I, as you might expect, follow several dog-blogs as well as even more dog and dog related pages on Facebook and I absolutely love looking at everyone’s pictures. The great poses that the humans capture as well as the clever captions are a true source of enjoyment for me.  I know I am not by any means very talented behind the camera.  I’m more of a point, shoot, cross your fingers and delete kind of gal, so I seem to have a long running internal debate.  Should I buy a better camera?  As you can tell from the low quality of the majority of my pictures, I rely heavily on my crappy Droid for capturing moments and the few times I get a better quality it is because I’m borrowing my daughter’s Kodak.  Should I invest in a camera?  How high of a quality should I choose?  At what point would my limited knowledge of photography make a new camera….wait.  I’m not wording this well.  What I mean is I don’t want to get too much camera for my limited skills because that would just be a waste of money.

Well.  That paragraph went in a direction that I wasn’t planning. My original point was that I’m always curious as to the acutal size of the dogs I’m seeing online.  How is that for the stream of consiousness to take a wild turn!  My first experience with a Pit Bull type dog in person was my sister’s dog who was gigantic.  Tai Chi weighed nearly 100 pounds and he was tall, so for the longest time, I thought that is what  Pit Bull looked like. 

Then I started reading about how much variation there is and about the whole lumping of several breeds into the general term “Pit Bull”  and I’m fascinated by all of the differences I see.  I love it. 
I’m wondering though, about Ray of course.  I wonder how long he will continue in his physical growth.  Because he has excellent manners out in public, people forget or just don’t realize that he is still a puppy.  I take him with me each month to the Veterinarian’s office to get his heartworm “cookie” so that I can weigh him and give him more exposure to people and that office in general.  Not surprisingly he keeps growing at exponential rates and every time they read a new weight from the machine I have to remind them he is a baby.  “He weighs 73.5 pounds today but a month ago he was 66 pounds?”  Yes, but don’t forget he is not quite ten months old.  Oh. Yeah.

Big baby with his binky

So here is what I believe I remember:  Miss M. is 85 pounds, Wallace was under 55 pounds, Audie is 45 pounds and of course baby Ray is 73 pounds at 10 months.  The point?  None, I guess.  All of the above are “Pit Bull-type” dogs though none of them look at all alike.  True, they all have blocky heads and muscular chests and short hair but even that varies.  Miss M has a very different kind of head that Audie’s whose is very different from Ray’s whose is very different from Wallace’s. So while they are so different-looking from each other, why do so many people want to attribute blanket generalizations to them?

*Excuse the rambly-ness today, although I have no excuse…oh wait, let’s just call it Friday-itis.

As I was meandering around meeting vendors and greeting adoptable dogs at the Adopt-a-thon, my attention was grabbed by a sign, “Holistic Kibble.”  I was drawn to the booth like it was magnetized!  What I found were two of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet, Greg and Heather, the owners of Holistic Kibble to Go.  This is a “locally owned family business that delivers manufacturer’s premium pet food directly to your door.”  They carry very high quality brand names for both dogs and cats and as advertised, deliver it locally to you.  We had such a nice chat, and I learned that Greg and Heather are fur parents to English bulldogs as well as a cat and like myself, do a lot of their research on Dog Food Advisor. 

Just a few more images from the great weeked at H.O.P.E. Adopt-a-ton.  Don’t forget to enter the contest to win some tasty home made treats for your special pooch. Details here.

On one hand, you might think that seeing that many animals looking  for their forever home might be depressing.  While it is sad that there are so many homeless animals and every animal there, I’m sure, had a story to tell, the feeling of the weekend was very upbeat and happy.  Maybe I’m just naive, but with so many people gathered in one place with a common goal of animal welfare, how can you go wrong?  I love that the event was done by H.O.P.E. because that is what these animals were full of. Hope.  And I had great hope for them as well.

Another of the extraordinary vendors present was Terri, the owner, baker and chief bottle washer of Crossed Paws Barkery.   Terri started making her own dog treats, because like so many of us pet owners she was concerned with all of the problems and issues that have arisen with treats lately.  She makes wholesome, yummy dog treats that are human quality and smell like heaven to both dogs and people. 

I smelled the Rescue Roll and wanted to pop it in my mouth right then and there.  It smelled like a parmasean breadstick to me.  What is great about the Rescue Roll is that a portion of the profits from that treat go back to Rescue.  Terri is not only a multiple adopter, but she is the mom of some handsome Pit Bull type dogs.  Jackpot!

This past weekend was so amazing that we will not be able to recap everything in one single post but will be sharing throughout the week.  I just hope I can do justice to all of the amazing people I met. 
First and foremost, the Adopt-a-thon was a very well done event.  There were dozens of various rescues, vendors, food, games and face painting for the kids as well as low cost vaccinations for pets.  Lots of animals got some really good exposure and hopefully will be finding their forever homes. 

