It’s kind of a given that if you  have a pool, you have a party sometime during Memorial Day weekend.  Too bad for us that the weather didn’t completely cooperate,  and only children braved the chilly water.  Still, the sun was usually shining, the grill was hot and the beer was cold. 

Although we (mostly) have a no glass rule near the pool, I as one of the pool owners am the exception and the only craft beer drinker in the mix which is why I was so happy to have our handy dandy little Beer Paws. 

I’m kind of obsessed with having bottle openers readily available and also kind of obsessed with my dog, so these little babies are perfect to hang on your tagnabbit or even on your keychain.  I ordered two recently and now I have friends and family members who want one of their own!  Now just to decide if I’m going to gift them or send them the link.

What accessory did you find most handy this past weekend?

I’ve been feeling nostalgic this week, so today for Wordless Wednesday, I’m reposting a picture of Ray’s mama Sparkles on her Gotcha Day which was April 2012.

If you folllow us on Facebook then you may have seen a little status update from Ray: “I was having so much fun at Grandma’s house I didn’t want to leave.”  For anyone who knows Ray’s Grandma, that is a statement full of things to disbelieve.  My mom doesn’t like animals.  She isn’t an animal hater and we had several dogs growing up, but she can could live her life without seeing a dog and never miss a beat.  Cats?  She’s terrified of so when the 85 pound “grandson” came to visit, I wondered how the visit would actually go.

So much to sniff!
My parents live “out in the country” and I brought Ray’s extra long leash so that he could explore and sniff as much as he wanted, within reason.  My parents live on a full acre, part of which they are re-landscaping so there were piles of yard scraps around.  They also live bordering on corn fields which haven’t been tilled? planted? yet so Ray got to sniff, dig and rip corn stalks to his heart’s delight.

Good Boy
Like I said, while Mom isn’t an animal lover, she doesn’t hate them either, so some pretty interesting things happened.  Because she wasn’t all super excited to “pet the puppy,” Ray was greeted in the way I encourage everyone to greet him, which is by ignoring him until he is comfortable in the situation and asks for attention.  Since I always try to keep Ray on his best behavior, I was loaded down with treats and asked for several behaviors such as “sit,” “touch,” and “down” in order to keep some focus, so Mom mentioned that Ray is really well behaved, which was great to hear.  She even offered, at one point, to hold his leash for me. 

Stronger Recall
If Ray had a stronger recall (we’ve been slacking on that) I would have loved to let him off leash for a little while, but that is a treat for another day. I know Ray would have loved nothing more than to sniff around the field and dig for treasures for hours and I would have loved to let him but time was short and we had to head out for our next errand.

Ray-tail Therapy
The reason I was even making the trip, apart from seeing my mom on Mother’s day weekend was to pick  up a beautiful Mother’s ring for Asia at King’s Jewelry and I wanted to bring Ray with me.  The owners are friends of ours and had mentioned that they wanted to meet Ray “someday” so I figured this would be a good time. 

I’m very happy to report that Ray was, apart from being his normal goofy, happy self, had zero meltdowns that day.  We had a nice visit followed by a little walk around town to see just how much things have changed then hopped back in the truck for the ride home.

All in all, the day was a super success and we came home exhausted from our travels and ready for our favorite past time: snuggling on the sofa.

Ray’s kitties are notoriously inhospitable to the big lug while enjoying certain perks that come along with dog ownership, one of which is the introduction of those tasty Duck, Duck, Goose treats.

Waiting for treats

They also like to sneak in and drink his water, whether their own water bowl is full or not.  Now, I would think that dog cooties would be an issue  for the kitties, but apparently it doesn’t outweigh the thrill of a huge bowl of  water sitting there just for the taking.  I think it helps them exercise their feelings of superiority in having the ability to take something that belongs to Ray.

Ray has taken it upon himself to be the family bug catcher.  If there is an insect within range, Ray will find it.  And eat it.  Every morning he runs to the pool steps to find any large, hairy spiders that might have made their way to the water and if I don’t get to them first, they become a breakfast hors d’oeuvre. 

Yesterday, Kevin swatted a bee on the patio and made sure to flick it into the grass so that it wouldn’t get stepped on and although he was inside when it happened, Ray made a bee-line  to the scene of the crime.

How does he find that?  I might never know, but I am moderately obsessed with the cuteness of his doggie chin, so I had to snap a picture.

