Oh yea and then there’s that…

OOps… Chocko’s been meaning to share some big news with you and it keeps not happening….

So here it is!  Thanks to a good friend for this gift, he’s able to share it with you all by himself:

 

What?!  huh?  Yup!  Chocko’s going to be a big brother pretty soon!  He’s up for the challenge!  He’s already been up to his handy dog self, helping his dad put together the bambino-on-the-way’s crate, er crib.

 

 

Let’s make one thing clear here, ok ma?  This blog is about me and my cute mug, got it?

You got it, dude.

 

Chocko gets Sirius about his collar

You all know we are HUGE fans of Sirius Republic, right?  I mean how could we not be?  Aside from making our favorite style collars (the martingale) at a wonderful price for a custom fit, they give back so so much.  Free “adopt me” embroidery on collars for fosters, and adopt me bandanas?  Not to mention the fact that they donate a ton to rescues nationwide (particularly ones with a focus on pitbull type dogs- wahoo!)  So, we basically love them.  Like loooooove them.  And Chocko has a crush on Chilly (he likes the older ladies), but don’t tell him I told you!

So naturally we’ve been drooling over the new line of leather collars, but leather always seemed so intimidating…you know how some people buy that nice sports car and keep it in the drive way, wash it, but never actually DO anything with it because they are too scared they will ruin it?  Leather intimidated me, so I never took the leap…

Until we got a special surprise in the mail!

The Freebird

Doesn’t the color complement my furs?

Since this was a gift, we were very open to whatever would compliment our brown boy best.  We maaaay have mentioned we had our eye on the Freebird (though the Guinness is also right up there in the favorites department), and it arrived in the ‘tan’ color (there are several different leather colors you can choose from).

Check out the detailing on the collar

I love that there are two D rings; the way it falls on Chocko, one hangs in the front and one in the back of his neck, which makes it perfect for both leash clipping and tag/ID clippings!  That is a huge perk in my book.  I also love the details in the wings and peace signs, how cool!

And you can’t ignore how handsome he looks in it, right?  I mean all he needs is a cigar and a card table, and maybe a glass of Scotch  (ew, forget the Scotch, but you get my drift), and his new alias could be The Underboss.

“You talkin’ to me?”

Are you interested in looking as dapper as this guy?

Then head on over to Sirius Republic and get a collar of your own!  And here’s a special code for 10% off your order: CHOCKO – expires this Sunday, 3/31!

 Now onto Leather Care

I asked about what I needed to know, since this would be my first experience with a leather collar.  Here’s the response I got:

“The collar comes to you “finished”, which just means we have applied conditioner and finishing products to weather/waterproof it. Care is really easy, in fact if you don’t do anything to it, it should last beautifully on its own, although a little bit of conditioner occasionally will help it look and feel great. Just take some conditioner (we use Fiebing’s brand, but any leather conditioner will do), rub it into the leather for a few minutes with your fingers to help the leather absorb the conditioner, wipe off any excess with a soft rag. It can get wet, just make sure you wipe it off after. Don’t leave it to dry out in the sun or soak it in water for an extended period of time. If it gets dirty, wipe it with a damp cloth. Leather is such a durable material, with a little bit of care and common sense, it will last nicely for many years (I actually prefer the look and feel of older leather). 

I’ve also updated our website to include leather info and care, check it out here:http://www.siriusrepublic.com/leatherinfo.html.”

Wow, that doesn’t seem too complicated now does it?  And I have to agree, I prefer the look of old leather!  So now that I know we won’t break and ruin it, we’re off to wear in our collar!  Hope you enjoyed all the handsomeness.

**The Freebird was a gift to us and all the opinions in this post are my own.  Seriously…awesome freakin’ collar!**

Check Check, 1 2 1 2

Hello interweb friends, are you still out there?  We’re here!  We are alive!  We are doing well.  and we hope you are too!

 

Chocko has been spending lots of time at the gym (more on that later) but we wanted to make sure you were still out there because we have some exciting things to share in the next few days!

Have a great week!

More bottle pups

Boy, do I love me some bottle pups- from a distance, of course!  Well that’s a lie, I like to get up close and personal with them.  Sniff their puppy breath, rub their bellies, let them canoodling in my arms…. BUT I like to give them back.