Twizzler the “chick magnet”

I really made an effort to step out of my comfort zone and as a result I met and had some great conversations with some amazing people as I was walking around with little miss Pookie. 

I came across this great booth at mushudesigns with animal shapes as well as some beautiful home decor decals. 

Since my photographic skills are so lacking, I cut off the name of the booth but snagged a card with the cutest pink paw print and found their etsy page.  (She was more than willing to hold Pookie while I snapped a pic.)

I also got an opportunity to chat with Krystal who is a “Facebook friend” that I finally got to meet in real life.  She owns Dog Psychology Training Center and has started a pack walk in our area.  Ray and I have been wanting to join, but since we live a little farther away and most walks were during the week, we haven’t yet been able to participate.  Naturally I was over the moon when after I introduced myself, she knew I belonged with Ray-Ray. 

Obviously this isn’t Krystal, but her hubby and beautiful baby girl.  (I have really bad timing behind the camera.)  The little Ray-Ray look alike was an adorable adoptable, whose name escapes me at the moment. We are really looking forward to some pack walking, though, and hope join some weekend before it gets too cold because I’m kind of a whiney baby when it comes to cold weather.

We also had the opportunity to greet current friends like Marjorie from My Best Friend, Ray’s first teacher as well as the great folks from the green DogGoods.

Naturally, the main draw of the weekend was the animals and I got to transport some sweeties like these three amigos, the chihuahua puppies.

I also got to spend time with little LuLu and her sweet pink bow who is looking for her next forever home (again.)

Hopefully by the end of this week, each of the above listed babies will be in their forever homes.

This morning is kind of gray and I stayed up late last night with my mama watching the Ravens, so I think I’ll spend today just relaxing.

My plan is to spend some time in this chair.

Hopefully everyone is having a nice Friday and looking forward to an even better weekend.
Love,
Ray-Ray

This weekend is the huge adoption event at H.O.P.E. at which I will be volunteering.  Though I did not attend last year’s event, I saw lots of pictures and have heard all year long what a tremendous event this will be.  Seeing the extensive list of rescues, shelters and vendors makes me really excited and so hopeful that a lot of our furry friends will find their forever homes and of course, I’m looking forward to spending some time with some special babies. 

At the top of my list is this sweet, gorgeous Elderbull, Brandi. How much do you just want to smoosh her face?  I just might need a spoon for all of that wonderful Elderbull goodness.

Also, I don’t know if he will be at the event, but I have a massive crush on this fellow.  In fact, I have a blog post that I intended to submit as a guest post for another blog in honor of October Adopt a Shelter pet month, but I don’t know if I can bear to part with it.  It will probably appear here next week.

I’m H.O.P.E.-ing to see you all there this weekend!

Hello, friends!  I had a very busy weekend and it was a super one because I spent so much of it with my Mama.  On Friday when she got home from hiding from me all day work we went to my favorite store and met some new people.  The people there are so nice to me and they called me their favorite customer.  Mom and I usually go there every Sunday, so our Friday visit was a big surprise.  We bought my usual bully sticks and we also got a hoof and a little squeaky toy.  FYI, though, if you get bully sticks at Target, those are on recall right now.

On Saturday I helped Mommy with the laundry.  Usually that is when we practice sit/stays but this time Mama forgot and I came away with a little prize.  I got my snout on one of Mama’s socks and instead of the usual trade for treats, she did this to me.

She put one of my stuffies on my head which confused me enough that I dropped the sock out of my mouth.  She’s such a silly Mommy.

On Sunday we watched Football in the evening and ate what Mom and Daddy call “football food.”  It was so much fun and I was a pretty good boy, even though all I wanted to do was eat lots and lots of football food.  Earlier in the day, though, we didn’t get to go on our Sunday visit to TSC, because Mommy had a migrane and I had to take care of her and make her feel better.

It worked and Mommy was feeling better so we could watch the Big Game.  She also wanted me to say that our hearts go out to Raven’s Wide Reciever and fellow Pit Bull daddy, Torrey Smith, on the loss of his younger brother.  Your family are in our thoughts.

I love the evenings where there isn’t too much to do other than just be and enjoy.  Last night was just such and evening.  After mowing the back yard (grrrr, who thought of all of that curvy landscaping?) Ray and I retreated to the patio, me with a glass of wine and him with a nice marrow bone from Jamison’s.

The sky was slightly overcast and the weather was crisp but not yet cold so any chill in the air was chased away by the warm glow of peace.  Watching Ray work at his bone, I saw him switch positions in order to get at each tasty morsel of bone, his tail wagging in a slow lazy drawl indicating he was in his own happy, peaceful place.

We hope everyone has an opportunity to enjoy their own peace-a-bull place.