Wordless Wednesday - May 30, 2012 - puppy dog eyes

Suvi is the master of puppy dog eyes in our house, but Pablo is giving her a run for her money tonight! He's extra snugly and needy 'cause Daddy's out of town, and Pablo's hoping for some sympathy treats.

It's a bit dark. I'm trying to watch the last (DVR'd) episode of House! But seriously, how can I even concentrate on the TV, with this face so close?

pinterest - the cutest dogs on earth, all in one place.

I started a Pinterest page for Ramsey, Pablo and Suvi. It felt less "crazy dog lady" if I pinned and re-pinned all the cutest dogs and dog things in the world under their names....I mean, my friends probably get enough of my dog-related craziness on Facebook and real life - they probably don't need their Pinterest feeds filled up with 1,000 puppies sticking out their tongues.

Here are some of my recent favorites. Feel free to follow the dogs if you'd like to see more, their account is http://pinterest.com/ramseypablosuvi/.

This photo is copyrighted by Tim Flach. http://www.timflach.com/ 

Gorgeous, right? This isn't even the START of his amazing work - check out his website for dog, equine, and other photography work. I was literally dumbfounded by some of his shots. Look for the "mop dogs" on his page under Dog Gods.

A vintage bronze door stop. 

I'm kind of in love with this - 7"x7" - the seller thinks it's a doberman or a dane, but it looks a bit stocky to me. Thoughts on what else it might be? 

Oh boy did this one take me on a tangent. First, I saw this on Pinterest: 

Tamales. And Puppies with Limes.

A bit out of the ordinary, compared to my normal posts, but I'm so excited about my adventure in tamales, that I felt I needed to write it down somewhere. So, blog it is. Besides, the puppies like when I make new foods, because Chad insists on feeding them from the table. No, we do not agree on this practice. I'm sure when we have kids, he'll be the one sneaking them bedtime snacks even if they don't finish their dinner...

I'm in love with tamales. Not quite as much as I love chihuahuas. Not quite as much as I love Chad. But enough to try to make them from scratch, despite the time requirements...

tough stuff and a kid's view on life

I should tell you up front, I thoroughly failed on "wordless wednesday." Let's call this one "wordy wednesday."

Whoa, boy. I follow Life With Dogs on Facebook, and today they shared a question from a fan asking for input. Their 11-year-old dog's health has worsened to the point that Rosie is on hospice care, and the family is waiting for the right time to put her down. The fan specifically asked for advice from those who have been in this situation, as to whether or not the family's 7- and 10-year-old children should be present as they put Rosie to rest.

The thought of having to go through that ourselves, as adults, kills me. But to add on top of that, taking into consideration our (future) children losing their best friend?  I nearly fell apart at my desk today at work. I can't IMAGINE it, and I haven't yet had to live through it...

I had dogs growing up, and never witnessed any of them being put to sleep. MY dog, MY best friend as a kid, Dingo - was alive when I went to college, and was put to sleep while I was away. I do regret not being there for her - I don't remember having a choice, I don't think my family told me it was going to happen. I do have only good, happy, memories of her - so I'm really torn on this subject?  What do you all think? Have you had to handle this? Oh, please don't make me cry....I just thought it might help others work through this question for their family, when the time comes.

The icing on the cake was a post from another Facebook fan, as a comment on the LWD page. I did some research to find the source of this letter, and some amazing insight on a dog's purpose, from a six-year-old. Have your tissues handy...kids are amazing in their simplicity and life views....

A Dog's Purpose

Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog's owners, Ron, his wife Lisa, and their lit...tle boy Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle.

Most Popular Dog Names, for the top 10 breeds.

First of all, American Pit Bull Terriers were listed among the top 10 breeds in the US. How cool is that?! I don't know how statisically sound these ratings are, but I won't argue.

Vetstreet.com did some number-cruching and name-analysis, and here are the results for Chihuahuas and Pitties. Unfortunately (*or fortunately), Dobes didn't make the top 10.

ear-cleaning dobes and leg-nibbling pitties.

You probably saw it in the latest video - Ramsey is obsessed with cleaning Suvi's ears. She will even halt a game of tug to check Suvi's ears with a few quick tongue probes. Ew. And weird!




Based on the comments on the video, it sounds like a lot of other people have dogs that do the same! Is it a dominance thing? A momma-ish thing? A doggie OCD thing?

I'd say it happens daily around here. In the video, Suvi gets annoyed - which happens about 25% of the time. More often though, she just lays down, closes her eyes, and enjoys the bath. Of course, when we pull out the camera, it must trigger "show time" for her, and what you see above is what you get...(or, alternate theory, she's embarrassed and doesn't want her baths shown on the internet?? ;)).

Just as bizarre is ...

reminiscing about baby suvi.

I am attempting to spend a few hours here and there sorting, labeling, editing photos - I'm so far behind. Today while looking through some old albums, I found these pics of baby suvi. She was so sweet, and snuggly, and just as mischievous as ever....though you can't tell by looking at these!

Happy Saturday!

Getting a bath after her first visit to the dog park. Who knew she'd jump in and wrestle with the big dogs with no hesitation?!

See more...

National Dog Bite Prevention Week. May 20-26, 2012.

Next week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week. Are you celebrating? Well, maybe it's not really the sort of holiday you "celebrate."  Rather, are you doing anything to bring awareness to the prevention of dog bites?

We've never conciously participated in sharing information or educating people on dog bite prevention. With the breeds of dogs we have, though, I feel as if we have an obligation to get the word out there...for every dog that bites, it's just another opportunity for someone to blame it on the breed...

Suvi learned quickly how to prevent dog bites. JUST KIDDING - they're just playing :)

Let's start preventing dog bites, by educating the public, and owners. Here are some facts, and awesome links to information you can share to help spread the word!

