Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤ 
Go Home, Lil’ Baby
Spring/Summer hit the Mid-Atlantic big time this week. So the girls and I were down by the water a lot. The week started out with all this very terrible squirrel activity, and my little murderers monsters sweet doggies were not aware of the havoc they reeked for their tired sensitive animal loving Mom. I find it interesting that we brought squirrel baby #2 to the park to find a safer nest and ever since then Sofie has refused to walk to the park with me. Maybe she does not want to bump into the baby she almost killed. (I am only just now thinking of that).
I haven’t been blogging about Sofie’s difficulties this week, but I have posted them on Facebook. Do you follow DOGDAZCATS2 on Facebook? It is nice to also have that avenue to actually have conversations with other pet lovers outside of just the comments in a daily blog post. Please do come visit our page and LIKE us so that we know who you are and we can LIKE you back. A ‘Like’ in Facebook, is a ‘FOLLOW’ in WordPress.
Sofie has refused to walk down the block to the park. She started this on Monday. She gets half way down the block and sits down (little stubborn Sheltie thing that she is) and wants to go home. It has gotten hotter and hotter each day, but I don’t think that is it because if it was that bad outside, I would not have gone for a walk. We even walked with Mojo (her buddy). But no go!
The interesting thing is she will take the similar distance walk in the other direction, to the river. Go figure? Is it the baby squirrel sending psychic messages to turn back?
I started her on 50 mg of Benadryl (antihistimine) just in case it is allergies (1 mg for every pound of dog the vet says).
Thank you Readers for liking the games we play down by the water, especially when we found Lucy, our neighbor’s Jack Russell Terrier at the dock hiding in a boat.
I am sorry to report that my stupid state of Maryland was not able to agree on the bill that would have saved many Bully Breed and Bully-Mix owners from having to possibly give up their pets because of Breed Discrimination in the state. It was all because of one sentence that the Senate and House differed on. I am just appalled and ashamed at the things that lawmakers sometimes do.
Dean Russo Art
My step-daughter lost her best friend’s 18-year-old brother on Wednesday in a car crash with 3 other boys. The cause – excessive speeding. Please remember that nothing is worth driving that fast for. Speed kills so many people, animals, and ruins lives forever. Talk to your kids, today! And talk to yourself too!
That’s it for the week. Thanks for playing along with us.
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Follow Up Friday is part of the blog hop hosted by Heart Like A Dog.Check out the other blog hoppers:
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
So when I got up this morning, at my usual way-to-early still dark-out time, I let the dogs out, picked up my SmartPhone, checked my digital calendar, looked at work email (Lotus Notes) to see if there was anything urgent, checked Gmail for the personal urgent stuff, made sure my kid’s statuses were upbeat on Facebook, made sure this WordPress blog kicked off a little after midnight as scheduled, noted a new business contact in LinkedIn that wants to chat, brushed my teeth, and then let the dogs back in. I don’t know about you but social media became an essential part of my everyday life over 2 decades ago. Social media tools are definitely improving but it is how you apply them to your life that makes all the difference. In a few weeks (28 November to be exact), the blog will be 1-year-old and I will have blogged every day, no matter where in the world I was, for 365 days. Oh my, that kind of blows me away. Since I work through the internet and I also get a great deal of my entertainment and socialization this way, I find that social media has transformed my day and my life in incredible ways. Now that DogDazCats2 has a Facebook page, I get to do 2 statuses a day, not just 1 (Whoopee!!). Ok, well maybe I am a little obsessed with the whole connection thing. But I really do like it and it feeds me in some really interesting ways. Hey, I got to meet all of you, at least virtually, didn’t I?
What’s you digital start to the day and what do you think about social media in your life?
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
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 ❤
The other day I past a milestone on the DogDaz blog. Over 400 followers and over 22,000 hits. This is incredible to me. I started writing the blog the end of November last year. It was a way to deal with my love of animals but also for me to talk about all the incredible things that I learn from them. I never really thought a lot about how public a blog is and how many people I would interact with on a daily basis. I set myself a personal goal to post everyday. This has not been easy, since I travel a great deal and work incredible hours. But, so far, I am doing it. My posts are not always to the level that I would like them to be, but it seems that the ones I think are the weakest sometimes get the most good feedback and comments. I wish I had more time to read other people’s blogs and many times I want to comment but am reading them on my SmartPhone with limited ability to type something decent, which can be frustrating. I ‘Like’ people’s blogs, which my Phone lets me do easily, but commenting is not as easy. I enjoy visiting so many people’s sites and getting views into their animal world, photo world, food world, and just family life,but it has become a huge task to keep up. I wish I could just do this all day and night, but alas, one must live in the real world to be able to blog about it, and I do not chose to live ‘in’ the blogworld all the time (you know what I mean?)
