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30 April 2009

MALCOM IS MISSING!

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Malcolm stolen from car in Denver, Colorado

April 29, 2009

HELP!
 
Michael Davis, lost his Airedale Malcolm near University and Asbury at around 5:30 pm on 4-29-2009.

He is beside himself that his beloved Malcolm is missing. Please alert everyone you know and anyone in that area to look for Malcolm.

Malcolm is wearing a black collar with yellow bones on it. He is micro chipped. Also, call or send him any ideas you may have to locate this Airedale...we need to get this boy back!

Michael lives in Lakewood, Colorado, so Malcolm could be headed in that direction.

Reply to Michael at: fugueman@hotmail.co.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Or call him at: 303-619-9551

Sadly, this is becoming all too common.  I've got a special website in the works to help with these very special lost and missing companion animals.  They're far too precious to go missing, as we all know.  And I believe we must band together to keep all of them, each and every one, safe and sound.

Since we're talking about missing dogs, we are still looking for Haley.  I am still convinced that she's out there, that someone has her, that they're unaware that she has a forever home that misses her terribly.

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Call me if you have any information about Haley.  Or Malcolm.  I'll gladly help reunite either dog with their owners.


GOOD NEWS!!  Malcolm has been found.  He's been reunited with his owners and this story of the stolen missing dog has a happy ending.

Now if we can also have a very happy ending for Haley and her owner in San Luis Obispo, well that would be a wonderful fabulous thing.

23 April 2009

The Object of His Affections

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I think that Buddha may actually love Darby more than he loves me. 

When we were leaving for Santa Cruz last week, the only way I could coax him into the car that was obviously loaded with provisions for a long journey (a journey Buddha was not at all about to take) was by telling him we were going to see Darby.  The mention of HER name got him to jump right into the back of the car.

I suppose I can't blame him.  Look at her.  She's as yummy as an ice cream sundae with a luscious cherry on top.  I'm certain Buddha thinks so.

Buddha and Darby have been head over tails in love with one another since Buddha's big clunky puppy feet first hit the dog beach in Santa Cruz.  He adores her.  She's much faster than he is and will usually catch whatever ball has been thrown long before he lumbers up beside her but he will then follow her faithfully up and down and all around until she finally is willing to drop it so that he can do his proper retriever duties and bring the ball back.

They will do this for hours if we let them.  It's a match made in dog heaven.  I adore Darby's mom and it was with her that I completed the long, arduous San Francisco marathon last year.  She was my partner in crime, my source of inspiration, my support when I was certain that my two feet could not go another inch.  She was my Darby.  Carrying the ball just beyond reach and coaxing me along and reminding me that a sexy fireman wearing a tuxedo was waiting for me with a little blue box from Tiffany's if I would just take one.more.step.

Yesterday, of course, Darby and Buddha had a reunion.  The presence of Stella did not dampen the joyous occasion at all and we made plans to make sure they had another date before the dogs and I had back to Utah (yes, Utah, I promise I am coming back!).  In a moment that would make the Dog Whisperer so very proud, I got all three dogs to actually sit still for a photo opportunity!

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Good dogs.  Really, good dogs.

21 March 2009

Honestly, Must We Have TV?

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It's official.  I have the world's most spoiled dogs.  It is my own fault, I know.  I did it.  I allowed this to happen.  I did not teach them that no means no and I really forgot to teach them how to say please.

Ever since we got up this morning the two of them have been yammering non-stop about how we are not as good as all the other dog houses on the block because we do not have cable television.  How listening to NPR all day long while I'm at the office is just so BORING and how they want to be able to surf hundreds of channels and how I am the world's worst possible dog mama because I have denied them, DENIED THEM, the joy that is Animal Planet their entire short doggie lives.

Good Grief. 

Of course Stella is the loudest complainer.  I have a sneaking suspicion that she's putting Buddha up to all of this and that Buddha really does enjoy listening to NPR all day.  He often likes to talk to me about the things he's heard when I come home at the end of the day and it is because of him that I actually have been far more informed than I want to be about our impending economic doom.  Buddha is really pissed off about the AIG bonuses, but he's even more angry about the way that Congress is handling their own mistakes!  He feels it is totally wrong that they're enacting new taxes to essentially make up for their own initial mistakes.  Buddha insists, to me, that they're reneging on their initial good faith contracts and that it's a very slippery slope when we allow Congress such free reign.  It has his dander up, let me tell you.

