Dog Friendly Shopping this Christmas

I was updating my Charlie loves Halifax site tonight and added information to my main page about where to go Christmas shopping locally that will benefit both our dogs, ourselves and our local dog friendly businesses.

You can go check it out at http://charlieloveshalifax.ca/

I've written similar stories in past years to give people the push to go buy egregious amounts of stuff for their dogs and their dog loving friends - so there's a couple paragraphs of ideas for dog friendly shopping along with the list of all the Santa Pics locations and the East Coast German Shepherd Dog Rescue Wreath sale that's currently going on until Christmas.

And how could I resist including this picture of Buttercup with Santa? Such perfection!

ps - Charlie has his own fan page on Facebook if you're interested in joining up and staying in touch - it's at "Charlie loves Halifax on Facebook"

Irreconcilable Differences by Nathan Winograd

Irreconcilable Differences - the new book by Nathan Winograd - is now available for purchase! Everyone should go and buy one - I got mine this week and haven't read it yet, so I can't say too much about it - but it's available for purchase on Amazon, and it's also available on the No Kill Advocacy website.

And if you buy it on the No Kill Advocacy website - you can have it signed by Mr. Winograd himself - and you can also have it gift wrapped and sent to someone directly as a gift - so you can think of that option too! Enjoy!

Keep your eyes on the prize

Me and the big dogs went for a walk today in the woods
And I thought I'd take some pictures of a different type and took some shots of liver flying through the air and see if I could get some shots of the dogs catching it.
I was not disappointed. Daisy's ears flopped up -


Charlie's teeth bared out and he looked like a crazy dog
In this shot you can see the liver right at the top of the picture - Daisy never takes her eyes off the liver - have I said before that she's the hungriest dog in the world?
Here's another shot where the liver is at the top of the shot and Daisy has her eyes firmly focused on the projectile coming towards her - Charlie is patiently waiting for the brown thing to come in his direction.
In this shot you can see the piece of liver actually entering Charlie's mouth - and his mouth is eagerly open and waiting for the liver to enter it!
And the last shot is another like the one above - Charlie receiving his piece of liver - and Daisy saying - "why is the treat going to the right and not the left?"

Global Pets in Halifax moves to larger space

I was out in Bayer's Lake today to buy my dog food and had to drive further down in the same mall to find Global Pet's - they've moved to a larger space! This is proof positive that a pet store does NOT need to sell live animals - ie PUPPIES from PUPPY MILLS and BACK YARD BREEDERS like other local pet stores do - in order to be a successful business model - locally and I'm sure in other places in Nova Scotia and everywhere else, too. All you have to do is support your local animal community by being hugely philanthropic - like Global Pets is - and providing an excellent quality of products in your store. Congratulations to owners Lucie Larochelle and thomas Affeld and all the staff!
While I was there - since I wasn't planning on finding a nice, bright new store - I only had my blackberry with me - I thought I'd take a couple photos of a some neat things I saw in the store - who knew you could buy "Pet Head" products locally? I didn't! Now we can all dye our white dog's hair pink - and do with something that won't taste bad when they lick themselves! Yea!
I also noticed a couple of those "Pet Pheromone" kits there - for dogs and cats - so if you're into that type of stuff - Global Pets have them! I took a photo of that because I was emailed by someone in the last couple of weeks looking for one - so whoever was emailing me about them - go to Global!
And they also have the original "Peticure" Dremel type tooly things - I bought one of the knock-offs on the internet - and all my dogs went running from me as fast as they could - so I donated it to an online auction for a local "rescue" - I'm sure these original ones work much better!!

So go spend ALL your money at Global - and NOT at the stores that sell misery and greed in the cages at the back of the store - it's obviously working! Yea!!!

OT: Stone Temple Pilots - November 24 in Halifax

I love dogs and I love music - and tonight there was a great concert here in Halifax - I totally have been in love with Scott Weiland for a long time - Velvet Revolver, Stone Temple Pilots - I love it all. I almost love the heroin addiction. He was looking very good tonight, hopefully he is healthy now.