It sure does take a special person to handle a litter of bottle pups.  Unfortunately, when a litter like these 5 adorable pups show up alone, or with a mother that can’t (or isn’t) caring for them, their only chance of survival is going to a skilled and knowledgeable foster home who (this is the kicker) is WILLING to raise them, as their mama, for the next few weeks.

Do you have any idea what that means?!  I sure didn’t, until I started taking pictures of the first litter of bottle pups I posted.  It means, at first, feeding them every two hours, even over night!   Just like a newborn human.  Unlike a human though, there are 5 mouths to feed, not one.  It means doing laundry, every single day.  Stinky laundry.  When puppies are very young, their mothers do all the feeding and cleaning, so a mama with a litter is usually a whole lot easier to care for then a litter without a mama.  You care for the mama, the mama cares for the pups, done deal!  But, no mama?  Tough luck.  These pups need cleaning up around the clock (who’s going to invent puppy diapers?!)

I was unsuccessful at getting all 5 to look at me at any point – still cute though!

These little cuties also happen to have a pretty bad case of kennel cough- that’s rough when you’re only 3 weeks old.  Luckily, our fabulous MABB puppy extraordinaire is there to look out for these snotty, whiney, soft, cuddly balls of fur until they are ready to be adopted!  They are somewhere between 3 and 4 weeks old right now, so hopefully in a month or so they will be healthy, well socialized, exuberant 8-week old pups!  Keep an eye out for these fabulous five in a month or so!

The three boys

Handsome chuncker!

Fostermama’s favorite, the lil runt…such a sweety!

Pittie Posse Secret Santa, Take 2!

Last year was the inaugural PPSS (you guessed it, short for Pittie Posse Secret Santa).  Which make’s this year the 2nd annual!  Our buddies over at Our Waldo Bungie organize this, and we couldn’t be more grateful for being included again this year!  And there are even more possie members!

Last year Knox and Lola were gifted a super cool dragon toy with like hundreds (ok, maybe dozens) of sqeakers!  It brought hours of entertainment to these two, thanks to Kate and her crew over at Kate with a Camera.

This year we received a very prompt package from our Secret Santa!  We were so super excited to open it.  Do you have any idea who could have sent it?!

Why of course, the cold-weather experts from  the arctic tundra Chicago!  Our virtual buddies Miss M and Mr. B were gracious enough to custom make Chocko his very own adoption year hoodie!  How warm and athletic does he look in his hoodie?

It even makes his butt look cute

We’re amazed how perfectly it fits, and super appreciative of the very thoughtful gift.  We can add it to Chocko’s growing collection of winter wear.  Chocko even has Mr. B’s Christmas card face smack over his crate, to keep him company.

So, want to know what everyone else is getting?  Go do some hunting and check out the other blogs – Here’s the list:

Our Waldo Bungie

Two Pitties in the City

Two Grad Students and a Pittie

Love and a Six Foot Leash

That Touch of Pit

Kate with a Camera

A Heartbeat at My Feet

Peace, Love & Fostering

Two Kitties One Pittie

Happy Holidays from Chocko and his humans!!!

Two Fabulous Dogs

On Saturday I got to spend some time taking pictures of two adorable adoptables from Mid Atlantic Bully Buddies… Peony and Micah (aptly named in honor of the Jewish holiday)!

I love taking photographs of adoptable pups.  It’s one of the fun ways I get to do my part in the process of helping these dogs find their forever homes.  I feel a terrible pang of guilt that we’re still not fostering.  Chocko’s just not ready yet.  But here’s my eansy weansy tiny contribution.  And I get to meet some great dogs, get some sloppy kisses, and work on my ever evolving (and hopefully improving) photography skills.

Now onto our two adoptables (I have no double they will go f.a.s.t.)

Peony

She’s beautiful, sweet, easy-going and is ready to dish out kisses to anyone she meets!  For a dog that’s only about a year and a half, her energy level is pretty impressive (as in very calm).  She’s an example of a dog who showed terribly in a shelter enviroment due to stress…but out of the shelter and in your arms?  I can’t imagine a dog that could ‘show’ any better.

