Window Shopper

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For years, we had the two cats and a dog. The eldest was our 13 year old doggie who passed away in Feb. Our next oldest was our 9 year old cat, appropriately named Kitty. We called her that so she would come to her name. Yes, I know. Very corny but it did work. I said “was” because we lost her to an unexpected heart problem last December. The subject of this post are the two cats. Our boy cat, Gizmo, is still around though he tends to be very lonely now. They were best friends, playing at times during the day, everywhere and racing around the house after each other.

Now, in order to play Kitty/Gizmo style, one of them had to choose from an assortment of cat trees or high places in our home. Usually, it was a chair or a window sill. Whatever the tree place, the other would get under to “surprise” the one on the top of the “tree”. This game could go on for hours. After that game was over, they each would act like they could care less about the other one. It was apparently not dignified to admit that they wanted to play together. We found that to be hilarious.

When their play ended, they usually wanted some type of treats which we kept in a plastic bag. The bag would rustle and they would show up so fast that you would expect to see a mouse parade. You know, cats..mice. Uh huh. If you want to keep your cats happy, they need the high places to go, some type of goody or cat treats and the right type of cat food just for them. No “people food” for the pets. Not good for them. Finding the right food or treats for your cat is extremely important. It makes for a happy cat.

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As I mentioned some time ago, we got a new puppy. That puppy is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. She is a mixture of lab and german shepherd so she shows a few of those traits. A lab is a happy dog. They will be very playful. She is that even at strange times of the night. We have heard her squeaky toys for long periods of time. Argh. She also has some great shepherd traits…only she does them backwards. When someone comes to the door, she hides. Isn’t that great? She only barks when she knows its us. Ahem. That needs work.

Because of the way she’s growing, we are in the market for a collar every few weeks. I have to admit that Wally World is a disappointment there. In our area, there really are not too many options for buying things for her. We have to find online pet supplies so that we get what we really want. And at the moment, I just know that if we don’t get her more chew sticks, she is going to be chewing the house next though. ACK!

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I think I mentioned a while back that we had a new puppy. She was new at 5 weeks old. Now she’s over three months old and no longer new in the house. In fact, I’m pretty sure she decided to take the place over. We do have a problem or two since she seems to want to be in charge. Yes, I know. We are the humans and the adults here so we are naturally the ones in charge of the house. Got it. Well, we do have it until the puppy decides to whine. Believe me here. This pup whines with the best of them. And she does not simply whine for one thing. Oh no. She whines to go out, to get food in her bowl, to get noticed by any of us who are willing to play with her and whines to simply get attention.

Want to know what her last adventure was? Yeah, I didn’t either but that’s life. Now we have three computers in our house. All of the plugged into a wall socket. All of them have wires running everywhere. And she is a puppy. Starting to get the picture? Uh huh. When we caught her, she had been chewing on the latest edition of the CAT5e cable coming off the back of the computer. I’m not even sure how she got back there in the first place. She is getting really BIG! At three months old, I believe that she probably weighs in around 25-30 lbs. How can a puppy that weight get into the place she was in to do all that? I guess that’s another mystery of life.

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I suspect you have already heard about puppy mills but it really does not hit home unless you are really active in trying to stop them. I know. It’s so easy to just forget they exist. It’s so easy to not care about that part of life. It’s so easy to just go about your business because it isn’t happening to you or your pets. But that’s how they get away with so much.

What is a puppy mill? It’s usually a large dog breeding facility that does so under bad conditions. They sell on the internet and to pet shops. If you were to see the conditions that they breed puppies, you would not ever buy another animal online or in a pet shop again. EVER!

The difference between good breeders and puppy mills is that a good breeder uses the best of everything. They love their animals even if they are in a cage part of the day. The cages are clean, neat and are spacious. The food is nutritious and healthful. A health guarantee is also usually given. The dogs have their shots and are seen by a vet periodically. They will check out the person wanting to have one of their dogs. The breeder is careful in all respects concerning the animal and the new owners. The breeder often stays in contact with the new owner to make sure that the dog is properly cared for and will usually take the animal back if things do not work out.

On the other hand, puppy mills have the dogs in small cages, are unclean, food is cheap, inadequate water, no vet sees them, they are not allowed to walk outside of the cage at all. Very often, the cages are outside in the elements; hot, cold, rain, etc. The females have their litters in cramped cages and she lives in that cage until she dies or is too old to breed good puppies anymore. When that happens, she is killed. Females are often forced to breed every time they are able. Puppies are weaned much too early for best profits. With poor breeding comes impure blood lines and the pedigree is in question as well. Many times the papers are faked. And there is a high rate of death in this type of situation. Puppies from such beginnings usually have unusual health problems.

It certainly is time to stop the puppy mills! This horror cannot continue. Unless you are completely sure of the pet site that you are wanting to purchase from, please do not buy online. Reputable dealers and breeders are more than willing to give you all the information that you desire. They will show you what their facility looks like. They will take you on a tour of it and show you the records for the pup you desire. Be sure to visit the place from where you are purchasing. Do not automatically assume that the breeder is reputable without completely checking them out. This is very important. Stop puppy mills by not buying them online. Join those groups that are working toward the elimination of puppy mills altogether.

