A Day at the Park
Yesterday, I was home alone all day without a car. So instead of sitting at my computer for the entire day, I decided to walk Ally and Epsilon to the park in a nearby housing development. It was such a beautiful day for it too! Ally got to chase a lot of squirrels and Epsilon rolled on random stuff… good times. Anyway, I brought my D90 along and wanted to share some of the pics I got.
You may notice that Epsilon got a haircut and I left his mustache. I’m not too sure how I feel about it. I think it’s funny, not necessarily cute 
My First Blizzard
On Thursday, Denver (and most of Colorado) was hit with a Blizzard. All the schools shut down, so I also had my first snow day 
My husband was supposed to teach a class at 8a and didn’t realize school was canceled. He found it odd that the building was locked, but just let himself him. He went to class and wrote all his intro stuff on the board. While waiting for students to arrive, he checked his email: “The University of Denver will be closed today due to high expected snowfall”. He got home around 8:30a and I flew out of bed with excitement of the news! But then I couldn’t help but laugh at him when I checked my phone.
The University had sent a text message and left a voice mail in addition to the email. You see, my husband and I are always arguing (playfully, kinda) about how he never has his phone with him, or it’s off, or it’s lost, etc. If I didn’t make him, he wouldn’t even have a phone. Well, since he ignores his phone, he wasted his time going to school that morning and I got a good laugh
I know that this blizzard was mild as far as blizzards are concerned, but I was amazed by it. Remember, I’ve lived on the cenral coast of California all my life, I’m still getting used to snow in general, let alone blizzards!
Well, Ally absolutely loves the snow and she couldn’t get enough of it. She’d be out there shivering but still not want to come inside; She just continued to wag her little nub and look at me with that happy little face. Epsilon, on the other hand, found Thursday to be a rather terrible day. He was cold and miserable. Since he’s so little, it was very difficult to find places for him to go to the bathroom without him drowning in snow.
Anyway, here’s a video I put together of our blizzard experiences. Enjoy! (yes, I know I’m a dork).
My Dog Poops Diamonds
My Ring
So I recently got my wedding/engagement rings repaired and buffed. They’re super pretty and my diamond looks extra big now! Yay! Anyway, having been thinking about my ring lately, I remembered an event that happened a little over a year ago and thought it would make a wonderful blog post.
My husband and I lived in Rohnert Park, CA at the time and we were getting ready to drive to Salinas, CA for my uncles wedding re-dedication ceremony thing. It’s about a 3 hour drive and we were planning to stay the weekend with my parents. Well, my two dogs get really excited when we go on trips. They know they’re going when they see me pack their bag. They start running around the apartment playing, growling, howling, and crying. It’s quite a show.
Well, the dogs are always the last to go into the car and at this point Ally, my mini schnauzer, was jumping up all over the place in excitement. She’s like a little kid bouncing up and down yelling “don’t forget about me!”
Back up for a second. I should give you a little info about my ring. It’s a solitaire with a very high setting. There is just about as much space under the diamond as the diamond is tall. It makes for light creating beautiful brilliance, as well as giving plenty of space for things (like teeth) to get under.
Ally - Miniature Schnauzer
As you’ve probably just figured out, during Ally’s episode she jumped up on me and just happened to get her little tooth hooked under my diamond! I immediately looked at my ring then went strait for Ally’s mouth. I pried it open and searched in there for a few minutes with no luck. My husband and I searched the carpet within an 8 foot radius of the incident… still no luck.
We concluded she swallowed it! Wow, first my ring gets destroyed and now I have to search dog poop to get my diamond back! We did figure out a nice clean searching method though.
How to retrieve diamond from dog poop:
- Purchase appropriately sized zip-lock bags.
- “Wear” zip-lock bag inside out.
- Pick up poop.
- Zip-lock the poop in.
- Smash up poop while it’s in the bag.
- If diamond is found, bring it to the top, near seal.
- Push the rest of the poop to the bottom of bag.
- Rub diamond with bag until as much poop as possible is removed.
- Fill a glass with hot water.
- Open baggy right above diamond.
- Drop diamond into water filled glass.
- Let diamond soak.
- Throw away poop filled bag.
It took Ally 3 DAYS to finally poop out my diamond! I have never been so excited about dog poop in my life!
In conclusion, 3 days of agony, stress, poop and $200 later. I had a beautiful diamond ring back on my finger and the ability to brag that MY DOG POOPS DIAMONDS!
