Dog Spa!

Those of you who know how lax the rules for pups are at our house know that this has earned our house the nickname "the dog spa." (Conversely, my sister's house, where our pups always stay when we go away, is known as "the doggy gulag." There are a lotta rules over there. Silly rules - like dogs can't lick the dirty dishes in the dishwasher! Rita says, "Wh...What???")

View from the "lounge" area

But this post is not about our "dog spa" - no, it's about the Dog Spa and Wellness Resort in Desert Hot Springs, which is where we went last week with Rita for vacation. It's a little embarrassing to tell anyone who's not a dog person that you are going to "the Dog Spa" for your vacation. They look at you like they want to ask, "You mean you're going to stay at a kennel?" But I know you dog-loving types will understand. The Dog Spa is a fun spot and the most dog-friendly place we've ever stayed. Once you are inside the gate your pup can go leash free; your dog can sleep with you in the bed (or in the provided dog-bed if your pup prefers); and the dogs are even allowed in the pool (although Rita wanted none of that).

We heard of it because our friends from Tripawds pointed out a photo of the resort in Sunset magazine -- a photo that just happened to have a photograph of their beloved Tripawd, Max, hanging in the background.

That is Max in the photo hanging over "Wrestlemania"

I took a ton of books and magazines with me, thinking I'd get a lot of reading done pool-side, but mostly I just ended up watching Rita have fun. Rita played a lot with the owner's dog, Brad Pit. (She also played with the other guests' dogs but I never managed to have my camera around then!)

Snuggling with Brad Pit

Sharing a drink

More wrestling in the lounge

"Come on, Brad!"

Our vacation exhausted Rita and she's needed another vacation to recover since we got home. It started with the car ride there. Luckily Desert Hot Springs is only ~2 1/2 hours from San Diego, but Rita was on high alert the entire time. She vigilantly watched out the window, turning and looking around at each intersection. We joked that she was memorizing the route in case we dumped her; she wanted to be able to find her way home - but really that's probably what the poor thing was doing. We kept reassuring her that we would not leave her in the desert. After that, we exhausted her some more by walking around the shops in Palm Springs (about 20 min from the Dog Spa) and taking her along to a dog friendly restaurant. Here she is being oh-so-good on her first ever visit to a restaurant.

"Where's my quesadilla??"

We took her along every night when we went out to eat. She was mostly good, but the last night we went to the fanciest of the places we'd been to yet - and of course that was the night she decided to bark at people across the patio when they stood up to leave. So embarrassing! We thought the old couple near us was giving us dirty looks, but they came by on their way out later, all smiles, and actyually thanked us (?!) for bringing Rita to the restaurant. Funny, and cute.

We also wore her out taking her on several hikes, which were generally pretty warm - it being the desert and all.

"It'th too hot! My tongue'th never been thith long before!"

With her pop at the top.

The best hike we did was ~7.2 miles at Mission Creek Preserve. It was breezy that day, so not as hot and it was also fairly flat. The best part for Rita was the creek, where she could lay down and cool off on the way out/back.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh"

These were about the only wildflowers we saw.

Rita & me at the turn-around point

All in all, it was a fun vacation and hopefully we'll get to take Rita there again some time. Now that she knows we won't leave her there, she might enjoy it even more!

Obsessions

Those of you that never met Abby probably don't know how insanely light-obsessed she was! She would go nuts over any sort of light or reflection. It was especially a challenge to cook at night. You have NO idea how much your pots, pans, and spatulas pick up the overhead lights in your kitchen and throw them back up on the ceiling until you have a light-obsessed dog! Making dinner was always chaos. I'd have to hunch over the stove/pots in an effort to shield any bouncing lights. Otherwise Abby would go nuts, barking at the ceiling, jumping up on the counters - and I was always afraid she'd hurt herself on the slippery wood floors.

As much as we miss that girl, it's kind of nice to be able to cook without doing a Hunchback of Notre Dame imitation. Every time I pull one our shiny stainless pots out of the cupboard, I still flinch, expecting to be charged by a frantic tripawd.

Luckily, Rita is oblivious to the magical mystical powers of shiny objects! Hooray! This is our first dog who's not light-obsessed and it's wonderful. (Those of you who knew our previous dog, Bailey, know how crazy she was for the laser-light. She had to be "buzzed", as we called it, with the laser at least three times/day - chasing it up and down the halls and around the house. Crazy. We couldn't even show Abby the laser because she didn't know when to quit.) I got Rita the shiniest tag ever, with little pink rhinestones, and I'm constantly noticing it bouncing reflections off the walls of the house or the car, and she could care less. It's awesome.