But back to this yammering about the cable television.  I have continued to put my foot down.  To say no.  To tell the dogs that they will just have to extract invitations from their other dog friends who DO have cable television for play dates if watching Animal Planet is just so important.  Then Stella, who is nothing if not dramatic, rolled over, played dead, and told me that she was not going to stand up again until I promised to get the Food Network for our television and it MUST HAPPEN BEFORE MONDAY.

The Food Network?  Home of Rachel Ray (who is so saccharin she makes me want to throw up on my own shoes) and Paula (how much butter can one person consume) Dean?  The only reason I can possibly think to ever have the Food Network in our home would be for the occasional re-run of very old episodes of Iron Chef.  Episodes where they use really strange and odd ingredients like sea urchin and they turn it into ice cream!  Stella is quite lovely and sweet but she has yet to actually cook me a meal (dead mouse not withstanding) and so this demand for the Food Network has me quite perplexed.

Turns out that The Honest Kitchen is going to be featured on the Food Network on Monday.  Stella and Buddha are spokesdogs for The Honest Kitchen.  They have been eating Honest Kitchen food since they were just 8 weeks old.  Honest Kitchen's line of dehydrated human foods, specially formulated for pets, makes it really simple for me to cook for the dogs twice a day every single day.  And Stella and Buddha LOVE it.  Which is also lovely.  I will often supplement the food with some of my own vegetarian leftovers (whatever I'm cooking for myself that evening will get tossed in) but I can truthfully say that this food has been such a godsend for both me and my dogs.  They have beautiful coats, they do not have stinky breath, and they have beautiful teeth.  Plus they lick the bowl clean.  Every single time.

So that explains it.  This sudden request for television in our non-television household.  Stella really wants to see Lucy and Laurette and and all her dog friends at the Honest Kitchen when they're on the Food Network on Monday evening.  I've told her that I will try my best to get one of our friends to let us come over so she can watch it, but that we are NOT getting television in our house.  We just are not.  She'll have to continue to SUFFER with NPR.  Poor puppy.

Oh, and now she's asking for a plane ticket.  To San Diego.  For a tea party.  It just does not end with her.  However, the rest of you really should know, especially if you're in the San Diego area and have a dog, that the Honest Kitchen is hosting a dog tea party at Cafe Merlot on March 24. 

Here are the details:

The Honest Kitchen Hosts High Tea for Pups at Café Merlot

We are teaming up with a local restaurant to Introduce our
New Herbal Tea for Dogs and a Pet-Friendly Menu.

The Honest Kitchen and Café Merlot, a chic fine dining establishment located in the Bernardo Winery, have partnered to host a High Tea for Pups, a one-of-a-kind, whimsical tea party for pooches to celebrate the launch of Lithe Tea, The Honest Kitchen's newest product – and raise money for San Diego Humane Society.

The event will take place at Café Merlot, on March 24th from 2:30-4:30 p.m., at:
Café Merlot at the Bernardo Winery,
13330 Paseo del Verano Norte,
San Diego, Calif. 92128.

San Diego dog owners are invited to bring their pooches to sample the delectable and healthy offerings being provided by The Honest Kitchen and Café Merlot.

While the event is free-of-charge, attendees are encouraged to offer a $5 donation for each cup of Lithe herbal tea. The Honest Kitchen will donate 100 percent of all contributions to the San Diego Humane Society to support their programs and services.

You can RSVP at 619.985.9519 or via email at Natalie@rkpr.net, or just show up!

That herbal tea that they're introducing, Lithe tea, I helped them to develop.  It actually is based on a formula that I originally created for Clyde in his senior years.  It's a GREAT formula and it really does work.  The herbs in that tea are terrific for the entire musculoskelatal system
and includes some great support for joints and ligaments.  I credit it for improving and extending Clyde's quality of life for many of his 17 years.  It makes me happy and proud to be a part of the Honest Kitchen family and to have that tea shared with so many well-loved dogs. 
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02 January 2009

In Which Buddha Finds Himself In A Very Deep Place

I have been getting up really early in the morning.  In fact, I've been getting up so early that I'm unsure it can even be considered morning.  I think what most normal people on the planet might say is that I've been getting up in the middle of the night.  Sometimes I wonder, actually, why I bother to go to bed at all.  I mean, if I'm going to crawl out of bed at 4:00 a.m., shouldn't I perhaps just stay up so I don't even have to deal with the whole crawling business?  Wouldn't it be easier to just party the night away and then at 4:00 a.m. just grab the dogs for their morning walk?  Or should that be their late night walk? 

