Excessive?

There is a cheap glasses place in Scottsdale. I mean cheap, really cheap! They charge $29 for frames and lenses. Frames AND lenses - only $29! They also will put your new prescription lenses into frames you bring in.

I took 3 pairs of frames in to be updated with my new prescription. Then, while I was there, I tried on a few pairs. I couldn't decide which ones to get, so I got them all.  And now, I am the proud owner of 12 pairs of glasses.

Excessive?

Nah. You can never have too many shoes, and you can never have too many glasses.

Olympic Pups - Track and Fielder

Who fostered the cutest puppies ever? I did!

I got these cuties four weeks ago, during the height of the Olympic excitement. Thus, I wanted them to have Olympic names. I thought about Shot Put and Discus, Breaststroke and Backstroke, Bars and Beam, but finally settled on Track and Fielder. Track is the brown one, Fielder is the cream colored one.

They were picked up as strays by County and were transferred to the Humane Society for medical treatment. When they were found they were covered in ticks and scabs. When I got them they were covered in dead ticks (thanks to a tick dip) and scabs. Track was underweight and he had no hair on his body at all except that little brown spot by his tail. 

They were tested for mange and tick fever and luckily were negative for both. All they needed was a little fattening up, some oatmeal baths and some TLC.

They certainly didn't know they were sick. They were jolly, cuddly and super-playful. It was hard to get good pictures of them because they were constantly in wrestling motion. I have about 100 pictures that look like this:

I haven't had puppies in a long time and my dogs were not quite sure that they liked the idea.  Frankie was terrified, to the point that he was drooling like a madman. I tried to explain to him that they were puppies not monsters, but he wasn't convinced. A little (a lot) nervous:

Georgie didn't want anything to do with them. She spent the first few weeks as far away from them as she could get:

Mo was simply annoyed. The puppies loved to jump up and bite her in the face. She would growl at them, but that didn't deter them. She finally gave up the growling and tried to just ignore them. That didn't work either.

After a few weeks of the puppies, my dogs decided that perhaps puppies really are dogs and perhaps they could accept them.

When I go swimming, I leave the dogs' room open so they chill inside if they want to. They all wanted to.

Isn't this cute?

I've had over 30 dogs stay with me and Track and Fielder are the first dogs to take up the diving board as their relaxation spot. This is also cute because it highlights how they were always together. They acted like one dog, never more than a few feet from each other. I bet they will be sad at first when they get adopted since they will be separated for the first time. I hope they both get adopted on the same day so neither one has to spend time at the shelter alone. It's a scary place!

Here are the kennel card photos I submitted for them-
Track:

Fielder:

The cute Olympic puppies are getting neutered tomorrow and will be up for adoption on Tuesday. I'm guessing they will get chosen quickly. They are adorable, playful and Fielder is even housetrained! Good luck little Olympic puppies! We loved having you!!

Elaine's Birthday Flash Mob

First of all, have you voted for Frankie yet today? Please do! http://www.petsmartcharities.org/video-contest/gallery-vote-now.html Click on the Jill Diamond video, wait for it to load and then click Vote. The number should go up if your vote registers. We fell to second place today but for the moment are back in first. It's a fight to the finish for sure!

Anyway...on to the topic of this post....
For Elaine's 40th birthday, she threw herself a flash mob. If you've got a bucket list item (such as to be in a flash mob) you just gotta make it happen. So she did.

She made up a routine, she videotaped herself teaching the routine and posted the links on facebook. She invited everyone she knew and asked them to invite everyone they knew and so on. She is awesome, who could say no? Let's face it, even if I didn't like Elaine, I wouldn't have said no! Flash mobs are fun!  But since I adore Elaine, this was fun x 2!

Pat, Brian and Kiri also wanted to do it. Irene wanted to too, of course (she's as much a joiner as I am), but she was going to be out of town that week. Bummer for her.  So Brian and Kiri came over a few times in the weeks preceding the dance and we practiced, practiced, practiced!

