It was a pretty good weekend

Me and the dogs had a pretty good weekend - today me and Charlie had a family reunion with a couple of his siblings at Point Pleasant Park which was a lot of fun - I have been very lucky to meet up with 9 out of 12 of Charlie's siblings over the years, because somehow Charlie's brothers and sisters have all looked exactly alike -
and because back yard breeders don't really care who they sell their puppies to, just about everyone in the litter has ended up at the SPCA - so I've been lucky to always been notified that a dog who looks exactly like Charlie is at the SPCA - and I've always gone over and met them, and in some cases adopted them. Today we had a great time - until Charlie hurt his foot, and I had to drive my car into the middle of Point Pleasant Park and pick him up! Poor Charlie. It sucks to be old - but I was very lucky to meet very friendly people - a family with a miniature schnauzer named Rudy - who are regulars at the park - were very kind to wait with Charlie while I went and got my car - so it was great. He's now resting, and groaning like only he can do - you can see a facebook photo album if you care to delve further into our morning.

Saturday I went over for supper to my friend Janet's house - this is one of her dog's Paxton - who as you might be able to guess is a little bit intense - but he's a beautiful dog.
And guess what we had? Yummy. One of my favourite foods in the world, if not my favourite food - I was definitely born in the exact right spot on the planet, that's for sure - if only I could go and catch lobster myself and owned a cow so that I could make my own butter, I would for sure be living in the middle of the garden of eden.

Sunday morning was spent shooting the shit over at the Harbourview Market in Dartmouth manning the booth for the 2nd Chance Charity charity that raises money for the SPCA - I spent quite a bit of my time reading up on a case that I'm going to be talking about this week about a development agreement over in Lawrencetown where they are trying to have pet care facilities defined and trying (as in HRM Bureaucrats) to also say that kennels are illegal - even though that land use bylaw has a definition for kennels - not every land use bylaw in the HRM has a definition of kennel in their bylaw - so the fact that Lawrencetown has one would say to me that they should in fact be legal in that area - sounds like some bullying is going on over there - but I'll get more into that later this week

I spent some of Sunday afternoon over in the Metro Animal Emergency Department - Buttercup had knocked one of little front teeth out - a 16 year old dog with gingivitis finally taking its toll, and I wanted to make sure it had completely fallen out and not broken off - because I know what tooth pain feels like, and I didn't want Buttercup to feel pain unnecessarily - so over we went. Luckily the tooth is completely gone and maybe now I can teach her to whistle and we've got some tramadol cut up in half for the next few days instead of just silly old metacam. She hadn't stopped eating so I knew she wasn't in too much pain, but I just wanted to make sure.

But while we were there I saw the owners of this dog in complete torture - for some reason there doesn't seem to be any meeting rooms at the emergency clinic where the vets can give bad news - and the vet delivered the horrible news to the family of this dog that this dog - who's name was Bear that this dog didn't have any hip joints left - they had obviously brought him over because he was in agony and couldn't walk - and upon examination the vet couldn't even pop the hip joint back into place - there was no socket there to pop it into - all she could do was to give the dog pain medication and send him home with the owners so that they could discuss things with their own vet - he needed 2 total hip replacements.

Even before she brought the dog out I absolutely knew she was going to be bringing out a bernese mountain dog. I knew it. When they brought him out I asked if I could take a picture - and I asked them where they got him - if he was from a pet store, or a breeder - and they said they got him from New Brunswick - which as we all know is - the 2nd puppy mill capital of Canada.

So tragic. They were obviously so bonded and in love with this dog - the whole family had come to the clinic - when I arrived they were all outside the clinic crying. Awful.


Here's a couple pictures from Saturday as I was outside in the backyard continuing on with my ongoing project of installing my vinyl wing slats on to my chain link fence - one slat at a time....
And here is Jackie peeing on stuff...



Now here is something that is seriously neat - at the bottom you will see an article that I got from the Chronicle Herald last week - I thought it was a great idea - a playground for adults, after I read it - it occurred to me that Muscle whatever at Venice Beach California is probably the same thing - but in the article this playground was targeted at people older than 60 years
And then today I was at Point Pleasant Park and here is this thing here that is an exercise thingee - that is for the public and you can exercise on! And I think to myself - wow, this is great! What a great start! I hope people use this - and people get to know about it, and thank the city for it - and tell them what a good idea it is - and ask for more at other locations around the city.
Because truly, I think this is a great idea.