Happy Halloween to everyone! Hope you had a wonderful night of trick or treating and got more treats than tricks.
As promised, I drew the winning name of the RapidBath Pet Bathing System this evening and the winner is, drum roll please……
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!
We had our play date with Bev and the Newfie girls, Gabby and Misty at the new park today. It was a gorgeous day with lots of sunlight, a little chilly but the big dogs absolutely loved it. The 3 biggies were thriving in the cooler weather and were more active than ever. Let me first say that our first adventure at the Canine Companion Club was amazing! It is gorgeous! The dogs had more fun there than I have ever seen them have (including the pool). Big mouth Hera was actually even quiet most of the time because she was so busy running off exploring.
They ran the trails, swam in the pond (of course we got wet too and it was a little chilly - note to self, waterproof shoes and pants are a must), met new dogs and munched on apples. Yes apples and tons of them. There is a big apple tree that was spitting ripe apples on the ground and the dogs were more than happy to pick them up and munch them. We had a hard time getting Apollo and Gabby to stop eating them… I sure hope it isnt runs city tonight, so far so good at my house.
We scheuled our play date for 11:00am on a week day, there were only 2 other people there with their dogs. We had the place basically to ourselves. It was nice not having to worry about them getting into trouble.
Brutus and Apollo are ZONKED out and I am sure if I called Bev she’d say that Gabby and Misty are too. Hera, well that is another story all together. That girl never gets tired. We can’t wait to see the newfs again next week.
Saturday is the Halloween Party at Bark til Dark and Sunday is the Big Dog play group at the Gahanna Park. Busy weekend for us!
More Photos in the Gallery HERE.
I cant wait for my first play date at the new park in the morning! Here’s some of the big boys at the park today to tide you over ’til tomorrow. Everything was going great til an excitable male showed up and started chasing after the cute golden getting a little rough. The boys thought it would be great fun to join in and well, got a little over zealous and flattened her :( At that point it was time to go home grrrr….. Those stinkers! At least she wasn’t hurt and we all walked out together. They just egg eachother on and want to play rough so no more general population for the two of them together ~ it was fun while it lasted.
I made it out to the Westerville Dog Park yesterday afternoon with Apollo, Hera and Eris before the storm blew in and it turned icky and cold. Perfect “Monday Blahs” weather and more of the same tomorrow! Wednesday looks like it will be cold, but at least sunny which will be excellent for the planned play date at the NEW PARK with the newfies! I cant wait.
Eris actually enjoyed herself! She sniffed at a few dogs and intereacted, wandered around exploring. It was so nice to see her actually leave my side and not demand to leave. She does alot better in the cooler weather.
I think we saw Charlie! I think he snuck out, hopped a plane from down under and came to play with us! What do you think? Did Charlie take a magic carpet ride?
And look at this Newfie… I dont know who she belonged to, but she was lovely and liked having her picture taken. Maybe we’ll see her again.
MORE PHOTOS IN THE GALLERY - HERE
Thursday night is beggars night in our neighborhood. Why trick or treat is not on Halloween in Ohio is totally beyond me. So I need to decide if I am going to try and get a costume for any of the dogs to sit out with me to pass out candy or not. I have looked half-heartedly in the shops knowing I wont find anything in “big and tall” dog sizes for my kiddos. Hera is really the only dog that can wear “off the rack” clothes/costumes so she may be my companion by default. We have missed all the costume parades and parties so far because of lack or proper attire. I wish I could sew. Maybe I will learn over the winter. Too bad I wont have a costume for them for Saturday’s party at Bark til Dark. I cant wait!
Dont forget to leave your entry comment on the RapidBath® post for your chance to win a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and shampoo sampler pack. Drawing will be held at 10:00pm EST on October 31st.
I had a request for liver treat recipes… so I dug up these two. They have also been added to the K9 Cookbook for easy reference. I am not a big fan of liver but dogs sure like it!
Since I was looking through my recipes I decided to dig out my Doggie Barkday (birthday) Cake recipe. Hera has her “gotcha day” on November 4th and it’s also the day that I celebrate her barkday (birthday). Because she is a rescue, I dont have a clue about her past. I choose her special day for her. I hope you get to use this cake recipe for your dogs’s barkdays. (Of course I will post pictures of the cake for Hera’s pawty)
Preheat oven 350°F. Liquefy liver and garlic in blender or processor. When smooth add eggs (shells also) and peanut butter. Blend until smooth. In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients. Add liver mixture and olive oil to dry mixture and mix well. Spread into a greased 9×9 baking dish. Bake 30 minutes. Let cool and cut into pieces.