What an incredible gift this internet is. I wonder if people really understood the power that this tool has to allow us to see incredible sights from far away places that we may never visit physically but can virtually (and interactively and instantly). Don’t get me wrong because I love paper books, and ebooks, and magazines, and photographic essays on nice heavy paper, but I can see the world here from my computer in a way that I could not as a child. The internet has allow me totally new ways to socially interact that I could never have imagined. I have more high school friends than I had in high school and can see all my family pictures instantly, thanks to Facebook; I stay in touch with old and new business associates via Linkedin; I Skype with my family when I am overseas and also now with my college student; I blog on WordPress, and reblog on Tumbler, and even Pinterest; I work with my community service group via GoogleDocs. Though I have been emailing since the technology was launched, I can now instantly answer via my SmartPhone if I want to. Here on my blog, my animals get to be stars and I get to write about what I love. Less than a year ago, I would not have known how important every blog post would be to me.
THANK YOU, whomever is reading this, for an incredible time. Come back again and I will do my best to make you smile, laugh, and maybe think about something you had not thought about before. You are my blessing – and clearly – I am blessed.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
It is so exciting to receive Blog awards. It makes me realize that people really are reading the ramblings that I spend hours writing. It is kind of funny but I seem to get awards in clumps: no awards for awhile and then a few at the same time. I want to say thank you to all my readers and my commenters. I feel like I have made some new ‘real’ friends these last few months, though I only know you through your blogs and your pictures. In a weird way, many of us out here in Blogland show a very personal side of who we are on our blogs, and that vulnerability attracts others who also share themselves. I thank you all for a very enjoyable 6 months doing the DogDaz blog and look forward to many more months/years together.
The first award, the Sunshine Award, came from 
themisadaventuresofmisaki. Misaki is an Alaskan Malamute puppy. Though I am not sure whether Misaki is a boy or a girl (hard to tell by his blog – sorry), he enjoys eating (especially bonios), having his belly rubbed, chasing pigeons and playing with his humans. I absolutely love Malamutes and always wanted one. That dream has yet to come true at the zoo, but maybe one day.
These are the instructions for earning the Sunshine award:
Here are the questions and my answers:
Favorite number: 27 (V’s birth Day)
Favorite Non-alcoholic drink: Unsweetened Iced Tea
Facebook or Twitter: fb (even with the bad IPO)
My Passion: the animals
Favorite pattern: interesting question… I am a solids person, but none-repeating patterns are my type if anything
Favorite Day of the Week: Sunday
Favorite Flower: I do love roses, but have really been enjoying honeysuckle this week.
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Misaki also bestowed on us a Liebster Blog Award: Thank you again oh little, soon to be giant, furry dog! 
The rules for this award are:
1. Link back to the person who nominated you: themisadaventuresofmisaki.
2. Nominate five (5) bloggers who have less than 200 followers (if you can tell).
3. Let nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
4. Post nomination image on this blog.
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Then, it was a wonderful surprise to receive yet a third award. This time from the wise duet of Bella and Didi, the Standard Poodles, of Paws to Talk.
Bella and Didi are the smartest pair of ‘Dear Abby,’ pet question answers that I have ever met. They always seem to have some interesting piece of advice for the troubled pooch or lonely kitty.
The Poodles did not say we had to jump through any hoops for this award (Yah!)
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There are so many blogs that I enjoy and when you get a lot of awards at the same time it is really hard to pass them forward, so I have created my own PICK OF THE LITTER Award. The following bloggers get to pick one of the above awards for their very own, as well as proudly display that you are the DogDaz Pick of the Litter!
Thank you all for wonderful reading – here is the current DOGDAZ PICK OF THE LITTER:
A Window Into the Woods: http://awindowintothewoods.com/
Jazzy Cat Jay: http://jazzcatjay.wordpress.com/
Pat Bean’s Blog: http://patbean.wordpress.com/
jmgoyder: Wings and Things: http://jmgoyder.com/
I Adopted A Dog: Now What? http://iadoptedadog.wordpress.com/
Hutchagoodlife: http://hutchagoodlife.wordpress.com/ (what goes around comes around…LOL)
Doggy’s Style: http://doggysstyle.wordpress.com/
Expressions In A Teacup: http://tyakhan.wordpress.com/
Basil: Life of a famous pooch: http://wp.me/1Rhm0
Mirth and Motivation: http://eof737.wordpress.com/
jodistone: http://jodistone.wordpress.com/
Thank you soooooo much we love getting awards and really appreciate every single one. Thank you Misaki, Bella and Didi for thinking highly of the zoo. We like to ready your blogs and someday maybe we will all met in the virtual dog/cat park!
Love you guys!
Lulu Belle, Sofie Bear, The Muffin Man, Noel (the Christmas Cat), Miss Constance Kitty, Nine (the bad boy), and baby Stella – oh and Mom too!!!!
DogDaz Zoo 