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The Power of Pretty

They say clothes make the man and every woman knows the value of smart accessorizing.  As you know, we recently ran a promo with Sirius Republic which resulted in some great Adopt Me collars and accessories that went to the Allen County SPCA. 

Whenever Ray dons one of his fancy collars and especially if he wears a bow tie, he gets a ton of attention and compliments, so why should any other dog be different?  Well, they’re not.

The other day, I posted a photo collage of Glamour, an adoptable Pit Bull mix at the SPCA.

I had spent some quality time with her and towards the end of the visit, I snapped some pictures and tried to snaz them up a bit then posted them to Facebook.

Over 200 people saw this picture, 8 people liked it and no one shared it in the first 24 hours that it was posted.

When I came back for another visit with Glamour, I grabbed one of the new collars and flowers so I could take a few…Glamour shots and when I had a few moments I made another collage to post on Facebook.

Same dog, different collar, add a pretty accessory and voila  6 shares within the first half hour. 

That’s the power of pretty.

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Dog Selective

I bet you think I’m going to talk about Ray…

Self-Discovery
While I do consider myself an animal lover and I love my little menagerie, I have come to discover I’m a bit dog selective.

Macho Joe

While I do love those animals called dogs in general and I know it isn’t a secret that I gravitate toward a certain “type,” I’ve realized that there are some that while I don’t actively avoid them  I certainly don’t seek out their company.  Because I walk dogs at the shelter so often on my lunch, there are certain limitations I’ve found.  Obviously, I can’t walk everyone in just an hour, so that usually narrows down the field to anyone who may not yet have been walked.  Also, since some dogs are kenneled together as roommates, I usually avoid that.  Because I am there in dress clothes, entering a kennel with two pooches is just that much harder in heels and/ a dress.  Then there’s fur.  The super shedders get a bit less attention as well because although I do have a lint roller in the truck, I just generally prefer hair.  Our last dog, Bam Bam was a chow chow and during shedding  season she  literally dropped small animals from her body on a daily basis.

Size Matters
It may or may not be surprising to know that the Rottweiler is one of my favorite breeds.  When I was a young adult living in Chicago, we had two.  I loooooved them and when I started whining pushing to adopt a dog a couple of years ago, I started looking for a Rottie.  I like big, muscular dogs with short non-furry hair, and blocky heads.  I eventually came to want a Pit bull type and resigned myself that I would have a “small dog.”  You know, 40-55 pounds.  Small.  I’ve handled other dogs way smaller and have become smitten with them but I still wouldn’t normally gravitate there.

 adoptable Glamour

I might be one of the few people who would call a Pit Bull type dog small, but there was a criteria to follow.  I always swore I would never have a dog smaller than my cat. I have three cats and the largest, Miko, weighs twenty pounds so with that starting point, 40 pounds is still “small.”  

Barney

It’s ironic and a happy circumstance that when I resolved that a Pit Bull type (smallish) dog would be fine and I adopted a puppy born of a 39 pound Pit Bull, that I would end up with an 85 pound dog. 

No Schedule
Several other volunteers that I’ve been chatting with have pretty set schedules with certain days and times they come.  I know it’s good so to have that to count on but with work and other things that pop up, I’m not able to commit to specific days or even times.  There are weeks I’ve found myself driving to the shelter as if my sheer will of the truck steering there and other weeks when I find I’m only able or for some reason willing to go one or two days.  Yesterday I may have hit me as to why.  I took the Glamour girl out for a walk and as we strolled and chatted about being girls and wearing pretty things I realized how much fun I was having with her.  We found a patch of long, cool grass under a shady tree where she promptly rolled and wallowed in a most ladylike fashion while I sat and babbled on to her about pretty collars and Sheila E.

Today, I have a ton of errands to run but the call of the short haired block heads reverberates in my mind.   I imagine that has something to do with my lunch plans.

*All photos credit: Allen County Spca.

