P is for Puppies

By Leave a Comment
Nov 28 31

who are cute enough to eat!
n-1-166

They’re 6 weeks old or so now, and living up to their candy names – they are sweet sweet sweet!

Tootsie, who is going to live in North Vancouver.
n-1-178

Mars, who is going to live on Saltspring Island.
n-1-168

Snickers, who is going to live in Coquitlam.
n-1-177

Smartie, who is going to live in Surrey.
n-1-171

Twix, who is going to live in Sooke.
n-1-170

Aero, who is going to live in Langley.
n-1-174

Pixie, who doesn’t have a home yet.
n-1-167

And Henry, who also doesn’t have a home yet.
n-1-173

One applicant decided to instead buy a puppy from a notice board pinned in a shop :(  And one applicant who is waffling on taking one at all, and another who is coming to meet them tonight and then Henry or Pixie will be spoken for.

And it looks like one of the puppy applicants decided instead to adopt Ruthie, if all goes well!  She was taking her out for a walk when I was visiting, so no new photos of Ruth.

They sure are cute!  Much cuter than THIS:
n-1-184

THAT rolled in something completely and utterly disgusting before work yesterday, so THAT got a pre-breakfast bath.

Then he came to work with me and got filthy dirty in the play pen, thus undoing all my hard work.
n-1-185

I didn’t roll in anything.  I don’t need a bath.  You can’t see me anyway.
n-1-182

I might have rolled in it … what’s a “bath?”
n-1-165

The TWoo is really testing my patience these days.  All that confidence building we have been doing has paid off , and I have created a self confident beast who don’t gotta listen to The Man, no how, no way.  If he were a parrot, the first words I’d teach him to say would be “up yours, lady” since that’s what he’s basically telling me every day anyway.  His new favourite game is to run out the front door and launch himself straight at the chickens just to make them freak out.  Then when I call him, he gets very tall, looks me in the eye, turns his back on me and walks away.

He also doesn’t want to get in the car anymore, since he doesn’t like coming to work and spending the whole day in the van.  He takes his sweet time actually arriving at the vehicle, and then he refuses to get in.  And when he does finally get in, he refuses to get in his crate, which requires me to wrestle with him every day (he’s surprisingly strong for a 25lb dog).  I don’t really blame him, but I also don’t want to leave him and the other dogs home alone for 11 hours.  I prefer to bring them, and take them to a local park for exercise after work, so we miss the rush hour commute home, and also so I can potty them and play a quick game of fetch for 20 minutes at lunch.

I used to bring them into the office with me by turns, but The WooTWoo spends the entire time tormenting the guinea pigs on the desk, or harassing Loopy Lou the cockatiel.  TWooie’s method of harassment is to BARKBARKBARK, and nobody wants to hear that, so he doesn’t get to come inside anymore.  And besides, I have a little buddy that hangs out with me up front these days, because I don’t want to leave him in his kennel all day.  I iz a softie, and although I’m not one for little smooshy faced dogs too much, I feel bad for Storm.
n-1-158

So I dress him in a little sweater, and try to convince everyone who comes into the shelter to adopt him.  He came in with another little-ish dog who has since been adopted, and now he’s all alone :(  Maybe you want him?  He’s pretty mellow – he just sits on my desk beside my computer and watches me type, like a hairy little gargoyle.  I’m very fond of him.

Is the sky falling?  Is she saying nice things about a shih tzu?
n-1-164

If you don’t want him, maybe you want Jasper, who is still looking for a home.  He photographs real nice!
n-1-161

And if you’re going to be selfish and not adopt any of the dogs I keep shoving in your face, the least you could do is come out and get your dog(s)’ photo taken with Santa, to raise funds for rescue.  Jen of Mambo Mutts Photography and myself are taking photos with Santa on Sunday, December 12th, at Triple Tree Nursery in Maple Ridge.  All the proceeds go to TDBCR and toward her foster dog Zara’s vet bills.  Zara is a very old, blind Malamute who will spend the rest of her life in foster care with Jen:
Zara

So come on out, support rescue, and get a great photo of your doggies with Santa!!

Tweed:

By Leave a Comment
Nov 25 15

Best. Happy Snow Day Face.  EVER.
n-1-135

So the weather has decided that if it cannot freeze us out, it will snow us in instead.  After several days of temperatures dropping as low as -12C, it has warmed up to a balmy -2C and covered us all in a very thick blanket of snow, which continues to fall at a somewhat alarming rate.  I realize that all you people in like Michigan, or Alaska, or Antarctica scoff at these temperatures, but us Lower Mainlanders are unused to this kind of cold and snow.

And so are our houses.  On Tuesday, my bathtub drain froze solid – not the water pipes, I mean the drain.  I can have a shower, provided I don’t mind standing in a pool of tepid water that won’t go anywhere while I do.  “Well that’s a new one,” mused my landlord when I called him to whine about it.  He came over and wrapped the pipes in heat tape, and put a heater under the crawl space too in an effort to thaw out the drain.

The problem is, with these old farm houses, a lack of suitable plugs for this kind of thawing effort.  I have no working exterior plugs on the house and last week my stepdad had to come over and drill a hole through my living room wall so I could plug in an extension cord for the chickens’ heat lamp, since they were slowly freezing to death.

Mmmm.  Frozen chicken.  Yummmmyyyyy.
n-1-148

So my landlord had to plug the heat tape and the heater into that extension cord, and last night when I tried to plug in my space heater, the circuit overloaded and turned itself off.  Apparently the chickens can have heat, and the pipes can have heat, but I can’t have heat … unless I decide bathing is overrated, or chickens are overrrated.  In the end, I wrapped myself in yet another blanket and opted to let the chickens live.

