Ethiopian Wolf Pups (by Will Burrard-Lucas)
9.27.12 The Wonderful Team Member Readership Award
Cool beans! The Guinea Piggies at Hutch A Good Life gave us a “Wonderful Team Member Readership” Award. That is so special. And silly me, I would have missed it because I never realized that I was not seeing all my notifications that people left on the blog until today. I have a year of comments that I never addressed (oh my!). Sorry about that folks, I will try to be a more wonderful team member. I love all you bloggy friends and I do feel like a member of a team. Thank you so much to my sweet piggy friends, Nibbles, Nutty, Buddy & Basil – you pigs are the best!
1. The Nominee of the Wonderful Team member Readership Award shall display the logo on his/her post/page and/or sidebar. Done below
2. The Nominee shall nominate 14 readers they appreciate over a period of 7 days (1 week) – this can be done at any rate during the week. It can be ALL on one day or a few on one day and a few on another day, etc. Oh Wow! Here we go! I hope you do not think this is a cop-out but since we are a virtual team of bloggers, if you are reading this and you blog, consider yourself nominated. You know in your heart if you are a team player and you are welcome to stake claim to the award. All I ask is that you let me know in a comment back to this post so that I can read your blog if I don’t already. 
3. The Nominee shall name his or her Wonderful Team Member Readership Award nominees on a post or on posts during the 7 day (1 week) period. Done
4. The Nominee shall make these rules, or amended rules keeping to the spirit of the Wonderful Team Member Readership Award, known to each reader s/he nominates. Done
5. The Nominee must finish this sentence and post: ”A Great reader is…” …someone who comes back time and time again, through good posts and bad, and shares their life experience with us, opening up new worlds every day and sharing life’s daily adventures in living. We really are a virtual team of blog friends.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤ 
9.26.12 Today I Will Savor The World
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy, and if it were merely challenging that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” – E.B. White
I know exactly what White meant when he said this. In the beauty of the autumn days it is almost impossible to concentrate on the tasks at hand and not just want to grab a leash, some water, and a day pack and head out into the woods or along the river. It is on days like this, when the air is crisp and cool but not yet cold, when the sky is bluer than blue and the clouds hang in the distance like fluffs of cotton that were placed there just for my observation, that I am forced, by my thirst for connection to mother earth and all her creations, that I stop saving the world and just bask in the gift of the day.
Anticipation of the colors that will come in the next few weeks from the changing season brings me great happiness. The reds, yellows, and oranges of the changing Maples, Oaks, Elms, and SweetGum. On our walks the acorns and large nuts are falling in large numbers on our heads. I kept thinking that the Squirrels were aiming for us, but I realized it was just… fall. Are you familiar with the ‘GumBalls’ that drop from the SweetGum? They are prickly and roll under foot. On many a walk, because I tend to be looking everywhere else but down at my feet, I have ended up flat on the ground after stepping on one of those silly balls. I always laugh when that happens, because the dogs come to me as to say, “Mom, Mom, are you Ok? What are you doing down here?”
What an incredible opportunity the change of the seasons provides us in understanding the cycle of life and the importance of change. The having to say goodbye to things, like butterflies and hummingbirds, that will make their way to Mexico or Panama, or some other nice warm southern spot to winter and reproduce, and say hello to the wild swans and the geese, coming down from the Yukon or somewhere in Canada to winter on my Chesapeake Bay.
Fall for me is the time to take stock of myself, my world, and my place in it. It is a time to regroup and prepare for the ‘going in’ of winter. To clear my slate, with humans and with nature, for any wrongs I have transgressed in the previous months, and to start fresh for a whole new year. Today I will enjoy the world, tomorrow I will get back to saving it.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
9.25.12 Breezy Point
Breezy Point was a little breezy today. Did I explain that it is called that because it is the point where the Magothy River (which is our tributary to the Chesapeake Bay) splits into 2 creeks, Divining Creek and Mill Creek. I live in the middle of the 2 creeks and the peninsula point tends to always be breezy. This is one of my favorite spots and I think it is for the dogs too. The dogs and I love to go down to the very tip of the point and watch the boats out on the river and the seabirds doing their seabird things. Lulu likes to run in the stand of bamboo which is always getting overgrown and Sofie likes to venture out on the pier and sniff for new smells (she would like to dig in the sandbox, but I do not let her).
There 
are days that I could just loose track of time watching the clouds go by but the dogs seem to have a different agenda. They need to always be moving. They want to run and find something new and exciting to do. They need to chase a squirrel or a stick or each other; not content to while away the afternoon with me just reading a book on a bench. So off we go on another adventure, somewhere, over a hill or visiting a dog friend. I guess there will be time enough, when they are older to sit and just enjoy the view (maybe), for now, we press on and go explore some other beautiful vista.
Do you have a favorite spot with your dog?
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
9.24.12 “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay…”
The fall weather is just so perfect for going down to the river and sniffing out all the fun smells. We love checking out the new pier and seeing if we can find any smelly stuff left there. Mommy tells us to ‘go fishing,’ and we sniff all the places that oysters or crabs cages may be hanging. This is fun for all of us. We sometimes meet other dogs and humans down there and it is nice to be able to run around with them. So far we have not jumped off the dock to try and catch any ducks or other things swimming in the water, but Mommy is concerned that we might try that. Lulu would be to chicken to do something like that, but I wouldn’t be. I wonder what it would be like to be in a boat? Maybe we should try one of these little boats that are on the rack? And Mommy keeps talking about something called a ‘Jet Ski.’ Zooooom, that sounds like fun. (But Mommy would probably be chicken like Louise.) – Your DogDaz reporter – Sofie Bear (aka River Princess)
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
9.23.12 DogDaz on Facebook
We are so excited. Mommy was trying to find a better way to let all our friends and family on Facebook (a social media network that connects people to people and stuff like that), know what was going on at the zoo. Not everyone has the time to read the blog or the know how to even get here. So she made us our own page that we can use. If any of our blog friends want to follow us there too, we think all you have to do is press the button that Mommy but on the menu to the right —->
This is another way for us to stay connected and also to tell our stories to a wider group of friends. You don’t have to join us there, we are not leaving WordPress. We love it here. We just were playing in cyberspace and thought it might be a good way to channel a lot of the animal and nature feeds to a wider group of humans.
You know Lulu is kind of shy, and Mommy told her she needs to start making more friends, so this was what she came up with.
Let us know what you think! – Sofie Bear aka Cyber Princess
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
