Happy New Year

I decided to stay home and ring in the new year 2011 with the dogs
With them all getting to be so old, who knows where will all be at New Year 2012, so I wanted to stay home and be with them when all the neighbourhood fireworks and guns started shooting off at about 10pm - and as of 12:26am - have yet to start slowing down.
The dogs have had a good time - except for the fireworks bits - Charlie is terrified of the noise so he tends to go hide in corners - after he's had a pee in them, which means a bit of a clean-up - but Charlie and Daisy have been feeling frisky tonight, which is good
Buttercup has been feeling horribly ignored because the camera hasn't been focused solely in her direction - so this is what she does to me when that happens - she sits there stone faced and refuses to acknowledge me. Later on I made some toast and gave her some - with the crusts removed so it was only the spongy middle bits left - and she forgave me - for the moment.
2010 was an eventful year - and not one I want to live over - with the death of Jackie - and I am very worried about 2011 - I currently constantly have a general sense of forboding - waiting for something to happen - is today going to be the day that the next one goes? A 16, 12, 10 year old dog with diabetes - an 81 year old father -
At some point they're going to start going - and probably in pretty quick succession - it might be in 2011 - but there's nothing I can do about it.

All I can do is enjoy them today, which is what I did. And tomorrow I'll do the same thing.

On another note - I've got a couple projects planned for 2011 - one of course is following up with the HRM with my freedom of information request about the statistics on the Homeward Bound Pound's euthanasia numbers - but I'm also researching breed specific legislation in Nova Scotia - I have gone to every town and municipality's website - there are 55 towns and municipalities across the provincs - and I've downloaded all their dog bylaws - and found every place that currently has bsl - there are 4 counties and 2 towns with bsl.

There is also one town - Stellarton - that has not updated their dog bylaw since 1956!

The town of Mahone Bay also has a pet limit law of 4 dogs - which is interesting for all the border collie people who live in Mahone Bay who have a bazillion dogs. Some other interesting things are the fact that the town of Westville has a cat bylaw.

The BEST bylaw in Nova Scotia - by far - is Springhill, Nova Scotia - whoever has written their dog bylaws has taken the Calgary model to heart - and has done a ton of research as well.

And then we have a place like Shelburne - the town of Shelburne does NOT have BSL - but it's a tiny little dot in the centre of the county of Shelburne - which DOES have bsl - so their not having bsl is kind of meaningless.

So stay tuned for that - I'll be putting up charts listing where's the best place to have a kennel, and where exactly bsl is, and etc., in the near future...

Halifax, Where's your tacky?

Tonight I went out driving around looking for houses that were decorated up for Christmas - and I didn't find a lot that were really outlandish and crazy like you see on television down in the States. I remember when I was a kid driving around at Christmas time to look at people's houses that were decorated - but it seems like that tradition has died out now maybe? I don't know. Maybe I live in the wrong part of HRM - these were some of the craziest houses I could find - and they weren't all that crazy - this first house was funny because it was half of a duplex - and the other half was completely bare.
This second house was on the corner of Connaught and Jubilee and lots of people were stopping and parking and getting out of their cars to have a look
There were even other people there with their cameras taking pictures

All four sides of the house were decorated
Even the kid's tree house was decorated
I wonder though if there was a big feud with whoever kid's room this is - to take down the flag that' used as a curtain in this room "just for Christmas" - so that the front of the house would look better and more Christmasy - and the kid won the fight!


This is a couple shots of a house in the deep south end
The house was on Inglis Street - even rich people can be tacky
This house was in the north end of Halifax
This house was in Flemming Park
This house is right next door to me - and amazingly - somehow they are able to keep this Santa inflated continuously - it's the first time I've seen this happen - whenever I've seen these elsewhere - they're always deflated.
When I saw this decoration on the front of a house - I knew I had the cover for my Christmas card next year - EXCELSIOR! Lobster traps used as Christmas decorations! I could not believe it - how BEAUTIFUL!
I took a few photos of this, you can believe that. These people must be very classy! I almost knocked on their door to tell them how much I loved their decorations! Super!

And as soon as I finished taking these photos - I knew it was time to come home, which I did.

Christmas eve at the Canine Casbah

Christmas eve involved lobster at the Canine Casbah - fun was had by all involved - except for the lobster of course!
This is Sassy - who emerged from her blanket cocoon for a moment to let everyone know that a human had entered the living room and needed to be barked at.
And Since I was at the Canine Casbah - I knew there'd be a couple orchids I could take photos of -
And I was not disappointed - I found two of them - I'm sure there were more there, but since it was Christmas - I only had the chance to find 2 orchids - so here they are
Here's one of the lobster's we had for supper, getting ready to test out the water - I think he was about to find out that the water was a bit too warm for his liking And boy - did he taste good!

This is a shot from my vantage point of Janet's dining room

This is Maximo absconding a toy that I had brought over for the dogs to try out that I had received from someone at Shopper's Drug Mart - I guess they have a new line of toys - and they must be passing out free ones to people to try out, so they sent me a couple ones, and since my guys only like stuffed toys I figured Janet's guys would go for these ones that are of the hard plastic and rope type - and they did love them.