On our last practice day Christy brought Miranda over. Miranda is 12. I didn't think she'd do it because she's shy sometimes. But no, she said she would and she did. She's never taken dance but she learned the dance in one night. We 3 swing dancers took 3 full nights of practice to learn it, which just goes to show that just because I learned to swing dance, by no means am I a dancer!

Christy doesn't dance (even though I bet she would have learned it in one night too) so she videotaped it for us. The dancing started before she was ready so you don't get to see the people milling around and then all start joining in. There is a video of that but it's on a private facebook page and I can't figure out how to share it.



Elaine is the girl in hot pink off to the left. I am the spazzy one (of course) in the front (of course) in the purple-ish t-shirt. Brian is behind me also in a purple-ish shirt. Miranda is the tall thin girl in the yellow shorts. You can see Kiri for the first 10 seconds off to the right in the black tank top and pants. Then Christy realized Elaine wasn't in the video so she panned over to include the guest of honor. Sorry, Kiri. :)  Pat and his mom are way in the back so you can't see them at all.

You can see Miranda and Brian in this picture and I'm peeking out from the vines.

When we were hanging out waiting for the music to start I was kind of worried about the turn out. It seemed like very few people were there. But then the music started and tons of people started joining in. Where did they come from? It was awesome! It was more people than even Elaine thought would be there. We were terrible at the "walk away like nothing happened" when it was over. Everyone was so excited that we were cheering and congratulating each other and Elaine. It was really fun to be in a group of such happy and excited people. I'm so glad it was a successful flash mob for Elaine!

Here are a bunch of the dancers:

Happy birthday Elaine! GREAT JOB!!  Do we get to do it again next year? I vote for an annual tradition!

Vote for Frankie!

I got two bits of good news last night.

The first bit of good news is that Frankie was chosen as a finalist in the PetSmart Charities High Five for My Pet Adoption contest. Ok, that's a goofy name for a contest, but the prize isn't goofy! The person with the most votes gets a $1000 donation to the shelter where their pet was adopted from. So, please vote!  http://www.petsmartcharities.org/video-contest/    Follow this link, click on the Jill Diamond video, then click VOTE. You don't even have to register! You can vote once a day on each of your devices (PC, laptop, smartphone) through August 3rd. I'm currently in 2nd place so I need all the votes I can get!

The other bit of good news is that Jake was adopted! Woo hoo! I was surprised at how quickly he was chosen. I guess someone saw through his scarred exterior and could that tell he's wonderful. I'll be keeping an eye on the adoptions page to make sure he isn't returned, though. Not everyone finds a torn up couch as humorous as I did. :)

Jake

This is Jake:

Jake is already up for adoption at the Humane Society! Here is his foster story.

 

After a short break from fostering (I needed some sleep; Quinn was a VERY early riser), I called the Humane Society to see what they had for available for foster, preferably something along the lines of mange or tick fever or infected uterus in size small, please. Anything that doesn't require cage rest. They didn't have anything small. Bummer. However, a few days later they called and asked if I could take a beagle mix with mange. Mange! Yay!

When I got there to pick up the dog, they inquired about my request for small dogs. I explained that Mo is a Nervous Nelly who doesn't particularly enjoy other dogs though she seems to do okay with smaller dogs. The foster lady looked a little nervous and told me that the mangy beagle mix was actually 40 pounds. 40 pounds is not small! But I was there and a mangy beagle mix needed some foster care so I said okay. Mo would just have to deal.  And so they brought out Jake...who is exactly the same size as Georgie! Georgie, who is 29 pounds!  No problem!

Seriously, Jake and Georgie are exactly the same size:

I think he is more basset mix which would account for his low-slung heavy stature.

Jake was originally fostered for two months by a different foster home while he recovered from a bad leg injury. His leg was torn open all the way to the bone. It was so bad they couldn't suture it closed so they let it scar over while wrapped up. The scar is about an inch wide down the whole length of his leg.  I don't have any pictures of it. He is also covered with scars all over his face. You can see a few of them in this picture, though there are a few more that you can't see.

