Geez O Wheeze, Macy Hudson!
 
I adopted you because as a broken down, old gal - you deserved a warm home, food and treats at the ready and a big squishy bed where you would snuggle between my legs.  A king size bed, have we - but I loved you being so close.  I also loved that once you were awake, everyone got out of the way; you were the oldest-bounciest cocker spaniel I have ever met and even your co-canines knew to step aside when they heard you bouncing!  You couldn't hear a damn thing, but stomping my foot hard got your attention (bounce, bounce, bounce) or...IF I WHISPERED, you snapped your head and looked directly at me.  You can tell me now...were you selectively deaf???

I wasn't supposed to fall so hard and I miss you madly, "Grandmaw" of the bunch!  You took a chunk of my heart, beautiful girl.  Gimme a sign every now and then, ay?

Sweet Imagery

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And then sometimes the photo needs no words - it is the story all by itself.

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She's my shadow

...and I like it.

Buried in a mountain of paperwork, I'll be incarcerated in the office for a few hours.  And who should appear?  Since it's just her and I now, she doesn't let much time go by (a minute) before she finds me.  And I like it.  Stay with me as long as you can, my Zoe Bean.

Zzzzz Zzzzz Zzzz.....

Silly guard dog

What's a Dog for...

This awesome article was sent to us from a dearest friend that is very much aware we not only love dogs, but any information relative to these angel creatures... We pass this along to you. 

Thank you so much, dearest Claudia

What’s a Dog For: A Meditation on Love, Loss, and the Art of Presence

“If you resist too much the power of the big primary-color emotions that surround the dog, you’re missing the experience.”

By Maria Popova

It must be the season of the dog, from the recent treasure chest that is The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs (one of the the best art books of 2012) to the history of rabies to Fiona Apple’s stirring handwritten letter about her dying dog. But what is it about dogs, exactly, that has us so profoundly transfixed?
That’s exactly what former New York magazine executive editor John Homans explores in What’s a Dog For?: The Surprising History, Science, Philosophy, and Politics of Man’s Best Friend (public library) — a remarkable chronicle of the domestic dog’s journey across thousands of years and straight into our hearts, written with equal parts tenderness and scientific rigor.



In a chapter on reconciling the inevitable pain we invite into our lives when we commit to love a being biologically destined to die before we do and the boundless joy of choosing to love anyway, Homans cites John Updike’s heartbreaking poem “Another Dog’s Death” about the last days of one of his beloved animals:

For days the good old bitch had been dying, her back
pinched down to the spine and arched to ease the pain,
her kidneys dry, her muzzle white. At last
I took a shovel into the woods and dug her grave
in preparation for the certain. She came along,
which I had not expected. Still, the children gone,
such expeditions were rare, and the dog,
spayed early, knew no nonhuman word for love.
She made her stiff legs trot and let her bent tail wag.
We found a spot we liked, where the pines met the field.
The sun warmed her fur as she dozed and I dug;
I carved her a safe place while she protected me.
I measured her length with the shovel’s long handle;
she perked in amusement, and sniffed the heaped-up earth.
Back down at the house, she seemed friskier,
but gagged, eating. We called the vet a few days later.
They were old friends. She held up a paw, and he
injected a violet fluid. She swooned on the lawn;
we watched her breathing quickly slow and cease.
In a wheelbarrow up to the hole, her warm fur shone.

But rather than agonizing over the morbidity of it, Homans celebrates the remarkable Zen-ness of it all, somewhere between John Cage and the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi:

This state of being-in-the-moment is what’s so compelling about dogs. It’s hard for a human to get to it. Even in the most difficult times, dogs are cheerful and ready for experience. A dog can’t figure out that it’s being measured for its grave. The three-legged chow that walks on my street every day doesn’t know the number three or have any sense that anything is wrong with her at all (and as I write, the dog is sixteen and still fit). It’s not that a dog accepts the cards it’s been dealt; it’s not aware that there are cards. James Thurber called the desire for this condition ‘the Dog Wish,’ the ‘strange and involved compulsion to be as happy and carefree as a dog.’ This is a dog’s blessing, a dim-wittedness one can envy.

He considers the warm tackiness of loving a dog:

Loving a dog means, among other things, making peace with kitsch, if you haven’t already. You don’t have to make goo-goo eyes at every puppy picture you see in a magazine or bake your dog birthday cakes. But if you resist too much the power of the big primary-color emotions that surround the dog, you’re missing the experience. … Dogs are a national religion with a catechism composed by Hallmark, so heresy is necessary. I suspect some people resist the dog culture with such passion precisely to avoid the kitsch, the appalling melodrama: if you give in to it, you’re trapped in a narrative you can’t control. You feel like a dope, buying into it. The emotions around the dog can be as neotenized as the animal itself.
Rather than an end, kitsch can be a starting point. … Much as I’d like to think that kitsch has no purchase in my world, it’s found its way in — and it’s sleeping on my rug.