Preheat oven 300°F. Puree liver and eggs in blender of food processor. Add mixture to flour adn stir in cheese. Mix well and turn out onto a baking sheet covered with well-greased foil. Bake 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and cut into training sized bits with a pizza cutter. Decrease oven temp to 150°F and return to the oven for several hours until hard and crunchy.
Preheat 350°F. Mix all wet ingredients together in bowl - water, mashed bananas, vanilla, egg and honey. In a separate bowl combine all dry ingredients - flour, dried bananas and baking powder. Mix the dry indigents into the wet mixture slowing and mix thoroughly. Pour batter into a greased and floured 8″ cake pan and bake for 45 minutes.
Beat together until smooth and creamy. Spread over cake and decorate pieces of crushed dried banana and cut out dog biscuits.
Refrigerate any left overs.
Hubby and I took Hera and Brutus to the Westerville Dog Park this afternoon. As we were walking up there was a huge processional of dogs leaving the park. We missed out on playing with an English Mastiff and a few labs. There was only one dog left in the park when went inside the gate. A sweet little cattle dog x blue healer mix. She ran around and played with Hera and Brutus. He actually played with her and did the play bow and they chased each other! It was really Cool!
After a little while more dogs started showing up and the fun was on. They were quite excitable and wanted to play. Brutus got in on the action and had the time of his life. They chased, tugged, wrestled and played keep away with the bumper. There were a couple of big dogs that showed up too. A large intact male Bloodhound, a 7 mo old Landseer Newfie, Wiem and a few labs and mixes.
Everyone got along great and Brutus was worn out from playing. After awhile it was time to go home. I am not sure if we will get out this weekend or not. It is supposed to start raining tomorrow afternoon and not stop til Monday or Tuesday… YUCK! The Halloween Party at Bark Til Dark Dog Park we were planning on attending has already been rescheduled for Nov 1st. Oh well, at least its something fun to look forward to.
LOTS more photos in the photo gallery for today’s visit - HERE - Don’t forget to stop over and see the fun times.
For several months I have been battling chronic ear infections in Apollo’s ears. One day they would be clear and the next completely disgusting and then a few days later no sign of the nastiness. This cycle repeated over and over again. Ear drops, cleaning solutions and antibiotics seemed to be a daily routine yet seemed to only a band-aid for the problem. Finally, my vet suggested I try to change his diet that she suspected his ear issues could be related to a food allergy to either chicken or grain.
Shortly after that I was sent a sample of Taste Of The Wild dog food in the mail. A total stroke of luck since it is completely grain free. Apollo tried it out as treats and seemed to really like it so I bought a large bag and we embarked on a 30-day feeding trial of the High Prairie formula to see how he would do. I changed him over slowly gradually replacing his food with Taste of the Wild and after about 10 days he was completely switched over. I have noticed a marked decrease in ear related issues and scratching. SCORE! I didn’t know much about this food in particular so I asked my friend Dana, a canine nutritional consultant for her opinion. She has graciously agreed to be a guest author and write up her opinion of Taste Of The Wild on my blog. Thank you for your valuable insight!
by guest author Dana Montero, RVT, Dip. ACNS
My good friend Lora asked me what I thought of Taste of the Wild dog food and offered me the opportunity to be a guest writer on her blog. Thanks Lora, I’m flattered and honored! I’ll start by saying I REALLY like Taste of the Wild. Yes, they are manufactured by Diamond, but this doesn’t really trouble me for a few reasons:
The food itself is a grain free kibble but with a twist… novel protein sources in many of their formulas make this food a good choice for those dogs with food sensitivities, and their moderate protein level compared to say, InnovaEvo, Orijen or Wellness Core (all of which I really like as well) make it suitable for all life stages and breeds, even the giants, which is my specialty.
