For Puddles on her Birthday

I wasn't sure how to roast a weiner, to tell the truth. I didn't know if I could come up with those witty one-liners that the roasters on teevee use, but I found I could come up with some very bad verse. So that's what I did. You're going to have to work out meter for yourselves. They didn't teach iambic pimiento or any of that in obedience class. All I know is that it rhymes in places, ergo it's a poem. A poem for Puddles:

Reflections on a Roasted Weiner
by me, Lola

She's the lemon in our sweet tea
The Tabasco in our soup
She's always up to something
Even while she goes to poop

She went to intervention
Told them, "Talk to the paw!"
Albert's home just hoping
She's in no trouble with the law

Now Puddles, she is a Preacher
So she's been heard to say
Puddles has a brand new scam
For each and every day

Still, we pray she'll be all right
And come to no bad end
'Cause Puddles Duddles Rainwater
Is our much loved, dear, furiend

Happy, happy birthday, dear Puddles! Stay! just the way you are.

Good Golly Miss Molly!

We just want to post that we're so happy for the good news about Miss Molly-Pops. She sure is a strong, fiesty girl. I won't be uncrossing my paws until she's home with her Mom and feeling herself completely, but that doesn't mean I'm not full of joy at the improvement.

Can't wait to hear that you're home where you belong, Molly. Mr. Pip will be pretty happy, too.

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.

My Little Brother's Absolutely Final (we think) New Name

I have a couple of apologies to make. Of course none of this is my doing, but it's the innocent who suffer, is it not? Firstly, we were hardly online last night so I know I missed some of my furiends' posts. I will try to catch up today. That couldn't really be helped and does happen sometimes, but I still feel badly about it.

The second thing is where I'm more than just a little embarrassed. After all the encouraging comments you left about my little brother's new name (Brookstr) they changed it again. They said it just wasn't sticking to him. I'm not sure what that means, but you have to remember that even though there are four four-leggers here my humans didn't name any of them, until my brother. They are way out of  practice in coming up with names for anyone at all. (That was my attempt to be the loyal dog that I am and to make excuses for them.) Blog Mom saw something on the TeeVee last night and had an "inspiration". And everyone liked it. Even my little brother is showing early signs that he'll answer to it. So, without further ado, my little brother will henceforth be named Franklin. (You better be sure this time, Mom. I'm telling all my furiends - again.)

So, what was the inspiration, you might ask? Was it something on the History Channel about Benjamin Franklin who was so impawtent he's on some of our best green papers? No. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected president about 100 times? No. My human brother was home and was catching up on episodes of True Blood that he'd missed, and there's a new vampire this season named Franklin. Now Blog Mom says that it's not that she's naming my little brother after a vampire who is kind of crazy even for the undead. It's just that the name sounded right. However, she does see a resemblance.

Not a vampire

Vampire

I don't really see it myself, except that in the show Franklin's eyes are kind of red rimmed a lot and my poor brother basically had his lower eyelids removed in a very drastic surgery for his Entropion and will probably always look like he's very, very hung over.

All of this was almost a moot point as we thought we lost him last night. Someone - I'm not naming any names (Daddy) wasn't careful when opening the front door and he shot right out. These humans are not used to having a doggy who does that. Not since they had labradogs, they said, and that was many years ago. So all hell broke loose. Everyone was running around looking for him. It was very dark and no one could see him. They were all yelling at each other to get flashlight and a leash. No one thought of putting me on a leash and letting me find him, which I would have, right away. Anyhoo, all of a sudden they saw him down the block, under a street light just ambling around. He didn't try to run away when they got to him. He seemed quite pleased that everyone had come out to join him on his evening ramble. All of this only took a few minutes but everyone got some more gray hair because of it. Now they have to learn how to train him not to do that,  and they have to train Daddy to always be extra careful in the meantime.

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.

Brooklyn - One Week In

Me and my shadow

It has been one week since my new little brother, Brooklyn, joined the family. I've been working with him and we're making good progress. He's responding well to my instruction. What helps a lot is that we're both Shar Pei. While we're not the same person, we do speak the same language. When I "Woof!" he knows exactly what I'm telling him most of the time.

What is up with the nose, dude?