Who knows what happened to this boy in his prior days, but I can tell you that it hasn't at all affected his temperament. The day I brought him home, he allowed me to trim all his nails and clean his ears, and he lay still for about 45 minutes while I manipulated him in all sorts of configurations to thoroughly de-tick him. He was amazing! After his leg healed, the poor guy was diagnosed with mange. The original foster couldn't keep him any longer which is why I got the call.

He got along with Georgie, immediately asking her to play. As Frankie got used to him, they would wrestle and play chase frequently. For the most part Jake respected Mo's request for distance, though every once in a while he tried to be more friendly than she wanted.

Jake LOVED toys! He especially loved to run around the yard with a toy in his mouth. He would demolish stuffed animals in minutes. I went to Goodwill and bought a bunch of $1 stuffed animals to keep him happy.

Isn't this cute? This is the picture they put on his kennel card and online:

Although Jake came to me housetrained, he had never been taught to sit. Teaching him to sit was an arduous task. He really liked his food so I thought he would be easily trained. Wrong! The problem was that Jake was TOO easy-going. I would hand-feed him his entire meal piece by piece, breakfast and dinner - each time giving the command to sit, showing him the correct position and then giving him the kibble. You think eventually he would understand. But no...his thought process was more along the lines of "this crazy lady sure likes to maneuver me around. Okay, I don't mind. I'll let her do whatever she wants. I can wait til she decides to give me the next morsel."  It took him probably about 325 repetitions before he finally realized that he was supposed to be playing a part in this game. When he did eventually connect the dots, he had a solid sit. I never did get a chance to start on down. 

 He really was an awesome dog. He walked perfectly on a leash. He was housetrained. He was super-duper cuddly. If you were watching a movie or taking a nap, he would happily snuggle up with you for the duration, happy as a clam! He was super-silly, always doing things that made us laugh. Once he tried to jump, with all 4 feet, into my lap while I was sitting on a high barstool. He failed. :) With all the wonderful things about him, there always has to be a catch, right?

The catch was that, like Quinn, Jake was an early riser. As all my fosters do, he slept in a crate in the dogs' room. He would wake up and start barking at 5:00-5:30 every day and loudly protest being in the crate until I came to get him. Ugh, I needed sleep!  They had told me at the shelter that he was a chewer, and though he tore through toys really quickly, he hadn't even attempted to chew anything he wasn't given for that purpose. So, to see if he'd sleep longer, I decided to test him sleeping loose in the room with Frankie and Georgie. It worked like a charm the first night. He slept on the couch and didn't wake up until I woke them up. Yay!

But the second night, he woke up early again. He barked once or twice but then was quiet so I went back to sleep. You should always be suspicious of quiet dogs! Jake was being quiet because he was happily chewing the stuffing out of the couch! The couch is a "dog couch" so this was no tragedy.

"I didn't do nuthin'! See? I gots this pink toy in my mouth...it couldn't have been me!"

So, back to the crate for Jake. Back to really early rising for me. I hypothesize that if he was allowed to sleep in the bed with us, he would have slept as long as we wanted him to. Pat is out of town this week so I was going to test that hypothesis. However, when I took him to his vet appointment (Jake, not Pat) on Saturday, they surprised me with the news that his skin scrape was clear and he could be put up for adoption immediately. I was supposed to have him for 4 more weeks! I hadn't taught him down yet. I hadn't taken any video of him yet. I hadn't even filled out his adoption information paperwork!  My intention was to create an adoption video to try to help him get adopted. He's so ordinary looking that I'm afraid he'll get overlooked in the shelter. He's adorable, but he looks like 50 other of the 100+ dogs there.

It's a good thing that he got to go up for adoption sooner than planned so he can hopefully find a home sooner than planned, but I'm still worried about him. He has been up for adoption already for 5 days. It makes me sad to think of all these days that are going by that he doesn't get to snuggle with someone. :(   Please, someone out there, please go adopt my boy. You won't regret it!

Until he is adopted, this link to his adoption profile will be active: http://www.petharbor.com/pet.asp?uaid=AZHS.A395247