Taste Of The Wild comes in three tasty varieties for dogs: High Prairie (with Roasted Bison and Venison), Pacific Stream (with Smoked Salmon) and Wetlands (with Roasted Wild Fowl). Both High Prairie and Wetlands contain chicken and egg, so if your dog is sensitive, your best bet is the Pacific Stream formula since it’s a single protein source food. Protein is kept at a moderate level as mentioned before (25% in Pacific Stream, and 32% in the other two) and all contain probiotics and are completely grain free.
As a Canine Nutritional Consultant, I come across many dogs with grain sensitivities, or particular medical conditions such as epilepsy where a grain free diet may be beneficial. I currently have 5 clients feeding Taste Of The Wild with fabulous results in their dogs and have as yet not received ANY negative feedback on the food, adverse reactions or otherwise, so all in all, I’m pretty impressed with Taste Of The Wild and feel confident recommending it. I personally feed my dog raw, but would definitely consider feeding it to my own dog if I needed to feed a commercial diet.
We closed the book on a wonderful chapter in our lives today and said goodbyes to many of our friends. Luckily many of “our” friends will be or have already joined the Companion Club Dog Park so we will be able to continue having play dates with them. We will mourn Bark Park and move on… Still lots of dog park photos left in my camera that have not been taken yet 
Good bye Bark Park! Thanks for all the good times, wonderful memories and great friends!
MANY MANY more photos in today’s Bark Park Photo Gallery, stop in and take a look HERE.
Its been a roller coaster week with the loss of our beloved Bark Park, the weather changing (and not for the better), chicken dudes, contest winning and the Pumpkin Show being a big bust - don’t ask! I sure am ready for the weekend and some r&r at the dog park.
A quick reminder for our Saint Bernard, Rottweiler, Boston Terrier, Shar Pei and Basset Hound buddies… Animal Planet will be featuring our breeds on DOGS 101 this Saturday Night at 8pm, 11pm and again on Sunday at 3am and 7pm. Our breeds don’t get featured very often these days and it will be really cool to see what they have to say. I certainly will be watching. Makes sure to look around on the Dogs 101 website, there’s some really cool games, activities and resources like the International Puppy Games trivia.. I am embarssassed to say I didn’t fare as well as I had thought I would 
While you are there check out your dog’s DOGSCOPE — yes, dog’s have horoscopes too .
The last Bark Park, ever, is tomorrow. It will be bittersweet, an end of an era. It’s the closing of one chapter of our lives and the beginning of a new one. Or as George from St Georgous says “closing one stair gate opens another stair gate.” Gotta love George’s wisdom! After saying good bye to our friends, I plan on stopping by Compaion Club after we leave Bark Park to take a look and pick up the paperwork to join. I just looked up the directions and it is less than a mile from Bark Park… nice! I’ll let you know how I like it. Look forward to lots of pictures tomorrow too!
Dont forget to leave your entry comment on the RapidBath® post for your chance to win a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and shampoo sampler pack. Drawing will be held at 10:00pm EST on October 31st.
Stay tuned, a HUGE announcement coming soon…. just a hint, Cesar Milan….
Mr Bunn Bunn bit the dust! Usually the boys are not destructive but they gave poor Bunn Bunn a run for his money and he lost. Hera started it by pulling off one of his legs then they ran with it and well he now resides in the toy box in the sky. I think we will try to submit the destruction to Licked Toys. Warning.. graphic carnage photos… not for the squeamish.
The innards were billowing out like smoke…. the horror!
More fluff.. more horror…
Rufus the thief steels Bunn Bunn
Brutus going in for the kill to get Bunn Bunn back
They soon forgot all about bunn bunn and started chewing on each other. Rest in Peace Mr Bunn Bunn
Rufus ends up on top in the end…
I just received word that we are the lucky winners of the Dogs With Blogs 1000th Member Guessing contest. To enter I had to guess what day the 1000th member would join the Dogs With Blogs community. I chose today because it is my little brother’s birthday and what a lucky day it is for me. Congrats and welcome Mighty Angus the 1000th member! Stop over and take a look at his blog, he is quite a handsome boy.
I have no idea what my prize is yet, it is a big secret surprise. Congratulations to Dog With Blogs! We love you and are so honored to be part of such a great community!
Dont forget to leave your entry comment on the RapidBath® post for your chance to win a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and shampoo sampler pack. Drawing will be held at 10:00pm EST on October 31st.
