Not seeing enough of Duncan?

Worried that you have not laid eyes on the white dog himself enough in the past few posts???

Have no fear ... he is going to be here in person each and every day next week.

Stayed tuned for EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM MY DOG starting on Monday.

Happy Weekend, Puppers!

NO NO FRIDAY

Heads up, puppers.

When your mama has made a rare attempt at being frugal and minding the family budget by checking out a book from the library rather than buying it the minute it hits the stands ... DON'T EAT THE BOOK.

Apparently said consumption results in a fine which might actually be higher than the cost of going out and buying the book in the first place.

You mean to tell me the library doesn't get a volume discount??? 

Anywoof, stay away from the loaners, puppers.  Stay away from the loaners.

And another thing ....

If you are a dog and your owner suggests you wear a sweater ... suggest that he wear a tail.

~ Fran Liebowitz

Meet Minnie the Westie!

Allow me to introduce our new friend Minnie. 

Gorgeous, yes???  I mean, those eyes.  WOWZA..

Guess what ... Minnie has a blog like we do.  And she's writing a book.  You can meet her yourself right here, and sign up for her monthly cartoon while you're there.

Crazy fun, doggers, crazy fun!

Friday thoughts ...

Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.

~ Dave Barry

For the Brits among us ....

Ok, you Brits ... this one is for you.

I don't know how exactly we got on to this topic today, but here's a few things Union Jack that we thought you might enjoy.

THE LEASH can be found at Nola and Spencer on etsy right here. 

THE RETRACTABLE LEASH can be found at Reese's Room right here.

The T-SHIRT comes in black or red and you can order it here.

Dang, dang, dangity dang, dang.  We love this pillow, and now we can't figure out where we found it.  If it's you or you recognize it, please let us know and we'll give you full credit for your image and send our folks your way!

The great Union Jack DOGBED can be found right here at Rockstar Puppy.

The COLLAR CHARM by Diva Dog (and modeled by my handsome self above) can be found here.

We found all this and more.  Maybe next week, we'll go Italian!

Pet Collars: Greatest Gift Ever

Well, carrying on in the weekend tradition of it's all about me, check out my new collar up there.

You know, by now, that I am quite the collar changer.

Check out this fancy neckwear my girl Sophie sent me.

It's hard to find a collar manly enough for a stud such as myself, but she did it.

You can get yourself one here if you don't have a traveling fan club bringing you one.

Call me lucky, puppers.

Lucky and loved!

What a Wonderful Weekend!

My new BFF, Shannon

A weekend all about moi????

Indeed!

A great group of friends came all the way from TEXAS to hang with me this weekend.

Yep, pretty sure they were here for me, and me only.

Never mind all the surfing and shopping and dining and celebrities they talked about.

Never mind all the time mom spent away from home with them.

Pretty sure I was pretty much all the celebrity they needed this weekend.  The party always ended at my house, doggers.

Yep, all the celebrity anybody can handle right here at our house. 

Bo Obama ain't got nothing on me.

Seriously, has Shannon ever gone to DC to visit him???  She came all the way from Texas to hang with moi.  Yep, got a new BFF, and an amazing one at that. 

Call me lucky puppers, call me lucky!

Pet Pillows: Finding the right one

You know how sometimes you just really, really need the right pillow to get exactly perfectly comfortable???

You know how Mom sometimes like to channel her "inner Martha?"

Well. We got on this pillow kick around here recently.  Yep.  We were gonna sew some dog themed pillows.  Mom got in her Mighty-Martha Mode and got out the sewing machine and everything.

There's a first time for everything, right???

But, smart dog that I am, I kind of was thinking I knew how this might turn out so I hopped onto the internet and did my own kind of pillow research.

Allow me to introduce some of my favorite pet themed pillows:

not pictured:  any of the ones mom tried to sew sewed 

Number one:  from Naked Decor and the obvious favorite, find it here

Number two: head over tail in love with the shapes of these, from Pillow Pillow Pillow and found here

Number three: from Restoration Hardware Baby and Child and found here

Number four: Crypton makes some stain, moisture and odor resistant (thus so very much to my liking) great looking dog theme pillows ... find them at www.cryptonfabric.com.  The one shown is the "doodle dog" pillow.

Here's hoping today's blog made you perfectly comfortable, puppers!

PET ID TAGS: Another option

Well, we have to admit, as proud as we were of our tags yesterday, we don't even come close to these cool PET ID tags from blanketID.  Seriously good design.  Seriously good concept.  Check it out here.

When you buy your (seriously stylish) tag you register your pet's pertinent info and activate your membership (first year is included in purchase price.)

Should your dog pull a fast one (who moi?) and get lost, report him to blanketID and they'll alert the SPCA, animal hospitals, shelters and other nearby blanketID members to be on the lookout.  Everybody has full access to your pet's info and picture.  When your pet is found, the finder enters the blanketID tag number on the website and, WOOF, you and your pup are reconnected.

And, as if that wasn't enough, more than 15% of the company's profits go into a fund to help animals in need. 

