video clip from March - Lucy and Stu in backyard

This video clip wouldn't upload for some reason a while back, but it finally did.

Here is Stuart working with Lucy in the backyard, showing off Lucy's jumping abilities to my parents. The woman laughing is my mother.

Ticks falling out of trees?

Can this be true? According to my parents this is. Given that my family is from New York (at least 2 generations on 1 side), we are given to, well, Woody Allen style paranoia. My first response was that this was another dramatic exaggeration, and I nodded politely and said, "yeah, yeah" and "ah hah".

But, then I thought about our last hike. It was in a nature reserve owned by the TLC (Triangle Land Conservancy) off of Holley Springs Road in Cary. It is wild and beautiful, with a steep hike up hill to a lovely view and only has a small and well-maintained foot path. The hike was wonderful and Lucy even got a little splash in the stream. I'll have to upload that video clip later. Anyhow, when we got home, we did our usual "tick inspection." To my shock, we found not 1 or 2, but 3 ticks on Lucy. Thankfully, only 1 had latched on and the other 2 were very easy to remove. I even found 1 tick on my pant legs. I caught it crawling up. Yes, it was odd for me to wear long pants hiking in some 80+ degree weather, but the woods are shady, so I preferred it (thankfully).

Apparently there was some feature story on our local NPR station about the ticks in North Carolina. I missed this story on air, but I'd like to hear it.

Unfortunatly, there isn't much you can do to prevent tick exposure. The only things I can think of are: avoiding overgrown hiking trails or hiking trails all together in this hot summer, wearing long pants tucked into socks and closed shoes and staying inside completely. The last option is not realistic, especially since I have a dog and I wouldn't want to anyways.

2 scared dogs & nail painting - only at Petsmart

Yesterday, we took Lucy to Petsmart, which is always an adventure. The one in this area has a "doggie day camp" that you can view through glass. The room was pretty small and full of a lot of dogs ranging from 1 scared chihuahua to 2 extremely large Labradors. My heart sank when I saw the chihuahua standing there alone in the center of the room, shivering and holding his tail between his legs. His face looked so concerned that I felt myself get angry at the Petsmart staff for traumatizing this dog. I was about to barge in and give them a piece of my mind when Stuart insisted that keep shopping and that the dog would be alright. At most - responsible - doggie day camps, like CampBowWow, they separate the dogs based on size which just makes sense.

I snapped a few pics from my iphone that I'll post here later.

The adventure continued. As we were turning the corner out of an aisle, we were surprised to see a woman and two very large mastiffs! 1 mastiff sniffed Lucy happily and slobbered all over Lucy's ear. It was cute. Lucy sniffed back, tail wagging. All was good. Then the other Mastiff wanted to greet Lucy. Lucy's tail was wagging and she playfully jumped up a bit. That Mastiff growled a bit and then suddenly pulled away with his tail between his legs. I was surprised to see a scared Mastiff, especially next to a small 25 pound dog like Lucy.

Then we made a short visit to the fish section, where Stuart selected some more fish for his fish pond. Lucy was bored, so I took her for a walking tour around the store while Stuart shopped. She seemed to love sniffing every shelf. True to her terrier nature, she kept trying to climb UNDER the shelving, which I tried to discourage. She did catch me off guard when she hunkered down and crawled through a large cat toy installation! My dog Lucy who likes cat jungle gyms - that cracked me up.

And just when I thought our adventure was over and we were checking out, I noticed that they had a "doggie spa" in the front. I saw a medium sized white short haired dog leashed and a Petsmart employee leaning over her paws. I couldn't believe my eyes. The employee was painting the dogs nails bright red. I told Stuart that I had to investigate. I took Lucy with me and walked into the "dog spa" and asked the lady upfront, "I'm just curious but are you actually painting that dog's nails? Does the owner actually want that?" One employee shot back a comment, "Don't be judgemental." That surprised me and I laughed, "You're right, I am being judgmental but I just have never seen or heard of this before and I wanted to know about it."

The young woman still painting the nails looked up at me and said, "Yeah, the owner wants it and it only costs $3, so what's the big deal."
"Interesting," I said, "Tell me that the dog is a female one at least...not that that matters."
"She is a girl," she replied. "But what is unusual about this is the breed of dogs. Most women have their poodles or Chihuahua's nails done, not a larger pit bull like dog like this one."
At this point Stuart had walked in behind me.
"Crazy," I whispered, as he looked over my shoulder at the nail painting. He smiled.

I said my good-byes and we headed out of Petsmart - a place full of strange and interesting small adventures.

...

Are dog owners who insist on buying purebreds instead of adopting mutts snobs?

I wouldn't necessarily say yes to that question. But, I can say yes for 1 of my neighbors.

Yesterday, when I saw her walking her 2 large German Shepherds instead of 1, I was surprised. Thankfully, Lucy wasn't with me, since her large dog seems to really hate Lucy and attacked her one time when she (the other dog) was off leash. Imagine me trying to stand between a 150 pound German Shephard to protect little 25 pound Lucy. It was dark and scary and thankfully Lucy wasn't injured. But now everytime I see that lady and her old "german trained in germany pure bred" walking around, I feel tense.

