Dogs On Thursday A Spring Activitiy

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.
~Ben Williams


A big Welcome to the new members that joined this week.
We sure are growing!

Please send good thoughts, karma and/or prayers to our webmaster and mine and Bassetcat's Mom who had a cardiac emergency last week and is still in the hospital.

For this weeks edition, instead of a Doggie Spotlight, I wanted to share some activity ideas that Natalie and I have been discussing and would like your comments and ideas.

For February: A Doggie Valentine Little Card Swap.
(we wanted to keep it light and simple)

We thought it would be fun for those that want to participate to swap dog valentine cards, because even dogs like to get mail too!
For members that want to participate in this activity please email me with your name, email address and snail mail address by next Thursday.
Because the valentines are small you can either mail a card to just one dog or all the dogs/humans that want to participate. The choice is yours.

For March/April: Since April is National Pet Month, we thought it would be great to make these wonderful doggie 'Snuggles' that I have seen on many of the members blogs.(by means of knitting, crocheting or sewing) for the 'Snuggle Project' or donate the 'snuggles' to either an agreed upon Charity or to your own local a Charity.
Which brings up the subject which charity to choose since there are so many wonderful ones out there to pick. I know that we each have our favorite.
What I would like at this point is for each participating member to post the name of their Charity in the comments or email me with it.
Then next Thursday I will post the different charities and we as a group can vote on which Charity we can make the snuggles for.
I will also post various patterns and methods for making the snuggles.
That activity will run from March 1st to April 15th
There will also be a snuggle drawing! For every snuggle made, the makes name goes into a fancy vessel and on April 15th I will draw the winner to receive a prize that is to be announced soon.

Also for April; We thought it would be a lot of fun to have a good old fashioned Dogs Secret Spring Swap!
That swap will start April 1st and run until May 1st and include at least but not limited to;
1 toy, 1 small bag of treats and 1 card.
By next Thursday I will have buttons up for the Valentines Swap and patterns up for the many different kinds of snuggles.


Have a wonderfully curled up in a warm napping spot kind of week!

Doggie Spotlight for Trinket and Bucky!

Welcome to this weeks edition of Dogs On Thursday!
Hope everyone has had a great week.
Welcome also to our new members joining us this week.
Brainstorming for the spring activity is still in process so stay tuned for the fun to come.

Here's this weeks Doggie Spotlight. Vivian's two precious babies:

Trinket

Trinket is my first dog, the first new member of our little family. Trinket is Chihuahua and Fox Terrier mix; he’ll turn thirteen on January 30^th.

Couple of years into our marriage, my husband and I still felt like newly weds, but looking at each other across the dinner table every night was getting a bit dull. We needed something to jazz up our lives.

A local rescue group, CARE, was holding an adoption fair on a Wednesday evening, April 6, 1995. It was love at first sight. The foster mom was showing Trinket to other people, and I followed her around like a puppy. When she got good and tired of that she handed me Trinket, “do you want to hold him?” I held Trinket and Bill signed the contract.

At first we were pretty determined to bring up a presentable good citizen; we changed our minds within twenty four hours. Although we tried very hard to be good doggie parents, our little puppy denied the fact that he was a dog, he insisted on eating with us (our food) and sleeping with us (on my pillow). When we left him home alone in a playpen, he chewed up the lanolin floor.

Trinket used to run circles around the kitchen every night, or leap a few feet into the air and land on a big deck in the back yard. He had so much energy and only had these two big humans to play with. We told him he deserved someone to bug the hell out of him.

Oh did he get what he deserves! In twelve years he endured two rescues, a pug brother, and worse of all, a little human brother. Being the smallest in size, Trinket insists on being the pact leader. Sometimes teeth are shown to enforce the leadership.

Bucky

Bucky is a black pug. He turned twelve on November 5, 2007.

The following “How We Met” story has never been told before. You see, pug people are very protective of their beloved little apple heads and big ears, and we were fearful that someone might consider us traitors of the breed and retaliate.

We met Bucky in the flea market. It was January 6, 1996, first Saturday of the month and we were happily strolling along in De Anza Flea Market, as we did almost every month. Someone had two little puppies in a playpen, the boy, the little black one, was still available. The little guy had been lying on the cold hard parking lot for the entire day; all he had was some blue tarp for comfort. Yet he was playful nonetheless, tugging on the tarp, and when someone picked him up, he licked and chewed on girls’ hair. I looked in those big googly eyes and couldn’t put him down.

