This week has been wonderful for butterflies in the garden. I capture this shot of an Eastern Black Swallowtail on the grape right before Louise tried to eat it. A Yellow Swallowtail actually landed on her and freaked her out a bit (it was cute but I could not get the camera out fast enough).
Butterfly on the Grape
August 2012
Sofie Chasing Butterlies
Both dogs don’t really understand flying insects very well. I see them constantly trying to eat bees and jump after butterflies. We also have these very large furry spiders that kind of encase the house in webs this time of year. I was bringing in groceries the other evening and one swung down over the front door and caused me to drop the case of water that I was carrying and run. I worry that one of the dogs will try to eat one of the spiders and die: they are really scary looking.
V found a whole family of new born mice inside the extra vacuum we store in the garage the other day. This is a sure sign of fall coming our way. Mother Mouse must have come through the bottom bar and up the hose and had her babies in the inside bag (how smart is that?). While V was working in the garage there was this nibble nibble scratch scratch noise and upon closer inspection, unzipped the bag part of the vacuum, and all these little pink babies fell out. They were quickly scooped up and placed back in the bag and brought outside, with the hope that Mother Mouse will move them somewhere else (outside please!). I guess the Black Snake, who always leaves his skin on the garage shelves for us, will tell us where the mice are… because that is life in our garage in the late summer.
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤ 
Tags: Animal, animals, butterfly, dog, DogDaz, Dogs, Eastern Black Swallowtail, Fall, mice, nature, Pet, pets, postaday, rat snake, Spider
Here we are waiting for Mommy to get home from taking Peanut to college many hours away.
We are tired of waiting and she always seems to leave us behind. Someday we want to go with her. We promise that we will be good, We won’t throw up in the car, or bark at every thing that passes, or try to get in the front seat, or any of that. Well, I can’t speak for Sofie. She doesn’t do well riding in the car. Sofie turns kind of green if she can’t see out the front window all the time. Mommy tries to make her lie down but she doesn’t like to listen. Sofie tries stepping in between the front seats, which is a big ‘No – No!’ I don’t know how to tell her if she just laid down and closed her eyes she would be ok. I don’t like the car very much either, except I get to be close to Mommy and that I like. And if I stay behind the front seat, I get cookies! I love cookies. Maybe that is Sofie’s problem, because she does not like cookies very much. She spits most of them out and gives them to me. The only cookies she seems to like are the little one’s with molasses in them or the real chicken pieces that Mommy makes. It is not natural, a dog that doesn’t like cookies. Maybe Sofie is really a fox or something. She does smell funny at times. I do hope that Mommy comes back tomorrow like she said she would. V is going to leave us at the Dogcare place overnight tonight because K8 has to go back to college too, and we have never ever ever slept at a kennel before. I hope that they keep Sofie with me, ’cause she gets scared and needs me to protect her. When Mommy gets home this time I am going to make sure she never goes away again… (I have a plan for Sofie and Nine to eat a hole in her suitcase (don’t tell her please.)) – Lulu Belle
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: Animal, animal awareness, Cookie, cute dogs, dog, Dog People, DogDaz, Mommy, Pet, pets, postaday
Noel 2012
Kitchen Sink
Nine: Making the bed
Not sure why Noel decided to sit in the kitchen sink but I was lucky enough to catch a picture of her. Animals do the silliest things. Noel is an especially funny cat. You will find her in some really weird places. Now, Nine, he likes to make the bed, which is a very cat thing to do.
Where are some of the silly places your animals like to be?
The Muffin Man
In my pocketbook
Miss Kitty
Watching TV
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤
Tags: Animal, Cat, cat post, cats, DogDaz, Pet, pets, postaday
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
