Joyful Abode

In June, we adopted Zora from the East Mississippi Animal Rescue.

This photo is dated in May, because we really adopted her in May, but then went out of town, so we took her home in June when we got back.

Since then, she’s been a wonderful companion and an excellent cuddler. It’s so fun to have such a close relationship with a member of a whole other species. This is really really nifty to me because I’ve never had a dog before, so I didn’t really “get it” when people talked about the dog/human bond… now I do.

We started training the day we got her, and after only 9 days, she had already learned so much.

Now she has a lot more in her repertoire. Of course sit, down, wait, stay, shake, roll over… but also drop it, leave it, heel, balance (something on her head/nose), high five, gimmie 10, wave, spin around, be a person (stand up), and her latest trick… bubbles.

For her birthday, she got a new mat/bed thing to hang out on, since we’re going to my parents’ house in a few weeks and she will need a soft non-couch place to be comfy on while we’re all in the living room. She also got her first-ever REAL BONE… I think it’s a beef bone; one of those sterilized hollow ones from the pet store. She’s been enjoying both quite thoroughly.

And her birthday treat was sent to her by her dear Aunti Meagan all the way in Massachusetts. Doggie cupcake! Yum-o.
I have to tell you Zora’s got this “wait” thing down pat. I put the cupcake in front of her, told her wait, took about 20 photos… started a video in which I sounded like a fool. After about 10 seconds of video, I said “okay” and she took it. But then I decided to start over with the video without my silly voice saying things like “It’s her birthday… we think.” haha.
So I told her “drop it”, she did, and we started over with “wait.”
She is a very patient dog if food hangs in the balance.

Happy birthday, Zora! We love you and we’re so glad you’re part of our family!

I’m really sad because I wrote a whole big Thanksgiving post and after it posted successfully, it seems to have disappeared…

I’m too sad about it right now to write it all over again. So I’ll just post a very short one.

Zora helped me cook.

Read the rest of this entry »

Autumn is my favorite season of all… finally, relief from all of those hot disgusting summer days! Pants and sweaters, hoodies and nice breezes… less humidity!

It’s definitely a time to celebrate.

This year, I did several decorations… a couple that I haven’t taken photos of (whoops! maybe I’ll add them tomorrow).

First, the garden. It used to look nice… now it’s getting too cold at night, and everything is dying (other than the dusty miller). Hopefully I can salvage some coleus and root it indoors over the winter… I love that stuff! Those rusty colored mums are so pretty, don’t you think? The little plants in between them are red/burgundy mums… they did puff quite a bit and look really pretty before they died. I told my preschoolers that the scarecrows are me and the two of them. They LOVED that idea. And note the wreath on the door, too.

I really enjoy our garden when it’s pretty, but it doesn’t seem to stay that way for long… besides monkey grass, is there ANYthing that will survive direct sunlight and all temperatures? … really, no? Poo. I think next season we might just grow dirt instead of buying more plants… too expensive!

I  have another one of those wreaths indoors in the dining room…

Closeup with flash so you can see. It looks kind of stick-y in the photos but I think it looks nicer in person. I’m probably wrong though, because they were $10 at Big Lots after all.

Up close on the window sills… I love these tiny pumpkins! I got some glasses/vases/whatever from Big Lots for a dollar each and filled them with candy corn and a Yankee candle. The day I set this up, my husband came to me with a perplexed look on his face and said, “Those candles you got? …. They smell… fally.” I was happy to hear that, because that’s kind of the point! I would’ve done harvest corn instead of regular candy corn (more fally, less halloweeny) but would you believe I couldn’t find any!? Then again, I refused to go to Wal-Mart, so that’s probably why…hmm…

I got some little white pumpkins too… these are actually now on the little shelf by our front door, but same difference… There are also some on the dining table.

Zora helped pass out candy to trick-or-treaters on Halloween. She’s got saltwater taffy in that bucket!

And this is her normal day-t0-day Autumn fashion!

I love when she looks up at the thing she’s balancing, like it helps her concentrate more. She also seems to think that the lower she makes her head go, the easier it will be to balance. Sometimes she gets all hunched down with her head nearly on the ground (still sitting though, not lying down) and I have to laugh at her and get her to stand up again to “reboot.”

