Thanksgiving Goes to the Dogs!

Thanksgiving 2009.

I am thankful for family, dogs, and country just to name a few things. I have finally managed to get the kids together and we are on the road to my aunts. Then the traffic sets in. Funny that a 20 minute drive can take us nearly two hours to complete. Amazing.

One good thing from this journey is my daughter managed to convince me to bring Isabella our Italian Greyhound. Like I may have mentioned before in another post, I have had little time to take the dogs on road trips or to the park. As a result little Isabella is all too thrilled to accompany us to wherever we are going.

Isabella is definitely a front seat dog with head out the window kind of girl. She always has to see what is going on all of the time. Interestingly enough, our in the car adventure is taking much longer than I anticipated and Isabella is grateful to sit out the long ride. While on the drive she managed to say hello to passers by in other cars. Isabella even had little kids in other cars waving to her and blowing her kisses.

Finally towards the end of the drive Isabella is near exhausted from the adventure. I was at a stop and took the photo above. Oh, she is one happy pooch. Moments like these remind me why our four legged friends are so dear and touch our hearts the way they do. Our day to day problems at times should be set aside to recall the simple things like long drives, happy puppies, laughter in trials, and the wind in our hair.

Dogs are amazing creatures!

The Best News Ever, So Far At Least!

I was online tonight and read the most interesting dog-gone thing ever.

My grandma, I recall, received meals on wheels to help supplement her food supply. This service provided her daily lunches to ensure she was fed at least once a day. Great program, I think! Well what about the cat she owned? Did he get fed ?

Well the story in the following link tells us about a girl scout group which deserves some kudos for helping those four legged friends that cant help themselves, and whose owners may or may not have forgot to feed them, or may just be finding it hard to afford to feed them.


http://www.pawnation.com/2009/05/05/girl-scout-troops-helping-to-feed-pets/

Today was a great day for the pooches!

We had a great day today despite the warmth in San Diego, CA. There are three dogs in our house; two Standard Poodles and an Italian Greyhound.

For the Greyhound the warm weather is easy on her because she has very short hair and minimal body fat. For the two BIG Poodles, the story is much different. One poodle, David, has trimmed fur 1" in length. The other, Edward, has a show cut which is in some areas upward 12" long! Both poodles have extremely dense hair which adds to the body heat. Another factor is that a dog's normal body temperature is approximately 102 degrees. We humans think it is hot in the summer and our body temperature is only a meek 98.6 degrees on average! Poor pooches.

A few things that help with keeping the big dogs cool are ice cubes in their filtered water, instead of their raw diet thawed I prefer to feed it to them frozen, and also I make sure to give them an area in the house which has a fan with air conditioning. In the winter and fall I take the dogs to the park or on walks in the morning and afternoon. This is not practical during the summer and spring months for the poodles. If I am unable to go to the park early enough in the morning I will make a point to go on a walk around the block or to the local lighted dog park at dusk or later. This allows for the weather to be bearable for the boys to play and not get exhausted. Despite going later in the day I still make sure to bring my own water with ice cubes. This keeps the boys cool and hydrated... and not to mention happy pooches!

If you have any tips or information on ways to keep summer fun for the dogs please let me know!