of day, we had hamburgers for dinner.  I hope whatever you're doing this weekend it's been as nice as my absolutely ordinary, nothing special Saturday was.

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?

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.