Does your dog eat bugs?

Way back in the day when I was pregnant, my sister joked that I wouldn’t have to worry about my baby being stolen.  After all, the premium was for blue-eyed blondes at the time and we are definitely not that.  When Asia was born, though, my sister took one look at her beautiful little face and said, “Oh, you might have to worry.”  The truth is, no matter what you worry about all of the possible dangers that might befall your kids and back then there wasn’t even all of this social media to rely on.

Since Asia’s baby was born, I haven’t really posted many pictures or mentioned her much because I network so many adoptable animals, my personal FB page is not private.  Lately, though we’ve posted a couple and though I still try to be careful, there was one that I was just dying to post.

The baby is generally very genial but for some reason this picture of her with her little cousin just made me laugh.  The moment I saw it, I said, her little face reminds me of someone and Asia saw it right away as well.  How about you?  Do you see it?

Bottom photo credit: Two Pitties in the City Blog

We call it her “Miss M. face.”

Wow, everyone, before I talk about the great event we attended yesterday, I want to say thank you because WE DID IT!  Because of your great support (and our friends at Erisistibulls), I was able to place an order with our partners in the is promo, Sirius Republic for ten eleven twelve new “Adopt Me” martingales.  Thank you.

On Sunday, Ray got all spiffed up, so he was pretty sure something fun was in store, and he was right!  We attended the 2nd Annual Pits in the Park.  It’s great to see an event like this in a community which seems slower than some to accept Pit Bull type dogs in the mainstream.  I loved chatting with some friends, old and new and regret that I didn’t get to meet up with others, but there will be other opportunities, I’m sure.  Ray only had one meltdown and of course it had to be while we were chatting with his trainer from puppy class and the director of the SPCA.  Nice.  I should have seen it coming, though.  I brought Ray’s water bowl and bottled water but had left them in the truck and he was thirsty.  I knew he was thirsty and I kept putting him off, made all the worse by the fact that we were standing by a large pool/fountain thing.  Of course we had to maneuver through the crowds and go all the way back to the truck, because His Highness won’t drink from community water bowls.

After he was refreshed, we ventured back for a bit with the intentions of keeping the visit pretty short.  This year seemed to be much better attended than last year and I’m pretty proud of the fact that our SPCA brought three pit bull types who are currently looking for forever homes.  Ceasar, Glamour and Harley-Quinn were all in attendance and looking like rock stars. 

All totalled, we were probably only there for about an hour before heading back home and Ray collapsed in the back seat.

All in all, as I said, I’m glad to see an event like this in our community and I hope to see it grow and evolve to help educate the community.  The entire community, Pit bull owners, especially.  As we prepared to fall in to the parade line, we found ourselves in the midst of several dogs straining and jumping and as we tried to distance ourselves, one of the owners uttered a phrase that will make me shudder for weeks, “Oh it’s okay, what do they expect?”  First, it is not okay with me if Ray jumps on your dog, therefore it is not okay with me if your dog jumps on Ray.  Second?  What do I expect?  I try to keep a “bubble’s distance” from other dogs and only allow brief meetings under calm circumstances.  I expect that when I am so visibly trying to keep my bubble intact that you respect the boundaries.  Third, don’t do that.  Don’t try to sell the “well what do you expect when a bunch of Pit bulls get together” mentality to me.  I’m not buying.  Fourth, the balls!  OMG the balls!  There were so many balls!  I did not help plan this event, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t organized to be a venue for you to whore out your stud or solicit rescues for breeders.  Shame.

Last night there was quite the discussion on a FB group that I belong to regarding the event.  My knee jerk reaction was to possibly not return, but as one member stated, “…we as a community can’t hide with just the like minded folks if we want to make a difference.”  She and others with her mentality are what keep me inspired and returning.

Folks, we are at the half way-ish point in our promo and are overwhelmed with the progress.  We started at 172 Likes on Ray’s Facebook page and were hoping to achieve an extra 300 to put us at 472 by Sunday, the end of the campagn.  Well, here it is Wednesday morning and we are already at 412!  We could  just coast from here, but guess what? We have another announcement to make.

When they heard we were partnering with Sirius Republic to get some new “Adopt Me” collars for the shelter dogs at the Allen County SPCA, our friends Tess and Ed from Eriesistibulls offered to donate the amount in the form of a collar’s worth of likes as well!