I’ve really wanted to be able to balance things on Zora’s head… but she wasn’t too into the idea. She’d want to keep her eye on the treat or toy, so she’d follow it with her head (looking up). If I tried to come from the side, she’d turn her head to the side, and flop over, looking at the treat sideways while laying down.

But at the end of September, all at once, she finally got it! The first couple times today she wasn’t so sure what was going on, but once she realized that holding still with stuff on her face = delicious treats…well, she was a happy camper.

I think she finally “got it” because she was inspired by Heather Armstrong’s dog Chuck (at dooce.com)… I caught her browsing archives of the Daily Chuck photos.

It all started with one little kibble.

“Uh, guys? There’s a kibble on my head.”

Zora learns about people of the world by balancing multicultural wooden figures.

And we bought her a new toy at the end of September… she had another Ruff bone which she LOVED, but this one looks even more durable, so we bought it too. They’re nice toys…vanilla scented, which makes things nice for the people in her life. And very durable (compared to everything other than Kongs). She had to balance it before she got to play with it. It’s so big it looks like it’s crushing her in this picture, but she’s ok. I promise.

It’s hard to take a family portrait with a self-timer and a dog.
Husband holds dog. I set up camera and click.
I run back to husband and dog. I hold dog’s collar. We try to pose and smile.
Dog decides it’s time for a belly rub!

We eventually got this one, which is pretty good except that Zora’s not looking at the camera.
But why would she? The camera’s just on a bench… no interesting people, no treats, no smells or sounds. The air to her left is much more interesting.

She’s also decided that the back of the couch is a really nice place to rest now and then.

I’m not intending to turn this into one of those dog blogs, but this is all I really had to say today…

…other than that I’ve been rethinking my idea of starting a NavyCDH website (scroll to the end of that post). Sort of. I still want a place to post lesson ideas, things I learn/read that pertain to in-home preschool (or homeschooling), post pictures of our day… so I might just make a separate blog for that. I wonder how hard that would be to keep up with.

I’m trying to think of a good URL for it (any ideas?) and I have a couple in mind… I might just register more than one so I can make sure no one snatches them up, just in case…for later, you know?

Last week I wrote about how we rearranged the living room furniture to make the space flow a bit better. To remind you, this is the “before.”

And this is sort of the after. The little upside-down table was helping to flatten the rug, and the coffee table was obviously not in its final position, but… close enough.

So yesterday, we went about the second stage of our living room makeover. The painting! First, the guy moved all of the furniture into the middle of the room.

Zora says, “Whut???”

Then we set about taping everything off… I did most of the taping, except for the ceiling. Zora was getting really curious at this point!

See my beautiful handiwork?

When the taping was finished, we gated off the kitchen and let Zora watch from the comfort of her little rug.

I went around with a brush, cutting into all the nooks and crannies and around baseboards, doors, window, outlets (the guy did the brushing around the ceiling). Then, the rolling! And more rolling, and more rolling… the whole thing required two full coats, but it was seriously worth it.

We took Zora outside with us while we ate cheeseburgers from the gross burger joint on base and let the paint dry. A couple hours later, with the blue tape removed… check it out!

Ooh, did you notice the curtains changed color? That’s one great thing about having a color palette you really seem to be drawn to over and over…  Terra cotta curtains on a terra cotta wall would look stupid, so we just stuck the former living room curtains in the office, and moved the green office curtains into the living room!

I have to mention that one of my biggest concerns in teaching preschool in my house was keeping my home a sophisticated, adult-looking place… I THINK I’ve managed to do that pretty well.

Here’s the rundown of the cost of our living room makeover:

• Little shelf beside front door: $25
• Rug: $80
• “New” Curtains: $0 (swapped with office curtains)
• Rearranging furniture: $0
• Paint, rollers, brushes, tape: $25

Total: $130

Not bad!

I was looking for recipes for a good sandwich bread to make in the bread machine, and came across this recipe on allrecipes. At 4.5 stars and almost 500 reviews, I decided to give it a go! Of course, after reading some of the reviews, I decided to try a honey wheat version instead, since we usually buy honey wheat bread from the store.

I’ve now made this recipe about 5 times, 1 of which I actually did the white version (still with honey though). Every time, oh yum!

