Where is Teddy boy?

Someone posted a comment to my post about our jaunt to Silver Sands beach yesterday asking where Teddy boy is - and I guess I also didn't picture him in my post today in my playing with Daisy - he was where he almost always is - on my lap!


Yesterday at the beach when I was taking pictures though he was being bad and trying to get in my pocket that holds the liver - so that is the picture I got of him - a very close shot of something black going steadfastedly into a pocket.




Today when I was wrestling with Daisy and cutting Buttercup's ears - he wasn't too impressed with being jostled and getting hair on him - so you can sort of tell in this picture that he'd rather be somewhere else - but there's no where else he wants to be than in someone's arms - and my arms are the only arms in the house unfortunately. So what's a dog to do?

So that's the Teddy report! haha!

There's a toy at my feet...

Daisy says - I have just put a gorilla at your foot, unbenownst to you.... who is going to get to it first - me or you? I will wrestle you for it!!


And Buttercup says - "Thank DOG for the diversion - I have just spent 15 minutes of the worst hell up here on the table having my ears and the top of my head cut when all I wanted to do was hang out in front of the computer monitor and have a NAP!"

It was nippy out today at the Moose

Shangri-la was a bit cold today, but tomorrow it's supposed to be -24, so I wanted to make sure we got a good walk in today so we went over to Silver Sands beach over in Dartmouth. It was pretty cold out, but nice and sunny. There weren't any surfers there today - no waves atll even though it was windy - but I guess waves on the ocean has to do with wind off shore maybe and not in the air. The dogs didn't seem to notice and they all had a good time sniffing around the rocks, although they didn't get to do any top speed runs since there wasn't any flat out spaces - we'll have to go somewhere tomorrow so they can get that in.

The Most Pathetic song ever written

There's a song I've been humming my whole life, and today I searched the internet to find out what the lyrics actually said. The song is called "You are my sunshine". Everybody hums that, right? Well, here are the lyrics:

Found at http://www.geocities.com/holidaysfun/sunshine.html

You are my sunshine my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll never know dear how much I love you
So please don't take my sunshine away

The other night dear as I lay dreaming
I dreamt that you were by my side
Came disillusion when I awoke dear
You were gone and then I cried

You are my sunshine my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll never know dear how much I love you
So please don't take my sunshine away

You told me once dear there'd be no other
That no one else could come between
But now you've left me to love another
You have broken all my dreams

You are my sunshine my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are grey
You'll never know dear how much I love you
So please don't take my sunshine away

Isn't that awful? The person is trying to make the person not leave them by saying how much they love them - very passive/aggressive. It's already too late - the person doesn't love them anymore, but the person still wants them to stay. Yuck.

But it's such a catchy tune. I can't help humming it still.

I've been writing some stuff for my charlieloveshalifax.ca

Today I've been working on my page "Tips for business owners of Dog Friendly Businesses" - it's a page I always meant to put up on the old site, but never got around to writing. So today I started writing something down to put up on the new site. Here's what I've gotten so far:

Tips for Business Owners of Dog Friendly Businesses

My #1 tip for business owners who allow dogs in their stores is to have a good attitude! Obviously you already realize how lucrative the dog-loving crowd is, and that’s why you have begun catering to them – and you also are a dog-lover yourself, and probably own at least one or 2 canine life companions that may or may not be in the store everyday already anyway!

And for that I say BRAVO, and THANK-YOU!!! I believe that the demographic that includes me and most of my friends – the urban, skilled, gainfully employed with quite a bit of extra disposable income to spend however we’d like – and are willing to spend in a quite silly political fashion – way – are on the increase. And we’d like to come spend our money in YOUR store, if you will let us bring our chosen lifetime companions with us. If not – we will find somewhere else to buy the same products that you offer. It’s no problem for us – only a problem for you!

Our little corner of the world is becoming such a beautiful place because of people like you – and I think it’s great that you are allowing dogs to have such fabulous opportunities to be with their owners. As I say on my shopping page – owners aren’t bringing their dogs to your store to play with other dogs, they’re bringing their companions to your store so that they get their errands done AND spend extra time with the souls who mean the most to them in this world – their DOGS – and you business owners are enabling that. And THAT is awesome!!!

