A very special Daily Cute

My little Angel

While Winnie has not been feeling too well after over-exerting herself at the Walk for Animals on Sunday, you can see in this photo she had a lovely time. This is a cross-post of this photo from Andy's photography blog. His post is titled, "Heavenly Dog". How cute is he? Almost as cute as the shih-tzu in the photo above! This particular photo is one of his practice shots of flash photography. I am happy to let him continue to get practice and take more photos of Winnie if they come out as fantastic as this!

The babying begins, er, continues, depending on who you ask

We had a quite the scare last night. Winnie had a trip to the emergency Vet!

At around 7 p.m. I noticed that she wasn’t getting up from her nap on her dog bed. This was unusual because I was in the other room, and generally she likes to be in the same room (if not in the same square foot of space) as I am. When I went over to check on her she didn't even wag her tail for me (virtually unheard of!). She just kind of looked at me all sad and pathetic. I tried to pick her up she yelped and cried (it was a horrific noise).  I tried calling her to me and she wouldn’t get up or even wag her tail.

With visions of horrible back injuries and worse I decided to take her to the emergency Vet. We have a great 24 hour emergency hospital in the area which luckily we have not had to use very many times. The Vet that saw Winnie diagnosed her with *soreness* from the Walk for Animals... um, this is truly funny because I carried her in her doggy sling for most of the walk! Nonetheless my delicate little flower is taking an anti-inflammatory and needs bed rest. The Vet actually told me to "baby her." Which I laughingly said would be, "no problem."

So, the babying begins (er, continues, depending on who you ask). She is not doing a whole lot better this morning, although I did get a tail wag and a smooch on the face. I was encouraged by these baby steps. She'll be under observation for the next few days and if she hasn't made significant progress she may need to go in for x-rays to see what's going on. Fingers crossed that she heals up and feels better soon.

Just to end this on a mildly amusing note; I googled "Shih-tzu in a baby bonnet" to see if I could find a funny image to accompany this post. Surprisingly, the interwebs did not come through for me (can you believe there's not ONE image of a shih-tzu in a baby bonnet?!). However, I did find this cute image:

It's like they can read Winnie Cooper's mind!

You can buy a baby hat (which I believe is for a human baby, whatever that is) with this little cutie on it from CafePress.com.

Walk for the Animals- Here's how it went down.

Happy Sunday Afternoon! We completed the Walk for the Animals this morning, and here's a few photos (my apologies for the lack of photos, I was so focused on being sure Winnie behaved I didn't reach for the camera as much as I would have hoped!). Never fear though,  Andy was there taking photos with his fancy camera, so he promised me he would get them to me later this week to share with you all. But for now, here's a couple to prove we were there:

Being a goofball.

 I look terrible and Winnie looks
adorable, story of my life.

The day started out pretty gloomy and I was pretty sure it would rain (the forecast said 70% chance) , so there was a lot of debate back and forth about whether Winnie Cooper should even go with us. She usually refuses to walk in inclement weather (we live in Vermont, where the weather is dicey about 95% of the time). Plus, Winnie is not terribly well socialized with other dogs, and taking her to an event with close to 100 dogs is a crap shoot- at best. Eventually I decided to bring her (after all we were walking as Team Winnie Cooper!) and treat this as a training opportunity.

Just in case I brought her baby sling (which is this Outward Hound carrier), so if she decided she didn't want to walk I could scoop her up and carry her in her bag. I also brought her favorite treats and a drool rag (for some reason when she gets anxious she becomes a drool machine).

At the beginning of the event, Winnie was quite barky (okay, she was a little yappy dog). And I had to take out a few treats to reward her when she was quiet and calm and gave her some pretty stern NO's for when she got a little aggro. It took about 30 minutes for her to chill out. By that time I think she was already getting tired from all the unusual stimulation and I decided that she should probably hang out in her doggie sling for the actual walk. Winnie was one of the only pampered pets to be carried on the walk (Vermont is a pretty outdoorsy state, the majority of the dogs were bigger, Labs, Goldens, Huskys, mixes of all of these, etc.). At one point in the walk we went by these little girls that kind of squealed, "Look at the doggie in the bag! Awwww!"

For the last short leg of the Walk (the whole walk is probably less than a mile total) I let her out of the sling and she walked with the rest of the dogs across the finish line. Luckily the rain held off for the walk, although about 10 minutes after we got home the sky opened up for a quick shower.

I graded Winnie with a B for her behavior at the event. She was a C- when we arrived and an A- when we left. I will note that I should have taken her for a walk to get her mellowed out before we arrived for the walk, so I learned a valuable lesson there. However, Winnie was paying attention to her training and did well once she knew what the expectations were.

Team Winnie Cooper raised our goal of $500! I hope to be able to update you on the total amount raised for animals in Chittenden County, VT soon.

So, what did you all do on your Sunday morning?

Are we internets famous yet? The week in review.

This week has been a fun week for the Winnie Cooper the dog and The Other Winnie Cooper-the blog.

Starting with Wednesday's post, "Hello, DUH! You shouldn't leave your dog in a hot car." There's been a lot of traffic and a lot of feedback on the topic on Facebook and Twitter. All good stuff, luckily I haven't had any crazy people advocating for leaving dogs in hot cars!