"I'll wear these as long as you want. Just give me the cookie."

However, Rita does have other obsessions - mainly treats and, after really getting a taste for one, birds. She hangs out by our pantry, where the treats are stashed, a lot. I'm hoping to use her treat obsessiveness to train her to wear Abby's old Doggles:

"Are we done yet?"

Abby never liked to wear them for more than a second, but I'm hoping I can train Rita to wear them, since she loves to ride with her head hanging out the car window. Forget the safety aspect - it's worth the training time invested for the Cute Factor alone!

Three Little Birds

You might recognize the title of this post as a cheery Bob Marley song in which the titular (isn't that a funny word?) birds on his doorstep sing sweet songs and tell him not to worry, "cuz every little thing's gonna be all right."

Sadly, the three little birds I'm thinking of didn't do so well on my doorstep - or not in our backyard anyway. Every little thing was not all right. In fact, every little birdy thing was most definitely B*A*D.

First, a few years ago, there was the teenage-looking (all skinny and dorky) mourning dove that Bailey pounced on when it tried to leave the nest. (Mike had to put it in a bag and bop it one to put it out of it's misery, poor thing! And by that, I mean poor Mike, cuz he was very traumatized by the experience, what with being known as Mike of Assisi after all... Maybe not so much after me telling that story.) The mourning doves were aptly named that day.

Then, last year, there was the little birdie of some sort that Abby plucked out of a bush in our yard and promptly ate--feet, beak, feathers and all. (Amazingly, she suffered no ill side effects!) A bird in the bush may be worth half a bird in the hand (right? cuz a bird in the hand equals two in the bush...), but a bird in the mouth trumps all!

Finally, we come to this morning, when a sparrow made the mistake of flying in our slightly open sliding glass door. I was brushing my teeth when I heard a commotion in motion in our sunroom. The bird zoomed across the sunroom, with Rita in hot pursuit and smacked right into the far window. Stunned, it fell to the floor, and she pounced on it. I was trying to yell, "Leave it!", but that's not easy when your mouth is full of toothpaste! Rita tried to bring it to me. (Um, no thank you!) so I pointed outside and she took it out in the backyard where she tossed it around like a hackysack. Luckily it was an ex-bird by then! I was afraid she'd eat it, but she dug a hole and buried it. Nice of her to give it a proper burial. (Unfortunately, I had the fun task of beating her back out to the hole when we got home from Fiesta Island and digging up and disposing of the bird before she could toss it around some more!)

Today I also took Rita with me to PetSmart. She loves to go in there and look at all the colorful little song birds hopping around in their glass enclosures in the center of the store. She was sitting there, staring at them, fascinated, when she leapt straight up in the air about three feet - about to the same height as the little birdies on their perch. Luckily the glass kept the birdies safe, although they did look concerned. We got out of there after that because I didn't want to find out if PetSmart has a "you eat it, you buy it" policy.

It's a dog eat bird world out there.

Since no post is complete without a photo, here's a pic John took of Rita last week when she met up with Bernie bin Laden and Linda. She LOVES to ride with her head out the window. (We need to teach her to wear Abby's old doggles.)

And here's our latest felting endeavor - a little wooly Cass in his "gladiator suit":

 

A Very Busy Girl!

Bunny Rita's been a very busy girl the past few days. This might be a long one because I've been taking TONS of pictures of her.

I Love Lucy
First of all, Rita met Lucy, my nephew and his girlfriend's dog. I think that makes Lucy & Rita cousins once removed. Although these two are more like never-to-be-removed cousins. Rita is probably a month or 2 older than Lucy, and they played hard for three hours straight. Most of my pictures from them playing outside look like this:

A blur or puppies

Action shot!

They seemed to enjoy this...

Inside, they played a "Queen of the Bed" game that went on and on. 

Great-white-shark teeth!

A rare moment of rest

Rita definitely LOVED Lucy and looked very sad when they left. Then she crashed!

Bunny Meets Bernie
You might remember Bernie, aka Bernie bin Laden, from this video I posted of him back in January.Well, Bernie wanted to come down from his home in Orange County to meet Bunny Rita, so the roads were cleared, and the appropriate authorities were warned, and we signed Rita up for insurance (our first time having pup insurance, btw), and the two of them met at Fiesta Island on Monday, along with Linda, Bernie's older and wiser sister.

No, don't follow Bernie! That way lies nuthin' but trouble!