So here’s how I do it:

Dissolve a little over 2 teaspoons of yeast in a cup of 110 degree water (Fahrenheit).

Add 2 generous squirts of honey, stir. Let sit for 10 minutes to get foamy and exciting.

Dump it in the bread machine’s well.

Add 3 cups of flour (either all 3 bread flour, or 2 bread flour + 1 wheat flour)

Add 1 teaspoon of salt (I just eyeball it)

Add 1/4 cup veggie oil

Set the machine to the sandwich bread/white bread setting.

4ish hours later, take the bread out and let it cool. In order to get good slices, you really need to let it cool completely before slicing it.

I love it slathered with nutella…mmm.

And what does the family think? My husband says, “I like it. It tastes like…good bread. And the pieces are big, so I can make bigger sandwiches.”

And Zora exercises extreme goodness (yes, goodness) and patience even for the tiniest morsel of bread… so I know she likes it!
(Also, please excuse her eye slime… she just woke up.)

The one thing I don’t love about the bread machine is that it makes weirdly tall loaves of bread that have a slit/hole in the bottom (because of the kneading paddle thing), although the convenience of throwing things together and leaving them alone is definitely a plus. Still, next time I might set it on the dough setting, then transfer the dough into my own bread pan and bake it in the oven. I bet it would also be great with sunflower seeds inside it. Mmm.

So I didn’t cut up papers and put them in a jar. I used the more sophisticated Random.org to determine each winner.

Without further ado…

• Military Wife books Winner: 2nd ticket purchaser - Victoria S.
• Crochet Explosion Package: 5th ticket purchaser - Stephanie C.
• Paper Crafts - 3rd ticket purchaser - Amy G.
• Fabric Scraptastic - 4th ticket purchaser - Sarah P.

And I just added it up again… post-paypal-fees-pre-shipping-costs, you’ve all helped me raise $247.54 for Dog! Thank you so much for helping out with this. Dog, we, and his new family all appreciate your help!

Next Saturday is the drawing for the needle felted mini-Dog and I’ll also leave the donation option up until then.

Also, I spoke with my friend who took him in, and guess what! She’s pretty definitely going to keep him. They’ve named him Loki, after the Norse god of mischief. Evidently he decided to start chewing things, and chewed up my friend’s favorite bra among other things. But he and their other dog Trouble are getting along great, and my friend’s son has started training Loki!

I’m so excited for them all!

I’ll ship out the raffle prizes on Monday… I’ve got to find some boxes for the Crochet and Fabric stuff! I only have 1 box and it’s not big enough for either one! Poo.

And your chances are FANTASTIC because only a few people have purchased tickets for each thing.

You have all day today to buy tickets… I’ve decided to extend the raffle till tomorrow. I’ll draw (and post) winners tomorrow and ship either tomorrow or Monday.

Only 6 tickets sold so far: $2 each. Three military wife books.

Only 4 tickets sold so far: $3 each. Over 4 pounds of fabric scraps, and 20 packages of handmade bias tape.

Only 2 tickets sold so far: $5 each. Tons of great paper crafting stuff.

Only 4 tickets sold so far: $10 each. Lots of amazing yarn (including handspun and unique novelty –not “fun fur”), 3 great crochet books, and a new with tag project bag worth $60.

And there’s a brand-new raffle too (Drawings for this one will be NEXT Saturday, not tomorrow). Artist Pamela D. of BenMcFuzzylugs donated this fantastic likeness of Dog. Her mini-Dog is needle-felted, with no wires or filler; all fiber! And he is absolutely adorable. I love how Pam has captured his adorable, playful smile.

When the winner for this drawing is chosen, Pam will ship mini-Dog directly to you. Pam’s needle-felted creatures retail for $35. Tickets for this one are a steal at only $3.

In case you haven’t read the previous posts…

• Our Rescue Dog - How you can help (how we found him, his night with the police, a morning trip to the vet, and raffles for great craft stuff I’m donating to his cause)
• Usborne Books for our Rescue Dog (A friend who sells Usborne children’s books offered to have me host an online book party and donate the profit — including her own cut — to the dog’s care. That’s 25% of all sales. I’m pretty sure September 9th is the last day for the book sale though, so if you want to order something, hurry!)
• Issues with the “Donate” button (Several people asked if they could donate without buying raffle tickets, so I added a “donate” option to the shop, since the paypal “donate” button wasn’t working.)

