Lulu Dreaming
on Peanut’s Bed
Mommy has taken the younger human, Peanut, somewhere. We do not know where but we know that there were lots and lots of suitcases and bags and stuff that left the house and went into 2 of the big moving things with wheels that we ride in to go places. This seemed different than other times because almost all of Peanut’s stuff went with them. Will Mommy be back? Will we ever see Peanut again? Her room seems different. It is clean: there are no clothes or hair-things or shoes to chew on. I like Peanut’s bed and that is still there (thank goodness). She lets us on her bed (well me actually, Sofie does not really like to jump up so high). I like being on her bed (and so does Muffin and Nine). Mommy does not let us on her bed (but I know that Sofie sleeps there when no one is looking – she jumps on the stool at the end of the bed and uses it as a step). I do hope Mommy comes home soon because I always miss her when she is gone. Can I have Peanut’s room if she doesn’t come back soon?
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤ 
Tags: Animal, animals, cute dogs, dog, Dog People, DogDaz, Dogs, funny dogs, Pet, pets, postaday
Acronyms are funny things, they could mean so many different things. Misaki (The Misadventures of Misaki) left me a comment the other day and wrote, “BOL.” I am thinking, “BOL, what the heck is that?” So, I type it into trusty Google and it comes back with:
BOL may refer to:
- Bill of Lading, a document acknowledging specified goods as cargo.
- BOL – to express a short burst of laughter
- Bol (film), a Pakistani film directed by Shoaib Mansoor
- bol (music), a feature of Indian rhythm
- Bol, Croatia, a town on the Croatian island Brač
- Manute Bol, Sudanese-born basketball player and activist
- Bol, Chad, a city in Chad
- Boľ, a village in eastern Slovakia.
- Bol Airport, an airport on the Croatian island of Brač.
- BOL, an Internet Slang term for Bahaha Out Loud, a substitute to LOL
- BOL, an Internet Slang term among dog owners/lovers for Bark (or Barking) Out Loud, a variant of LOL
- Bol, a derogatory term for people of Bolivian descent.
- BOL or BOLO in law enforcement parlance is the abbreviation for Be On the Lookout (see All-points bulletin)
- Bread of Life Ministries International, is an non-denominational Christian megachurch in the Philippines
- Buzz Out Loud, a “CNET’s podcast of indeterminate length”.
- 2-Bromo-LSD, a pharmacological agent.
- BUPERS Online, a single point of entry application for logging into numerous web-based applications maintained by the Naval Personnel Command in Millington, TN.
Well, I figured ‘Burst Of Laughter” was what the person meant. Ok, I like that. But, that was not what it was at all. It was “Bark Out Loud!” I love that even more. How cute is that? Dogs having their own internet slang. What does Google or Wikipedia know about anything when you really think about it? If I let them I am sure that Sofie and Lulu would text all day long (or eat the phone).
ROFLWMDHAGT = Rolling On The Floor With My Dogs Having A Great Time. (I just made that up). BOL.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: Animal, Bark Out Loud, cute dogs, dog, DogDaz, Dogs, funny dogs, Pet, pets, postaday
I know it happens but I am not exactly sure why, but when cats get old, like really old, like 18 to 20, they waste away it seems. Muffin must be down to 5 lbs (2.2 kg) now, if that. I don’t like it. He was the king. The big Kahuna around here. He was the Alpha and kept everyone, even the humans and the dogs in line. 
The Muffin Man has become a little wisp of himself, and his front paws seem to have splayed out in a funny way that I never noticed before today. He is always hungry (especially at 4 AM) but never seems to eat much. He attacks everyone’s dinner and only wants people or dog food. “What ever you want, Muffy, we will get it for you.” Some nights he does not even come to my bed anymore. I think he starts to, but get tired on way so stops and just sleeps where he is. 
It is hard when your furry friends get so advanced in years. Everyday I check his breathing and kiss him and thank him for the one more day he has given me with him. Muffy’s time is coming – maybe tomorrow – next week – next month – one can not prepare – one can not ready themselves for the hole – the loss – the empty space on the couch. All I can do is try and cuddle his boney self and enjoy the moments of now. The togetherness of the present.
I am not sure if this blog is about Muffy or about my daughter, Peanut, leaving to college at the end of the week: difference is, she has her life ahead, he has his life behind. I am already missing them both in a weird way and they are not even gone yet.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: Animal, animal awareness, Cat, Cat People, cats, dog, DogDaz, nature, Pet, Pet Loss, pets, postaday
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 ❤
Tags: Animal, animal awareness, animals, dog, Dog People, DogDaz, Dogs, Pet, pets, postaday, smiling dogs
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 ❤
Tags: Animal, animal awareness, animals, Cocker Spaniel, cute dogs, dog, Dog People, dog rescue, DogDaz, Guinea pig, nature, Pet, pets, postaday
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).
Tags: Animal, animals, Cat, cats, DogDaz, office cat, Pet, pets, postaday
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 ❤
Tags: Animal, animals, Cat, cats, Cats and Dogs, DogDaz, Pet, pets, postaday
My dogs and I are very close. Sometimes I think they actually grow out of my side. They are always with me when I am home, whether in my office, the kitchen, or the bedroom; shucks, they are even in the bathroom with me. If I get up to get a cup of coffee, Sofie is right behind me unless I tell her to ‘stay.’ We move as a pack. On the days that I put the dogs in daycare, like today, the first thing that happens is a child wakes up and says, ‘Where are my puppies?’ Then, around mid-day, I start to feel like something is missing: I don’t get my 1-mile walk when they are not home; I don’t go up and down the stairs a million times to let them outside (my StairMaster exercise); and, I don’t go outside to play. How silly is that? Part of having the dogs for me is to help me stay in balance. I am not very good about that. Working in the virtual world, I sit in front of this computer for hour after hour and sometimes forget to get up, to stretch, to take a break. My dogs help me remember to do that. They also make me a better human. They teach me tolerance and acceptance. They make me a better teacher and their existence has made me into a student of animal nature. I have less freedom because of their daily demands, but that is OK. They keep me grounded. They keep me, well…. human. I can not imagine my life without them.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: Animal, Animal Bond, animals, balance, dog, DogDaz, Dogs, nature, Pet, pets, postaday
Mommy has taken the younger human, Peanut, somewhere. We do not know where but we know that there were lots and lots of suitcases and bags and stuff that left the house and went into 2 of the big moving things with wheels that we ride in to go places. This seemed different than other times because almost all of Peanut’s stuff went with them. Will Mommy be back? Will we ever see Peanut again? Her room seems different. It is clean: there are no clothes or hair-things or shoes to chew on. I like Peanut’s bed and that is still there (thank goodness). She lets us on her bed (well me actually, Sofie does not really like to jump up so high). I like being on her bed (and so does Muffin and Nine). Mommy does not let us on her bed (but I know that Sofie sleeps there when no one is looking – she jumps on the stool at the end of the bed and uses it as a step). I do hope Mommy comes home soon because I always miss her when she is gone. Can I have Peanut’s room if she doesn’t come back soon?
DogDaz Zoo 