Friday's Blessings

It's Friday again and I'm back on track. I'll be honest this was NOT a good week for me at all really. There were very few good things that happened to me to be honest. Work has been well....NOT so good. I guess the only good part about work right now is that I have a job. So let's just say I have a new attitude towards most of my job duties and my supervisors...Unfortuanately, it's not all good attitude....Not gonna lie.

We are hopefully going to be adopting a second dog into our family. I did a little post about 3 of our 4 candidates....The 4th one just got added to the list, I'll post a little bit about her at the bottom of this post. So we're super excited here at my house. I can hardly wait to see who we come home with! I deleted the original poll that I had up with our first 3 candidates on it so that I could add our 4th candidate to the poll, so feel free to re-vote.

The weather has been phenominal! I was actually running around in SHORTS yesterday! I think that spring may have finally arrived in Wisconsin....Even if just temporarily. It's supposed to be 70 degree's here today!

I put out a request for guest bloggers yesterday for Saturdays and possibly Sundays as well...Tomorrow we will have AmyB from Our Daily Blessing....Life. Amy's blog is AWESOME....Her son Phillip has been through a LOT in his life and Amy herself has been dealing with NON Hodgkin's stage 2 cancer. I hope that you will go and check out her blog. Amy and Phillip are real inspirations. If you would like to be a guest blogger please drop me an e-mail at jamiehanna84@gmail.com and I'll add you to my schedule.

Now let's move on to our 4th candidate that could potentially be a new member of our family....This is Ari.

Ari is a almost 6 year old Mountain Cur/Hound mix. Here is what the shelter has to say about Ms. Ari:

ARI has a sweet disposition and loves attention. She loves going for walks, but does pull some, especially if she sees a rabbit because of her breed. She loves to ride in cars and will ride up front like a queen. She will make a great couch potato if allowed. Ari gets along with most calmer or smaller dogs, is ok with cats but may chase them and is excellent with children.


Now don't forget to cast your vote in the poll in my sidebar.

Reasons to consider adopting a Adult/Senior dog

In my last post I blogged about how we were considering adopting another dog into our family. Well in this post I've blogged about reasons why you (if your considering adding a pet to your family) should consider adopting a adult/senior dog. Now I'm not knocking puppies and puppy ownership, but there are some families out there in the world who just don't have the time, money or even the energy for a puppy and all that comes with puppy ownership.


The first dog that we ever owned was a 2 year old Black Lab/Cocker Spaniel mix named Shawna. My Grandfather adopted Shawna from the local animal shelter for my brother and I about 17 years ago. To this day Shawna has been the best dog that we've ever owned, more than likely because she was the first dog that we ever owned, but does that really matter? A little over 13 months ago we adopted Laci a then 5 year old Cocker Spaniel from the same shelter that we got Shawna from and couldn't be happier. So below are a few reasons that we've come up with for adopting a Adult/Senior dog plus a few that I found on the internet.


1. You’re not starting from scratch. When you buy/adopt a puppy, you're basically bringing an "infant" into your home. An "infant" who is completely untrained, possibly undersocialized who thinks that the crate you bought for him/her is a jail cell. And like a human baby will wake up during the night to get out. That newspaper you wanted to read before heading off to work, well with a puppy, that's just another thing that needs to be shredded, your shoes...well they are sooooo much tastier than the rawhides you bought for your puppy to chew on. Your brand new carpet....well that's just an excellent subsitute for grass when nature calls. Because rescue dogs spend time in foster homes before they are adopted, they come to you with at least some social skills and some degree of housebreaking!


2. Training is easier. Whatever additional training needs to be done with a rescue dog will be much easier than training a puppy. It’s like the difference between training a one-year-old child and an eight-year-old. Dogs who have been around for a while just “get it” faster than puppies-especially housebreaking!


3. The bond is strong. Dogs who have not gotten off to the best possible start in life-who have been neglected or even abused-tend to be very loyal and affectionate. Remember that dogs are pack animals, and they take their treatment by the “pack”-their owners and families-very much to heart. A dog that has been neglected or abandoned once is usually eager to become part of a loving pack, where she feels safe and secure, and is likely to act accordingly. We find that rescue dogs are generally eager to please their new owners. Puppy mill rescues often want to be in your lap at all times and will follow you from room to room, just to be near you.


4. Fewer vet fees. Rescue dogs have had physical examinations, have been spayed or neutered, have been tested for heartworm, and are up to date on shots. When you buy a puppy, you pay for the dog AND for puppy shots, spaying or neutering, and any other basic medical expenses.
What you see is what you get. When you buy a puppy, you can never really be sure what type of dog you’re going to get. All puppies are cute and playful, but their adult personalities aren’t visible until they’re about two years old. So you don’t know whether you’re getting a dog who wants to play all the time (ALL the time!) or a couch potato. When you rescue a dog, you know what the dog’s personality is like and whether it fits with what you want in a dog companion. You also know, in advance, about any problem areas the new owner will have to address.