They won’t even come out of their house into the coop.  They are just huddled around the heat lamp giving me dirty looks.
n-1-136

It’s like they blame ME for the cold weather or something!

But if it’s my fault it’s this cold out, then TWooie is super happy with me.  Coming as he does from Prince George, he says this snow is more like it and he feels right at home.

Thanks, Food Lady!  Can I have a chicken too?
n-1-150

All the dogs love the snow, although the WooTWoo would appreciate it if I would stop making them pose for photos and let them get back to the business of hunting.
n-1-137

Hunting coyotes.  Can you see it?
n-1-146copy

Piper’s Most Favouritest Game Ever is the Kick Snow At Me game which started when she was a puppy and has been a fixture in our relationship ever since.
n-1-157

She takes this game very seriously.
n-1-156

And what’s most interesting to me is that she remembers it from year to year.  It’s not like it snows a lot here, or often, so a heckuva long time passes between months where we play Kick Snow At Me, but as soon the snow starts to fall, she’s bouncing up and down in front of me begging me to play.  Sometimes, when we have only light dustings of snow, I will actually make snow balls with my hands when she’s not looking, and put them on the ground to kick at her, so she can leap in the air to try and catch them.

And this is why I love you.  Now kick.
n-1-155

YAY!
n-1-141

As for Dexter, he manages to look stunning in the snow.  It’s like he is the handsomest accessory to any backdrop you place him against!
n-1-149

Seriously.
n-1-154

He just turned 15 months old and he weighs 42 lbs now, still very skinny.  To celebrate the occasion, I bought the dogs a light up, multi-coloured ball so we could play fetch after dark.  The first time I used it, Tweed got it first and all Dexter saw was a disembodied floating blue orb coming at him down the road and he nearly had a coronary, barking and growling and trying to hide behind me.  hahaha.

Are you done telling tales?  Time to play in the snow summore!
n-1-144

Later, skater!
n-1-153

I’m going to try to get down to photograph the puppies again this week, since they are now 6 weeks old and in a few more weeks will be leaving for their new homes.  But I am not convinced I want to try and drive in this snow yet today.  It’s supposed to get warmer and start raining later today, so maybe I’ll attempt it then!

First I plan to go curl up on a dog bed in front of the heater for a while and try and warm up.  Brrrr!!!

And hey, if you are looking for high energy, very trainable, eager as anything Chocolate Lab puppy, we’ve got one at the shelter.  This is Jasper:

He’s just 7 months old and he would REALLY like a home of his own for Christmas.  He’s a super busy guy, very athletic, respectful of other dogs and could really use another like-minded young buddy dog to play with.  I tried to get Dexter to play with him, but Dexter just gave him Mad Teeth™ as he’s too bouncy for a border collie.  But he’s a really nice dog who just needs something to do, and unfortunately there isn’t much for him to do at the shelter as we have no other playful young dogs for him to pal around with.  So if you’re into Labs, come by the District of North Vancouver Animal Welfare Center to meet Jasper!

Also, send hot chocolate!  Brrrrr.

A-hunting we will go …

By Leave a Comment
Nov 21 20

Damn but it’s cold outside!
n-1-120

It snowed just enough to look ugly outside, and then the temperature dropped and now the weather is in status.  It won’t snow, and it won’t warm up.  It was below freezing when we went on our morning walk!  Brrrrr.

Apparently, Tweed’s manly chest hair WAS predictive, because if this keeps up it’s going to be a real long, real cold winter.  I like admiring his extra floofy coat!
n-1-131

He’s not sure it’s doing its required job though … while he may be warmer with all that hair, he sure brings a lot more snow home with him!
n-1-128

Today I played a game that I was saving for you all until I had a working video camera, because it’s really best viewed in action … it’s called “Where’s The Bunny” and it goes like this.

Me, in a high-pitched shrieky panicked voice:

“WHERE’STHEBUNNY?!WHERE’STHEBUNNY?!WHERE’STHEBUNNY?!”

TWooie:
n-1-119

It causes the WooTWoo to go apeshit mental and it’s therefore no end of amusement for me.  They start racing around frantically looking for the mysterious “bunny.”  No matter how many times we play this game, they never fail to rise to the bait, even though they have yet to catch anything, or even catch a glimpse of anything, when I start hopping up and down and screaming “WHERE’STHEBUNNY?!”  As soon as I yell it, they’re off and running.  It’s the most amount of extended exercise they ever get.
n-1-129

I quite enjoy watching Wootie and his chubby little doppelganger do their hunting thing, even though I kind of miss Mr. Woo spending time with me and the other dogs.  But despite the many years of pleading, training, luring, begging, yelling, pouting etc., Woo has never really been *that* interested in being interactive.  He learned to fetch a ball because I asked him too, and he’ll still indulge in some Wootie Toy™ from time to time, but he’s never really been an enthusiastic games dog. He’s always been more interested in looking for something he can dig up, or hunt down, than me and the other dogs.
n-1-114

And since The TWoo arrived, at least he has a partner in crime, and doesn’t lead such a solitary existence when it comes to his leisure time.
n-1-133

The border collies would rather hunt one another.
n-1-115

Or maybe YOU!
n-1-127

The dogs look so pretty in the snow.
n-1-121

n-1-134

But I wish we’d either get more, real amounts of snow, or it would go away and warm up.  It’s quite difficult to take photos in weather this cold, because my camera’s battery gets cold and quits.  And also, I can’t shoot with gloves on, so my fingers turn into little icy sausages.

Although I shouldn’t complain too much … at least I don’t have to sleep in a plywood shack outside!  My stepdad is here right now installing a heat lamp in the chicken house so my feathered little friends don’t become frozen nuggets :)

Did somebody say frozen nuggets??
n-1-125

«Older Posts