(Source: solecks)
Monthly Archives: August 2012
8.21.12 Sofie’s Smile
Sofie’s Smile
Sofie’s smile can make you melt. Some dogs, no matter how much trouble they can get into, just have that energy and personality that you have to love. Miss Sofie Bear is lucky because she has this killer dog smile to back up her personality. She is one of those dogs that tends to have a smile on her face most of the time. It must be the way her muzzle and jaws are, but I don’t really care much about that: to me she is a ‘smiler.’ A lot of people think this picture of her is ‘photo shopped’ but it is not. It was taken by her puppy trainer last year. She is just a happy girl. I started to wonder if dogs smile for the same reason humans do? It does seem like they smile when they are happy. Or did we humans create that response in them? In my research over the years on wolf behavior, I have learned that pulling back the lips but not showing the teeth (canines) is a submissive gesture (showing the teeth on the other hand is an aggressive gesture). A lower wolf will ‘smile’ at the alpha to show deference to position. Alpha’s on the other hand very rarely ‘smile’ because they do not need to. So I have been watching when Sofie smiles: (1) When she has done something wrong and wants to make sure that I am not going to yell at her (which is also when she rolls on her back and shows me her belly – another submissive gesture). (2) When she is really calm and staring at me. (3) When she is on a mission looking for something or is really having fun in a game.
I wonder if I encouraged the smiling behavior because of the praise and pats on the heads that she receives when she does it? “Oh, how cute! (pat pat pat)” Did I condition the response? When does your dog smile?
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤ 
8.20.12 Change Is In The Air
Squash E Bear
Fall 2007
This weekend I was missing Squash E Bear a great deal. He will be gone 2 years in February. Now you know I love my current dogs. Louise and Sofie, very much, and I have had many wonderful dogs and cats and guinea pigs over the years. But every couple of month I just really miss Squash. I think it is weird because Nikki, my Cocker Spaniel, who I adored, was with me for 18 years, but she does not come to mind with the ‘missing’ that I feel for Squashy. Squash was rescued already middle aged, he was with me only 5 years, and he was a medical handful because of the twice a day insulin shots he needed for his brittle Diabetes and the overall care when he went totally blind. However, I think Squash was so easy. He and I walked off lead most of the time (when he could still see) and he stayed within reach (in the woods he would walk in the trees and I would walk on the trail but we were always in cadence.) Squash never barked unless he had something urgent to say (which was not often) or he was telling a joke (which he liked to do while rolling on his back and laughing). He loved to travel with me and filled the backseat of my Prius with his 90 lbs of fluff and would just lay down and stay there for long rides anywhere. The only time I saw him angry was when my neighbor’s aggressive dog came running out of the house toward a member of the family while he was on leash. Oh yeah, he did like to be a little too dominant at the dog park. He would find one beautiful ‘bitch’ that he liked and then would not let any other dogs near her. Squash would proceed to place his paw over top of any male dog that might come to close. (We did not go to the dog park much for obvious reasons). Ok, so he did have a few quarks. I guess maybe it is the impending changes in my life this week, with Peanut leaving to college for the first time and K8 going back, which means V and I will be ’empty nesters’ for the first time ever – if you can call having 28 paws (7 animals multiplied by 4 paws) to take care of ’empty.’ Or is it just that Squash and I enjoyed our fall walks so much? Change is in the air.
Squash Fall 07
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Sunday’s Cartoon
In this week’s cartoon caption contest, we’re giving you the chance to re-caption the drawing that Elaine submitted to The New Yorker on an episode of “Seinfeld”.
Elaine’s caption: “I wish I were taller.”
Entries accepted through Sunday, July 22nd: http://nyr.kr/SBR1jQ
(Obviously the contest date has past but I thought the cartoon was funny.)
8.19.12 Inspiration From A Second-Hand Bear
Several years ago, at the end of the summer, we found this broken bear fountain at a local garden center. We love to shop for things at the end of the season because we can find wonderful things at prices we can afford, So what if they have some pieces missing or are a little chipped or ragged, they would get that way around here pretty quickly anyway. So Bear has been a summer time favorite of ours for many summers. The pieces that hold him up in the water are not the original ones and are 3 broken shards of pottery, so every year we spend hours trying to get the bear to sit just right and then adjust the pump to not spray out of the bowl. It is a ritual of sorts. I finally figured out if I put a piece of pottery at the end of the stream, than the splash seems to stay in the bowl instead of all over the deck, unless of course the wind is blowing. We have fountains all over the property and inside the house as well. I guess it is very Feng Shui to have water strategically positioned, but we did it because we really enjoy the calming sound (and the effects of the negative ions generated by the constant running water (you knew that of course)). The fountain at the top of the stairs is the cat drinking fountain. I am sure they think we installed it for them. We have fountains at every entrance.