5. It teaches your children good values. Face it-we live in an extremely materialistic society, in which TV teaches kids that everything can be bought, that they should get their parents to buy them everything, and that anything worth having costs a lot of money. Adopting a rescue dog for your family presents a wonderful opportunity to teach your children basic values of compassion and caring, and also about the value of second chances.



6. If your looking for a purebred....They can be found in shelters, plus there are breed specific rescue groups all over the internet....A good place to find to find rescue groups or animals that are looking to be rehomed in your area is petfinder.



7. What you see is what you get....When you adopt a adult/senior what you see is what your going to get. With a puppy, especially if the pup happens to be a mixed breed, your never quite sure what your going to get size or personality wise.



8. The "frosting" on the muzzle?.....well that's just icing on the cake. Don't let the "frosted" faces fool you. Technically, most dogs are considered to be "seniors" when they are between 5 and 7 years of age (depending upon size). A little "frosting" doesn't mean "old" and "run down"....to be honest some dogs just have "frosting"....Our dog Shawna had a frosted muzzle from the time we adopted her at the age of 2. Our Shawna moved around and acted 1/2 her age (she almost saw 20 years old) almost right up until the very end, even more so after we added Laci to the brood.

9. Not ALL dogs in shelters have "issues".....A lot of people have misconceptions about dogs that are in shelters. One of the bigger misconceptions is that the dog has "issues"....While yes there are some in shelters that have "issues" animals end up in shelters for any reason....Our Shawna was surrendered because her family was moving and she couldn't go along. Laci was surrendered due to a death in the family and financial struggles.

Now let's open this up for discussion. I seriously want to hear your thoughts or stories about this post. Do you prefer the puppies or are you like my family and love the adults too? Have you ever adopted? If so, I would soooo love to hear your adoption tale(s). If your someone who is considering getting a dog, was this post helpful to you in considering an adult/senior dog?

We may be adopting again

Recently, we've started thinking about adopting another dog to add to our family. Over the past 17+ years we've had 2 dogs that were both rescues from our local animal shelter. In our family, we're big on animal adoption, there are plenty of animals out there in shelters who are ready to shower you with love.

The black fella above is Spooky. He's one of the dogs that we're considering. He's a young (almost 3 year old) Black Lab mix. Poor Spooky, he suffers from "Black Dog Syndrome."

This is Flick. He's another young (almost 2 years old) Lab mix that we are considering. Poor fella, he's been adopted once already, but because he had 3 mini seizures he was brought back to the shelter. He's a bigger fella too...about 65 pounds of lover from what the shelter said....No "Black Dog Syndrome" here.

This is Missy...She's another dog that we are considering adopting. While the other two dogs that we are considering are younger animals (2 to 3 years old), Missy is a very young 7 years old. While technically considered a "senior" dog she's still got a lot of years left in her especially if she's been well taken care of in her "past life."

In my sidebar I've put up a poll where you can help us pick our new family companion should we proceed with the adoption process. The poll closes on April 22.

My dog is a "slut" for pig ears!

See photographic evidence!

Bathing Ms. Laci

Last Tuesday morning when I got home I decided that it was bath day for Ms. Laci. Ms. Laci had been needing a bath for a little while now and I just went ahead and gave her one. Needless to say, she wasn't my biggest fan for awhile.

This turns into this......

Angry and pissed....Can't even look at me...Oh but then you add this.....

And you get some more of this.....

Angry and pissed off and not looking at me...."But you'll smell sooo good Laci"....

"See....It's Pomegranate Passion...AND as an added bonus it'll help with your shedding"......

Nope...Still angry and pissed off...."But Laci, we're rinsing it all out now, we're just about done!"

"Did you say RINSE?! This Chinese Water Torture is almost over?!"

"Yup, it's almost over...Now hold still so I can lift you out of the tub!"

Angry and pissed off Cocker Spaniel with her own towel turns into....Extremely happy and fluffy/wavy Cocker Spaniel when the towel doesn't completely do the job and you have to bring out the "big guns".......

WOOOT!

"Oh, that feels good!"

Check out those wave's y'all!....Oh what's this?!

NEW BLING!!!!

It's my Birthday so I'll bitch if I want too.

NOTE: This has been an ongoing struggle for me and I'm not out to upset anyone, just getting some "stuff" off my chest.

I have this little thing about blogging that irks me big time. When I go to someone's blog and leave a nice comment on a post or multiple posts and I don't even hear a "hey thanks for dropping by." from them. I visited a whole bunch of new blogs yesterday and of the one's that I visited only 1 person commented back, who has been added to my blogroll and I hope they come back to visit. I'm hoping that I do hear something back from the others also because I realize that people are busy, etc. but it's just a little bit disheartening to go and leave comments on blogs and not hear anything back. It almost feels like I've been blown off in a way. Does this bother anyone else or is it just me? I'm done bitching for now.

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Later tonight....Bathing Ms. Laci....Complete with pictures.

