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Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Monday, January 7, 2013
Saturday, December 24, 2011
The 12 Dog Days of Christmas
Now here’s a version of the song I could get used to! Enjoy!
(Graphic courtesy of Pets 365)
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The 12 Dogs of Christmas
Hope your holiday season is looking bright!
This is absolutely hilarious! Brought to you by (and reproduced with permission) Pets365.co.uk. Check out their shop for some amazing deals on pet products in the UK.
12 dogs of Christmas graphic produced by Pet365 – a UK stockist of brands like Waifs and Strays & Hamish McBeth.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Dream of a Green Christmas with Fun Eco-Friendly Giveaway
It’s not easy being green — at least if you’re a dog. Eco-friendly pet products haven’t exactly been growing on trees. Fortunately, that’s starting to change, and we’re going to share that change with one lucky Dogster!
The people at Better Buddies and Clean+Green have gotten together to create a great green holiday giveaway for readers of the Dog Blog. The winner will get the following goodies:
One medium Pillow Bed in Classic Stripe (35? x 27? x 5?, MSRP $139)
This bed is perfect for those who love a clean and thoughtful design that will never go out of style! Marigold and sea green pop against warm chocolate, creating a playfully contained personality. Even when sleeping, your pooch will look awfully dapper.
Every Better Buddies Pillow Bed offers:
Extra filling, channeled to support the heaviest of pets
Invisible zipper that wraps around corners for easier handling
Fur wipes off with a brush of your hand
Made for longevity with incredibly soft and durable 100 percent certified organic cotton & hemp
Filled with recycled PET fiber made from recycled plastic bottles
Three cans of Clean+Green in Fabric Refresher, Carpet & Upholstery and Auto (MSRP $9.99 each)
Clean+Green natural pet stain and odor removers are safe for people, pets, and the planet! Using a patented formula, Clean+Green encapsulates and eliminates stain and odor on contact — even skunk odor! — by naturally biodegrading the stain or odor source. The all-natural formula delivers instant results in a safe, nontoxic, eco-friendly solution. Ingredients include cane sugar derivatives, a proprietary blend of botanical extracts, hydrated cellulose, purified water, and a natural aerosol propellant (nitrogen).
Great products! How do you enter to win? Since both companies are based on eco-friendly principles, we thought we’d ask you what you do that’s eco-friendly. It could be something most of us do, like recycle. Or it could be something really big, like installing solar panels.
Write it in a comment below, and we’ll use Random.com to select the winner (at random, if that was not obvious from the name). One entry per household, please, and you must be a U.S. resident. (Shipping reasons. Sorry to our many friends outside the states.)
Leave your comment by Wednesday, Dec. 15, at noon PST. We’ll announce the winner on Dec. 16.
Good luck, Dogsters! Here’s to a green holiday.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Bag of Coal Christmas Dog Toy
November 17, 2011 at 4:14 pm 
Entry filed under: Cool New Products, Shop. Tags: funny dog gift, funny holiday dog gift, unique dog gift.
This funny Christmas dog toy is for all the dogs on Santa’s “Naughty” list. Plush drawstring bag contains five pieces of plush coal. Some have squeakers inside, but not all of them because – as the hangtag says – “your dog doesn’t deserve it.” A very funny toy for a dog known far and wide for causing mischief.
Entry filed under: Cool New Products, Shop. Tags: funny dog gift, funny holiday dog gift, unique dog gift. Friday, February 25, 2011
Featured Dog Photo: Flippy At Christmas
Flippy @ Xmas...in loving memory - Steve
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The holiday pet phenomenon: Merry Christmas and good-bye
Everyone has their own reasons for loving or hating the holidays — you may love Aunt Mildred’s pumpkin pie, but hate the sloppy kiss you weird Uncle Fester plants on your cheek. Doesn’t he linger just a bit too long? (And why does he always smell like soup?) You may love the twinking lights and family gatherings, but hate the crass commercialism that sometimes can drown out the carolers.
But if you ask a veterinarian (and they are truthful), I would bet the majority would report a depressing increase in the number of pets they have had to euthanise as the end of the year draws near.
I first noticed this phenomenon as a resident in a busy, urban ER. After what seemed like the eleventieth euthanasia of my shift, I remarked to a more experienced colleague, “What’s up with all the dying, already?! I feel like the angel of death!” My more experienced friend just smiled a wan little smile and said “It’s the holidays — happens every year. We just have a die-off.”
Every hospital I have been in over the holidays (almost always an ER) has had staff that have talked about the trend. It seems to hit the technicians especially hard, as they are often the ones right there with the patients and interacting with them the most. The techs also tend to be younger, and I think a little more susceptible to emotional trauma.
But it takes its toll on all of us — it is supposed to be a time of year filled with joy and Roast Beast and here we are, killing everything that walks through the door. It definitely gets depressing.
I have a few pet theories on this soul-sucking trend, but before I share those with you in a companion piece, I would like to see why you, tiny reader, think that more people elect to have their animals euthanized as the months grow colder and we tumble towards the holidays.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Old Boxer Saves Family From Christmas Eve Fire
Roxy and her very grateful people, Margaret and Andrew MacDonald (Photo: The Cape Breton Post)A Nova Scotia couple’s elderly boxer is being credited with saving their lives and those of their other three dogs after a fire broke out in their home on Christmas Eve.