So here are some tips that I’ve thought of that might make your life a bit easier that maybe some store owners haven’t thought of:

If it’s at floor level – consider it fair game. That’s a pretty basic rule when it comes to house breaking in any house, right? So why is it so hard for store owners and people shopping to get over? Why does so much expensive product have to be at floor level anyway? I don’t really look down when I’m shopping, except for when Buttercup begs to be picked up – and product gets wrecked when it’s down low by things other than dogs lifting their legs – people scuff the stuff with their shoes, dirt gets on it, kids kick the stuff and pick it up and put it in their mouths – anything can happen to stuff when its merchandised low to the ground – that shouldn’t be any reason to ban dogs from a store.

Have a bucket of cleaning products so that you can just hand it over to a dog owner who’s dog has just “tinkled” on the floor – so that with no muss and no fuss, and as little embarrassment as possible to the customer – and with as little possiblitity that they will refuse to do it!! They can clean up the mess their dog just made themselves! Pet stores and grocery stores (in their holistic sections) now carry products that clean up the ammonia from urine 100% so that when a dog pees it cleans up the smell 100% so that when the next dog comes into your store they won’t feel the need to continue marking that spot – which is the biggest problem with multiple dogs coming through enclosed areas. If it’s cleaned up properly – that won’t happen – so get a bucket, put in some paper towels, some plastic bags, a bottle of cleaner – and when an accident does inevitably happen – it’s all ready to hand over to the dogs’ owner so that the proper person can clean it up. And then everyone’s happy. Doesn’t that sound easy?

We survived our first show

Charlie and I went to the Pet Expo at the PawPlex today to sell the dehydrated liver and other stuff that I make and there were a ton of people there. My friend Maureen Tate who sells Urban Carnivore Raw Meat Food and some other holistic products let me have a section of her table to put my stuff on, which I thought was super. (She's also the angel on earth who brought me Teddy and Ebony. We were back in the far corner of the place which was good for me because at various points in the day it was a zoo and I'm pretty sure that both Charlie and or I would've gone up into spontaneous combustion if we had've been in the middle of it.

We sold every piece of liver we took with us - which was about 50 bags, and we gave out a lot of our brochures - so hopefully it will pass the word out about the other stuff I make too. And it gave me a lot of ideas about how to better show the necklaces and blankets for other times that we go to shows, so all in all it was a good day I think. And Charlie got a lot of liver and a lot of kisses from humans other than me - so I'm quite sure he's pretty happy too.

I just wish I could've spent more time going around to the other tables - and I especially wish I would've taken more pictures!














Here are some pictures that I took this weekend of the dogs modelling necklaces that I made for the show. I think they look pretty cute!

Come meet Charlie this Sunday!

This Sunday me and Charlie are going to be at the Pet Expo being put on by the Grey Hound Pets of Atlantic Canada at the PawPlex in Dartmouth. We're going to be selling the dehydrated liver that we make + the necklaces, 2 dog/handsfree leashes, cards, and dog quilts that we make as well. Me and Buttercup went last year and had a good time so hopefully Charlie will have a good time this year just lying around on the floor. I'm sure it will involve a lot of treats and kisses for him!

A Bully dog wins Westminster!

Isn't it neat that an english bull terrier has won best in show at Westminster? I think that with all the turmoil that's going on in the world with breed specific legislation currently that having a banned breed win best in show at one of the most prestigious dog shows in the world is absolutely fabulous. It really says something.

What it says, I'm not sure. I heard on the television last night that he won because his head is shaped so perfectly like an egg. What that says to me is that dog shows are all about form and nothing about function, and thus when it comes to actually living with a dog from day to day - having a pure breed dog over a mixed breed it makes no difference whether he's a Westminster winner or a shelter dog - because if his head is egg shaped or not, he can still bite the hand that feeds him all the same! I can't comment on that too much because one of my dogs bites me every day and I still attempt to love him unconditionally - it's not his fault that his life up until now gave him reason to bite people.