As you know our beloved Bark Park will be holding the last Saturday event of the season this weekend. We have had a wonderful season making friends and taking pictures of the dogs at play. It has been a constant source of Saturday entertainment for the dogs and I since May. Many of you have made comments how lucky we are to have so many options of places to go and things to do with the dogs. Sometimes so many choices is not such a good thing. Bark Park will be holding it’s last event this Saturday. I am absolutely gutted. The owner sent out an email late last night and read it first thing this morning.
“It is with great sadness that we are announcing that this Saturday will be the very last BarkPark.
Since we opened in 2000 BarkPark has raised over one million dollars for animal welfare. Over the years we have funded numerous programs, provided supplies/equipment for shelters, purchased education material to be handed out and helped the dozens of organizations who are beneficiaries of a BarkPark Saturday with funds to pay medical bills. Thousands of animals lives have been saved or enriched through your donations.
As you can tell I am very proud of BarkPark’s accomplishments, but each year it becomes a little more difficult and this last year was especially hard. The new for-profit/public parks have taken away all of the waiting list and many of our members. Each year it has been a struggle to keep membership at a level that would make it profitable to continue and with a struggling economy we can only expect membership to continue dropping….”
Like all good things, this too must come to an end. So what now? Marcia did such a great job. She is a dog icon. I will always admire her generosity and dedication to dog welfare. We will miss you Bark Park!
Will this be the end of dog park pictures? Absolutely not! We will find another haunt no doubt. It won’t be the same, but we will make new doggie friends. I already had my eye on the Companion Club Dog Park which is right down the way from them. Several of our doggie friends have been looking there or have joined already (Jack & Greta and the Newfs). Its alot more expensive, but its private and the best part is that it is open 365! I had already been thinking about joining in addition to Bark Park for the winters and Sundays. Guess the deal is sealed. Here’s a picture from their site…
As one chapter ends…. another begins.
Dont forget to leave your entry comment on the RapidBath® post for your chance to win a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and shampoo sampler pack. Drawing will be held at 10:00pm EST on October 31st.
I had a post idea planned for today about the Swiffer Wet Jet and dogs and my new Karma Charms Collar (which is gorgeous by the way), but that is going to have to wait until tomorrow. I had a serious “WTF” (as Biggie-Z’s says) moment today I just have to tell you about. I ran a few errands this morning and brought Rufus along for the ride.
My last stop was picking up lunch at a Chicken Finger’s joint. The guy that was working the drive-thru spies Rufus sitting in the back seat and goes nuts… here is how things transpired:
Chicken Dude: OMG your dog is awesome! Where did you get him?
Me: He is a rescue and I have his litter mate as well.
Chicken Dude: How much did he cost?
Me: (forcing a smile) He is a rescue. His previous owner couldn’t care for him and turned him into rescue. When I had land I did Saint rescue and he and his brother came in together and I just kept them because it was so hard to place two saints together.
Chicken Dude: I would want one, but not two.
Me: That’s why I kept them.
Chicken Dude: How much will you sell him for?
Me: (WTF look) What? He’s not for sale (nervous laugh) he’s now my dog.
Chicken Dude: Oh come on man, how much you want for him? He’s big (pulls wallet from back pocket and pulls out a wad of money). How much? $500, $600, $700? I’ll buy him right now. I bet he eats a ton.
Me: (very uncomfortable at this point) Seriously, he is NOT for sale. I’m glad you like him. I like him a whole lot too. You should check out Petfinder.com, there are thousands of homeless dogs looking for their forever homes there.
Chicken Dude: I used to have a saint, but it died. He weighed 250 pounds and had a head (makes gesture the size of a car tire) this big. Then I wanted a Pitt Bull but the wouldn’t let him out of the shelter and put him down. Now I want a saint again. He sure is big. I will buy him right now.
Me: (where in the hell is my chicken) No thank you. He is NOT for sale, but you really should check out petfinder.com (writes www.petfinder.com on a piece of paper and hands to chicken dude).
Chicken Dude: That’s a shame.. I really like him, he’s big. If you change your mind will you call me. I have cash (hands me name and number on register tape).
Me: (Thank DOG chicken is ready) Thanks… good luck finding a dog.
Chicken Dude: You know you’re going to call me. I really like him.