“One of our dogs, the big boxer, she’s very old and she’s not well, so she doesn’t move too quickly … she just kinda popped up to her feet, which took me by surprise,” Margaret MacDonald told The Cape Breton Post. Roxy then trotted into the living room, where a fire had started around the Christmas tree.
“She was making sounds that I have never heard come out of her in all of her 15 years. She ran back out to my office and then grunted at me,” MacDonald said. Roxy ran between the living room and MacDonald’s office making these sounds a few more times before MacDonald decided to take a look.
The entire corner of the living room was engulfed in flames by the time MacDonald saw what Roxy was trying to warn her about. She screamed to her husband, grabbed her purse and the dogs’ leashes, and the MacDonalds and their dogs ran to the back door. But the fire had created a sort of vacuum seal around the door. Her husband had to kick the door in order to open it.
“We’re lucky to be alive,” MacDonald said. “I think there was someone looking over us. I can tell you that because my husband told me when he looked back he saw a red fireball coming at him. Literally, coming through the hall.”
Perhaps she’s right. Maybe someone was looking after them that Christmas Eve — someone even beyond good old Roxy. The MacDonalds lost all their belongings in the fire except two. When they returned to what was left of their home on Sunday, they found two undamaged items: Two angel ornaments. They’re the only belongings that didn’t get scorched.
“How could they be there all in one piece?” an incredulous MacDonald asks.
She will surely be holding those angels — and a certain old boxer angel — very close for a long, long time.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Adorable Christmas Video With a Great Message
Christmas isn’t over yet in our neck of the woods, so I’ll share a little video someone just sent me. Hope you’re having a lovely Christmas, Dogsters!
Merry Christmas, Dogsters!
Jake and I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your best friend at side! You are a mighty special bunch, Dogsters!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Have a Relaxing Christmas Eve!
Take a cue from these adorable Christmas pups and take a few moments to relax and enjoy the real spirit of the holiday season. (Even if that means sleeping on your back between the cushions of your couch… 
(Photo: Celine.Q’s Flickr photostream)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Amazing Gracie captures a heart … and goes home for Christmas
Gracie has a new address now — at Almost Heaven Ranch with my dad, Dr. Marty Becker and my mom, Teresa.
My dad and I, along with the staffs of North Idaho Animal Hospital in Sandpoint and Lakewood Animal Hospital in Coeur d’Alene, spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day visiting our local animal shelters and bringing toys, greats and other gifts to the homeless pets there. It was our way of trying to make these special pets have a happier day.
On the way from Panhandle Animal Shelter in Ponderay to Second Chance, my dad was talking to me in the car about how he wanted to get a new dog in the future. He said he wanted to wait for the right dog, one who really needed a home. Some of my work as a dog-trainer is at the local shelter, so I said that I’d be on the lookout for him.
When we got to Second Chance, we were busy handing out gifts. Dad posed for photos with a black mixed-breed dog named Gracie. Although she was far from lap-sized, she let him hold her in his arms, totally relaxed — almost collapsed.
At one point I looked around and realized my dad had vanished. I walked back to the kennels and found him sitting in Gracie’s run. She was cuddled up next to him, staring up at his face while he petted and held her. The treat-stuffed Kong toy we’d given her for Christmas did not mean nearly as much to her as it did just to sit next to my dad.
Although there were dozens of people in the area, it felt like there was no one else in there at all, like it was just the two of them. I was witnessing something amazing.
When I asked dad what he was doing, he answered me in a voice I’d never heard from him before. He sounded like a little kid excited to open his stocking on Christmas.
“She’s a special dog, Kel,” he said. “She’s just really touched me. I don’t know what to do, but she has really stolen my heart. I think she might be the one!”
I knew then and there we were bringing home a new dog for Christmas. She and dad had an immediate connection, as if they were soulmates.
As soon as dad, after a few minutes of deliberation, decided he was taking her home, the entire staff and volunteers were in tears. They said they had all spent many anxious nights worrying about Gracie and if she would ever get a home with her special needs. They figured she had a good chance of always being a shelter resident.
Instead, it turns out she had just been waiting there for the special person who was going to be her forever friend.
On the way home she was sitting in my lap, but kept inching closer and closer to my dad in the driver’s seat until half her body was lying in the center console so that she could have her head resting right by him.
When we got home to Almost Heaven Ranch, dad marched in with her, so much vigor and joy in his step. He reminded me of a little kid who just got his first pet, or even like a mom who just brought her new baby home from the hospital.
My dad speaks at veterinary meetings and conferences about the connection people have to our pets and how much we love them — he calls it “The Bond” — to help motivate veterinarians to improve their connection to pet owners as well as pets. I’ve always known how sincere he is about that, but this weekend I’ve seen it in action in a way I never have before.
I see dad looking at Gracie and seeing past her crippling ailments to the pure soul that lies underneath. I see him crying while he holds her in his lap, Gracie just staring up at him with such calmness, such a sure sense that he is going to protect her from now on.