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association...

Wordless Wednesday May 16th, 2012 - Ramsey Loves Lemons

The Pups are TV Celebrities OR Pablo Rules Our House

Take your pick on the title, but the fact is, Animal Planet was out to film us last Friday - mostly to film the dogs - and the moral of the story is that Pablo is the King of our household. But you all knew that already...

This is sure to be a lengthy post, if it's any reflection of the day we had on Friday. Holy moly - 10 HOURS of filming, for what will equate to about 4 minutes of screentime when Bad Dog! actually airs our episode. There'll be another 4 minutes of YouTube clips, but they already exist, so we truly spent all that time filming on Friday for a very, very short appearance....

That said, it was a cool experience! Of course, Chad has been through some of this before, when they came out to film for Dogs 101. He warned me about the long day, but I didn't quite realize what was in store for us....

They started by setting up shop in our dining room, and deciding where to setup the different shots. Each part they filmed shows a different background area of the house, to make it look like this was done over a longer period of time, and give it a more "homey" feeling (or so I was told...).

First, they interviewed Chad for 2 hours. TWO HOURS. The kids and I napped. Well, I fretted about what I was wearing for about 30 minutes, until I wore myself out, and fell asleep too. Pablo didn't have the same problem - TV appearances are old news for him, so he was out cold. But snuggly, which made me calm.

The producer wanted to frame up the story like this:

Chad has Ramsey and Pablo. Pablo is the boss.

Chad starts to film the dogs playing, and they get famous.

Brandy has Suvi. She's a pit bull, and defies the stereotype. But, she's naughty.

Chad and Brandy meet, and fall in love. (awwwww) (maybe I'll blog about this some other time...)

Chad and Brandy are concerned about introducing a pit bull to the dobe/chi mix...and what it might mean for their relationship if the dogs don't get along. (ooooo, drama!)

Chad and Brandy spend a lot of time introducing their dogs, as they fall more in love. They are very anxious about how it will all turn out.

It works out beautifully, better than expected, and Pablo is the Boss.

"We're one big happy family, and Pablo's in charge." 

It's all very true, but if I had $1.00 for every time I said that last line on Friday, we'd be rich. In fact, if I had a dollar for every time I had to repeat, restate, or refilm a line on Friday, we'd be rich. It was all an exercise in repetition, as far as I'm concerned. A different inflection, a slightly different word, repeated when there was no traffic passing the house, and no airplanes flying by....the audio equipment was CRAZY sensitive!

We did a dual interview after they'd interviewed us each separately, which was a little lighter-hearted, but still kinda awkward. 

Once we finished filming the interviews, it was finally on to the fun stuff - the dogs!! Of course, there was a ton of focus on getting Pablo on camera. They wanted footage of the fun stuff he does, like teasing the girls with his babies, stealing their toys, and demanding he let them eat from their food bowls. Also, they wanted to see us all hanging on the couch, and see who claims the "best" spot. This was all a lot tougher than it sounds - since we never manufacture any of the videos, we can't get the dogs - ESPECIALLY not Pablo - to do any of this on command....

We spent about 5 hours capturing the interactions of our family, and got some fun stuff on camera. I am a little anxious about how it will all be edited together - I can definitely see the possibility of things being taken out of context, and no one wants to see Pablo looking like a jerk (I mean, he has his moments, but he's really just all personality, with no poor intentions!). They did assure us that this was meant to be a fun, family show that will be cute and endearing.

At the very least, you might get to see Pablo dressed up, because one of the scenes we filmed included Momma putting him in clothes....hm....

We did some shots inside, and some outside. We tried really hard to look like the fun, loving family that we are - but it sure is hard to put on that smiley face after 10 hours of filming, feeling exhausted, and having some tired, tired puppies that just want to go to bed. Poor Pablo was exhausted! So much barking, running, and staying awake - that little guy sure likes his sleep....

And then there was the ever-awkward "recreation" of the 5 of us going to bed. Use your imaginations (don't worry, no birthday suits) - but it was super, super uncomfortable. All I could think the entire time was "this is going to be soooooo weird when people at work watch this on TV...." And for the record, the dogs don't typically sleep between us (as they will appear on TV), but we just needed to settle everyone down for "pretend sleeping" at 6:00 pm.

We were also lucky enough to have Karin Newstrom photography stop out and take some shots over our lunch break, and through some of the outdoor filming. The dogs recently won a photo contest from Karin, and donated the photo shoot we won to Minnesota Pit Bull Rescue. Karin was excited to meet the dogs, though, and graciously offered to come out and do a mini-shoot for us!

The photos she took turned out incredibly! Check them out on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/karinnewstrom

All in all, an awesome experience! We had a great time, and we're looking forward to seeing the episode air. Our friends are already talking about a viewing party, so we might make up some more "Team Ramsey" "Team Pablo" and "Team Suvi" shirts for the event. We'll keep everyone posted about the date - likely to be late summer/early fall.

Wordless Wednesday May 5th, 2012 - Who Can Get Closest?

pablo's favorite chore is laundry

Pablo's favorite chore is definitely laundry. Not because he likes to actually help clean the clothes, but because he LOVES to snuggle into the warm laundry the second it comes out of the dryer.

I took the comforter and cover out of the dryer the other day, with every intention of putting it back on the bed in a few minutes, but came back downstairs to find this.

Can you spot the chihuahua?

Hope everyone had a happy Cinco de Mayo! I'm sure you saw Pablo's photos on our Facebook page - he definitely had a great time. I'll post more here this week!

Brandy

Wordless Wednesday May 2, 2012 - Puppy Butts!

Suvi and Pablo trying out a new snuggling position.