2006: Peanut & Squash
On the front steps with fountain
I remember when the kids were little and a frog decided to live in the big fountain by the front door and it croaked all night right outside Peanut’s window. For a really long time the kids could not figure out what the noise was and they were afraid there was a cricket trapped in the wall.
Now that I am thinking about it, Squash used to drink directly out of the Bear Fountain because he was tall enough; Lulu and Sofie, can’t drink from it but like to play around it.
Water is such an incredible part of my life. Astrologically, I am a triple Pisces. What that means is 3 of my major planets were in the constellation Pisces when I was born. It has been said I am like water, I take the form of those things around me. What is weird is how true that has been all my life. Maybe that is why I am so good with the animals, I just flow along with them.
Water represents the contemplative side of a person, the search for inner self and deeper meanings, but it also represents unleashed chaos and uncertainty without goals. “Water, in opposition to the stability of Earth, stands for inspiration, for creation, for giving birth to ideas, longings and hopes, for moving and for changing, Because if Water stands still, it will rot.” One must stay humble to the power of water, it gives life, but, as we know, it can also cause great damage (I guess that is the unleashed chaos part).
I am sad to report that the Bear Fountain did not make it out of storage this summer, because we never got the shade cover to the deck area up, which meant we did not have shade, and we always but him in the shade so he does not grow algae to fast. Now we are starting to close up the pool and turn over the gardens, and Bear will have to wait until next summer. No wonder I couldn’t get anything started this season, I was missing my inspiration.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
8.18.12 Everyone Needs An Office Cat
Last year, I guess it was last year but maybe it was longer ago, both Noel and Muffin slept in my office under the window in their beds. As Muffin has gotten much frailer (he is 19 or 20 now I think), he does not come on my desk much anymore (accept late in the day sometimes when he wants to chew on my phone cord to tell me that he is hungry). Muffy mostly sleeps on the glass coffee table in the living room these days (I assume because it is central and cool and low to the ground). Noel mostly sleeps alone in my office. She gets to decide which bed she wants. Today she is in Muffy’s red (manly) bed, but mostly she is in the her pink (girly) bed. I have noticed that since my return from Australia she often sleeps in the next room (my den) on the couch during the day (I think it is much cooler in the den than my office, with all my equipment and lights. Also my office is the hottest corner of the house (of course it would be)). I like that she has branched out (at least one room over). Noel doesn’t get involved in the stupidness that goes on in the house with the other animals. Mostly, she is ABOVE it. Even the humans steer clear of her since she is not very approachable! The only one she lets pick her up is me. I pick her up like I did when she was a baby (upside down) and rock her in my arms and pet her face and her paws. She and I are pretty close I guess. She is my office cat. Everyone should have an office cat.
Noel and Muffy in the office window
April 2010
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Late Breaking News as I finish the post: OMG! Kitty is on my desk because no other cats are here (this never happened before).
8.17.12 Update on Miss Constance Kitty
If you remember Miss Constance Kitty had lost her mind and was peeing everywhere. Then she went to a week at the Kitty Spa while we were on vacation in July and she seemed to stop for many weeks after that. But then V and K8 went away last week to the beach, she started up again (pissed that V, the mega snack giver, was not here probably). She peed on both couches and ruined a bunch of stuff. (Just as an aside, I discovered this product they make for kid’s that wet their beds called ‘GoodNight’ bed sheets. They are plastic/paper and adhere at all 4 corners to the bed. I put those on the couch under a blanket to save the cushions.) I also started to lock her in a bathroom with a litter box and her dinner. This helps a little. I think it is the alone time that helps here more than the availability of the box, but V thinks that the dogs and also Nine the kitten, keep her from getting to any of the 4 litter boxes I have throughout the house (maybe, who knows), and she really needs to go, so she does (as you can tell, I am not buying this theory much). I never know when she is going to slip up and what she is going to pee on, but it seems that any changes or commotion seems to set her off. After the major pee fest the first 2 days V was gone, I started locking her in the bathroom, especially if I went out of the house for any period of time. This seemed to help. She did not mis-pee anywhere inappropriate after that, that week. But, as soon as V got home, it started again (commotion?, I missed you? or just plain ‘CRAZY!’) We did get medicine that we are suppose to rub in her ears to calm her down, but I am not sure that that makes much of a difference. I think she takes after that famous actress that said ‘I want to be alone!’ To be continued…..
PS. As I am finishing this post, I hear Sofie wildly barking in the kitchen and cat screaming going on and when I go see what is happening Nine has Miss Kitty pinned on the kitchen counter in a corner, Sofie is on the floor, egging him on, and poor Kitty does not know what to do. Kitty is now in her bathroom having alone time and a nice snack. Ahhhh, life in a zoo.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
DogDaz Zoo 