But anyway - it is a bit of a sad comment that the 2006 winner of the Westminster Kennel Club Show can't take his trophy on a tour of Ontario, Canada - don't you think?

There's a really neat photo gallery of the show about About.com at http://dogs.about.com/od/fordoglovers/ig/The-Dogs-at-Westminster/index.htm that I found this morning. It's VERY cute!

I think Daisy may be the most beautiful looking dog in the HRM... 

Stopping for a liver break on our walk 

Daisy and me went for an adventure today! And Leash thoughts

I've been taking out the dogs individually lately so that they can have some one on one time with me and have some different types of socialization than they could get when they're all together - so that they can have a more rounded kind of life. I think it's better for them overall - but you should hear the crying when I'm able to successfully leave with one and leave the other 3 behind. There's always 3 unhappy dogs.

Today it was Daisy's turn and we had a great time. First we went to Frenchy's out in Spryfield here - it was her first time going shopping with me and she didn't do too bad, but she was a little bit exhuberant. Luckily the people there were pretty good about it, and I had a lot of liver with me, so it was okay. Then we went down to the North West Arm walk on the Purcell's Cove Road. I wanted to go somewhere that we could have a good on-leash walk where we might meet up with other dogs and joggers but wouldn't meet any off-leash dogs. We didn't meet any other dogs unfortunately, but we had a good time and I got a couple great shots of Daisy to update my North West Arm walk page on my website and it also got me thinking about classifying different walks on my website - that walk really IS an on-leash walk, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I've been thinking a lot about on leash versus off-leash because I've been working on what I call my "off-leash manifesto" - the city is looking to add more off leash areas in the city - and I want to add a whole big thing on my website about it - and one big thing we as dog owners have to be VERY careful what we wish for. We may gain 10 off leash dog areas and lose being able to take our dogs ON-LEASH anywhere else in the city. That to me would be totally unacceptable. We have to make sure that we only GAIN off-leash areas and not LOSE on-leash walks!! And so ends my leash thoughts for today....

Here's my Daisy adventure pictures -


Did you say we're going shopping? 


A long view of the first section of the North West Arm walk 


A contemplative (for the moment) Daisy 

What I leave every morning

Does everyone else suffer from separation anxiety from their dogs? If you had a dog who did this to you every morning, I don't know how you couldn't. Every morning when I leave for work I have this face looking out the window at me, and every night when I arrive home it's still sitting there in the window blankly looking out - and when she spots me she starts barking madly and jumps down. That's when Daisy takes over and jumps up to look out with her whole body wagging, her tongue hanging out and her ears completely pinned to the back of her head. She's always quite sure that I've got some french fries or hash browns in my bag for her and she's usually right.

Excelsior! There's a new fence at Seaview Park!

When I was at Seaview last night I noticed that there's a beautiful new fence where the wooden fence had been demolished by hooligans a few months ago. It's obviously been put up by the City because it's from the same materials as the rest of the fence that lines the whole park, and it's on a nice floating hinge, and is really really nice.

It had to have been just put up yesterday because another person who was at the park last night while I was there said he was there yesterday morning and it wasn't there then. I think it's almost worthy of writing to the city and thanking them they did such a nice job. We always write to them when anything bad happens easily enough - but when they do something good I think that's also a good opportunity to write too! Maybe it's just because I'm a loud mouth letter writer though! haha!

White Cane Week & Blind Dogs

The Week of February 6-11, 2006 is "White Cane Week" - a week set aside to increase awareness about the fact that vision impaired people aren't any different than sighted people - they just have different adjustments that they have to make in their daily lives.

Not too many people know that I'm the web master for the web site http://www.blinddogs.com - the national web site for blind dog rescue - a web site where any vision impaired dog can be posted to increase his visibility so he might be adopted more quickly. It's affiliated with a couple Yahoo groups - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blinddogs-rescue/ - which provides a forum for all those involved in the rescue or transport of blind or visually-impaired dogs, and also the Yahoo group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blinddogs/ - which you join after you get your blind companion animal. That group has over 2,000 members, so I think that it's a pretty popular group!