This is my dog away from home - Paxton - I love Paxton

And this is me - pretending like I enjoy Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

The dogs watched some surfers at the Moose today

We had to do an errand over in Eastern Passage today, so it was a good opportunity to take the dogs to the beach - and watch some crazy surfers out in the ocean 3 days before Christmas - only in Nova Scotia eh! haha!
The dogs had a good time - I don't know about the surfers though - it was a pretty shitty day - rainy and cold - and the waves didn't seem all that great, most of the time we were there the surfers seemed to just be having a conversation out on their boards and not doing too much surfing.
All the waves seemed to be happening about 100 feet away from them while they just sat on their boards - maybe they were just too cold to swin over to the good waves!
Here is the moose...
Buttercup was on fire today - running around -
She was even chasing seaweed and acting like a little puppy - she was crazy!
Here is one surfer acting the trooper and going for a wave - what a professional!
This is Daisy looking for her piece of chicken strip - I'd say a good day was had by all
And this is the reason why we made our trip over to Eastern Passage - to give a cheque for $880 to Sonya Higgins - "cat rescuer extraordinaire" and CEO of "Sonya's Cat and Animal Rescue Society" from the "Second Chance - Charity for Animals" that I talked about the other day - so we also got to make someone happy today too - so it was all good - this is Sonya and the cat she named Carter who her boyfriend rescued out of a tree a few days ago - the story was broadcast on Global if you wanted to check it out.

A beautiful airedale available in nova Scotia

Gracie is an 8 year old airedale terrier who's had a hard life - she's already been through a couple homes who haven't understood her - so she's been labelled bossy and dominant - in her first home she spent 24 hours a day, 365 days a year outside - and then in her 2nd home - unfortunately I don't think they quite understood all the beautiful breed characteristics that an airedale can possess that are so typical of terriers - and why so many people fall in love with terriers - and so within a year she's been surrendered back to her rescuer - and she's now looking for a new forever home.

She's been in a kennel now for 5 weeks - and it's a wonderful kennel - but she needs to live in a home rather than a kennel - so we are putting out a plea to see if we can find her a home before Christmas - because Gracie deserves it.

If you know of anyone who's looking for something other than a puppy - and they know the breed type of terriers - ie they are very goofy and will do just about anything to grab your attention - right down to stealing the underwear from your bedroom floor and placing them out in the most visible part of your backyard for the neighbourhood to see - after she's chewed on them to her heart's content, and rubbed her sticky straight airedale fur all over your nice antique tibetan living room carpet because your new boss is coming over for brunch - and you don't have time to clean up before they arrive - and all of this is before 9am! - then you definitely know the airedale personality - and Gracie will be a good match for you!

You can see Gracie on Petfinder at http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/18016918 - or email Maureen Tate at divineaire@gmail.com

Even if we could find a foster home for her until after Christmas - she may have a home in Ontario if transport can be arranged - but Maureen would really like to get her out of the kennel she's currently in.

Please spread the word about Gracie!

Up your nose, Santa Claus

Teeth

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Teeth are not always used for evil only you know

It was all good news today - we gave away $5,000!

Today I went to the Christmas party for the little rescue that I volunteer with - "Second Chance - Charity for Animals" - and it was a lot of fun, because we got to divide up the money that's been taken in during the last six months and give it out to the charities that raise the money for.
In previous years almost all monies raised went straight to the NS SPCA - this year the SPCA continues to be the main benefactor - but we've started to spread the money around a little bit more because our fearless leader Nancy Northcott needed to find new and innovative ways to find volunteer's - and she did that by giving a dollar value to volunteer hours - and it's worked really well - for our volunteer base - and for the rescues that we're able to give money to - and it showed today when Nancy was writing the cheques.

As well today - we also gave little gifts to the heads of the rescues that we raised monies for because we're pretty sure that they don't get too many gifts from other places! So when we give them their cheques - they'll also get a little something else nice too!

Because of the hard work of Nancy Northcott and the volunteers at Second Chance Charity for Animals - the yard sales that you hear about outside the SPCA in Dartmouth, the sale of a whole bunch of quilt fabric that she had this year - the stall that we have at the Dartmouth Harbourview Weekend Market - the great work that Nancy does at her work with volunteers there and sponsor matching with her employer at Blue Cross - we've been able to raise over $17,000 this year - which is a lot of money - and it all started out with $800 Nancy raised at her first yard sale.

Nancy is a very hard working lady and deserves so much credit for the work she does raising money for local rescue.

Today she wrote a cheque for $920 to Angela Miller's Taking Action to Protect Animals, a cheque for $1,740 to the SPCA, a cheque for $580 to Sonya's Cat & Animal Rescue Society, a cheque for $810 to Inge Sadler's Pick of the Litter Society, a cheque for $810 to the local Ca-r-ma chapter, and a cheque for $530 to Lori Martin's cat group - "Halifax Feral Rescue Group" - all in all, that's a good chunk of cash to local rescue! It was a really great Christmas party to be at, I must say!


On that note - I pretty much have the coolest dogs in Halifax now thanks to one of the vendors who works at the Harbourview market - his business card is below - he does lots of good stuff - I got matching collars made for all the dogs, as you can see here - with "Dogkisser" stamped into the leather - is that NEAT, or what?!?
You can also have that and have spikes, or rhinestones - or lots of other stuff - put onto the leather as well - he can make tons of stuff out of leather - and he said if you mention that you heard of him because of this blog post - and I'm assuming the secret code word here is "DOGKISSER" - he will donate $5 from each order to the SPCA - so he's also philanthropic!

So if you're at the Harbourview Market - and you want to have the coolest dogs eva - you should get a dog collar made by this guy - and mention the secret code word - "DOGKISSER" - and he will give five bucks to the SPCA! YAY! It's win, win!