OMG WTF DUDE! I will never eat there again! I felt soo uncomfortable it was unreal. RED FLAG!! RED FLAG!! That guy was soo creepy. I will be sleeping with one eye open for the forseeable future! He’s the kind of weirdo that stalks! Thank goodness I paid for my food with cash so he doesn’t have any information about me or Rufus. It was sooo random. Why would anyone who works at a fast food joint want to shell out that much money, cash money, for an adult dog that has a perfectly good home?! My guess, from his appearance, is that he wanted him for use as either a bait/training dog for fighting or is a drug dealer or gang banger and wants a big dog for protection/status. Trust me, you’d be mighty disappointed on both fronts chickenman.
Dont forget to leave your entry comment on the RapidBath® post for your chance to win a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and shampoo sampler pack. Drawing will be held at 10:00pm EST on October 31st.
It was a warm, gorgeous fall day! Brutus, Apollo and Hera made the trip to Bark Park yesterday and had a great time. We got there early and were one of the first packs to show up. What a strange feeling to have the park almost to myself. We took advantage of it and hit the pond and one of the lesser used areas of the park for a game of fetch. Although Brutus doesn’t actually go after the ball, fetch is one of his absolute favorite games. He loves chasing after Apollo, barking at him and nipping at him til he chases back. All well and good but its not so cute when he finds another dog to play his favorite game. So I have to keep a close eye on him when we are at the park. (yes that IS Brutus running.. he looks like a bear with his ears and jowels flapping)
Things can get out really quickly and we saw a few major scraps yesterday. I had to use my air horn on two separate occasions to help break up fights, that thank goodness, my dogs were not party to. I was a little surprised at the number of “disagreements” and “snarkyness.” Luckily there are usually very few problems, something must have been in the air yesterday.
We spent most of the day walking around with our good buddies Jack and Greta. It was sooo cool watching them bonding as a pack and marching around together with us. Big Dogs on Parade…
Apparently my dogs have no concept of “personal space” …. Poor J is subject to their barrage of affection! I really need to work on that, I think…. At least they aren’t biters lol.
Only one more Bark Park to go. October 18th will be the last weekend of the season. I sure will be sad, will miss our new buddies terribly and will look forward to May 2009 when the fun begins again!
More photos are in today’s Bark Park Gallery - HERE stop in and take a look.
Dont forget to leave your entry comment on the RapidBath® post for your chance to win a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and shampoo sampler pack. Drawing will be held at 10:00pm EST on October 31st.
We’ve been Licked!! Remember we posted some pictures of Eris with Bobo (RIP) the monkey? We submitted them to Licked Toys and whoo hooo guess who is gracing their site with her wicked presence? That’s right Eris the goddess of destruction! You can see her in all her glory HERE at Licked Toys.
We won the Kong drawing at Park and Bark Awhile! Yippeee! Thanks Baylor! How lucky is that! We are really excited. Eris is going to be sooo excited…. she absolutely LOVES Kongs filled with peanut butter.
We have also received a few awards from a couple of our good friends. I have been meaning to put them up but keep getting distracted. Thanks for thinking of us guys!
Sami and Baylee sent us the I heart your blog award and Biggie Z the Notorious D.O.G. sent us the Kick Ass Blog award - Thanks Biggie.. you kick ass too!
Tomorrow is going to be a super busy day around our place. Its the second to last Bark Park of the season AND the Anderson’s Ultimate Air Dogs event for Hera. I will most likely take Hera and Brutus to Bark Park and head straight over to the Anderson’s with both dogs. Hopefully there will be some great photo opportunities.
Dont forget to leave your entry comment on the RapidBath® post for your chance to win a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and shampoo sampler pack. Drawing will be held at 10:00pm EST on October 31st.
My “Pumpkin Fest” collars came yesterday and let me tell you how excited I am. I couldn’t wait for the pumpkin show to put them on the boys so they are wearing them now. They turned out even better than I had anticipated after seeing the picture on The Sew Crazy Dog Lady’s site. The quality workmanship and style is excellent and always consistent. I have not been disappointed with a single collar I have bought.
I tried to take a few pictures yesterday, but of course it was raining and gloomy out so I had to settle for indoor pictures and we all know those never turn out as good as sunny outdoor pix. The dogs did do alot of lounging on my bed though… the big lazies!