So, Dog has been fine here all week (I think today was day 10 that we’ve had him), and he and Zora have really gotten along. Dog doesn’t have any desperate need to be “alpha” or “top dog” so Zora realized he wasn’t a threat (and that he was a cool playmate) pretty quickly. I think he’d make an easy transition into a home that already had a dog or other pets (he did fine with cats on our walks too). He is also great with kids. No jumping or nipping or anything. Just calm standing still while they pet him.

He’s seemed to fill out a bit more over the week and a half, thanks to 5 meals a day and a lot of relaxing.

We did learn one thing though… despite being well-fed and loved and having a fun black-furred playmate, Dog has a tendency to want to run into the woods. We were playing in the dog park (off-leash, because it’s enclosed with a fence) and after about half an hour of nice playing, he decided the woods across the street looked inviting. He climbed over the fence before we could stop him, and ran into the trees.

My first thought was, “We lost the dog we rescued??? Oh, no!” but then I realized that since we’ve been asking EVERYone, “Do you recognize this dog?” and “Do you want to adopt a yellow lab?” that someone would probably figure out he was (temporarily) ours and bring him back.

But my husband plowed into the woods after him, and I walked the perimeter with Zora, with all three of us calling “Dog! Dog!”  Except for Zora because she was really saying “raurr-row!”

I found a culvert where there was some water, so I figured that would be a good place to wait for Dog… maybe he was thirsty. Then I heard a ruckus in the trees, and a couple seconds later, a doe ran out of the woods. Then, I heard SPLISH-SPLASH, and Dog came bounding out of the water, muddy and looking very pleased with himself. He and Zora had a happy reunion and we all went home.

One lesson from this? Microchip your dog. Seriously.

So to update on the financial/fundraising side… You know we spent $225 on everything for him (crate, good food, dog bowl, leash, collar, kong toy, and vet inspection/bath/flea and tick treatment). So far with raffle tickets and straight donations, we’ve raised about $180! Thanks to everyone who’s been helping out, either by making raffle ticket purchases or donations or helping to spread the word by posting in blogs and emailing friends and family!

Raffle drawings aren’t until Friday, so there is still time to make your contribution and possibly win something cool from my stash.

I was hoping to be able to help pay for some of his initial vet fees, neutering, and microchipping. I asked the veterinarian about prices for everything, and for the 2 rounds of shots he needs (since his immunization record is a mystery), neutering, and microchipping, the cost will be around $300. That doesn’t include heartworm testing, which he also needs, or the treatment if he has it (which runs $300-$500 for a dog this size). I am crossing my fingers that he doesn’t have heartworms!

So today, Dog, Zora, and Trouble had a playdate in the dog park. Who’s Trouble, you ask?

She’s the old, matronly, drooly black lab of a friend of mine. This particular friend has met Dog several times, and each time she babytalks to him and squinches his face and kisses him, then tells me if we can’t find someone to adopt him, that she will take him in.

Well, the guy who might adopt Dog (who is a friend of this friend of mine) is out of town all week, and I really needed to start getting things in order for my CDH (”What’s that?” you ask? Oh, more on that later) so my friend offered to watch him this week until the guy gets back from his training or wherever he is.

So this playdate was a trial run to see if Dog and Trouble could get along well. Trouble only had to “oompfh” at Dog a couple times before she realized that Dog was set in his usual role of laid-back second- or third-from-the-top dog. Then they were fine. My friend’s husband took Dog’s leash and walked around with him to see if Trouble would get jealous, and she just followed alongside them, not protesting at all.

So Dog went home with my friend’s family for a trial run in the house. Everything went well, and the dogs were both relaxing, eating treats, and coexisting peacefully. So my friend’s husband came back to get his crate, bowl, toy, and food.

But do you know what I think happened? I think my friend and her husband have already fallen in love with Dog, and I know their son has. I think that their friend (”the guy”) isn’t going to have a chance to adopt Dog because he’ll already be in the hearts of everyone in that house, including old Trouble.