Does yours?
Snowy Puppies
Here’s a little video of my babies in the snow. Ally, the schnauzer doesn’t seem to care about it, but Epsilon, the yorkie, is quite bothered by it. He gets soooooo cold. It’s pretty sad. But I’m gonna buy him some booties so that his little feet don’t get frostbite
Enjoy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymrs3eFhHG8&rel=0&ap=%2526fmt%3D22]
Chapped Tongue
My parents have a rather strange Yorkshire terrier named Ruckus. He almost always has his tongue sticking out. The problem is: he’ll fall asleep with it out and it’s gets all dry. So I went ahead and put some chap stick on it for him…
The Puppies of the Family
Here’s a little video of all the puppies in my family. Ally and Epsilon are my two babies and Ruckus and Beast are my parents’ doggies. Enjoy!
- Beast – 2 years – Yorkshire Terrier
- Ally – 2 years – Miniature Schnauzer
- Ruckus – 1 year – Yorkshire Terrier
- Epsilon – 1 year – Yorkshire Terrier
Oh, How I Love the Beach
I was going to try to write some nice beautiful blog about how I love the beach and blah blah blah. But I have a bad cough right now and am not really in the mood. Instead, I’ll just share some pictures. This is Carmel Beach. Our puppies had the time of their lives and my feet were so happy to be in sand once again.
My Experiences as a Petsmart Bather/Brusher
I have spent the month of June bathing dogs at Petsmart. I chose this job because I love dogs and love grooming them. My first impressions of the job were rather positive; Petsmart had good policies that I agreed with. I learned about the appropriate safety precautions for myself as an employee as well as for the dogs. I read all the training books and watched all the videos. Although it’s a pretty tedious and repetitive process, I was happy with the training I received and happy with Petsmart as a company.
Then I started working for real.
All those great things I learned from the videos and books?… about 60% of it was actually practiced in the salon. I wasn’t as much bothered by the policies like “staying out of the bite zone” being violated because that was putting the person who was violating the rule in danger, not the dog. If that person gets bit… well, it’s kind of their own fault. The violations that really disappointed me were the ones that had to do with how the dogs were treated, controlled, and contained.
Policy said to clean out the water bowls and kennels after EACH dog. We had a disinfectant spray we were supposed to use. Well, if you were lucky, this was being done once a day. Employees had no problem getting one dog out of a kennel and immediately putting a different dog in there. What if the first dog was sick? No one seemed to care. In my opinion, this is a HUGE violation.
The next thing that really bothered me was how often the groomers would be willing to leave a dog on a table unsupervised. This dog has a loop around it’s neck and it could very quickly turn into a noose!! And I’m not just talking about taking their hands off the dog and stepping 3 feet away. On a few occasions a groomer even left the ROOM asking another groomer or bather who had their OWN dog on their OWN table to keep an eye on their dog. How is it that one person is supposed to safely watch two dogs on two different tables that are not within arms length of each other?! Unbelievable.
Last, and definitely not least, I was appalled at how most of the groomers treated the dogs in general. If a dog was misbehaving or moving too much, the groomers would actually call the dogs names! Their favorite name was “sh!thead”! They would yell at the dogs very loudly and make them even more frightened. Many times I believe the dog just needed a little break. There was one groomer whom I had NEVER witnesses say ANYTHING nice to ANY dog! No “good boy” or “good girl”. I saw many dogs have their arms tweaked in weird positions while trying to get away. If my hands were free, I would come help handle the dog to free it from its torture. Unfortunately, I wasn’t always in a position to do so.
I believe the employees who treated the dogs the best were the bather/brushers. The groomers seemed to be mean ones. I think that’s because no one in thier right mind would be a bather/brusher for Petsmart unless they REALLY loved dogs; the pay isn’t enough for such hard work. I could have made the same tiny hourly wage working at the cash register. Groomers, however, get 50% commission, so they are generally rushing to get as many dogs done in a day as they can.
I would like to be clear that this is what I have to say about this ONE Petsmart location. Other Petsmarts may be following company policies and procedures just perfectly. But I highly recommend NOT taking your dog to the Petsmart in Rohnert Park, CA. If you consider a different location, I recommend observing the groomers for a good while before making your decision. Feel free to ask them for a tour of the back as well and take a good look at the kennels that your dog will be placed in.
Today was my last day at Petsmart because I am moving tomorrow.