Today I present Missy’s natural kawaii eyes. No Photoshop, no tricks, well, I was holding her ball and she was staring at me intently until I threw it. That made it easier to snap the shot.
Puppy dog eyes
Category: dog
Blanket catch
A fuzzy blanket on the back of the couch is the favorite spot for both Izzy the cat and Missy the dog. But the blanket doesn’t stay there. Up and over the back of the couch is also Missy’s favorite race track path. (I still don’t quite understand how a 20 pound, stubby-legged dog can vault up and over the couch.) The blanket usually ends up on the floor behind the couch. Arg. So I’m trying a blanket stay. I took 1/2” elastic and wrapped it around the couch cushions (these cushions are not removable).
I pulled the elastic quite snug and tied it off, then tucked the tied ends into the cracks. The blanket then gets folded in half, slid under the elastic, and folded in half again.
When my youngest needs to wrap up in the blanket, it is easy to pull down, but so far I have not found the blanket on the floor, a victim of a high speed ball chase.
Different reactions
My dogs are not fans the New Year’s fireworks that go off in our neighborhood. I decided to try elastic cloth bandage wraps this year. Griffin, who is my calm one, loved his wrap, came out from under the table and laid in the living room with us. Missy, the high strung one, hated the wrap and tried rubbing and wiggling and scraping the offending cloth until we took it off. She has the same reaction to an actual Thunder Vest type garment. She is easily distracted with a ball, so that worked for her. They both went to their crates for the worst of the big badda booms.
Avoiding the jingle
With updated rabies vaccines, our dogs received new tags as well. I stopped getting name tags made several years ago. The jingle of the two metal tags drives me up a wall. I’ve tried a number of methods to reduce the jingle: muffling with a layer of leather, riveting the name tag onto the collar, writing on the collar in sharpie, engraving the back of the rabies tag. The leather picked up a funk, the riveted name tags are difficult to put on the madrigal type collars I prefer, the Sharpie fades, and the hand engraving is not as neat as I would like (it is on my bucket list to learn to hand engrave neatly). This year, I’m trying the label maker. I’m not sure how long the stickers will stick, but they are easy to read, easy to apply, and don’t amplify the jingle. I used my label maker with the smallest type set, trimmed the excess, and stuck them on the back of the rabies tag. I added my phone number as well, but am not about to put that image out in the web.
Both dogs are chipped, but if they escape the back yard, it is easier for a neighbor to call the number than to have to get the dog scanned.
There is still a tiny jingle, but it doesn’t wake me at night when they give themselves a scratch.
Sharing ice cream
Doggos had to go see the vet and get all their shots, so we stopped to get them a treat after. My Grandmother taught our first dog to lick ice cream cones (lick, not bite), and we have continued the tradition. They had to share one vanilla cone, but they don’t care (and I did make sure to switch between so neither endured a cold headache).
Critters and Craft 