The crowd at this concert was funny, and I mean funny ha ha (to me) - it was almost all men about my age and a little younger - Mr. Weiland seems to have captured a certain demographic, that's for sure. I totally felt like I was back in about maybe - 2000. It was awesome. At least for a couple hours!

The below video is some of what I got tonight - one of my favourite songs - "Dead and Bloated" - I was totally pissing off the guy behind me up in the cheap seats because I kept standing up whenever a song I really liked started to play - no one in the stands was standing up - so I'd stand up, and then I'd have to sit back down. It really sucks getting old. And I don't know who that asshole was who was singing really loud right next to the camera. Someone really should have asked them to quiet down....

Brosa's One Year Birthday Party!

This is Brosa, and yesterday was his one year birthday party! Brosa has appeared on the blog before - when I went to a bowling tourament for the SPCA, he was there and I took a few photos of him because he's so beautiful - so he got quite a bit of coverage. As well, he's got some spots on the internet as well, if you want to check him out on Dogster, his profile is at - Brosa - and he's also a star on the Clicker Leash website as well!
He's come a long way - Brosa was born with a cleft lip and a severely cleft palate. He needed to be tube fed and came to Boxer Rescues of Atlantic Canada at 4 days old and was tube fed by Lee Anne Tibbo down in Cape Breton.This is what he looked like when he was that age - not much to look at, eh? So he's come a long way - thank dog for good rescues! Boxer rescue in Atlantic Canada makes it's money by selling collars that are expertly made by Lee Anne - you should check them out at www.eastcoastcollars.com
Soo back to the party - this is Buttercup waiting patiently to get up into her basket yesterday - she had NO interest in playing in mud - we went to the Eddie Leblanc baseball diamond in Lower Sackville for the fun - and it was a mud pit. Bobby was headed toward where the excitement was.
This is some of the owners who had been obligingly herded up into a circle by the dogs - it's good to keep the dogs happy!
This is a foster puppy from border collie rescue, a rescue jack russell named Mick owned by Michelle who does dalmation rescue,Bobby, and Fudge - an actual dalmation!
And this is Fudge the dalmation and his brother Mick - isn't Fudge beautiful? Fudge has been on the blog before with his human brother - we used to see them all the time when we used to go to Seaview Park
This was a cane corso who's name was, guess what - Kano! And a puggle named Harley, and a border collie named Scully, who I guess had a thing for Harley's neck!
This is a ringer for Charlie who's name is Bullet who was going around leaning on humans and I think was trying to sideways hump dogs, but I'm not quite sure what he was trying to do to the dogs! haha!
Melee!
This white dog and his owner were just walking by, and the dog REALLY wanted to come in and play, so his owner let him in for a minute - and boy did he have fun for the minute he was there - he was SO happy to play!
Brosa's birthday cake from the 3 Dog Bakery
And this was Bobby trying to eat his piece of cake - but other dogs kept coming over and stealing his piece because he's such a delicate eater, and because I had a huge camera and Buttercup in a holster I couldn't protect him well enough, which is funny - because he's horribly food aggressive. Poor Bobby!
Harley and Scully again - I'd say they are great friends, because they were tending to hang out a lot - see next photo -
See what I mean? This was Kano with Marley the boston terrier mix trying to get at a frisbee - and Harley trying to decide if he was going to get in on the action.
This is Lisa - Mom to Brosa - modelling the latest fashions in mud gear - carrying the birthday cake - the dog in the shot's name is Nari.
This is Mick the jack russell again with Brosa being a crazy boxer
This is Marley the boston terrier mix - she's one of those ball crazy dogs who loves the chuck-it.
Nari is another chuck-it lover
This is Nari again with her sister Kya seeming to want to take a chunk out of her thigh
And lastly - we'll finish off with Bobby, parading around being cock of the walk.