Ms. Laci gets a bath!

Today is the day that our dog is going to hate me FOREVER! She's getting a bath and then she's going to get her pretty pink spiked collar put on....Pictures to come later.

My random question for the day

Do any of the dog owners out there feed there dog(s) Solid Gold brand dog food or know anyone who has? We just switched Laci to it and are looking for some feedback from others on the brand.

P.S. Does anyone out there know how to take care of medical stitches?....I had a small "mass" removed from my right leg this morning and now I have 3 stitches that I need to take care of for two weeks and I have no idea what I'm doing. They did tell me how to take care of them but I do much better with written information, that and they told me at about 6000 miles an hour and about all I caught was "come back in two weeks to get them taken out."

Wet dog

I took the dog for a walk this morning because it's actually kinda nice here in Wisconsin today...Supposed to be close to 50 I heard on the way home from work. And now all I smell is wet dog because the snow has been melting and the sidewalks are all wet and puddley (oh yeah, I just made up a word....GO ME!).

PEACE OUT!

We Are Trashy

One of my new bloggy pals Becky over at In The Trenches recently did a post about animal rescue stories. So here is my animal rescue stories. My family has always been big on rescuing animals in need. Both of our dogs are both rescues actually. My mom always wanted to have a Cocker Spaniel because she had one growing up on her families farm in Illinois....Apparently this dog was a PHENOMINAL farm dog. Well my mom got it into her head that we needed a Cocker Spaniel. My parents didn't want the "hassel" of a puppy when there are soooo many adult dogs out their that need loving homes also. My brother and I told my grandpa that we were FINALLY getting a dog and that we were getting a Cocker Spaniel. Well the animal shelter in the county that he lives in would put a description of all the new arrivals on the local radio station, just incase someone might be looking for a lost pet or to adopt a new pet. Well one day a Cocker Spaniel/Labrador Retriever was surrendered and my grandpa went and snatched her up for us. That is how we got our Shawna.

We recently had to put Shawna to sleep. Her quality of life was going down hill super fast and there was a really good chance that she had cancer too. She lived to be almost 20 years old and we miss her a lot. Which brings us to Laci, our 6 year old Cocker Spaniel....we actually got Laci to be a companion for Shawna. Personally, I think it was one of the best idea's we've had in awhile. We adopted Laci out of the same shelter that Shawna came out of too....Great people to work with when it comes to adopting a pet. We found Laci by accident actually. My parents were watching the news one night and they did a feature on a Animal Cruelty case at this particular shelter and Ms. Laci made it onto TV. We went down to the shelter a couple days after we originally saw the piece (after we took some time to think about it a little bit) and adopted this loveable lug who INSISTS on sleeping on the bed (under the covers if she can get there...if she can't under HER blankie will suffice), snores really loud and is horribly SPOILED:




So yup we're trashy and we wouldn't have it any other way. What about you, anyone else out there trashy like us?

SNOW on Christmas Eve is a BAD idea!

It's snowing here in the great state of WI again....Today we're supposed to get 4-6" and tomorrow (Christmas EVE) we're supposed to get another 4-6". Now I have no objection to a "White Christmas" (cause we're going to have one wether we want one or not) but I DO have an objection to snow on CHRISTMAS EVE!

Now I'm off that soap box....Let's talk about something fun.....I'm starting to eat solid food again (I had my wisdom teeth pulled last Wednesday for any new readers out there)....It bothered me the first couple times I tried it but it's getting easier each time. I can hardly wait to try out some of the food we've got prepared for our family Christmas tomorrow night!

Christmas is here at our house this year....Last year it was at my brother's place but since they moved into a smaller place it's back at our place again. So today is pretty much going to be spent cleaning and wrapping presents and somewhere in there I've got to get some sleep too.

I just realized that it's been almost a month since we put Shawna down. I've also realized that I can actually put Laci's food dish back down on the floor (she's spoiled and I had it up on a little table so she could lie on my bed and eat out of her bowl at the same time.) We originally put her bowl up to keep Shawna out of it....bad things happened when Shawna got in to Laci's food bowl.

Ode to little black tufts of dog hair

It's really hard to even be in our house right now because we keep coming across little tufts of black dog hair. Our Shawna was shedding something fierce the last couple of weeks and after yesterday it's just really rough on some of us when we see the little tufts of hair.

Some will probably see this post and think..."It's just a dog." but we've had this trash can raider for 17 of her 19 years so she's a valued member of our family and actually hasn't thought of herself as a dog for MANY years. If your not a pet owner I guess you wouldn't understand but if you are and you have loved and lost a pet you can probably understand what my family is feeling right now.

The upside is that she felt no pain in the end and we were all there with her so she was with familiar people at the end. We're having her cremated so she'll be here with us again in a week or two. Laci misses her like the devil....she's been looking up and down for Shawna since last night and just has not been acting like her normal self either. I'm hoping that it will start to hurt less in the next few days....but that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

Jamie/BITRCountryGirl