Linda es muy linda.

They were actually pretty tame, I think because Rita was still hung over from her play marathon with Lucy the night before.

A very dirty Rita

Afterwards we went to In-N-Out, which was obviously a huge hit.

"Nom, nom, nom"

"Are there any more Flying Dutchmen?"

Bernie decided to give Mike the kisses he's been missing since Rita is stingy with them.



Then Bernie decided his dad might be jealous, so gave him a bunch too. Below, John demonstrates the appropriate way to receive Bernie's kisses: lips and eyes all clamped tight shut. The only problem is that Bernie then kisses your nose, sealing off your access to oxygen, so that you are forced to open your mouth. But you really don't want to do that, so it's best to just hold your breath til you pass out.


Bernie also decided I needed my makeup washed off - but I have no pictures of that (which is probably a good thing).

Bunny Rita's Special Valentine
Rita also received not one, but TWO special Valentine's from her long distance boyfriend, Rocket. First of all, he sent her a Valentine's care package that included a Monkeydog helmet, a stuffed pink monkey, and some chocolates for Rita's mama. (Which Rita's mama did not share with Rita's daddy...)

If you missed it I explained about MonkeyButts (aka Monkeydogs) here, but basically they are quadpawds who stir up friendly trouble on Tripawds.com to keep the smiles coming on a site that can sometimes be filled with sad news. The Monkeybutts' leader, Rocket (a.k.a. the "MonkeyButt-Bunny Vampire Pirate") has a little crush on MBBunny Rita, so he sent her a helmet. She is ready for battle with those silly Tripawds!

The other special Valentine he sent her was this special video viewable here, which cracks me up every time I watch it. My Rita es muy bonita! Y Rocket es muy macho!


Hope you all had a good Valentine's Day, whether your Valentine is two-, three-, or four-legged (or web-footed or talon-ed or whatever. I don't judge.)!

It's Official! (& A Commercial)

She's Ours! 
On Saturday we had our "home inspection" to make sure we are suitable pawrents for Rita. It was fairly intense - full-on white glove inspection while we stood at attention (even Rita). Somehow we managed to pass and now Rita is ours, all ours!

To celebrate, she got a Frosty Paw.

Not sure if this is pure rapture, or just the sun in her eyes...

...Got her some sunglasses in case it was the latter.

She also got a few kale chips*, which (amazingly) were also a hit!

We are still getting to know our girl. She's so sweet! She really is amazingly good - we've had no destruction, no accidents (other than Day 1 when she was, I'm sure, still a little confused about what was going on), and she likes to sleep in with us on the weekends. This makes us very very very very very very happy. I'm pretty sure most puppies are not sleeper-inners, so we are happy to get one who is!




She is not much of a kisser, like Bailey and Abby both were, but she does enjoy her some tummy rubs!

Does this little slut puppy remind you of anyone?

Seeing Abby During Super Bowl
We heard from many people who mentioned seeing a dog that looked a lot like Abby in a Chevy commercial aired during the Super Bowl. We saw it too - and I was even working on my Abby scrapbook (my sis made me a gorgeous scrapbook with pics of Abby plus space to add extra photos) when we saw it. Maybe you saw it as well? It was the Mayan Apocalypse commercial. If not, you can view it here.

"Abby" appears at exactly 19 seconds in and then again briefly at 31 seconds. So cute! She's even riding in the same spot where she used to ride in my car. (Although I, alas, drive a Ford, so will not be surviving the apocalypse - but that's cool.) I think she put on a couple of pounds, eating Twinkies on set between takes. I've since seen "her" again in an Oscar Mayer turkey lunchmeat ad.

The Latest in Wooly Dogs
In "felting" news, the most recent pup that Terry and I attempted to recreate in wool is Chili Dawg. Chili Dawg is a Tripawd who, sadly, earned his wings several months ago. He was such a gorgeous boy, it was hard to do him justice, but the wooly version came out pretty cute in the end. 

Abby sneaks a kiss...

  




Isn't Chili Dawg one of the best names ever for a dog? Especially a red dog??

* Kale chips (don't turn your nose up! You know who you are...Kath) are easy to make and (in my opinion) one of the tastiest ways to eat kale. (I don't really like kale, but it's good for me. The other tasty way to eat it is blended up to where it is indistinguishable in a smoothy. I highly recommend chocolate-cherry-kale smoothies!) To make kale chips, all you do is: tear the kale up into bite size pieces, toss it in a bit of olive oil, lay it out on a parchment lined cookie sheet, sprinkle with salt, and cook for ~10 min (maybe a little more) at 350 degrees. Yum. Salty, crunchy. Nutritious & delicious.