I think our Dog has found a home, which is awesome! I couldn’t be more excited for him!  (I will take pictures of them all later.)

Also, since they live so close, this means that Dog and Zora can remain friends and have play dates in the dog park.

It’s not working. I copied and pasted and re-copied and re-pasted, re-generated the code, copied, pasted…. nothing worked. I’ve never done a paypal button before though, so maybe I’m doing something wrong.

In any case, several people asked how they could donate money for our rescue fellow without buying a raffle ticket, so I’ve added a “donate” option to the shop in the Animal Rescue category. It’s listed as $5 but you can “buy” as many as you want, to make as big a donation as you’d like.

We’ve raised about $135 so far (pre-paypal fees and shipping for the raffle items), which is great! We’re getting closer to the $225 we’ve already spent on him, and hopefully we’ll exceed it so we can pay for his neutering and shots for whatever loving person adopts him!

Thanks to everyone for helping spread the word, buying tickets, and making donations. Every bit helps! Only 10 more days before the raffle winners are chosen, so please tell your friends!

I placed a “found dog” classified in the paper, but the lady said that there weren’t any “lost yellow lab” ads placed recently. I’m really getting the feeling this guy was simply abandoned. Which makes me really angry.

In happy news, there are a few people who have expressed interest in possibly adopting him once we’re sure no one is claiming ownership of him.  That’s not too surprising becuase he is a SWEETIE PIE. He and Zora are getting along really well, and it would be kind of nice if someone we know adopts him, so they can still visit each other.

Here they are, watching my husband get their dinners ready.

A neighbor of mine sells Usborne books and offered to let me host an online book show (like when people do Pampered Chef or Mary Kay). She is donating ALL of her profits for the care and treatment of our rescue dog. So 25% of every purchase will help this sweet animal get his health back and find his “forever home.”

Just click through to the website and purchase some children’s books by September 9th to make your contribution!

Here he is, taking a nap without having to worry about bugs biting him or cars hitting him. His tummy is full and he’s out of the hot summer sun.

At the same time, our dog Zora took a nap in the kitchen.

You are invited to an Usborne Books eShow to explore the world of Usborne Books. A child’s interest in reading and learning is stimulated by the lavish illustrations and informative content. There are over 1300 bright, colorful and fun titles covering activities, puzzles and a wide range of subjects for children of all ages.

Usborne Books - the books kids love to read!

Hosted by: Emily Chapelle
Place: www.ubah.com/HOS122770
When: Today through 9/9/2008 11:59:00 PM

Everyone is welcome, so invite a friend.

Books ship to your house (USA and APO addresses)!

It’s a rewarding experience when a child opens a book and discovers the magic of reading.

Check it out. They even have dog books!

Of course, they have tons of regular kids books on every topic too, even Spanish language books, flash cards, and value packs.

If you’d rather just make a donation, please click here.

And be sure to check out more photos of the dog, his story, and craft raffles here.

Zora and I were going for a walk the night before last when this dog came up to us looking for love. He and Zora sniffed each other, played a little, and then coexisted nicely. The dog followed us. No collar, skinny as anything, not neutered.

I borrowed a collar and leash from someone who lived nearby, we fed him and gave him water, then put him in the back yard where hopefully he could spend the night. He hopped the fence twice though. The first time he came right back when my husband went outside, and the second time we looked for a while before we found some neighbors who had found him and fed him (again).

They had called security, and someone was going to come get him to put him in a kennel.

So he spent the night at the police station, and we picked him up in the morning to take him to the vet. The security officer said that if we hadn’t claimed him, he would’ve been sent into town to be euthanized the same day.

Here he is, in the back of my Jeep. I have two leashes on him so he wouldn’t climb into the front while I was driving. It mostly worked, but he did manage to lick my head a little bit. The bowl had 2 cups of food in it. It was gone in about 10 seconds.

The veterinarian cleaned him up and gave him a flea and tick treatment. For the next 24 hours, hundreds of tiny dead ticks fell off of this poor dog… he had obviously been wandering in the woods. We kept vacuuming up the ticks, and now he seems to be pretty tick-free. He was not micro-chipped (If you have a pet, please microchip it!).