Cause for a Paws 2009

In the category of "better late than never" - I'm writing up going to the SPCA's Cause for a Paws 2009 - I didn't do it earlier because I was tired the night I got home from the event, I was feeling a bit lazy, I couldn't find the pamphlet that I got from the event, which annoyed me, etc. - so long story short - I didn't get around to it. But then yesterday I get an email from a friend of mine who says that this year raised an amazing - $29,589.59 - can you believe that? Imagine what organization it took to raise that amount of money from an auction and a silent auction in one evening - so when I read that, I knew I HAD to write about it. Such KUDOS to the organizers of the event!
This year was entirely different - that's for sure - for one thing, this is the first year that I actually had to buy a ticket! Every other year there was always free tickets floating around so that I got to go for free and then just spent my money on the auction items - this year I had to spend money on both! And the event was sold out weeks in advance - so that says something about the planning of the event. The President of the NS SPCA - Sean Kelly - is in the Navy - so he's away at sea for 6 months, and his message was on videotape - and the tone was different than in past years - the focus of the SPCA seems to be moving towards Investigations - and generating funds for that - which is interesting.
That was also the tone of the materials handed out, and other video shown at the event - which, when I was thinking about making my post about the event, I was going to comment about - which in some senses - I think is a good move for the organization - focusing on what the SPCA should be about - acknowledging that Investigation of cruelty is what they are here for - and fundraising for that is totally noble - and it appears that people ARE willing to give them money for it. Which is super!

A shot of the audience - according to the seating chart 350 people bought tickets - cha-ching!
The auction items were great, and very worthy of being auctioned off - and the auctioneers were amazing! I can understand how they raised so much money - there were 3 auctioneers and 2 of them roamed the audience and they would stand in front of you saying "come on, you can go $10 more" - and then when the other auctioneer did that to the other person up-bidding you - and they went $10 more - the auctioneer would do that to you again - so you'd keep going up and up - it was awful!! For you wallet anyway! haha! But it was good for the SPCA!
This is Amy modelling the "swag bag" that was at each table - it was a very shi-shi event - you should definitely go next year if you want to have a good time! I'm sure a good time was had by all - I know I had a good time, and I know everyone at my table had a good time

If you want to go down memory lane - here are my write-ups for past Cause for Paws'

2006 Cause for a Paws

2007 Cause for a Paws

2008 Cause for a Paws

Shots around the house on a Friday

I haven't taken any photos around the house for awhile, so I thought I'd take some today - here's a photo of Bobby with his new haircut - I'm growing a pom on the end of his tail - doesn't he look cute? I think I'm going to go for the look of the Simpson's cat on one of the Halloween episode's - he is just SO cute - I wish he was as GOOD as he is CUTE!
Now here is some shots from Charlie and Daisy's daily face wrestles today.
I think that someone should start up a world wide dog face-wrestling federation - because Charlie and Daisy would become famous
They are the best face wrestlers in the world because Charlie doesn't actually have to move when they do it
You can't really tell from these shots - but they're all taking place right in one spot
Daisy totally runs around and takes up the whole circumference of the yard and gets some good exercise - but Charlie just stays in one spot and uses his face as Daisy comes and goes
And Daisy jumps on him and wrestles with his face - the "World wide face-wrestling Federation" - I'm sure there's other life bonded dogs out there who do it?
I was also taking some photos tonight, and here's one of them - Bobby seems to be turning out to be one very intense little dog - and his face really shows it, don't you think? We're hoping to go on a playdate tomorrow - hopefully I'll get some relaxed shots tomorrow...
This is just a cute shot of Jack and Bobby sniffing each other - Jack is always surprised whenever he comes upon another dog I think - he's so blind I think he forgets there's other dogs around sometimes until he comes right up their noses - or their penises - whichever end he comes upon first.

This is cute - this is Bobby digging one of his holes - my backyard is now filled with holes since Bobby arrived a few months ago - and here Bobby is starting to dig a hole....
Buttercup comes over to investigate as dogs will do when another dog starts to do something interesting....
And as dogs do - what do they say? "If you can't eat it or play with it, pee on it and walk away" - in this photo - that's what Buttercup is doing! haha! I don't know what Bobby thought about that though!

And then finally we have a little montage of Buttercup photos that I took - just when she's looking absolutely beautiful - she's going in next week to get a haircut and get all this lovely hair cut off - what a shame, but it's a lot more comfortable for her though.
She was feeling very licky this afternoon - so I seemed to catch her a couple times in funny poses....