Celebrating a Missed Ampuversary

Today would have been Abby's 15 Month Ampuversary. It makes us sad, as this is the first one since she passed, but luckily we have our funny little Bunny to help us turn the day into a celebration.

What would an ampuversary be without a trip to Fiesta Island? This is her second visit there. When we went last week, she barely got her toes wet, but today she was in there a lot. It looks like she might turn into a swimmer some day - which would have to be the shepherd in her, because I never knew a beagle that swam!

And what else would you eat on an ampuversary besides a Flying Dutchman??

Her first (that we know of...) Flying Dutchman!

It was a hit!

You got a little somethin' on yer nose there... (it's cheese!)

Pretty sure BunnyRita will be getting a Dutchman at least once a month in Abby's honor. She's a very lucky girl.


All this fun can be exhausting!

And, yes, for those of you who have been to my house, she is sleeping on the "good" pillows on the "good" couch - something even our oh-so-beloved Abby didn't get to do! Not sure what Angel Abby thinks, looking down on that!

Happy Ampuversary to our Angel Ab, and thanks to Bunny Rita for making us smile so much today!

Our Dirty Little Secret...

Okay, well... she's not that dirty (she had a bath on Sunday) and she's not that little (almost 40 pounds!), so I guess she's our clean, medium-sized secret...

Meet Rita, or Bunny, or BunnyRita. We're not entirely sure what her name is yet, but I think it's Rita (short for Rosarita, the beach she was found on). Although her nickname is Bunny (because she runs like a jack rabbit, plus it was Kathryn Hepburn's librarian character's name in Desk Set, plus bunnies and bunny ears, especially, are kind of a running thing on Tripawds... I wanted her real name to just be Bunny, but I don't think Mike can picture himself standing there at Fiesta Island yelling, "Bunny!" It's not muy macho.)

I think she likes it here.

She likes Fiesta Island too!

Yes, it is crazy-soon to have a new puppy. And we totally did NOT intend to bring a new dog home yet - but... here's what happened. The Saturday after we lost Abby, we were sitting outside watching the sunset. The ocean was the calmest I've ever seen it since we moved here - like a glassy lake as far as the eye could see toward the horizon. Mike asked Abby and Bailey (our previous pup for those of you that don't know) to send us a sign that they'd met up and were together. Well, I was sitting there with my iPad, and I went on PetFinder - seriously I don't know why because we really really really didn't intend to get a new dog for a while - and I typed "female beagle" in the search with our zip code, and "Peaches" (as she was known) pops up on the first page of results. We couldn't stop looking at her! She looked so much like a combination of Bailey and Abby! She has Bailey's body, with Abby's ears and eyes (even a bit of the same eyeliner look like Abby had). If Bailey and Abby had a puppy (through immaculate conception or in vitro or whatever, since they were both girls...) the result would be this little girl.

In fact, she likes F.I. a lot!

The next few days we couldn't stop looking at her picture. I thought Mike would be the voice of reason, but no. He told me to fill out the online application. We did and were able to go meet her this past Saturday, Jan. 21. We brought her home and she's been pretty much a model pup ever since - doesn't jump up, barely barks, sleeps in Abby's bed like a good girl until we are ready to get up. She's just super sweet!

BunnyRita!

So, here's the deal. She's a beagle-shepherd mix (obviously); she's estimated to be 7 or 8 months old. We got her from the Baja Animal Sanctuary (technically she's not ours yet... They have to come do a home inspection on Feb 4. I'm fairly certain we'll pass...). I can't believe she was at the shelter 2 months, because she's so darn cute. I think she was waiting for us...

She's so funny as well - we thought it would be nice to have a chowhound again (what with the beagle in her) after Abby and her fussy supermodel picky-eater ways, but no... She's not a real chowhound either. She's not as picky as Abby was, but she doesn't exactly wolf down her food, and she turns her nose up at lots of things, like popcorn! Even Abby liked popcorn! Also, Bailey had no back dewclaws, Abby had both of hers - well, Rita has one back dew claw. I think she really is a mix of our two girls.

She met Ab's best friend, Dakota...

They already love each other! BFFs!

(This does look like love, right?)

Today, right after leaving Dakota's...

(And this too? Pretty certain that's love!)

Our hearts are still in a thousand jigsaw puzzle pieces from losing Abby, but I think this little girl will help start fitting the pieces back together.