Over night the rains and clouds took a hike and moved on. Today is a beautiful sunny, dry cool day and perfect for a photo shoot. How perfect will they look walking around at the Pumpkin Fest in their festive collars.
It was time to get Apollo a new collar. After an entire summer of swimming in my chlorinated pool it started looking a little tattty and bleached so I decided to try out the new style the Sew Crazy Dog Lady is working on, Martingales! I decided on the 1½ inch wide martingale for him and since I love the bones and hydrants fabric so much I stuck with it. I think it captures his personality to a “T”. An extra “D ring” on the side for tags is a perfect extra touch.
More Pictures in the Gallery
Dont forget to leave your entry comment on the RapidBath® post for your chance to win a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and shampoo sampler pack. Drawing will be held at 10:00pm EST on October 31st.
Wordless Wednesday OH - IO edition (2005 - they look sooo young)
(Make sure you read to the end for a BIG surprise)
I am sure you have seen the commercials on tv for the RapidBath® Pet Bathing System. You know the one with the lady and her Great Dane (dodger blue) that gets a bath on tv and it just stands there like he’s in heaven… But you will not believe how awesome it truly is. I was lucky enough to get my hands on one and can tell you first hand how absolutely amazing it is.
Right on the box it claims to be the 3 minute bath. Yea right, you might be thinking to yourself. Its true, I swear to you. I pulled this baby out of the box and since it is a really nice day, I hooked it up to the hose spigot outside. I fired it up and washed/rinsed Eris from head to paw in less than 3 minutes. 3 MINUTES!!! No bending over, scrubbing or fighting the soap to get out of her coat when I rinsed. You know all the things that make washing a dog a real pain. I hate to admit it, I hate giving baths. I have some back problems and bending over while standing for any amount of time is absolutely murder on my back so I have to send them to the groomer. It was a completely pain free experience.
Next up Rufus. This is a real test because lets be honest he has twice the real estate as a “regular dog”. He loved it! The look on his face is absolutely priceless. He is in total bliss. The only problem I had from him was to keep him from leaning up against me when I hit “the spot” with the jet stream - lol. It took a little longer than 3 minutes to wash him because he’s so big and his long thick coat but it was less than 5. In fact in less than 20 minutes I washed Eris, Rufus AND Hera as well as towel drying them. Talk about a time saver.
How to set it up - Its quick and you can choose one of two ways. I chose method 1- I hooked it up directly to the hose spigot since it was a nice sunny day. The 2nd option, which is sooo cool, is to hook it up to where the shower head goes. It comes with an adapter to hook up the RapidBath to the shower. Warm water baths for the dog, perfect for winter and cold days or the person that doesn’t really want to get wet outside.
How does it work? Special shampoo packets are inserted into the handle and it mixes with the water as it sprays creating an aerated, foamy spray that gets right down to the skin and is easily washed out. Several shampoo refill cartridges are available on their site (I tried out the Ultra cleaning shampoo and its very nice smelling). The spraying action loosened up alot of dead hair which I easily wisked away with the fuminator.
The dogs smell so nice and it was soo easy. I really wish I would have had one of these when I lived at my old house. It would have been perfect to rinse off muddy feet and the pond stink. I couldn’t be happier with the results, ease of use and the lack of mess. Tomorrow I am going to try it out in the shower on Brutus, Apollo and Zeus!
We give it a paw rating of 5/5.
The RapidBath® Pet Bathing System can be purchased at 1-877-786-4358 or on their SITE for $79.99
I am very pleased and excited to announce that in conjunction with Hydrosurge, I will be giving away a complete RapidBath® Pet Bathing System and 5-pack of shampoos to one of my lucky readers. Leave a comment on this post to enter into the drawing. On October 31st I will be drawing from the entrants and the lucky winner will recieve the package above! Good Luck!
I got up early this morning and felt ambitious. So I loaded up Brutus and Rufus and we headed over to the Westerville Dog Park around 7:45 after I dropped my son off at school. It was a little chilly out with the breeze but it was a beautiful morning for the boys.
The boys were so funny.. they followed each other everywhere and did the same things.. it was like looking at reflections of each other.