We’ve put up “Found dog” signs around the base, at the pet store, at the vet’s office, and at Wal-Mart. We’re also contacting the base newspaper and town newspaper to run classifieds for him. I really get the feeling that his owner isn’t looking for him though. So many animals here get dumped if it’s not convenient to keep them, whether because the family is moving, money is tight, or whatever.

The rescue where we got Zora is full, … I’d rather keep him temporarily than send him somewhere where he’ll have an uncertain future (I think none of the other shelters in the area are no-kill shelters). So we bought him his own kennel, food bowl, leash, collar, and food. And a Kong toy, because every dog needs a Kong toy.

He is so sweet… calm and sweet. I wish I knew where he came from.

The night we found him, I had a dream that, to raise money for vet bills and food and kennel and all of that, I went through all of my craft stuff and picked out stuff to raffle.
It was a good idea, so I woke up at 6:30 yesterday and went through my craft things and books for an hour, picking out things to raise money for this sweet stray. If his owner claims him, I will donate the money to the East Mississippi Animal Rescue (EMAR), which is where we got Zora.

If his owner doesn’t claim him,we will take him to the vet again, make sure he is updated on shots, get him tested for heart worms (and treated if he has them), and get him neutered before adopting him out. If there is extra money, it will, of course, go to EMAR.

I know we can help this sweet thing.

Here are the raffles I’ve set up to raise money for him and EMAR. The drawings for each raffle will be held when the tickets sell out, or on September 12th, whichever happens first. Winners will be announced here and the packages will be mailed to them, free of charge.

Click each link or photo for more pictures of the raffle items, and to purchase tickets. You can, of course, purchase more than 1 ticket for each item.

I’ll type out a list of the ticket-buyers for each package (with someone’s name listed 3 times if they buy 3 tickets, and so forth), cut it up, and choose a name at random as the winner.

Fabric scraptastic: Over 4 pounds of fabric scraps, and 20 1-yard samples of handmade cotton bias tape. $3 a ticket.

 Crochet explosion: A ton of great yarn, 3 fantastic crochet books, and a brand new project bag worth $59.99 from coco cesca (I JUST bought it and haven’t used it or even taken the tag off yet). $10 a ticket.

 Creative Crafts: “Where Women Create” book, 2 embroidery hoops, lots of foam state shapes, bells, fabric yo yos, a tatting shuttle, craft wire, and artificial sinew. $4 a ticket.

Paper Crafts: Easter/Spring greeting cards and envelopes, feathers, rubber stamps, metal word embellishments, metal hinges, wire frames, and more. $5 a ticket.

Not crafty… but…

Military Wife Books: Army Wives, The Homefront Club, and Heroes at Home. $2 a ticket.

Please link to this post from your blogs, websites, etc, to spread the word and help raise money for this sweet rescue dog and for the East Mississippi Animal Rescue!

Edited to add: My sister put up a facebook event about this fundraiser. Thank you, Caroline! It’s an open event, so if you have facebook, you can join and invite all of your friends to let them know about it!

Edited again to add: Two people have asked to donate (without buying tickets) so far, so I figured it would make sense to add a “donate” option here if you’re interested in helping, but not interested in winning craft things and books! You can donate any amount you’d like to.

Good: Basil is growing (from seed! Thanks Meagan, for the herb kit)
Not so good: No parsley is growing… it died (I like basil better anyway). Also, something is munching on the basil leaves a little.

Good: The eggplant is making lots of fruits and flowers. The plant is in generally good health.

Not Good: Something ate lots of little holes in all the leaves on the entire plant.

Good: Tomatoes galore, and they’re finally ripening!

Not so good: A few of the tomatoes were affected by less water while we were in Michigan, and have cracking on them.

Not so good: No zucchinis in a while… and the plant does not look happy. It got this way while we were in Michigan. Moral? Never go out of town, ever.

Not so good: Cucumber plant has lots of sad dead leaves (again, trip to MI).
Good: It has flowers and  little baby cukes.

Good: Banana pepper has a few tiny peppers forming.

Not so good: The last two banana peppers that got big at all ended up getting big brown spots and I had to get rid of them. Also, the plant is scraggly and sad looking.

Good: Our green beans look happy and there are itty bitty beans starting to grow!