The reason for all this insanity is that I'm back to work at Sundance.  This year, I need to be in Park City before 8:00 a.m.  My clocks are not broken.  I do realize that 4:00 a.m. is a long time BEFORE 8:00 a.m.  However, have you met my dogs?  Have you?  The big, black furry ones that are STILL puppies?  Yes, I realize they're three.  Yes, I realize that puppyhood is over after two.  Buddha and Stella obviously did not get that memo.  Or maybe it came in an envelope with a crunchy plastic window?  If it arrived from the Director of Puppy Rules and Regulations in one of those envelopes, Stella ate it long before any of us had a chance to inspect and read its important documents.  She has a penchant for those envelopes with plastic windows.  She can't seem to help herself from eating all credit card bills that arrive at my house.  I promise that I did NOT teach her this behavior in the hopes that I can call the credit card company and tell them that I can't possibly owe them any money because  my dog ate their bill and therefore there's no evidence of the monies owed.  No, I promise she's developed this very strange habit all on her very own.  Still, it probably explains why both dogs, though three, still believe they're only 3 months old.  And behave absolutely accordingly.

So where was I before I started babbling about lost memos from the Director of Puppy Rules and Regulations.  Oh yes.  4:00 a.m.  See?  It's not an hour where anyone should be crawling from anywhere unless perhaps it's from the bowels of a dive bar where your favorite indie band has been jamming without a break all night long!  That is definite worth a crawl.  On all fours, even! 

I am not so lucky, I'm afraid.  No indie bands and dive bars for me right now.  Instead, as I mentioned, I'm crawling from my bed, donning the ever popular dog walking clothes, putting on my headlamp (HEADLAMP!), leashing up the puppies and heading out into the most frigid air on the planet to exercise.

EXERCISE!  Well, perhaps more exercise for Buddha and Stella than for me, but yes exercise.  You see as I've mentioned they still believe they're puppies.  Puppies who need lots and lots of exercise.  If they don't get lots and lots of exercise, Stella decides that she'll exercise her brain by eating my favorite books and Buddha decides he'll exercise his favorite Superdog moves by turning over all the furniture.  As I quite like my books, especially the very few that I still have since the great Divorce Sale of 2008, I try to make sure the dogs get lots of exercise.

It's for that very reason that the three of us found ourselves at Fairmount Park in Sugarhouse a few days ago in the dark long before sunrise.  As is customary, I took the dogs off their leashes when we arrived at the park.  Now, this park is not designated as an off-leash park in Salt Lake, but at 4:00 a.m. in the dark who is going to notice?   Fairmount Park is a rather large park with lots of soccer fields and a very nice skateboard park, too.  There's a duck pond, there are nice trails and my dogs really do love it there.

The dogs were busy chasing each other around in the snow and I was busy keeping track of them.  Stella had gone over to the edge of the skateboard park where she had found some delicious ground score.  Not sure what it was, but it was keeping her quite busy.   As both my dogs have somewhat sensitive constitutions (and I admit this is all my fault for cooking organic diets for them and never allowing them junk food!) I decided I should go investigate what Stella was eating.  I headed in that direction and it was then that Buddha realized exactly what she was doing. 

Now, Buddha doesn't care if Stella is eating a mouse, a rabbit or frozen McDonald's french fries.  If she's eating, he wants it, too.  In fact, he'll push her out of the way and gobble it down without even pausing to ask for the ketchup. 

As he was more concerned with the yummy treat Stella was eating, in typical Buddha fashion, he just wasn't paying very close attention to his surroundings.  So just as he was about to reach Stella, he realized that he was completely suspended in mid air and that the ground beneath paws had completely vanished.  The look of shock and surprise on his face was priceless.  There he was, suspended above an 8 foot deep skate bowl, and there was nothing he could do.  He pawed the air for what felt like FOREVER and then he simply vanished.