This Christmas, we thought we would be giving out presents to pets to make their day special. I never expected one pet would steal my dad’s heart at first sight and, as my mom said yesterday, turn out to be the greatest Christmas present he has ever had. I know each day with her will continue to be a gift.
Welcome home, Gracie!
More video of Gracie and our Christmas shelter visits under the jump…
Ursa the foster puppy goes home for Christmas
Ursa, the German Shepherd (here’s mom -- and she’s available for adoption still ) and Labbamaybe puppy I’ve been fostering for Greater California German Shepherd Rescue, just left with her new family. Yes, on Christmas Day. How perfect is that? The couple already had their approved application in, and they passed the home check with flying colors last week. All they had to do was meet Ursa in person, and that went … well, she’s an adorable 12-week-old puppy, so how could it not go well?
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In the meantime, up in north Idaho, Dr. Becker and his daughter, Mikkel Becker, are making the rounds of area shelters with toys and goodies for the pets waiting for adoption, along with folks from the North Idaho Animal Hospital in Sandpoint and Lakewood Animal Hospital in Coeur D’Alene. We’ll have a wrap-up of the visits here on the blog tomorrow, but you can follow the progress today on Dr. Becker’s Facebook page.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Update:
I’m guessing getting along with the cat isn’t going be a problem. Here she is having her first meal in her new home:
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Another gift for Christmas: The cat came back
Clara disappeared around Thanksgiving of 2009. Despite collar and ID, despite microchip, despite county license, despite “lost” ads and flyers, trips to the county shelter and even a careful reading of the roadkills logs she never, ever turned up again. A couple times I thought maybe I’d caught a glimpse of her on the acreage behind my home, and a couple times my neighbor Judy also thought she’d seen her. But in the end, I had to admit she wasn’t coming back, not ever, and I would never know what happened to her. I was sick to my stomach thinking of the possibilities: A neighbor with a trap and a “shoot, shovel and shut up” attitude about cats or a coyote who’d come up the creek behind me from the American River Parkway. Either way, not a pretty end for a sweet little cat who was mostly fur and all purr. Because I do not keep my cats in, I knew the fault was all mine.
As for what he did while he was out, there was no mystery: He hunted. Never once did I see him track or catch a bird, but the mice and rats attracted by the chicken feed disappeared shortly after he decided killing them was his life’s work. (And here’s photographic proof that he was good at it!)
Affection has always been on his terms — and I have the claw scars to prove it. While Clara loved snuggling any time, Teh Big Orange Kitteh decides when and where he wants to be petted. And while Clara tolerated baths, nail-trims and flea-treatments graciously, the only way T-BOK tolerates anything is in a “kitty burrito,” wrapped firmly in a towel, his eyes smoldering with a look that made me think he’d kill me in my sleep that night if he could. Despite that, he was a pussycat at the veterinarian’s, purring in the tech’s arms during his visits. No muzzle, no towel, no trouble. Crazy cat!
Last month, the same weekend to the year that Clara disappeared, I went to Southern California, leaving the animals in Judy’s care as always. When I came back … no Ilario. He had simply vanished without a trace, just as Clara had the year earlier. No one had seen him, although one of my neighbors told me she suspected the office building that backs up to the acreage behind my home trapped and killed “nuisance” cats, based on a little trap-neuter-release experience we had last spring.
No matter what I guessed had happened, Ilario was gone. Both my cats were gone, in a year’s time. I was catless, and heartsick about it.
I was grieving and guilt-ridden, having nightmares about their fates. I determined that there would be no other cats until I could finish the long-standing cat patio project so no cat ever left the property. In the meantime I kept looking, kept hoping, kept thinking Ilario would pop in the dog door again after dark.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
A month passed with no sign of him, and then last Wednesday night, I saw him walking down the street in front of my house. He never went out front, and yet, there he was. I rushed out and called him, and he looked at me, uncertain. He froze while I approached him slowly … and then ran like hell.
Still … I knew he was alive, and I hoped I could get him back. I went out to dinner, and when I came back I let the dogs out. As soon as he heard my voice, he started meowing from the area of the chicken coop. Wherever he’d been, he was back, but not sure about where his home was now. I’d call, he’d meow, again and again and again. He seemed fine, but he wouldn’t let me get close. I brought out food and let him be. I have a cat-trap for TNR, and I figured I’d have to use it to get him back. But I’d let him settle in for now, because I knew I’d have only one chance at trapping him.
On Christmas Eve, he was at the back door as if he wanted to come in, but again, he fled when I approached. His food and litterbox have always been in the garage, accessible through a cat door from the kitchen. So I set the cat door so it would let him into the garage but not back out, opened the back door and went to bed.
It worked, and he’s now trapped in the garage.
Yesterday, he wouldn’t come out of the rafters. This morning he let me pick him up and take him in the house. Wherever he was, he ate well: He’s in good weight and good health.
As for his re-entry: You can see the delight on my face, and the uncertainty on his, but I’ll keep working on it. In the meantime, he’s not going out again … ever. Because when you get your cat back for Christmas, you understand the message: Don’t push it, sister. Keep the cat in the house.
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