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If you are a dog lover and a doggie owner or know someone who has a dog, here is a great contest for you! I ran across this absolutely great blog called “The Chocolate Dog Blog” (I LOVE that title) and they have a contest running. I love contests so I checked it out. We have a brand new puppy so I am really interested in this as well as in the people at DogPause where the bowl comes from.

On the blog, you will see a video with a dog eating from one of the bowls and testing the thing. Looks good to me. DogPause has this new type of bowl that is especially for fast eaters. This slows those doggie wolfers down. If you want to see more about that contest, just go to “The Chocolate Dog Blog” and sign your little self up for the new doggie bowl from DogPause!

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Regardless of what you do, the carpets in the house will need to get cleaned at some point, no matter what. I actually hate to do it for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it takes a while to get the things dry again. We have animals so that is more of a problem, especially with the new puppy we have. She loves to get into things, lots of things. Today, I have a new wound in my hand because of her enthusiasm. In fact, were she a child instead of a puppy, I would be having her go to a doctor for ADHD. I just know she is a hyper doggie. Wonder if they have meds for that.

I got off track here. We do need to get our carpets cleaned. But I cannot decide whether to just hire the local steam cleaning company or get one of those Ladybug steam cleaners and do it ourselves. We were thinking that doing it ourselves would save big bucks. Maybe. Depends on what our resident “puppy power” has in mind, I would say. See, puppy power has gotten into the trash, the bedrooms to get out her “prizes”, “booty” or whatever you want to call it. She has had a few “mistakes” too. But most of all, she reigns over the house with her toys and her fun with the cat. Did I mention that the cat is having a blast? Yep, puppy power loves to play…with just about anything or anyone. She drools on the carpet, plays there with her well chewed toys, too. Ah but there’s much more. Alas, I do not have time to tell it. Perhaps another time?

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If you haven’t read my blog in a while, you might not have seen the adorable new puppy we recently acquired. She’s a great pup, very enthusiastic about everything. Very smart. She is mostly trained to go outside now at 9 and a half weeks old. I am very happy with her…most of the time.

Let me tell you a bit about puppies that get into things they should not. We have retrieved a couple of flip flops, endless amounts of plastic wrap (in pieces, of course. We have no idea where she is getting that stuff), bits of fuzz, an old toy that our previous doggie played with about 5 years ago, assorted chewies (also from the other pet who died a few months back), a comforter and many other things. Yes, I did say a comforter. If we cannot get her to change her ways, and we intend to make that perfectly clear I can assure you!!!, then I will have to go shopping for down comforters again. I just bought a couple of them last fall.

This is getting serious. Not only has she decided to terrorize the cat because at 9 and a half weeks old she is much bigger than our kitty but she also gets into everything!!! Actually, this reminds me of the movie “Turner And Hooch” more than anything. And now I have to laugh! If you have not seen the movie, I recommend it. It is hilarious and so is our new puppy! A laugh is a good thing even when picking up the pieces. LOL!

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We have a new puppy in the house. You may have already seen the picture along with our suffering boy cat. He is putting up with her “exuberance”. And she is adorable. Well, adorable when she is not getting us up at 2, 3, 4 or 5am, that is. We have tried to stop that nice little habit. It is getting to be thoroughly annoying to the max. For a while, pre-puppy, we had been getting some sleep. Before that, our aged doggie was needing out quite a lot especially during the night.

The problem is that our new puppy is very stubborn when it comes to changing her ways of doing things. Before she came to live with us, she was an outdoor doggie. We got her when she was about 5 weeks old so it wasn’t that ingrained in her, at least I didn’t think so. She is now almost 9 weeks old. At this point, she needs to change her ways or take out whole life insurance for her future, however brief it may turn out to be. GROWL! Seriously though, we do need to get her to stop waking us up. Most of the time, she just wants to play but some of it is to go out. We are unsure which is which so far. Sigh. Some day, we will have an animal that does not do things like this. Boy, will that one be boring!!

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We have a new puppy. She is a little nut but cute, very cute. At the moment, we do not have really good pictures of her and our cat because we have a crappy camera. It’s bad. Sometimes we do get not bad pictures so I will show you a couple that were taken with that camera. I think you will see that it leaves a lot to be desired. You know, I never really got what that phrase meant until just now. Here are two pics of our animals, Gizmo our cat and Misty, our new puppy:

The thing here is..if the camera was any good I would love to have custom picture framing done on our pictures because they would be worth it. Someday soon, we are going to have that good camera (we are currently saving for it as we speak) and get fantastic pics. If not, then I have to beg my bro-in-law, who is by the way an excellent photographer, to take pics of our adorable four footed kids so that we could have the best pictures in those frames. I think we should do that one way or another, don’t you?

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