At first, I just giggled.  But then when he did not reappear, I worried that he had seriously hurt himself.  I ran over to the edge of the bowl and there he was standing at the very bottom, a look of astonishment on his face, wagging his tail at me.

The bowl he fell into actually has very steep sides.  Pretty much vertical.  There wasn't really a slope for him to walk out.  There also were no steps, no ladder, no way to exit if you were not skating out! 

I leaned over the edge and called to him to try to get him to come to me.  That silly dog just sat there at the bottom of the bowl wagging his tail.  He wouldn't budge.  So that's when my own head started creating all kinds of scenarios.  I imagined I was going to have to call the police.  Get the rescue squad.  Have Buddha air lifted (no not really) by helicopter from the bottom of that bowl.  I would have to explain why I was there at 4:00 a.m. and what my dog was doing off his leash.  And then the good folks of Salt Lake would escort all three of us to the edge of town and tell us never to come back.  We'd already been kicked out of Santa Cruz for our off-leash antics.  Now we'd have to leave Salt Lake, too!

Buddha still was not budging.  No amount of cajoling him could convince him that he could jump back out!  I was getting a bit desperate as I had to still get the dogs back home, cook them breakfast, get myself pulled together and get to Park City. 

I called Stella over, who by this time was finished eating whatever yummy dead thing she had found on the other side of the skate park, put her on her leash and then told Buddha that we were leaving.  Often this is the only way to get Buddha to come along.  It's to give him the impression that he's going to be left behind.

Stella and I said good-bye to Buddha and then we walked away.  As I got to the edge of the skate park I saw one sole black paw creep over the edge of the bowl.  I rushed back, grabbed Buddha's paw, then somehow managing not to tumble in to the bowl with my 150 pound dog, I pulled one paw, then two paws, then grabbing him behind his shoulders managed to get him up and out. 

That silly dog.  I checked him over thoroughly to make sure that he was not injured in any way.  Of course we had only just started the daily exercise regime, so I got both dogs safely away from the skate park and then off we went for more play time.   The dogs chased their ball and wrestled one another in the snow until I was certain they were properly exhausted. 

I'm not sure if Buddha will remember falling into the skate bowl.  Honestly, he surprises me with his brilliance on some days, but other days I'm quite sure that he needs to ride the short bus to school.  He really is my special needs dog.  In so very many ways. 

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P.S. There's a new blog located here. I think it's fairly self-explanatory.

17 December 2008

Hmmm....Needs Ketchup!

Dear Stella,

Thank you for catching the mouse.
And for eating it.
I really didn't want to do either.

Santa will be bringing you something special.

Love,

Mama


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23 October 2008

If you dance like that in front of my friends I have to go live in another galaxy

I am pretty sure that Stella, being the smarter and more technically advanced of my two Labradors, has not only figured out how to actually manipulate the mouse for the laptop (she used to just eat them), but she has also taught herself how to surf the Internet. 

Either that or the dogs are having parties at the house with punk rock college kids while I’m slaving away at the hospital every day earning dollars for their very expensive organic dog food that they insist they must eat in order to survive on this planet.

 Did I mention that I recently ran out of their food? Totally by accident? And that to reward me for this faux pas they both went on a hunger strike that would have made Gandi proud? Yes, they most certainly did. Those dogs did not eat for three days. THREE DAYS! It didn’t matter what I offered them. They’d sniff around their bowls and just walk away. Even Stella. Stella who eats fifty three pages of best sellers when she’s pissed off at me. Walked away from her bowl of organic rice, oraganic chicken and vegetables. All because it was NOT her regular organic fare. Pfft. Spoiled dogs.

 The reason I’m fairly certain that Stella has taught herself how to surf the Internet is that when I do come home from slaving away at the hospital all day, Stella is very excited to meet me and to take me shopping for her latest Halloween costume idea. Costume ideas that I know are not coming from her brother, Buddha. And certainly haven’t been suggested by me.