Nothing demonstrates the importance of clear communication better than the trouble the kitties have had with him. I thought Simone had made herself clear to him, but she hasn't been able to in any permanent way. He just doesn't get that they really, really, really don't want to play with him. That's because he doesn't speak kitty. Still and all, you'd think he'd pick up on "Yowl!", "Hisssss!", or at least a claws out swipe. Every cloud has a silver lining, though. I really think that Simone and Happy are starting to bond a little at last.

You keep a look out. I have your back. Way, way back.

The moose is definitely Brooklyn's go-to stuffie for now. 

Don't be alarmed by the choke collar. That wasn't for training. From the human point of view he hardly needs any basic training. It was on there for a couple of days so that he could be walked safely. Due to Blog Mom's injuring her leg and her already damaged foot we haven't been able to go out and get Brooklyn a proper starter wardrobe. He's still wearing his collar from the shelter, which was a little big for him and not safe for walking on the street. Any extras of mine would be too big too, not to mention too girly. He's already filled that collar out so the chain is off. Once we get all Moms functional we'll all go out and get him his own leash and a properly sized collar and harness.

As I mentioned in a previous post, he needed to take Dog Bed 101 and we were already making good progress. I think we can agree that he's  passed that course with flying colors.

Synchronized Sleeping

I had to teach him not to bug me too much. That course is still in progress but he's doing much better. It doesn't hurt that now that he's gotten used to not having to spend his time in a crate he isn't as hysterical to be active every minute. We Pei can do zoomies with the best of them, but we are not generally hyper doggies and can even enjoy vegging out at a pretty young age. He's getting there.

The best thing of all is something we didn't catch on the flashy beast. We have achieved successful play! Somehow or other Daddy helped explain what to do to Brooklyn. Daddy's still not sure how, but it looked to me like he was demonstrating a little. So, on Thursday we had an abbreviated but successful play session during my lively period. My liveliest periods of the day are when I come out of my antihistamine induced languor. It's been a ruff summer, pawple. Yesterday we had a more extended play session which was a little rambunctious for the living room,  perhaps, but it's way too hot to play outside as far as I'm concerned.

The biggest adjustment for me is dinner time. I've gotten used to taking a leisurely approach to dining. When dinner is served I decide if it meets with my approval. If it does, I still might only eat half of it and come back later for a bit here and there as the evening goes on. It keeps the humans on their toes and they're pathetically grateful on the rare occasion when I decide to just eat dinner right up. You can't really do that in a two doggy household. Luckily, I'm experienced in living in a pack that includes other dogs, and I've been a mother as well. So, I'm learning all over again to eat with an eye to the competition. That's not to say that it's not going to be a huge problem for someone when they serve me something I'm bored with. I'm also used to being a picky eater and Brooklyn certainly seems to have the potential to be the same.

Brooklyn! Don't be so eager. Make them beg you to eat it.

 As far as Brooklyn's temperament and general personality are concerned - he's very sweet. He's a bit of a big baby and the name "Brooklyn" is just ridiculous for him. If you're named Brooklyn you should be either kind of tough or very cool in a hipster kind of way. Brooklyn is neither. We considered changing it, but he seems to know it and family policy is not to mess with adopted pets' heads too much. He's not a fearful dog, but he scares a lot easier than I do. He's clingy, too. His biggest problem is who to follow when we don't all stay in the same room. He naps with one eye open so he knows if anyone tries to get away. No one really minds, though, because he's clingy in a sweet, cute way, according to the humans. He doesn't lick, though. No licky kissies, which is kind of a shame because it's an area where we Pei excel. Maybe he was trained not to. Some humans don't like doggy kisses, which I think is totally ridiculous and my humans all agree.

One worrying thing is that he has no prey instinct whatever, as far as I can see. Do you know what I saw when I looked out the upstairs window this morning? Two squirrels on the ground within  ten feet of our back door and a variety of birds all kind of hopping around and my little brother, just drifting around as though there was nothing happening that required his attention. It looked like a forest scene out of Snow White if you overlook the parched, brown grass.What is up with that? When I go out and run after a squirrel Brooklyn runs after ME!  We'll have to work on this when the weather is cooler. If he's going to be here, he's going to help me double-team those tree rats.