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Words on Wednesday

“Life is what happens (to you) when you’re busy making other plans.”  ~John Lennon

This past weekend I had so many post ideas in my head that I decided to write as many as I could so that I could just click the button and be ready to go each day.  Obviously that did not happen and we’ve been MIA so far this week, but we thank you for sticking with us while we’re planning.

Tug-tug
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Sirius Winner

The Vote is in
We’d like to thank everybody yet again for all the love and support for our likes for collars for the adoptable dogs at Allen County SPCA and to Eriesistibulls and Sirius Republic for their help.  Also you may remember I asked for some votes on what new summer collar Ray should be rocking and we had a very clear winner.  Waterloo was the winner in a landslide.  We loved the timeless sophistication and the patriotic colors.  This collar just felt so The Hamptons to me.  Very classy.

Photo: Sirius Republic

Class Clown
Unfortunately, Ray is not sophisticated or classy.  He is sweet, funny, goofy and whimiscal.  Asia, just like the majority of voters, opted for Waterloo.  Until I said, “For Ray-Ray?”  “Oh, no, Ray is more Blue Lagoon.”

Photo: Sirius Republic
 

And of course, that was really the one I had in mind for him the whole time.  So, the Waterloo was included in the group going to the SPCA and Blue Lagoon came to Ray.

It’s really just so Ray. 

Of course we had his name embroidered on it as well and though it goes without saying, we’ll say it anyway.  We love Sirius Republic and their fabu products. 

Oh and we’ll leave you with this collage of some of the adoptables at SPCA rocking their new finery.

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My PSA

Hi folks!  I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been playing all day long taking sensitivity training and that keeps me very busy but I wanted to share something with you.  As you know my Mama spends too much time with other dogs volunteers a lot and I know you read my sister’s post about volunteering.  Well, what you might not know is that I am very service minded too, so I had my Mama help me make up this little Public Service Announcement.  Feel free to share it.*

*this picture might be wonky until Mom can fix it later, but it will be on FB too!

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Over the River…

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.

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Did Something Right

Whether you’re the mom of a human, walking the floor at two in the morning with a crying baby or waiting for a teen that’s out past curfew or the mom of a fur baby wondering what more training techniques you can learn to help with chewing, barking, jumping or whatnot, there is that shining moment when you realize you did something right.  You got through the sleepless nights, the baby grew happy and healthy, the teen matured, and the puppy did too. 

I received two unsolicited blog posts last week from my daughter, Asia.  Reading them made me feel so proud and sort of like I must have done something right to get such a great human for a daughter.  At times I wondered if we would survive her teen years but she has become a caring, mature, responisble individual and a great mother. 

Here is the first installment of Asia’s thoughts.

Up until a few years ago, each time I would go in a pet store I would mull over all of the cute puppies and feel so bad for them.  They are kept in tiny little glass boxes, and I wondered, “How long do they have to wait for a home?”  I assumed that when I got my own house I would head to the neatest pet store and buy a cute puppy.  I would be saving a life, I thought. 

Then my mom became involved with an animal rescue so I volunteered as well.  I learned what a puppy mill is.  I learned how cruel people can really be to animals.  I became aware of how many animals are homeless, or live in filth.  Those are the animals I want to save and give a loving home to. 

I volunteer at the local SPCA sometimes and it breaks my heart to see a dog in his concrete cell, sitting in the corner looking utterly defeated.  Lost, alone, and scared.  I can only imagine the thoughts in their mind.  “What did I do wrong”  “Why didn’t my owners love me anymore?”  “Will I ever find my forever home?”

So many animals are in rescues or shelters  and those are the ones who need us the most.  Animals in pet stores come from unspeakable places and don’t even get me started on breeders.  When I have my own home I will adopt all of my animals.  I won’t choose my animals solely on looks, I will choose based on their personality and spirit.  I will give a less adoptable animal the loving forever home they deserve.  I will make sure to give them the best life possible and make up for lost time. I wish that I could save every animal in need .  But until then I will spread the word to anyone who will listen. 

ADOPT DON’T SHOP.

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Feline Friday

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.

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Bug Hunting

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?