 I don’t know who came up with the idea that dogs need Halloween costumes, but they’ve obviously found a perfect target customer in Stella. In the past week alone, Stella has decided she will be Marilyn Monroe. But no, after buying her costume, maybe not. It was too hard to walk in those stilettos. So, she’ll be a Bumble Bee. Then, no, she has to be a fairy princess. Not just any fairy princess, though. She wants to be a purple fairy princess. So we traipse over to DI to find her just the right purple fairy princess costume because the Bumble Bee is so yesterday’s news even though we’ve already found her the cutest dooleyboppers for her head! We search and find her wings and a lavender tulle tutu and a tiara and I triple check with her that, absolutely, this is the best costume ever in the history of costumes.

 So, of course, when I got home yesterday she’s waiting for me. The computer screen is open to Martha Stewart?!?!? And Stella is telling me that being a purple fairy princess is, well, just rather predictable. Don’t I think? Everyone else is going to be a purple fairy princess, too! Just look at Martha Stewart. She has costumes for every kind of fairy princess imaginable! Stella needs to be different.

 I suggest that perhaps she just be a black

Labrador

? How’s that for different? But that just causes her to burst into tears and tell me that I’m just mean! Mean!! Don’t I know that Halloween is her most favorite holiday of all the holidays in the world and she just has to dress up?! She has to let her inner freak flag fly! Even if she’s not sure what that is, she knows she has to fly it!

 Turns out that now she wants to go completely retro and be Judy Jetson. She saw it on Hulu while she was on the computer the other day. What? Of course she was on the computer. What do I expect her to do all day long while I’m at work? It’s terminally boring just lying around the house waiting for me to come home. Buddha sits there and meditates. Look, she knows she’s not old enough to date. She hasn’t signed up for an account on Dogster. She just wants to at least keep her brain occupied. Is there anything so wrong with that? It’s educational, the Internet. There are CATS on the Internet. People put things on them! It’s funny!!

Anyway, she asks, can we please go find her the perfect blonde wig to wear in a pony tail? And she’s going to need a hot pink space age dress. Can we go find her one, please? And some silver gogo boots? She seems most excited about the silver gogo boots.

Who is this dog?

When I ask Buddha what he plans on being for Halloween, he informs me that he is already Buddha, he is already one with everything, and this is more than enough. Stella snickers, though, that Buddha will be her dog Astro. He just doesn’t know it yet!

So Stella and I set out for DI yet again. In the hopes of transforming her into the perfect Judy Jetson. An hour, many assholes and elbows, and $7 later we emerge with the perfect blonde wig and the perfect hot pink space age dress and her silver gogo boots.

She’s thrilled and can’t stop yammering about how “cool” she’s going to be.  No other dog is going to be nearly as cool as she's going to be.  She's got the BEST costume.

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I’m wondering if I hide the computer on the top shelf of the hall closet if she’s smart enough to find it there? Because there’s a whole week left before Halloween and that means seven more opportunities for Stella to change her mind about just what she must be!

It would make me happiest if she’d just dress up as a very well-behaved and mellow dog. I don’t think even I would recognize her!!

16 September 2008

And Stella Came Tumbling After

So I walk the dogs on long leisurely walks in the evenings.  We leave the house with no real set agenda and head in this direction or that direction and usually spend at least an hour, if not longer, wandering the streets of Salt Lake City. 

Often, I'll allow Stella to bring her orange frisbee with her.  She's quite determined to always carry it.  She will not allow Buddha to carry it, rarely allows me to carry it and will even hold it in her mouth while she's doing her very important business. 

Tonight, though, we set off without the frisbee.  Just Buddha and Stella and me.  Wandering the streets.  I am sorry, though, honestly that I didn't bring my camera.  Because I'm not sure you're going to believe me when I tell you exactly what happened on this particular evening.

We meandered back and forth up the hill to East High School.  The very same high school where they recently shot those High School Musical movies.  And this is the part where you're going to think I'm going to tell you that we bumped smack into Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens doing a dance routine on the playing fields and singing their hearts out supported by a cast of fabulous looking extras while the cameras were all rolling!  And that Buddha and Stella and I joined right in, sang right on key, and are now no longer in need of a wealthy benefactor because those folks at Disney are going to give us our very own special movie deal.  One that is all about an earth-loving, organic toting, vegan, altruistic NakedGirl who is selected as a Vice-Presidential candidate, actually wins, and takes Washington, D.C. by storm with her two black labradors in tow.  Of course there are special scenes about Stella eating the Constitution (she just loves paper!) and Buddha rallying for more short buses for the special needs kids.  It all ends happily with a Naked Love Fest on the White House front lawn with Putin, Kim Jong II and our NakedGirl.  Isn't life just beautiful?