Sylishly safe, just the way we like it around here.

Handmade gifts for pets

Sorry you didn't hear from us yesterday ... we were crafting.  Yes, that's right, CRAFTING!!!!!

I know.  Go figure.

We originally saw this idea on another blog we follow which you should check out if you have any inclination toward crafting and tutorials: One Pretty Thing.  She posts all sorts of great lists, but the fact that she was posting about pet id tags and how to make them yourself really caught our eye.  So did the fact that Martha Stewart was involved (original Martha pet ID tag tutorial here.)

So, anywoof, we thought we'd give it a try.  It went something like this:

Step One:  Remove dog from workspace.

Not sure why this picture will only load sideways, but you get the point!!!

Step Two:

Order your Shrinky Dinks here.  "Shrinky Dinks" are printable plastic sheets that you print on with your inkjet printer and then stick in the oven to create a whole host of small plastic goodies.  Since we got the idea from Martha Stewart, we went with her Pet ID Tag concept and printed her template, which we got here. 

Step Three:

Input whatever data you want to onto the template and print it out on a Shrinky Dink sheet.  We changed things up a bit from the original idea, and created pet gift bag tags and pet lover gift tags.  The designs start out really big.

Oh, and pardon the crinkles in the paper there.  My bad.

Step 4:

Preheat the oven to 275 - 300 degrees and cut out your designs and put them on a cookie sheet with brown paper underneath.  Don't forget to punch a hole in your cut outs -- you'll need a bigger one than you think as the hole shrinks too.  We used a regular hole punch and it worked out perfectly.

A few notes about this (learning lessons, as we like to say around here):  The tags will come out exactly as you cut them ... if you have a rough edge when you cut out your design, your finished Pet ID tag will have one too.  And, the paper is a bit rigid.  We got a crack in our blue tag when we cut it, and it did not "heal" when we shrank it.

And, again, I have no idea why this picture will not load the right way, but as always ... you get the idea .......

Step five: 

Bake your Pet ID tags, pet gift tags or whatever pet goodies you've decided to create for about 3 to 5 minutes in the oven.

A few more notes here:  They crinkle when they start heating up.  Kind of freaked us out!  We thought this was gonna be a bust but flattened ours by pressing gently with a pot holder during the cooking.  As they continued to heat, they flattened out again.  Whew.   They really do shrink alot in the process, and they get harder and thicker than you'd think.

Last step:  Attach a string, ribbon, cord, metal ring, whatever you have on hand and voila, pet gift tag, pet lover gift tag, pet ID tag and what have you, puppers.

Overall, we LOVE the shrinky dink concept.  As mentioned earlier, the little details such as how fine you cut your pieces out do show.  We've got a few more sheets and a few more ideas, so we're gonna practice a bit and we'll be back again soon to show you what else we come up with!

Puppy Tweets: Is it for you?

Source

It's here, it's here ... Twitter for Dogs! 

And we quote "Ever wonder what your dog is doing while you're away?  Whenever your dog moves or barks, The Puppy Tweets tag detects it and sends a Tweet via Twitter.  You can follow your dog's Twitter feed on your computer or smart phone all day.  Puppy Tweets is a great way to brighten any pet owner's day."

We may have to put this one on our wish list.  You can check it out for yourselves here.

I am pretty sure my tweets would go something like this for the entire day:

@ mom: I am in my tub playing with my ball.

@mom: I am in my tub playing with my ball

@mom: I am in my tub playing with my ball.

I think we're all starting to get a pretty clear picture of an average day around here.

Anybody gonna try it???  Let us know!

A baby boom!

Well I don't know about the rest of you, but we are experiencing a baby and grandbaby boom around here!  My mom loves nothing more than a new baby, so yesterday we spent a good bit of our morning trying to find some baby gifts that would be "Puperie - Appropriate."   We found two gifties that we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE:

First up, on a personal note, we'd like to have that baby up there for ourselves.  I mean, put your paws together for a human pup as cute as me!  And, CHECK OUT THAT WESTIE OUTFIT.  Great taste for such a wee one.  And, if that is not enough for you, the shop owner is from TEXAS and I know alot of you puppers out there are hanging out in the Lone Star State.  Shop local, puppers!  You can find the outfit here, at Oliver Blu Designs, and if you must, you can get a dog design other than a Westie.  But, really, why go there???

PS, if I were in Texas, I'd call that photographer too.

Mom says that over time you develop a reputation for giving certain gifts ... people sometimes develop a "go to" gift if you will.  In our case, that would be anything made by Chloe Jane Handmade.  We had the opportunity to meet Emily,  the seamstress extraordinaire,  in San Francisco not too long ago and we have been buying burp cloths for our baby gifting needs ever since.  Imagine our delight when we saw that she now has "Puperie-Appropriate" burp cloths!!!!  SPOILER ALERT: some of you have burp cloths going to the post office today, in fact :)  You can find burp cloths, blankets, stroller covers and much more right here.