They were asking for $325, as is. Since it was the end of the day they lowered it to $300, and we took him home, with a flea.

We soon found out his energy level was simply out of this world. He ran around so much in the first two years, we could hardly take a decent picture of him. He was our perfect answer to Trinket’s puppy hood, ha-ha. They are about ten months apart, so Bucky has almost never spent more than a few hours alone in his life. He looks to the big brother for the next action. If Trinket thinks he hears a car is in the driveway, he starts to bark, and Bucky follows, and Bucky doesn’t know why Trinket is barking, and he doesn’t care.

Our four-legged children helped us proof to ourselves that we are indeed capable of keeping small creatures alive; in return, they got the human brother, Henry.

A Doggie Spotlight For Tucker

Welcome to this weeks edition of Dogs On Thursday!
Also a special scratch behind the ears welcome to our new members this week!
While Natalie and I brainstorm an activity for the spring here is this weeks Doggie Spotlight for April's sweet Tucker.

"Tucker Rupert, (AKA "Roo", "Smoochie", "Beastie") was born at a Kangaroo farm on December 15th, 2006. He was an only puppy and is half German Shepherd and half Anatolian Shepherd.
We adopted him when he was six weeks old, weighing in at 16.5 lbs.

Yes, we knew then he was going to be a big boy!
It was about this time that my blog was taken over by him and went from being a craft type blog to a Tucker blog.

Tucker went everywhere I went for the first few months, including work.
He developed quite a fan club and I'm required to bring in pictures of him regularly.
He still likes to go visiting.

He's an outdoor pooch as the house is reserved for his siblings; two aging Pomeranians (Bandit and Cody) and 2 cats (Salem and Abbie).
He has a great love for the hubby's truck and digs craters under it to sleep in.
Roo's grown very quickly, sometimes amazing us completely.
At 6 months he weighed in at 100 lbs even.
At a year he was 126lbs.

He's developing into a very impressive dog and does a great job of keeping out people who don't belong, but letting in our "known"friends.
He is loads of fun and gives us something to laugh at every day."

Happy New Year and A Doggie Spotlight for Chester

Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a festive and joyous holiday season as we now enter into the doldrums of January. But maybe some joy can be found in the cold days ahead as our fur kids snuggle up and keep our toes warm as this winter drags on.

Now it is time for this weeks Doggie Spotlight.
Meet Devin's Fur baby Chester:

"Chester A. Arthur (a.k.a. Mr.Noodle or Noodle) was originally Hayden- we adopted him from RAGOM. He is a 18 month old lab-hound mix, (we're speculating on the hound- he does have hound ears & wrinkles) currently weighing in at 92 lb. He was a long time coming, when we were looking for a place to live, the first condition was that they would take a large dog. We moved in the 1st of October, and we welcomed Chester into our home on October 21st. It took us 2 days to decide that he was a "Chester."
From the moment he arrived he was a little spoiled... OK, a lot spoiled. He always starts out on the floor, but once he realizes that we are too tired/asleep to push him off if he comes up on the bed, and very happy cuddles at my feet. But then, he'll get cold, and comes to the top to nose at the covers, till we hold them up, and he goes under, so just his butt & tail are sticking out.
Two of his favorite places are the dog park (especially the one on the Mississippi River- its like a dog beach!) and the "Zoo". The "Zoo" is my parent's house, where his good friend Sully(German Shepard) lives. Sully was the one that taught Chester how to play. Which meant a lot of reprimanding him for biting too hard- they still play rough, but they have a great time.
Chester suffers from separation anxiety. How this has manifested itself: Chester is an escape artist. This had nothing to do with getting away from us, on the contrary, he tries to get TO us. Chester has broken 2 wire crates to pieces. And after coming home to his mouth being stuck in the caribeaner holding his 3rd kennel's door shut, with his upper canine tooth lying on the floor of the kennel, we decided to try other things to help him be more comfortable(email me if you want some info on ideas). Lately he's been doing great! Once you find something that works, it helps soooo much!
Chester, like many large dogs, seems to forget that he has gotten bigger. As a puppy, he would sit with me in a specific set of chairs. Even now he will attempted to climb up and sit next to me- just like he used to. Unfortunately, he doesn't fit anymore.
Although like with Chester has been a struggle (due to his separation anxiety), we wouldn't trade him for any other dog in the world. He's a great listener, cuddler, nibbler, and kisser (although he's pretty stingy about giving them out!)."