And then there was this meaty boy,

Micah

Seriously, how handsome is this bachelor?  Only about a year old he’s a small, compact tank of a boy with a beautiful set of eyes (they make me melt!)  He’s energetic and interested in the world!  A dog ready to start the next chapter of his life and forget what brought him here.

Elderbull Alert! Sister Nancy, Saved by Sandy!

A few weeks ago Sandy tore through much of the East Coast.  BARCS had to evacuate, similar to last year when Irene came through.  However this time, instead of needing fosters for all the dogs, they were able to secure some trucks for transport as well as space in a city arena, above sea level (BARCS is waterfront, and AT sea level which poses major flooding risk).  This meant they needed a ton of man power to get the dogs walked, into crates and into those trucks, then unloaded.  Volunteers from all over the city showed up at 7am (many before) to help.  It was quite impressive and amazing.  I didn’t take any pictures that day, but my friend J was able to share some with me.

After setting up many of the dogs with water, food, and dry blankets, I looked over to see someone falling in love…

This is a friend I know from B-More Dog, falling into love with little old Nancy.   And somehow, Hurricane Sandy saved Nancy.  Well not somehow… if your involved in animal rescue at all, you know the pleas.  You’ve seen them..  Well it turns out that another friend I know through fostering and saw during the evacuation, saw the plea on facebook… and after getting home and dry he turned right around to get Nancy.

An older gal, stressed out, with a terrible case of kennel cough.  Lets just say her odds aren’t good in a city shelter.  So, in a way, Sandy Saved Nancy (along with a bunch of other kind souls who saw the goodness in hers).

And heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Nancy!

I got to spend some time taking some glamour shots of Nancy this weekend.  Here’s what her foster mama had to say about this turn-key golden girl:

“Nancy is incredibly sweet. Housebroken. Crate trained. Has some
seriously cute ears! Loves to just be with you. Low energy but still
loves to run around and play at the appropriate times. Does well with
older (1-2 yrs or older) dogs that are not overly dominant or hyper.
She takes corrections very well. She’s not jumpy or hyper. Does great
on and off leash. Very good with strangers. She’d make a great “shop”
dog or would be good for someone who entertains a lot because she
loves everyone! Loves to give kisses. She is very gentle. Does well
with babies and toddlers. Loves to go for rides. She’s truly a
“turn-key” dog. She’d be perfect for any family. Can some one love her
the way she deserves to be loved for the rest of her years? She will
undoubtedly love you back ten fold!!”

If anyone is interested in adopting the FAB-U-LOUS elderbull, Nancy… please let me know, or contact BARCS directly.  I’m telling you, this girl is wonderful.

Feel free to network this girl!  She sure would appreciate it.

Squeeky clean!

It was long over due…

Chocko had to go head to head with the hose, and he lost.

He was unimpressed with this so-called bathing…and he thinks his pedicure was super un-called for.

He did however love doing zoomies to ‘dry off’….

And he took advantage of some of the conventional drying methods as well.   The good ‘ol shake and toweling off.

What’s more comforting that a green ball and being toweled off by your mama and dad?!  Nothing. In. The. World.

Do you all take advantage of outdoor bathing in the summer?  We’ve found baths are only needed right when are shelter pups arrive at our house and a few times a year for maintenance.  The secret to a clean smelling pup is keeping their bed/crate mat clean!  We use unscented, mild detergent.  And a hypoallergenic dog soap…but this week, Chocko is red and itchy.  I’ve heard Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo is the way to go… any suggestions?  Knox used to get itchy and red after a bath too.  Seems ironic, doesn’t it?!

Collar Tag giveaway!

We have a confession to make… our dogs are often tag-less!  I wish we had the funds to buy a new collar and a personalized tag for every foster that comes through, but we just don’t.  That being said, even Knox and Chocko are tag-less sometimes!  Yup. That’s right. They always have a phone number and name on their Sirius collars, and are microchipped, and if we are ever off leash I make sure the tags are on… but… well, part of the wardrobe was definitely missing.

Luckily for us, we were offered a dogtag for Chocko and a foster tag from Dogtagart.com!  I kinda didn’t realize we were even missing it… oops.  Fear not, said Dog Tag Art!  So we perused their hundreds of designs (yea, there is a LOT) and decided to make Chocko a custom tag and then chose one of their artist-designed tags for the future foster.