Thursday morning was a love fest for Winnie. It is quite common for me to have the dogs on the bed when I wake up, and I spend the first few minutes of each day giving kisses and belly rubs. In Andy's words, "It's ridiculous." Winnie is a big fan of this routine, and waits patiently somewhat tolerantly for Andy to get up each morning so she can hop into his spot on the bed and get her morning fix. Thursday was no exception and I gave extra long belly rubs, just to celebrate Thursday....and mostly because I knew I wanted to take some photos of Winnie wearing sunglasses for my post on how to keep dogs cool in the summertime. I figured I could relax her and get her to cooperate a bit better if she got a nice long belly rub. No, I am not above bribery (or trickery for that matter). Enjoy some of the outtakes of the sunglasses photo shoot below.

And Friday was extra special day because Andy featured some of his photos of Winnie on his photography blog. As I have mentioned here before, I am always trying to get Andy (a semi-professional and extremely talented photographer) to take more photos of the pets for this blog. His work focuses a lot on nature and landscape photography, so it's challenging for him to take a lot of photos of the animals. In his words, "They move too much." Check out the pictures and the rest of Andy's blog: Visual State.

But in case you don't go over there and visit, here is one of the photos; seriously cute.

I sincerely hope you all had a great week as well! Stay tuned tomorrow for an update on our Walk for the Animals adventure (it's supposed to rain, with a chance of sever thunderstorms! good times.).

Daily Cute

Are you there Dog? It's me Winnie.

Let's talk about how to keep your dog(s) cool in the summertime

Yesterday’s post about the stupidity of owners leaving dogs to suffer in blazing hot cars really hit home for a lot of people. I heard through the grapevine (aka Facebook) that a few people in Vermont are picking up the baton and will be leaving flyers and calling the authorities when they see a dog left in a hot car. I really couldn’t hope for more than that from my little blog rant!

Today I wanted to point you to some excellent tips to keep your dog(s) cool in the summertime, some from me and some from actual experts!

Angelina, this is *not* cool.

How we keep our dogs cool in the summer:

While we are at work we leave the air-conditioner on an energy saver setting and keep all the blinds closed to keep out the blazing sun. Yesterday when I got home from work, the outdoor temperature was about 90 degrees, which is a scorcher for Vermont. Indoors it was a much cooler 75 degrees. As always we have fresh water for the dogs and cats, but in the hot summer months, we add ice to the water before we leave them for the day. As the day progresses as the ice melts it keeps the bowl full of cool water.

What the experts say about keeping the pooches cool:

I read a recent blog post from one of my favorite dog supply companies: Doctors Foster and Smith, titled; How to Keep Your Pets Safe During Hot Weather! This blog post has really good information for all dog owners; including, ways to cool your dog in hot weather, what to do if your dog is experiencing heat stroke, and how to prevent dehydration.

Another resource I will point you to is www.mydogiscool.com. They have a great summer tips section, but my favorite thing on their site is a tool that allows you to put in your zip code, and it will give you the five day forecast (via The Weather Channel) plus it will alert you if the temperature is dangerously hot, so you know when to leave your dog at home.

I'd love to hear more about how you all keep your dogs out of the heat. I am seriously considering a kiddie pool for the backyard, what do you guys think?

Hello, DUH! You shouldn’t leave your dog in a hot car.

I opened my newsfeed this morning to discover that the Eastern US will be experiencing a heat wave for the next few days. This time of year there are quite a few news articles about the dangers of leaving a dog in a hot car. So I wonder why I continue to see dogs left alone in cars. I think everyone is aware that while there is a heat wave, you should not leave your dog in your car, even for a minute. If you don’t know that, I sincerely hope you don’t own a dog. However, I am not sure that most people realize that in even relatively mild temperatures, say like 82 degrees F, a car can heat up to dangerous levels.

For me, it’s not just that you shouldn’t leave your dog in a dangerous, potentially life threatening situation, hello, DUH! It is also common sense that if it’s 80 degrees out (or even 70 degrees!) you yourself would not sit in a car alone for ten minutes with the window just cracked, why would you leave your dog in there? Would you shove your dog in an oven while it heats up?

I am probably preaching to the choir, as many of my blog readers are dog lovers that will completely agree with my sentiments here. But I want to tell you all my summer plans…

I will be on the look-out for dogs in cars and I will be putting a flyer about the dangers of leaving a dog in a hot car on each and every one I see. I am really tired of walking by and feeling helpless while I see a dog panting in the back seat of a hot car. In fact, if I see any signs of distress, I will be calling the police and animal control. There have been too many times in the past where I worried about the reactions of the dog owner and whether I would be crying wolf. This summer I will be taking action because I firmly believe that a dog’s life is more important than me being a little uncomfortable with calling the authorities.

If you live in Burlington, VT or the surrounding communities, be forewarned, if you leave your dog unattended in a car, you may find a flyer or worse, the police at your car when you return. In Vermont we have a law that protects animals from their owner’s stupidity. If you leave your dog to suffer in a hot car you can be convicted of cruelty, which carries a sentence one year in jail and/or a fine of up to $2,000.

For more information on this issue, please visit MyDogisCool.com, it’s the best on the web for this issue.