Shop on, puppers, shop on!

More about dogs and summertime

Find suit here

find doggles here and sunscreen here

Whoa, puppers.  That is NOT ME up there.  I know what you're thinking ... that mom has finally gone over the edge with the dressing me for the sake of the blog.  Nope, not the case.  That top one is just a picture from a site we found when we were looking for dog swimsuits.  We were doing a little search since we seem to have a "dogs in summerime" theme going here this week and it turns out there's lots more suits for you girly types than for us dudes.  Plus, of course, we needed to showcase a westie strutting her stuff while we had the chance.  Anywoof, not to worry because I am going to keep searching and find me some Hawaiian swim trunks or something real quick before mom decides to put me in a speedo or something.  Whoa, THAT vision gives me a headache grande.

Since I haven't found a suit, I decided to jump start my hip summer look by wearing shades.  We did not do any actual research on eye protection for pups but my mom has always said I should have them when I cruise around with my dad if we have the the top down. (Really?  IF we have the top down? What would be the point of cruising otherwise??)  Far and away the most popular brand we found was Doggles.  If you click the link under the photo up there, you can buy some for yourself should you be inclined to be as cool as I think I am  me.

Now, what we have done some research on, me being a fair skinned white pup and all, is sunscreen.  One thing we know for sure is that zinc oxide is a NO NO for puppers.  Don't cover us in that stuff.  Also, did you know that us short leggeders get a double whammy ... our bellies can get burned from the reflection on the pavement.  Go figure .. never considered that one before. 

You can hit the link up there to go to one of the sunscreens we found for pups.  We read some websites that said baby and sensitive skin sunscreens are OK for pups and that you don't need to spend the extra money on pup stuff.   Check with your vet though, because like I said, we know for sure that zinc oxide is a NO NO, and you know we're gonna be licking all over the places you put the stuff. 

Summer safety is what it's all about puppers!

Traveling with Dogs: Tales from our Road Trip

So by now we gather that you are a little tired of the details of our trip, yes?

We will spare you the long version of the day, and will only say that by now we were getting into a routine that went pretty much like this:

Wake up, play with Garmin in the back yard until my feet are so dirty I look like I have socks on.  Get first paw bath of the day.

Take obligatory "let mom practice" photo.

Go to the beach, and in this particular case, ponder the green stuff on the beach.  We don't have that down south.

Go home and play with Garmin in the back yard again until tired, all the while thanking the puppy gods that mom thinks these "socks" are cute enough not to worry about it.

Take second paw bath of the day ....

STAY TUNED FOR MORE TALES FROM THE ROAD

Traveling with Dogs: Tales from our Roadtrip

At first I thought we were gonna get "the worst of times" out of the way right away.  I mean, really, look at the size of this dog.  When I first met him it was all "Look Duncan, you get to meet your cousin Garmin.  Garmin is a great dog and we all just know you two are going to be great friends ...."

Me and the Giant, facing off ....

Hello, eveybody.  Anybody see the size of that dog????

Compared to me he is a GIANT.

Let me tell you something, when I went up to introduce myself and do the requisite sniffing, I walked right under the dude ... with about a 4 inch clearance.

GIANT.

I had been in the car for a while, so after the initial size inequality impact wore of, we headed out to the back yard and played and ran and played and ran.  I got to run around without a leash which was fab.

Note to self:  ask for backyard for Christmas.

But do you know what happened next?

Anybody recognize that bed???

That darn giant goof of a dog claimed MY bed as his own.  Just because it was his house and his kitchen that my bed happened to have been dropped in, I kind of thought it was down right inhospitable of him to takeover my bed.  I mean, really, there go my comforts of home for this trip!!!

I thought was probably it for "the worst of times" given how much people rave about the fun factor of road trips.  I mean, think about it, don't each and every one of you have a road trip story you're thinking of as you read this???

Yep, I was thinking that was it until this happened:

They locked me in the kitchen with the Giant.

I got left behind on my own roadtrip.  Right after we got there.  And, I wasn't just left behind, I was left behind behind a dog gate.  With Garmin.  Who wanted to keep playing, and playing.  I had met my match, people.  I had met my match.  That dog has more energy than my left paw. 

I know what you're thinking, but really, it's true.  He made me look like the batteries had finally died on the Energizer Bunny.

At last, I found  a spot to get some peace.  Yep, as a testiment to the smartness we all know I have, I found a place Garmin was too tall for:

And, yes, in the giant bed turnover that was occurring right under my snoz, I did, indeed, steal Chammy's bed under the desk.  Thank you my friend, it was nice and comfy under there!

best friends

I am pleased to report that after day 1, we got it figured out between us.  Yep, Garmin is the best cousin a pup could ever have.  Surrendered my bed back to me and one day we even got in it and took a little nap together ... each on our own end, of course.

And, as an added bonus, I am pretty sure if there is a NO NO FRIDAY this week, Garmin is gonna be the featured guest :)

TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR MORE TALES FROM THE ROAD.