Today we are celebrating “Thanksgiving.”
It is a fun holiday full of food and smells and family.
I am busy making vegan pumpkin pie and marinating the tofurky* and roasting all those wonderful winter root veggies.
Thanksgiving is a time when I look back at the people and things in my life and take stock of that for which I am most thankful.
I am thankful for 11 years of blogging this month, which has allowed me to meet YOU, my readers. I have met your families and your pets. You’ve shown me your life through pictures. You’ve read me your poems, and most of all, you have allowed me to experience your life through your blogs.
Thank you from the bottom of my DogDaz heart. – Lorian
The trio sleeping off a good holiday meal.
———————————————-
TIPS FOR FEEDING PETS AT THE HOLIDAYS
Many pets can get a little too much food today, as do the people. So, as you are getting ready to sit down to the dinner table, here are some tips from ASPCA experts for a fulfilling Thanksgiving that your pets can enjoy, too.
Talkin’ Turkey
If you decide to feed your pet a little nibble of turkey, make sure it’s boneless and well-cooked. Don’t offer her raw or undercooked turkey, which may contain salmonella bacteria.
Sage Advice
Sage can make your Thanksgiving stuffing taste delish, but it and many other herbs contain essential oils and resins that can cause gastrointestinal upset and central nervous system depression to pets if eaten in large quantities. Cats are especially sensitive to the effects of certain essential oils.
No Bread Dough
Don’t spoil your pet’s holiday by giving him raw bread dough. According to ASPCA experts, when raw bread dough is ingested, an animal’s body heat causes the dough to rise in his stomach. As it expands, the pet may experience vomiting, severe abdominal pain and bloating, which could become a life-threatening emergency, requiring surgery.
Don’t Let Them Eat Cake
If you’re baking up Thanksgiving cakes, be sure your pets keep their noses out of the batter, especially if it includes raw eggs—they could contain salmonella bacteria that may lead to food poisoning.
Too Much of a Good Thing
A few small boneless pieces of cooked turkey, a taste of mashed potato or even a lick of pumpkin pie shouldn’t pose a problem. However, don’t allow your pets to overindulge, as they could wind up with a case of stomach upset, diarrhea or even worse—an inflammatory condition of the pancreas known as pancreatitis. In fact, it’s best to keep pets on their regular diets during the holidays.
A Feast Fit for a Kong
While the humans are chowing down, give your cat and dog their own little feast. Offer them Nylabones or made-for-pet chew bones. Or stuff their usual dinner—perhaps with a few added tidbits of turkey, vegetables (try sweet potato or green beans) and dribbles of gravy—inside a Kong toy. They’ll be happily occupied for a while, working hard to extract their dinner from the toy.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤ 
Tags: cat blog, dog, dog blog, DogDaz, Dogs, feeding cats, Feeding dogs, lorianlipton, Pet, pet blog, pets, Thanksgiving
A soulful Sofie at the top of the stairs. They love it when I come up the stairs and they can be eye to eye with me. I never realized until now that the pink of her nose makes a perfect heart shape.
Have a wonderful Black and White Sunday.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: Black and White Sunday, blog hop, cute dogs, dog, DogDaz, Dogs, lorianlipton, Pet, pets
“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 underfoot. 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.
(Originally posted DogDaz 9.26.12 Today I Will Savor The World with updates)
Happy Autumn Equinox 2019
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: Animal, animals, autumnal equinox, DogDaz, E. B. White, Fall, lorianlipton, myzoo, nature, SweetGum
Today we are celebrating “Thanksgiving.”
It is a fun holiday full of food and smells and family.
I am busy making vegan pumpkin pie and marinating the tofurky and roasting all those wonderful winter root veggies.
Thanksgiving is a time when I look back at the people and things in my life and take stock of that for which I am most thankful.
I am thankful for 7 years of blogging this month, which has allowed me to meet YOU, my readers. I have met your families and your pets. You’ve shown me your life through pictures. You’ve read me your poems, and most of all, you have allowed me to experience your life through your blogs.
Thank you from the bottom of my DogDaz heart. – Lorian
The trio sleeping off a good holiday meal.
———————————————-
TIPS FOR FEEDING PETS AT THE HOLIDAYS
Many pets can get a little too much food today, as do the people. So, as you are getting ready to sit down to the dinner table, here are some tips from ASPCA experts for a fulfilling Thanksgiving that your pets can enjoy, too.
Talkin’ Turkey
If you decide to feed your pet a little nibble of turkey, make sure it’s boneless and well-cooked. Don’t offer her raw or undercooked turkey, which may contain salmonella bacteria.
Sage Advice
Sage can make your Thanksgiving stuffing taste delish, but it and many other herbs contain essential oils and resins that can cause gastrointestinal upset and central nervous system depression to pets if eaten in large quantities. Cats are especially sensitive to the effects of certain essential oils.
No Bread Dough
Don’t spoil your pet’s holiday by giving him raw bread dough. According to ASPCA experts, when raw bread dough is ingested, an animal’s body heat causes the dough to rise in his stomach. As it expands, the pet may experience vomiting, severe abdominal pain and bloating, which could become a life-threatening emergency, requiring surgery.
Don’t Let Them Eat Cake
If you’re baking up Thanksgiving cakes, be sure your pets keep their noses out of the batter, especially if it includes raw eggs—they could contain salmonella bacteria that may lead to food poisoning.
Too Much of a Good Thing
A few small boneless pieces of cooked turkey, a taste of mashed potato or even a lick of pumpkin pie shouldn’t pose a problem. However, don’t allow your pets to overindulge, as they could wind up with a case of stomach upset, diarrhea or even worse—an inflammatory condition of the pancreas known as pancreatitis. In fact, it’s best to keep pets on their regular diets during the holidays.
A Feast Fit for a Kong
While the humans are chowing down, give your cat and dog their own little feast. Offer them Nylabones or made-for-pet chew bones. Or stuff their usual dinner—perhaps with a few added tidbits of turkey, vegetables (try sweet potato or green beans) and dribbles of gravy—inside a Kong toy. They’ll be happily occupied for a while, working hard to extract their dinner from the toy.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: dog, dog blog, DogDaz, Dogs, Feeding dogs, lorianlipton, Pet, pets, Thanksgiving
Gertrude and Cuddles were not friends. Cuddles, unlike her name, wasn’t really friends with anyone. She mostly lived in my bedroom and would paw-smack anyone who got too close to the bed
In this rare photo moment in winter 2006, I caught Gert and Cuddie looking out the back door at the birds flitting in the bird bath on the deck. Somehow a common enemy brought them together.
Gertrude passed in 2007 and Cuddles in 2010.
We seal that backdoor in the winter to keep the draft out. The little solar gnome makes sure that we can see our way down the hall at night with his flickering light. I guess you could say that the cats were ‘Hanging with their ‘Nomie.’
Just another CATDogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: Animal, animals, Bird bath, Cat, cats, caturday, DogDaz, lorianlipton, multi-cat household, Pet, pets, postaday
Nine looks like a giant because of the angle of the shot. Sofie & Nine 4ever.
This is a Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop. Thanks to BlogPaws for the hop. Head over there and see what they are blogging about.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: adoption, Animal, animals, blog hop, Cat, cats, Cats and Dogs, dog, DogDaz, Dogs, lorianlipton, multiple pet household, Pet, pets, postaday, Wordless Wednesday
DogDaz Zoo 