So, yesterday, when I saw that she had another 150 pound potential Lucy attacking German Shepherd, I wasn't exactly jumping for joy. Don't get me wrong, I have had very good experiences with that breed in the past. We grew up with a pure bred named Duke who would have done anything to protect us. My sister has a pure bred German Shephard named Katie who wouldn't attack anything or anyone (save a squirrel or chasing a neighborhood cat).

Anyhow, while standing at my mail box, I did the polite thing and comment on her second dog.

"Oh, I see you have another dog, did you adopt her recently?"

"Well," she paused, "She's 2 years old and trained in Germany and from the same blood line as her. This one's 14 years old and this one is just 2. I had her just flown in from Germany."

"Oh, she's lovely."

"Thanks. Does she look like her grandmother?"

"Yes, they look almost identical."

She smiled. I still felt confused.

"So, you did just adopt her?"

"She's 2 years old and I had her sent from Germany."

Then I got it. She refused to bow down to the lowly commoner level of using the verb "adopt" because it would imply that she got a mutt. She didn't adopt, in her mind, she purchased a high quality pure breed made-in-Germany trained-in-German German Shepherd. That dog couldn't be more branded than even a branded new Mercedes!

To this lady, it seems that a dog must be of high quality to match the high caliber of her art collection, or brand new Mercedes. She seems to "collect" dogs the way a wine conniseur collects fine wines - by vintage.

I'm not saying that this is wrong, I'm just saying that I love dogs simply for them being dogs. I love their silliness, their playfulness, their tricks. I also love mutts and feel passionate about adopting rescues as well.

I guess what really rubbed me the wrong way is that this lady, EVERY TIME I see her, has had to mention that her dog is "pure bred, trained in Germany, listens to commands in German" yet it is exactly that dog that didn't listen to her AT ALL off leash one night a few months ago. It is exactly that pure bred made-in-Germany dog that lunged and attacked my little Lucy. Is that a well-trained dog? And when the owner shouted at her to stop (I noticed it was in English, not in German), the dog didn't listen. She had to physically restrain her; something I wasn't sure this older lady could even do.

So, I'm not buying all the branding BS (and I'm even in marketing). Dogs are dogs. That's it. Some are smarter or friendlier than others. Sure, purebreds have a place and deserve love and "adoption". But they are all dogs, not an item to be purchased or collected, but living breathing furry companions.

Walking in the rain with Lucy

Last weekend, it was pouring rain, or as my mother likes to say, "it was raining cats and dogs." I was in Stuart's neighborhood and had to take Lucy out for her morning walk. I had my "rain gear" on - tevas to trudge through the water, my baseball hat and my large umbrella. I didn't have my rain jacket nor my water resistant hiking pants with me, but I had to make due.

At first, I was bummed out at the prospect of having to walk her in the terrible rain storm. It was also a little on the cold side, about 58 degrees.

Once we were outside, Lucy seemed to share my dislike of the rain. She kept stopping to shake out her coat. But slowly, I realized that she was enjoying it. She kept looking up at my umbrella and trying to catch the especially large rain drops that were falling towards her. It was an endless game of catch. She seemed to be even smiling. I couldn't help but laugh.

At her "poop spot", as we call it, she decided that the small creek of water that had developed was much more interesting than doing her business. She playfully lept into the 4 inches or so of water in her "play bow" several times. Of course, she decided to leap into the water so suddenly that I had to join her. Cold water rushed over my exposed feet. I stood for a moment, looked down and saw my hot pink toe nails and black tevas under the cold running stream. 'Thank God for tevas!' I said to myself, as any other pair of shoes would have been ruined by the water. I felt defeated in my battle to stay dry and decided to go down with dignity. After a few minutes of standing there and letting Lucy jump in and out of the small creek, it was time to move on.

As we walked back to the house, I had a smile on my face even though it was still gray, cold and rainy and I would have preferred to sleep in. Lucy did her magic on me again.

Lucy does it again - learned a new dog trick!

Lucy has mastered jumping through the hula-hoop. Now, after just a few days of asking her to jump over a leg, she does this well too!

In this little clip, I tried to make a "loop" with my leg and the wall in the kitchen. I'm wearing my new vegan shoes too from Olsen Haus I bought in Durham at Vert & Vogue:

Dogs and cats used for fur in China? I hope not.

I bought a pair of shoes from a local store and decided to google the maker, Olsen Haus. Their website is:http://www.olsenhaus.com/home.html

Although not a vegetarian anymore, I still do support animal rights. I know that some vegans out there will not agree with eating meat and still supporting animal rights, but I still think it's possible.

What really alarmed me though, especially as a dog lover, was information on their website that dogs and cats are used in China for fur. This article is not for the faint of heart, neither is the section on Olsen Haus' "Truth About Animals" Section.

The article was referenced on Olsen Haus's website:


http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10562373

I've never heard of this potential issue before. I really hope that it's isolated and fear that it isn't. I plan to do more research on this.

On a lighter note, my new pair of shoes look very nice: