Henry was famous here at work last Friday on Take Your Dog to Work Day. He lived the life of a Copywriter for the day and loved it. We had a fun-filled day of getting lots of pets, eating lots of treats, perusing around the silent auction, entering the cutest pet photo contest, taking a big group photo, and oh yeah - actually working.

Here are some of the pictures I got of him. In this one he is sitting in the hallway with me:

In this one he is laying under my desk, all worn out from running around outside with other dogs…

And after a long day of fun and being spoiled, he lied down under my desk to take a nap. (This picture really shows his extra wide Bassett body. Yes, we are aware that he needs to go on a diet.)

And here he is by his water bowl, patiently waiting for another dog to walk down the hallway so he can sniff him up and down…

Here he is making some new friends outside:

It is HOT, HOT, HOT here in Cleveland! The last few days have brought a nasty heat wave to Ohio and most of the time the animals have been cooped up in the house. (I don’t like them being outside when it’s 95 degrees out).

Theodore and Sasha HATE being trapped inside. They grew up with free reign of the outdoors and I refuse to make them indoor cats because they love to play outside, chase mice, try to catch birds and butterflies, and climb trees.

So what’s a poor, bored kitty to do?

Sasha prefers to lounge around on the antique furniture (thank you very much for dusting), looking for something to spy on…

And then something catches her attention…

And then something in the other direction catches her attention…

Theodore, on the other hand, when not chasing Sasha or the other cat, eating (his favorite past time), or being a general menace to the household ( a la William of Mass Destruction) prefers to attack his cat scratching post with quite a panache…

(That bluish-looking bag in the picture is a “Crinkle Bag” made just for cats. One of the best inventions ever if your cat likes to attack things and jump on things that make noise. Makes a great pet-lover gift, too.)

Lori Lebda and Tami Bergeson have hit the nail on the head (in my case anyways) with What Dog Are You? Discovering Your Inner Pooch. This book, fresh from the printing press, lets the reader explore his/her traits, abilities and personality and associate them with a breed of dog.

Based on three quizzes, the “Pooch-onality,” Dapper Dogs,” and “Biscuits or Bones,” a number value is assigned to you. Each quiz results in a specific breed type and those three are your “puppy genetic makeup.”

Your overall score is your overall breed. I must say I was shocked when I read what breeds I was in the three quizzes because I had never heard of them: Basenji, American Foxhound, and Tibetan Spaniel. Overall I am a Dalmation and it’s remarkable how much the description of that type of breed fits my personality.

The book lumps us into categories of breed types after giving us our overall breed: Gems, Trend Setters, Private Eyes, and lots more. There are also many more surprises in here that I don’t want to write about because I don’t want to spoil it for you!

This book is wildly entertaining and was so dead-on about my personality that I couldn’t believe it! It’s really quite funny! It makes a perfect pet-lover’s gift, too!

Pick up a copy if you can. Otherwise, come back and visit this blog in a few weeks as I will be giving away copies in an upcoming contest!

Wags,

Jaime (the Dalmation)

For the sake of keeping us all together and making new friends in the pet blogosphere I have started talking about my favorite pet blogs once a week. This week’s Pet Blog of the Week is Lab Tails.

Lab Tails is about the lives of FIVE Labrador Retrievers: Ridge, Pinot, Elsie, Baxter and Kenya. They are all great friends and seem to have so much fun playing together, sharing sticks and toys, cuddling on the dog hammock, etc.

Lab Tails is written by the labs’ human Mom. She says her blog is about “observations about and lessons learned from three (no, make that four) (now it’s FIVE) Labrador Retrievers.”

These five playful labs have a HUGE plot of fenced in yard to play in. They seem to be spoiled (just like we are - this is now Benson and Gibson typing this up - we stole the laptop while she wasn’t looking). Their human Mom bought them dog hammocks (raised beds) that we are just dying to try out! They are so cool and keep dogs off the ground!

These labs always have so much fun retrieving (check out this post of a triple-threat retrieve). Some (or one of?) them are bred so they can keep up the family name (how important for a strapping retriever!).

This is one of our favorite pictures of the Lab Tails’ dogs:

If you are looking for some entertainment and fun, we encourage you to check out Lab Tails. It’s one of our new favorites!

Wags,

Benson and Gibson

Okay so I couldn’t resist posting this cat picture (even though it’s not a kitten picture) because it’s of my little man, Theodore. He is such a cuddler in his old age. Check it out…

Okay, so these are my dishwasher duty dogs. Every night after dinner they help out with the pre-wash cycle. (Don’t worry — all the bad stuff is off the plates… :))

Can anyone come up with a quote for these pictures?

Our father always takes us to get shaved for the summertime since our fur is so long and we prefer to spend summer days lounging around outside chewing sticks. We Golden Retrievers are known for our rich long fur so its always nice to be “naked” for the summer. Our Mother calls us “naked dogs” when we are shaved and we’re totally fine with that.

Here is me laying in my favorite position, the “froggy dog” position (as my sister so eloquently calls it):

And here is my brother lying on the carpeting waiting for everyone to go to bed for the night. Its harder to see his naked body since he is a white Golden Retriever:

In the meantime, my kitty kin is teaching my sister a lesson in how to actively ignore a human:

He prefers not to be bothered when he is outside spying on birds, chipmunks and mice.

This might be the funniest video I have ever seen…

When the Parents Have Gone

For the sake of keeping us all together and making new friends in the pet blogosphere I have started talking about my favorite pet blogs once a week.

My favorite this week is the always entertaining Dogs Aye View. Penned by two mutts, Gomer and Opie, Dogs Aye View is about their lives with DogMom and all their adventures. Their most recent adventure…Opie’s forays into the wild (he likes to run away when he sees something that catches his fancy.) Opie ran away three times in one week recently! He has pulled out his stake (that he is chained to with a dog run) and is a force to be reckoned with!

From Dogs Aye View:

We’ve got at Dog Blog in Minnesota! At “Dogs Aye View,” two adopted rescue dogs offer their unique view of life. Meet “Gomer” - the beagle-puppy-found-in-a-dumpster-that-grew-up-to-be-a-yellow-lab - and his brother Opie - the red-headed-some-kind-of-hound-that-Gomer-brought-home. Their quirky, goofy, humorous antics and neurotic, unusual and sometimes inconsistent perspective on their world is shared. Please participate and share your dogs’-eye-view with us.”

Gomer and Opie are excellent writers and will have you in stitches with their antics! For a good laugh and some good stories, visit Dogs Aye View!

Today we received an Excellence Award from our friend Rusty at Chasing Squirrels with Rusty. We have never gotten an award before, YAY! Wags, wags, purrs, purrs. Of course the award was probably more

intended for us Goldens than it was for our kitty counterparts, but we might let them celebrate with us because Mom loves them too, and we love everything she loves.

There are a few rules to accepting this award:
** By accepting this Excellent Blog Award, I agree to award it to 10 more people whose blogs I find Excellent Award worthy.
** You can give the award to more people, but please award at least 10.
** Link back to the person who gave you this award.

So here goes

1. First, we have to give the Excellent Blog Award back to our friends at Chasing Squirrels with Rusty. It is such great entertainment reading about Rusty’s adventures in keeping the backyard a squirrel-free zone. (Or so our Mom says. She loves his cute little pictures, too, especially the ones where he is sneaking up on the ducks).

2. Next we give our Excellent Blog Award to The Adventures of Spencer. Spencer is a Golden that looks exactly like one of us (Benson) and you can just tell from his sweet little face and pictures that he is a gentle and loving creature (he is a therapy dog - we always wanted to do that). He has this awesome talent where he can get THREE tennis balls in his mouth at one time! It’s SO cool!

3. We will give the Excellent Award to Dogs Aye View. Our friends Gomer and Opie in Minnesota are two adopted rescue dogs. Our Mom calls them little Heinz 57 boys because they are mutts - adorable mutts. They have all kinds of adventures with their “DogMom.”

4. Next up: Wimsey’s Blog. Wimsey is the best-looking bloodhound we all have ever seen and our Mom always says she wants to just squeeze and hug him and watch him run around (he is of superb size and shape). Wimsey lives in Manhattan and takes frequent forays into the city’s parks. He is also a show dog. 

5. Halfway done, and here comes Lab Tails. Now this human is a blessing because she has FIVE Labrador Retrievers. FIVE! Can you imagine how much their dog food costs? They have all kinds of acres to run around on and always look so happy. We want to go and visit them and run around, too!

6. Pet Strong is next on our list. There’s always something educational over there to read and sometimes there are current events postings, like pets in the news or animal welfare issues.  It’s a good blog to read and participate in our Mom says.

7. Now for another fellow Golden friend, Mogley. A Dog’s Life, the Real Story is all about Mogley the Golden and his fun life. Mogley always has so many adventures because his humans always take care of other dogs. There is usually three or four dogs there at a time and they all wrastle around and have so much fun. Mom likes to look at the pictures of Mogley and Co. when they go in the swamps and mud. We Goldens are definitely swamp-dogs!

8. Moving on, now we have The Daily Cuddle. Now this Animal Planet pet blog is strictly a photo-sharing site but I must admit the administrator always has the best pet pictures up! You can rate all the photos and submit pictures of your own to be featured on there. Our cousin Henry (the Bassett Hounds) was featured in January.

9. Now for a kitty cat blog: Daisy the Curly Cat. Daisy is a petite little kitty and her Mom always dresser her up in fun costumes. Daisy’s blog has tons of cute pictures of her and SO many people come to visit every day. Daisy even gets to go for walks in a covered stroller!

10. Finally, our Excellent Award goes to the popular Dogster’s For the Love of Dog Blog. Dogster’s has all kinds of pets in the news stories and videos for people to read. Dogster’s is inspired by four beautiful dogs!