Um, no.  That's not at all what happened. 

Instead, what happened is that the dogs were upset with me for taking them to a huge expanse of lovely green grass and not bringing the frisbee. 

It so happens that there's a rather steep hill at East High School.  A hill that's good for tumbling down just like Jack and Jill, if you're so inclined.  So I tumbled right down.  Rolled, actually.  And told Buddha and Stella to follow me.

And this is the part where, honestly, you're just going to have to believe me.  I promise to try to get those folks from Disney with all their fancy cameras and movie equipment to shoot us over there on the hill very soon!

They did it.  And when they got to the bottom and realized just how much super duper fun that was?  They raced each other back to the top and did it over and over again.  I just sat there and could not stop giggling at my silly dogs. 

I wish you could have seen Buddha, especially.  Stella, as we all know, is fearless and thinks absolutely nothing of bounding off the top of water falls to catch her tennis balls in mid-flight as she pummels into the water below.  But Buddha?  Not so much.

However, I think my special needs Buddha may just have jumped off the short bus and into the Winner's Circle for rolling down a hill of very green grass.   Imagine ninety pounds of happy black labrador rolling (yes rolling) back to stomach to back to stomach with his big old ears flopping this way and that and a smile so big that you can count all his teeth and his tonsils.  And imagine all of that rolling right over you because he thinks that will make it even MORE fun.  He took it so seriously that when Stella rolled into him by accident, he stood up and gave her a very stern reprimand! 

The very best, though, was when they'd both get to the bottom they'd look at each other as if to say, "Shall we do it again?" and then race like mad back to the top of the hill and go tumbling right back down again! 

Isn't life just so much better with dogs?  I mean, honestly, it just is!

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22 July 2008

So What Will It Be, Now That You're Three

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Dear Buddha and Stella,

Today you are three.  My mother, Emily Gilmore, wants you to know that this means that the Terrible Twos are behind us. 

I feel quite confident that Stella, in particular, is ignoring that statement from Emily, since she started the celebrations off this morning by waking up and vomiting all over the carpets.  Lovely mucous filled yellow vomit.  Directly where I would step in it. 

Stella always has been the overachiever of the two of you (sorry, Buddha, but you really do ride the short bus and I'm grateful that we have Stella in our lives so she can watch out for you and keep you from actually being HIT by the short bus when you're waiting to go to school!) and I'm sure in her mind she knew that it just isn't a party until someone vomits so she wanted to be sure your birthday got off to a proper start today.

Thank you, Stella. 

I know that this last year of your life has not a particularly easy one.  I uprooted you from your very comfortable existence in Santa Cruz where you romped in the ocean and ran illegally on the beaches day and night tormenting the wildlife and the small children and moved you to a place that had an abundance of frozen white stuff all over the ground.  Not only that, but I forced you both to live in a house that had very faulty heat and no insulation and had previously been inhabited by crack dealers.  I know we spent the first few months telling all those people that there were no more drugs available and I really must thank you both for rising to the occasion and being such marvelous watch dogs.

Also, I need to thank you, profusely, for guarding my own heart so carefully.  It was pretty broken when we arrived.  As shattered into small and fragile pieces as any heart has ever been.  I was quite certain that it was never, ever, ever going to be whole again.  That there was no glue on this planet strong enough to mend it. 

Who knew that dog saliva can mend a broken heart? 

Your kisses every single morning and every single evening and all day long are honestly, swear to goddess as my witness, the only thing that kept me going on many of those long and dreary days.  I knew you needed me.  I may have been abandoned, but there was no way on earth I was abandoning the two of you.  Absolutely no way.  And those kisses that woke me up every morning, that forced me out of bed, that reminded me that you needed breakfast, that you needed a walk, that you needed dinner? 

Slowly, but oh so surely, those kisses gently gathered each sliver and shattered piece of my heart and glued it back together.  It beats strongly now.  It is even remembering how to love.  I promise that it never stopped loving the two of you.  Ever.

So now that you're three, there's a bigger secret I want to share with the two of you, my constant companions, guardians of my heart and all that is special to me. 