Good: Zora is a very good helper. Here she is letting us know which tomatoes to pick.

…and inspecting the fruit.

So… we sprayed insecticidal soap on the ones that look like something’s been eating them. But any other ideas? Any amazing tips?

Most of all, I want our zucchini to spring back… I LOVE zucchinis, and the ones from our garden have been so good.

This is the first toy that has actually defeated my dog.

She and her Kong toys have an understanding… they’ve declared a draw.

But this one? This one kicked her butt.

Now, I know what you’re thinking… that toy is a TIRE! It is TOUGH! Of COURSE it’s going to beat that little dog. Well, yes and no.

After about 10 minutes of vigorous chewing, she had managed to shred parts of it.

So it looks like Zora’s winning here, right? Again, yes and no. It looks like this might be part of the “2 ply flossing nylon” the toy claims to be a good thing. Also notice that this is a “New Stronger Design” and that satisfaction is guaranteed. Plus, the back of the package has recommendations for which sizes to get for normal chewers and strong chewers (and the weights of the dogs). We got the size recommended for strong chewers up to 50 pounds. She’s 26 pounds.

After a few more minutes, she started ripping off chunks of the tire and trying to eat them. As with any new toy introduction, I was of course heavily supervising… which includes opening her mouth and scooping out tire pieces each time she got one ripped off.

And after a few minutes, I tired of it (pun intended) and took the toy away.

And all evening, Zora threw up everything in her stomach. Non-toxic, my butt.  I freaked out, of course, being a new puppy mama who’s never had a dog before… and I called Zora’s vet. On Saturday night.

I have to say, it is the most fantastic vet office… they have an answering service during off-hours, and they take your number and have a doctor call you back (really quickly). The doctor talked me through how to take care of Zora’s tummy (including people pepto-bismol and dramamine!) at no charge at all. So nice!

And the next morning Zora was okay again. And I’ll definitely be trying to get a hold of that toy company because I’m not satisfied (and they guaranteed my satasfaction!).

We were in the grocery store looking at pickles (the refrigerated ones, mmmm) when I noticed a refrigerated can of crab meat. On a whim, I threw it into the cart so I could attempt crab cakes… You see, lately, probably 90% of my restaurant experiences have included crab cakes, and I’m a fan!

I wrote down my made-up recipe as I did this, but I evidently threw it away… I can’t find it anywhere! So we’ll just have to guess.

I know there was:

• 16 oz. of crab meat
• 1 onion, chopped and sauted
• some breadcrumbs (about 3/4 cup)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Frank’s red hot sauce
• an egg or two
• a splash of lemon juice
• A bunch of melted butter

So, I mixed all of that together:

… and chilled it for a while so it wasn’t as goopy.

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Even though she’s an inside dog and mostly only goes outside to pee and to go for walks (or to keep us company while we water the plants and do gardening stuff), somehow Zora picks up a “dog” smell… hmm. Maybe it’s because she’s a dog! Anyway, we’ve had her for about a month and a half now, so I went ahead and gave her her second bath.

The guy took her for a really long walk to tire her out, and then I gave her treats on the side of the tub while the water ran. I had to keep giving her treats through the whole bath to keep her occupied and happy. She only hopped out of the tub once. haha.

She really doesn’t seem to mind the lathering part… maybe it’s like a massage. But the rinsing, she doesn’t love. This time, instead of using a cup to pour water over her, I kind  of scooped water into my hands and used it to pet away the bubbles. It worked pretty well.

When we were finished, I held out her huge towel and said, “Zora, come!” and she leaped into the towel and I gave her a good rub-down.

The ear cleaning was the hardest part… she smelled the bottle and I gave her treats, but when I got it near her ear she tried to squirm away. We ended up having to do it by brute force, with the guy holding her down while I squirted her.

But 2 minutes later, she was lying in my lap letting me massage her ears (even touching inside of them a little). So weird! Maybe next time we’ll just wait until she’s in that half asleep happy state to clean her ears.

In any case, she’s clean and delicious-smelling now, and I just want to snuggle her and bury my face in her oatmeal-shampooed fur.

Does anyone know how often you’re supposed to give dogs baths? We’re not using a harsh detergent so that will probably let us bathe her more often if we’d like to, right? 