Photo courtesy of Eriesistibulls

 How cool is that, I ask you?  They just finished a promo of their own and delivered some massive amounts of kibble to a shelter in their area and now here they are helping us out. 

When we started this doggie bloggie over a year ago, we wanted to chronicle our growth process with Ray, we wanted to advocate for Pit Bull types, we wanted to make friends and exchange ideas with other like minded dog lovers.  Well, we spent a good part of our first year writing to the crickets, Beagle Bratz, and the gracious Our Waldo Bungie who have been a constant source of support and advice.  Once we stepped out of our bubble of lurkage, we began to make some great friends and we want to say “THANK YOU” for all of your support.  We appreciate the cross posting and the encouragement and we hope we can reciprocate!

Don’t forget to order your own Sirius Republic collar this week enter the discount code peaceabull10 at check out.

For every new like on our page we will donate $1 towards a Sirius Republic fabric martingale for our shelter up to $300 or 10 collars, whichever is more.  Remember to leave a comment saying who sent you to earn a prize for our biggest supporter.  This promotion ends Sunday May 5th at 9:00 pm EST. 

I’ll admit it.  I was so keyed up last night I could hardly sleep.  Our Sirius Likes campagn (or Dollars for Collars) had such a huge first day that it was hard to put down the computer and walk away.  I had hoped for some good traffic but I have to tell you a secret.  Once upon a time, during the first year that we moved to this town we threw a party and no one came.  We had some family over for New Years and had invited a couple people from work but they said they drove by and didn’t see any cars so they didn’t stop.  Granted we’re talking about just two people, but the whole threw a party and no one came has haunted me for years.  Thus, I figured giving myself an entire week would hopefully get us to our minimum goal of gaining 300 more likes. 

I’m feeling humbled and grateful to report that we are less than 100 away from that goal and  we have another surprise coming later this week!

We do appreciate all the sharing happening and are so excited for the new collars that the adoptable pooches at SPCA will have.  Thank you, thank you friends!

Some of our friends have done some amazing fundraisers for their Shelters and Rescues while grabbing some “Likes” for their Facebook pages and we’ve been racking our brains to find a fun and fabulous way to do something similar.  We do bring bully sticks to the shelter at random times and have done an antler drive already so what could we do that is different?  The answer came to me in a flash last week at the Northern Indiana Pet Expo. 

I handled Indy most of the weekend and he is a perfect gentleman on leash, so it wasn’t until Porter and I started hanging out that I realized there is a definite shortage of wider martingale collars available to use.  Porter had a thin martingale on and “exuberant” leash manners indicative of his youth so it hit me.  These dogs at the Allen County SPCA need some Sirius help.

Photo courtesy of Sirius Republic

As you may know, the folks at Sirius Republic make some amazing collars and accessories and will add the Adopt Me embroidery to the collar for free.  They are also very Rescue friendly so it only made sense to partner with them to bring you this promo!

For every  new “like” on Ray’s Peaceabull Facebook page, we will contribute one dollar* towards a fabulous fabric martingale collar from Sirius Republic with “Adopt Me” embroidered on it.    If that doesn’t just curl your toes, listen to this read this:  Jenn at Sirius Republic will donate a matching accessory (flower for girly collars and bow ties for boy collars) for each collar we order based on our likes.  How awesome is that?  Pretty durn awesome, if you ask us, but that’s not all!  If you decide that your own pooch needs a little spring sprucing, Sirius Republic has given us a promo code that you can use for your own purchases this week. 

Ray-Ray is rocking the monsters collar with mini dots bow tie.

Just enter “peaceabull10” as your promo code at check out and receive a 10% discount on your purchase.  Win-win-win!

We will be spamming posting this like mad all week and hope we can make it to the max for our friends at the shelter.  But we know we can’t do it alone, so we have a special surprise.  The person/dog/blog entity who sends us the most “likes” will receive a special prize chosen  just for them.  (In case of a tie, Ray-Ray will pick a winner.)

*The rules and fine print:  For every new like on our page we will donate $1 towards a Sirius Republic fabric martingale for our shelter up to $300 or 10 collars, whichever is more.  Remember to leave a comment saying who sent you to earn a prize for our biggest supporter.  This promotion ends Sunday May 5th at 9:00 pm EST.