They arrived attached to an adorable post card with tag silencers (we were really happy about that since that’s kind of the reason our dogs aren’t always tagged… I promise we’re going to get better at that though!)

It was super duper easy to select the pre-designed tags.  Just customize with your information on the back and voila!  An adorable, sturdy tag for your collar.

(I took the silencer off the Adopt Me tag so you could get a better view).

We love this simple yet catchy tag.  During a stroll down the street or a visit to the park, if our fosters are sans bandana or vest, this is the perfect accessory to always advertise their availability!  And we love the back too…

We chose not to put our addresses on the tags, and instead just our phone numbers and another adopt-me push!  :)  Subtle, we know.

The tag on the left is obviously Chocko’s (Yup, you guessed it, the one that says Chocko.) We personalized his with our phone numbers, as well as the city.  Not sure why… just did that.  When you personalized the tags on Dog Tag Art, there are six different fonts (we went with a combination of comic sans and arial), as well as several different sizing options.

Customizing Chocko’s was a bit more difficult.  Now you could easily upload a picture to the site and it’s pretty easy, but I had to go get all complicated.  See I’ve been wanted to have an icon (or ‘Branding’ as I recently learned what it’s called) but haven’t gotten around to it.  So I decided to play with photoshop elements… Which is a program that still completely baffles me.  Well long story short, I didn’t want a picture on my tag, so I played with some layers and found a cute blue paw-print fill layer… I added some text (this sounds  WAY simpler then it was to me at the time!) and saved it as a .jpeg.  Once that was all done, it was easy breezy to upload it to the site and create my tag.

Here’s Chocko getting a little carried away modeling his new tag.

Ok so, do you want one?  Of course you do!  So here’s how to enter to win a free tag from DogTagArt.com:

1) Go check them out www.dogtagart.com, and peruse the selection.

2) Leave a comment on THIS post with which design is your favorite (don’t worry if you win and you decide you want to custom make your own, that’s totally fine!)

3) Enter to win by Wednesday night, August 1st at 11:59pm EST.

This giveaway is open to US residents and will end on August 1st, 2012 at 11:59 PM (EST). The winner will be chosen at random using  a random number generator from all eligible entries (random.org). The winner will be notified via e-mail and will have three days to reply or a new winner will be chosen. The gift code will be sent via e-mail. No mailing address is required for this giveaway.

Goodluck!  I can’t wait to hear about your favorites!  I really was crushing on a lot of the tags in the “Vintage and Retro” category and this one was my favorite runner up!

Evey got Lucky

oh that Evey girl!  What a lucky gal.  Her adopted name is Jayde, but she’ll always be Eve to us.  She was adopted and got to live on a farm! 

Doesn’t get much better….but she recently lost her (much) older brother.  We are very sorry for her loss.  Recently loosing Knox we can understand all to well how the loss of a pet can affect us all.

But do you know what makes Eve/Jayde lucky?  She went and got herself her very own Lucky!  Yup, her mama decided to get her a foster brother, from MABB, named…. LUCKY!

Here’s her email update from their first day:

So far so good…. He [Lucky] laid down stretching out and taking up the whole back seat all the way home.  Jayde was forced to sit on the floor for a while.

It was pretty comical actually.  She got her revenge once she got him home in the yard.  She went right into wrestle mode with him.

He warmed up to it rather quickly and held his own as you can see in the pics.  Once they burned off that energy we went in and they took a little nap on the recliner and cooled off.  Then around 8:00 we went for a nice long walk and came back and they ate dinner and we relaxed before bed.  When I woke up, they were beside me and Jayde was spooning him.  He started out at the foot of the bed.  I wish I would have had my camera handy it was really cute.  

Angie

 Eve really did go and get herself a Lucky, didn’t she!

We’re so sorry for Eve’s loss, but we’re glad she has Lucky to distract her from the heartache.  And it certainly looks like he’s doing a good job of that!

Lucky is available for adoption (I made a mistake earlier and thought it was an adoption, my bad friends!)  Anyway, he’s super awesome with other dogs and is doing so well on a farm with horses.  If your interested in this handsome fellow, please fill out an application through Mid Atlantic Bully Buddies! You won’t regret it!

(photos all courtesy of Jayde and Lucky’s mama, Angie)