What I'm saying is that just as there's nothing wrong with humans having vision problems - there's nothing wrong with our companion animals having vision problems - it just means having to make some simple adjustments to their lives, and to our lives.

The only difference it makes in the dogs' lives it that it kills most of the blind dogs who come into rescue because it pretty much makes them unadoptable - that's why having a really good support system like blinddogs.com is so important for dogs like these - otherwise pretty much 100% of them would be dead. And it would be so unnecessary.



This dog Bubba has been at the shelter in Marietta Ohio (removed link to his Petfinder ad April 4, 2006 - see below for why) since last July. He'd be such a great dog, but since he's blind, there he sits. Who knows how much longer the shelter staff are going to be able to bear watching him everyday in his cage.

When you're thinking about adding your next canine life companion to your crew - think about adding one of these super hard to place - and extremely easy to please soul mates to your house. I'm quite sure you won't be disappointed.

Update April 4, 2006 - March 28, 2006 Bubba's time was up and he still wasn't adopted - a last plea email went out to all the rescue lists for him to be cross-posted, but no one could help him. He'd been in the shelter since last July 2005 and even though the shelter manager was in love with him - no one would adopt him - and he was killed on March 28, 2006.

Category: [Rescue]

We're awash in slush

We had a huge snow storm on Wednesday that left about 25 cms of snow - and then we went back to our unseasonable 8-10 above zero temperatures and yesterday it was nice and sunny, so the woods above my house are completely slushy. The big dogs didn't notice - and Buttercup didn't really notice until the last 10 or so minutes, and then she'd had enough - but Teddy refused to walk just about the whole time we were out. He just stood in one spot and cried. The ultimate froo froo.

You like Buttercup's turtle neck sweater? It last exactly about 1/2 of this walk before she rolled on something and put a big pick in it. Luckily I only paid $.99 for it at Value Village. I guess she's not a knitwear kind of girl. She's more of a sportwear kind of dog - I'll have to remember that in future shopping trips. It looked good while she had it on though.

We've been in the Newspaper!

And it wasn't a nasty letter to the editor this time - it was about the proposed (and hoped for) new dog parks that are going to be talked about by the HRM's city council. I was interviewed last week by the Halifax Daily News. I don't have a subscription to the newspaper so I couldn't get an electronic copy of the article so I had to scan in the paper version of the article. If anyone reads this subscribes to the Daily News and will send me the electronic version, I'd love to have it. Sometimes it seems like me and Janet Chernine are the only 2 dog owners in the city according to the Halifax newspapers when they're looking for quotes - although I am NOT complaining! haha! But Buttercup even made it into the newspaper anonymously in May 2004 when we were at Seaview one day and a photographer was taking pictures - I guess it was because she really IS the most beautiful dog in the world! The picture is - here - in a pdf file if you dare to look at it!

I Made the plunge

So I finally made the plunge, made the $15 investment and switched the "Charlie loves Halifax" website over from the free Yahoo website over to http://charlieloveshalifax.ca today. It's going to take a long time to transfer everything over - but I finished the main page and the site map page which is good enough for right now.

The site's been getting too many hits and was continually being shut down by Yahoo because of too much data transfer - so hopefully that won't happen anymore.

The architecture of the site is going to be completely different too, which won't mean anything to most people - but to me has been wracking my brain for quite a while. I really like the architecture at http://www.mipham.com if you look at it closely - and that's how I'm going to set up my site too. Only geeky people will care about that stuff though. Other people can just completely skip this post! But to me, the architecture of websites is fascinating and one that I can look at and admire - or swear at and blast for it's stupidity!

I bought the domain name - for those that care, at domainsatcost.ca and am hosting it at dynamic hosting - which is a company down in Cape Breton with a plan that they have for "a buck a month" - which sounded good to me!