We stayed about 35 minutes and they met a gorgeous blue dobe with an older couple. The boys raced up and down the fence in the little dog area with the blue dobe who was in the big dog area. They got out their excited energy running for a few minutes and then went over to join the dobe in the big dog area. They were the only 3 dogs at the park. He was pretty excited and wanted to bark in their faces and tried to get them to play rough. I put a kibosh on that (I know mean old mommy) but I dont like B and R playing rough. Its not ok at home and it sure isn’t ok at the park with other dogs. They are too big and can play really rough. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t want to have to pull a bunch of dogs apart that have gotten mad because things got too escalated. I know, over protective… let them be dogs… but in my book an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure any day! The dobe kept insisting and B and R were being really good but the owner saw I was really uncomfortable with it and was very respectful and leashed him up and they left.
The boys are pooped and now sprawled out on the floor snoring away. Every once in a while I will hear some strange snoring and look over and their feet are going a mile a minute. No doubt they are dreaming of running around together at the park.
More photos in the Gallery.
Its Saturday, our favorite day of the week! Brutus got his turn at Bark Park today with Hera and had himself a blast. He was a very good boy and played with a ton of dogs, ran around and got lots of pats from the park goers. It was a beautiful cool day. We even started out the morning in sweatshirts! Totally perfect weather for a big old saint at the park.
It was great to see some of our old friends and we made a ton of new ones. I took so many pictures today it has been very difficult to decide which ones to post. Make sure you check out the gallery for today, you wouldn’t want to miss some of the fantastic dogs we saw. As always, click on the photos to view in lightbox.
Brutus was absolutely smitten with Misty and Gabby the newfs. With his “gals”
I was very happy with how well Brutus did at the park. I can’t believe how social he was and how much fun he had. He ran around with a big grin on his face the whole time. We stayed for about three hours and decided it was time to go. Sadly, there are only 2 more Bark Parks left this season.
My son came with me and of course he was out and about with the oldies and mid sized dogs…. He says he desperately wants a mastiff.. but if I was a betting woman, I’d say he ends up with a oldie hound.
We met a new friend named Bella. She is an 11 year old GSD. What a lovely girl she was and so was her owner. I took a few pictures of her and she even has her own special section in the photo gallery for today… What a sweet face.
A few others… Sorry so picture heavy, but I just couldn’t decide.
These sweeties are looking for their forever homes.
Many more photos in today’s Gallery page.
Holy Moly! I saw this story on a couple of forums I frequent and of course on one of my favorite blogs The Poodle and Dog Blog. I typically don’t comment on stories in the news since there are so many good blogs that cover them much better than I do… But this one I just couldnt resist!
Wait what!!! Are you kidding me?! This man takes his dog down to the marina for his dog Jake’s daily swim. He watches in horror as a 5 foot shark torpedoes up from the depths and chomps down on his dog and pulls it under the water! OK this is the stuff horror movies are made of. So seeing this, he JUMPS IN the water (with a shark in eating mode) and PUNCHES it in the head so it lets go of the dog and they swim to shore in BLOODY WATER (hello shark homing beacon)!!!!!!!!!! OMG!
I suffer from Selachophobia (fear of sharks) - I know… I live in a land locked area but I have the most irrational fear of sharks imaginable. I am sure it stems from the fact that I went to see Jaws when I was only 6 years old and to make it more scary for me my mom told me it was real. It took me a couple of years to get in the deep end of a swimming pool for fear that jaws would come rushing out of the drain to get me. Or checking the toilet before I sat down because jaws was lurking at the bottom of the bowl waiting for me to sit down and would eat me. I wont even go in the ocean past my calves.
While I love the beach and the water, every ripple of the waves is a sinister fin in my mind and it terrifies me. I would love to watch my dogs frolick in the waves but only if they go in only to thier paws… do you think that is possible? Ha! I had countless nightmares last night of Brutus and Rufus being devoured by a shark and of couse in plain english they were asking me to help them…
It got me thinking. What would I do in that situation? Would I jump in or would I watch in horror as they disappeared under the water? What would you do? Or is it a matter of just acting with out thinking when the situation araises?
Clearly the stroy could have had a terrible outcome… I am very pleased that both are safe on dry land. I wonder if ol’ Jake will ever go swimming again. I know one thing, my dogs are safe and sound on dry land and I am thankful for that!
After taking a spin around the neighborhood Brutus hunkers down for nap time