Beautifully written and absolutely engrossing, What’s a Dog For? goes on to examine such fascinating fringes of canine culture as how dogs served as Darwin’s muse, why they were instrumental in the birth of empathy, and what they might reveal about the future of evolution.

Public domain photographs via Flickr Commons

Via BrainPickings.org

 

 



Because there should always be a cute animal pic on Sunday's.

 

Seriously, pal...turn around :) 

 

 

This is Edna.  She lives with 9 other senior dogs, a pig, a rabbit, an "inside" chicken and an incredible man who has a full time job, but his seniors are his life.  More about Wolfgang 2242 soon.

You hot pattootie, Edna!!!

I grabbed this off the internet because I suppose I saw a cat and a dog - who represented a friend and me.  Claudia, a friend since grade school who is represented by the cat and me, yesssss, the dog is me.  And I liked the quiet but great statement: Good Friends. 
I think they're beautiful. 
And that's all that matters tonight.

I'm checking into the blogs...it's been awhile - I need a refresher and I'm trying to get back in the game.

Cheers- be back way sooner than the last post 2 years ago:)

Happy National Pink Day!!!

Well, well, well.  It's June 25, 2017...a couple years since our last post.  I needed to stop by for an update on the software and so far it appears I still know how to navigate this boat.

See you soon! :)

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January 2, 2015

January 1, 2015

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Happy New Year, 2015

We wish you the same as all the previous years behind us and all those years forward ~

~ We wish you good health
~ We wish you love
~ We wish you a loving home
~ We wish you enough food
~ If you can get it, we wish you a sofa, chair or bed to share with someone you love
~ We wish you play, surprise, running and etherealness
~ If you can get to the water's edge, go. And if you get sand it your toes, all the better.
~ We wish you a fine stick and some play in the mud
~ We wish you friends . . . and if you don't have any, we'd like to enlist

~ and above all, we wish you joy

With our bestest wishes in your New Year ~

Lia Louise and Zoe Bean Adams

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Scrappy Weingarden and other family kids

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Yes, this is Scrappy...

Ying and Yang

Belleveu and Giant

purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

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Memorial Day

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It was such a long winter, everyone gained a few too many pounds .  The issue becomes, when does the new lifestyle plan begin???  Zoe and I voted tonight to wait till Lia gets home from Camp.

It's unanimous. Goodie.

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2 am exercises

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Report Card:

2am        get up and pee
206am    take two pain pills
210am    get walker from bedroom and do four laps around the house'
219am     use inhaler
219am     called Vet Emergency hospital to check on my little Zoe
224am     play 2 games of solitare
232am     back to bed concerned not about me but about the pup.
2:40am    stepped outside - boy it's dark but starry nonetheless

2:46...finally back to bed. 

how do they drink?

Dog Talk

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Zoe:  Something's going on around here.

Lia:  Whut - it all feels right to me...

Zoe:  That's because you pay no attention to detail.  
          For example, WHY is all of our food bags, cans
         of food, treats, pills all sitting out on the bar  - 
         why didn't The Woman put it away like usual?

Lia:   uhhh, maybe we're gonna eat again?

Zoe:  You're a lug!  We're NOT going to eat again and I think this is more than playing at
         daycare for just the day.  And now she went and put one of our blankets on that pile.

Lia:   DO YOU THINK SHE'S TAKING US TO THE POUND???? OHMYGOD!!!!!

Zoe:  Stop it, you moron...that's not it.  I think we're going to the Doggie Hotel.

Lia:  I love that place - play all day, sleep in beds of our own...

Zoe:  Well, I'm going to shadow The Woman for the rest of the evening.

Lia:  That's silly - why?

Zoe:  Because I'm the one that sleeps on her "other" pillow and she's going to miss me most.

Lia:  She gonna miss me more cuz she calls me her clown and I make her laugh.

The Woman:  (sniffff) (whining:) I'll miss you both more than you will ever know.

Lia:  Told ya! Nah-na-na-na-nah-na.....

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Tired Monday Night

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Trust me when I tell you...sometimes Lia 'grins'

like this in her sleep when she's dreaming...

it's creepy, people - 

there's NOTHING cute about this.

Regards,

Zoe Bean Princess

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