It's about that guardian bit.  I still think it's quite important since you do carry my heart on all eight of your paws that you do so gently and carefully.  But, I want you to know that we live in a very safe neighborhood.  And those people who are walking past?  The ones you feel the need to bark ferociously at like you'd rip them into tiny one inch by one inch pieces if you were just given the chance?  Those people?  Those other dogs who dare to step on the sidewalk outside our house? 

All that barking?

It's not necessary.  Really.  It's making me batty and making me consider getting you both your own house down the street.  A house where the two of you can bark all you want.  The Bark House.  But this house?  This house will become the No Bark Zone.

So what will it be, now that you're three?

Shall we give it a try?  No Bark Zone?  Let the folks and their dogs walk on by without going ballistic?  Let the leaves fall from the trees without alerting the authorities? 

We're all okay, Buddha and Stella.  We really are.

Love,

Your Mama

 

01 July 2008

Vogue!

Someone around here has been reading a few too many fashion magazines.  It really isn't her fault.  For some unknown reason, we're getting loads of them delivered the house every month.  I can't understand it, honestly?  Did one of you decide that this would be a nice welcome to Utah present for me and Stella?  At least one of us is enjoying them!

I can share that Stella has become obsessed with the pages of Vogue.  She drools over all those designer fashions and begs me to purchase her recycled cashmere by Koi Suwannagate.  She claims it will be all the rage this winter at Sundance.  At least Stella wants recycled cashmere!  She does care about the environment and the other animals, after all.

But her biggest obsession is with none other than Anna WIntour!  Stella sniffs her out and retrieves bits and pieces about Anna's comings and goings and lunches and dinners and all the parties like the rabid dog that she, well, is!  And she not only wants to know everything about her, now...well...now she wants to BE her. 

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Thank you, Internet, for creating this new obsession for her.  Can we please now get her a job to help pay for it?  Please??

29 May 2008

They're Just Like Teenagers

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Since the very day that I brought Buddha and Stella home from their mama's house, I have been rather obsessed with their diet.  Not in a bad way, I do not think?  But in a way that has ensured that they have always had the very best possible food to eat.  Food that was both organic and human grade.  Food that probably was better and more nutritious than the average American diet, sadly. 

I used to cook every single day for Clyde.  Organic chicken and vegetables and grains.  Plus a mixture of herbs and other supplements that were fantastic for his arthritis and other ailments as he aged.  Let's remember that Clyde lived to be 17.  He was quite the happy dog right up until the very end so I do feel that I must have been doing something right for him.  At least I was trying.

I would love to cook for Buddha and Stella, too, but truthfully, when they arrived the thought of cooking for two 90 pound dogs, twice a day, became a tad overwhelming.  So I did my research and discovered Honest Kitchen.  Which I was really happy to learn was an organic option that was chock full of the same human grade ingredients that I wanted to feed my dogs.  It also was a food that I cooked, but because it was freeze-dried, I could cook just the amount necessary for each dog for each meal. 

I know that sounds like a lot of work, but truthfully, all it takes is boiling some water and pouring it in.  There are days when I add in a few fresh herbs (not that the food isn't complete on its own, but some days I feel Buddha and Stella need an extra this or that) and I always give them a dollop of raw yogurt for some acidophilus, but honestly, Honest Kitchen dog food has been the perfect solution for Buddha and Stella.

However, they might tell you otherwise.

Today, while we were out in the dog park, they ate the following as a supplement to their 100% organic human grade diet:

A bag of marshmallows
A half-eaten Burger King kid's meal
A discarded peanut butter sandwich
Used Napkins
Half a can of uncooked Chef Boy-Ar-Dee Ravioli (this Buddha carried around like a prize!!)

Lovely, huh?  Of course they were unable to completely eat any of those things because when I discovered them eating these things, I implored them to "drop it and leave it" which, surprisingly, they actually did.  But not before they actually had eaten at least part of each prize.

My dogs.  They really are like teenagers.  I feed them wonderful, delicious, healthy, organic food.  And what do they eat when left to their own devices? 

Marshmallows and Burger King.   It's a good thing I love them as much as I do.  Imagine if I didn't??  Marshmallows and Burger King might be all they'd be eating!

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Honest Kitchen

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