Category: [Charlie loves Halifax]

Category: [Geeky Stuff]

I Guess God Hates The Seals Too

Because it's been so mild here on the east coast there hasn't been any ice out on the ocean for the seals to give birth on - which also probably means that there won't be any seal hunt for the fishermen to go kill the baby seals either, I'd imagine. But right now there's 1000's of seals who had to come on shore to give birth on a tiny island just off Nova Scotia. We had a huge snow storm here a couple days ago which made a really high tide and it washed 100's of baby seals out to sea.

I guess it's not only fishermen who hate seals - God must hate them too.

What could Rebecca Aldworth do about this? I wish she could've done something about this. That would've been sweet.

Here's an article from CTV news about the story:

Winter storm kills hundreds of grey seal pups
Updated Thu. Feb. 2 2006 6:38 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

Hundreds of grey seal pups nursing on Pictou Island, N.S. were killed Wednesday when a tidal surge washed them out to sea.

Newborn pups are unable to swim and despite their mothers' desperate attempts to retrieve them from the water, most were lost to the storm surge -- a by-product of the extreme winter weather currently pounding the Maritimes.

"You'd see mothers trying to save pups, they'd get them further inland and then the tide would take them back out," said Ron MacDonald, one of the island's 18 winter residents.

Fisheries Department officials said approximately 3,000 adult grey seals sought refuge on the island over the weekend, and it's estimated approximately 75 per cent of their pups were lost during the surge.

Strewn between washed-up strands of seaweed, the carcasses of some of the pups now litter the otherwise picturesque sandy beach, located between the southern tip of P.E.I. and the north coast of Nova Scotia.

"It was very traumatic to watch," said resident Jan MacDonald. "I can't say there was one nice thing about it."

A lack of ice floats in the Northumberland Strait forced the large herd to seek refuge on the island over the weekend.

Fisheries Department spokesperson Jerry Conway said the heavy loss will have a dramatic impact on the herd, but is unlikely to affect the overall population of the species in the area.

The surviving pups and their mothers are expected to stay on the island for another two to three weeks while they shed their white fur and deplete their fat reserves, before heading out to forage in the Atlantic waters.

Category: [Sealing]

Some really funny stuff

I get a lot of emails, and some of them are funny, and some of them I find SUPER funny. I got this one tonight and maybe it's because I've been inside all day because here in shang-ri-la we've been hit with a nor-easter and I didn't go to work today because of that (storm day) and for some reason while I was very deeply working on a new website, someone came along and shovelled my driveway. I have no idea who did it. Where else but in shang-ri-la could that happen... can you tell me?

Anyway, back to the funny email. Here it is - I have bolded the ones I found particularly funny:

How Do Crazy People Go Through The Forest?
They Take The Psycho Path

How Do You Get Holy Water?
You Boil The Hell Out Of It.

What Do Fish Say When They Hit a Concrete Wall?
Dam!

What Do Eskimos Get From Sitting On The Ice too Long?
Polaroid's

What Do You Call a Boomerang That Doesn't work?
A Stick

What Do You Call Cheese That Isn't Yours?
Nacho Cheese.

What Do You Get From a Pampered Cow?
Spoiled Milk.

What Do You Get When You Cross a Snowman With a Vampire?
Frostbite.

What's The Difference Between Roast Beef And Pea Soup?
Anyone Can Roast Beef.

Why Do Gorillas Have Big Nostrils?
Because They Have Big Fingers.

Why Don't Blind People Like To Sky Dive?
Because It Scares The Dog.

What Kind Of Coffee Was Served On The Titanic?
Sanka.

What Is The Difference Between a Harley And a Hoover?
The Location Of The Dirt Bag.

Why Did Pilgrims' Pants Always Fall Down?
Because They Wore Their Belt Buckle On Their Hat.

What's The Difference Between a Bad Golfer And a Bad Skydiver?
A Bad Golfer Goes, Whack, Dang!
A Bad Skydiver Goes Dang! Whack.

How Are a Texas Tornado And a Tennessee Divorce The Same?
Somebody's Gonna Lose A Trailer

Now, admit it. At least one of these made you smile!

You don't quit laughing cause you grow old, you grow old cause you quit laughing.