I have brushed her teeth several times since we got her, and have clipped her nails a few times too. Her grooming record so far is pretty good! I hope she gets more used to these things so she’ll get calmer about them in the future.

Also, she’s learned “high five” and “spin around” now… which is very cool. I’ve also been getting her to stand on her hind legs with her front paws in the air, which is very cute. I haven’t decided what the verbal command for that should be but I’m starting to think “person” would be good. What do you think?

Zora LOVES to chew on things… luckily, she hasn’t chewed on the furniture or anything like that (she tried the first couple days she was with us, but I think we got the message across). Lately, she’s taken to plucking one Kleenex from the box, and shredding it, then trying to eat the little pieces. Usually we catch her about 20 seconds into this and take it away.

My mother recently sent her grand-doggie a package with some treats and toys in it. Zora LOVED the toys.. for about half an hour. Then they were both in the trash, because puppies ingesting polyfill and plastic probably isn’t a good plan.

This one was funny! An angry cat with a squeeker in it. Zora started off gently mouthing the cat, and carrying it around the house like a baby (I couldn’t even get her to go out to pee without taking it with us).

But less than half an hour later, the cat ran away in fear, its ear missing. I love Zora’s pose in this one, paws crossed in a lady-like fashion. “What? Who, me?”

The other toy didn’t even last long enough to get a picture…

And the other morning, when I went to go wake her up and take her out of her crate, this is the state her bedding was in. And we always give her a chew toy while she’s in her crate, so if she gets bored she can play with it.

The zipper was totally destroyed, the pillow pulled out of the middle, and stuffing pulled out of the pillow. Check out this damage:

My teeth hurt just looking at that photo. I put the bed onto the floor to get a better shot, and look who jumped right on it again, to continue her destruction!

Needless to say, she now has no bedding in her crate. I’m afraid that she’s in such a destructive phase right now that she’d shred/eat anything we put in there for her, and impacted bowels and innards would be much more uncomfortable (not to mention potentially lethal) than sleeping on the plastic crate bottom.

This is how the garden looked a few days ago… lots and lots of monkey grass, a weird bush thing on the left (which was actually 3 separate plants), and a bunch of weeds.

So we pulled up a lot of the monkey grass, that ugly bush, and all the weeds.

And put in lots of yummy sun-loving plants… 2 lantana plants, 2 sun coleuses, lots of salvia and 5 gerbera daisies. We surrounded everything with cedar mulch and soaked it really really well.

I think in about a month, everything will be much fluffier and happier, and it’ll start looking nice.  But for now, it’s still a vast improvement. (That ugly black thing covers the water meter. Why couldn’t they put that somewhere else?) The two lantana plants are cut off in this photo, but this is the basic idea…

Zora helped us, too. Check out her bling.

So I probably should’ve written sometime in the last couple weeks about this… but so much was going on! First, we went to South Carolina for a week, and since then we’ve been settling in and getting our newest family member used to the way things work here.

About a week before we went to SC, we went to the pet store to buy puppy things. We were planning on finding a dog while we were in SC, but instead adopted one the same day. Zora (previously named Belle) was there with the East Mississippi Animal Rescue and she captured our hearts! We went to lunch to think about whether to get her or to wait for one in SC, and decided on Zora.

This is Zora on her adoption day:

The girl who was fostering her told us she’d keep her until we came back from South Carolina, and get her spayed while we were gone, too. I couldn’t stop thinking about Zora through the whole trip!

When we got back, we went to pick her up. The poor girl had stitches from her spaying and fleas to boot! Not comfortable at all. The next day, we made a trip to the vet and got her stitches out, flea killer stuff, puppy shots, and all sorts of other good stuff. Zora was MUCH more comfy after that.

Zora quickly warmed up to the house and became more confident, and now she prances around the house with a pop in her step! She loves her chew toys and works hard for treats.

She loves tummy rubs and will play fetch when it pleases her to do so.

So this is what she’s been working on in a week and 2 days of training… we’ve been working on sit, down, stay, wait, roll over, shake, “crate”, go potty, and walking on a leash. Yesterday we added “spin around” but she doesn’t quite have that yet. Want to see how smart she is?