I finally got a job as a designer! I work at a print shop doing design. It's awesome. But now I work 6 days a week, and am beat when I get home, then I play with Mason to wear him out and then I'm DEAD. I'm still working on a personal piece and a comic in the meantime, so it's been a hectic past week. Sorry I've fallen off of the blog-o-sphere, but eh. Hopefully soon a scanner will be in my mitts so I can show some progress on the corgi comic and personal piece. :) In the meantime...I am alive!
My friend's mom, Vickie and I rescued a little corgi (or mix?) from a shelter today. I submitted paperwork, she went and got him and is fostering! He has a HUGE growth on his neck and I think that's the only reason he wasn't adopted, because he is HELLA cute. Meet Buckshot:
He is 3 years old, and needs to be neutered and have his second head removed. He is well behaved, gets along with dogs and ignores cats and is housetrained (from what we're told). He is very friendly and sweet and will look sooo handsome with that lovely lady lump removed. If you are interested in adopting this guy once his junk n junk is removed, feel free to email me at 23spades@gmail.com and I will forward you an application. :)
I'm still a little leery to post this since it will seem final and I'm still thinking it's too good to be true, BUT: Justin is going to move to Austin (my eventual hopeful destination as well) and he has found roommates but they don't want a dog. He is willing to find another place to live, but he offered Olive back to me to both make it easier on him, and because I've been still checking up on her and miss her every day. My dear friend Shannon even offered to drive her up if she could stay for a while, and I said HELL YES.
So I'll be getting my little girl back! I'm so thrilled. It has to wait either until my parents cave under me begging to let her come back and stay in their house, or until I move out (undetermined. If he moves to Austin before I move out I'm sure they'd let her come or I could find a foster situation, which I'd rather not do.) Here's my little furry demon red-headed tri pem girl:
A little about Olive: I rescued her back in August, she was dumped in an animal shelter from what I'm guessing is from a breeder as a few others that look just like her have popped up there--usually females that have obviously been bred. I had also been told by someone in Bowling Green that there IS a man who gets rid of his females when they can no longer have puppies. Olive is only about 19 pounds, and looks like she only had 1 litter, so I'm assuming maybe that first litter didn't work for her, because she is SO TINY. Even for a corgi she is little.
She is very grouchy, protests to anyone touching her butt without her consent and makes awful choking demon noises when she's excited about another dog. I MISS HER SO MUCH!
Mason and Xena! My BFF Allison and I took our corgs to the park yesterday. Xena has a tendency to bolt when she feels playful, so I began a search for a fenced in area (since Broadway, VA isn't exactly dog park central) when I thought to ask my cousin (who is playing softball now) if any field in Broadway was fenced in, and THERE WAS ONE! We went down to the Timberville park by the river and one was COMPLETELY fenced in. We were thrilled.
They had a blast, and it's the first time since I left Olive that I got to see Mason's cardigan ass play with a pembroke (or whatever he is, I'm going to say cardigan since he still looks a hell of a lot like a cardigan (for example). Since I can't prove his pureness due to being rescued it's easier to say cardigan for now, as that's still what I personally believe. I guess that's the problem with most rescues--no papers to prove it, so what can ya do? And that is my makeshift explanation of why I bounce back and forth on it, but still retain that he's a cardigan.)
ANYWAYS. Seeing Xe run around made me miss my Olive so much. As much as I still want a catahoula mix, I may end up getting a Pem from a breeder like I originally planned. I guess whatever happens happens, and as with Mason the right dog will come along at the right time. No use rushing it. :) And in the meantime I can see Xena!!!! She's such a cutie. She and Mason have the same quirks--especially the "I'm going to lay down when you say sit. Derp." and the running around in circles while playing (play herding). Gotta love the corgz.
There's a point when a memory is recalled so many times that it becomes just a few images or a sound. Sometimes I try to grasp for those things so many times that it just becomes a mess in my mind.
One thing that's good about things you remember from your youth is they seem to be more associated with feelings than the later ones, or I feel that way in my case. One thing that always strikes a nostalgic chord with me is Polaris, and I've been listening to them a lot lately.
I get the natural images and memories from The Adventures of Pete and Pete, and everything associated with my pre teen years: like riding my bike on a summer's day to my friend's house down the street, where she had just assembled a tree house with her sister out of a literal tree that had fallen over in a recent storm.
She had perfectly pushed the leaves around to form rooms and cut windows by removing branches and forming holes. There were even doors assembled out of branches snapped and placed in the hallways. There were also many many ticks and other bugs, but that didn't seem to matter. This was cool, this was great and this was timeless.
We wanted drinks eventually and we went into her house, which also had these tiny hallways--obviously where she based her architectural preferences. We climbed up them in that way you always attempt as a kid--feet on one wall, pushing your back to the adjacent one and wedging yourself up near the ceiling. Her hallways were much more narrow than my own, so this was entirely possible and entirely BADASS since we would drop down and attempt some kind of ultimate ninja move in the process.
After this we went back down the road to my house on our bikes and met up with the girl that lived across the road from me. It had flooded everywhere so we waded in the disgusting standing water in the ditches by the road, probably filled with bacteria and diseases. Then I found a dead decomposed snake skeleton along the road, picked up a vertebrae with a stick and washed it in the stagnant water, satisfied that it was clean enough to touch.
We went up to the neighbor's house who lived on top of the hill in the woods and jumped on her trampoline. Her kids had grown up and moved away, so she was always fine with us using it at our discretion. What was great was the fact that the way up the hill to her house was thick with trees. Scattered throughout were these little piles of feathers, as if a bird had just exploded there. In the back of my mind I knew it was a fox or a coyote, but birdsplotion sounded cooler. Once we arrived where the trampoline was placed, it was completely open to fields and mountains on the other side of the hill.
We would lay there until the sun set, knowing it was time to go home once it was dark, but it was never really completely dark there. You could always see every star.
I never really gave Weezer's new(ish) album, Raditude, a chance since I really didn't like Make Believe and I felt like nothing could compare to Pinkerton (plus I thought the album title was super lame). But, I'm finding myself more and more addicted to this song:
Now if I only could get past it and listen to the rest of the album. Oh, and the album cover is awesome
So I was debating for a while if I wanted to post about this, because I saw it only as my opinion and I don't want to seem like it's all around wrong to give your dog rawhides, but this lengthy article has made me change my mind and post about it, because I feel like you can feed your dog whatever you please, but many people don't know about the dangers of rawhide so it's at least worth bringing up.
I used to give Mason rawhides, but my friend Shannon talked about her corgi, Hiro, swallowed one whole once and almost choked. After this I started hearing online about how they have caused intestinal blockage quite a few times. At this point I stopped buying rawhides, and switched to knee bones and bully sticks, or just filling up a Kong.
I don't really like to share or talk about nasty food facts, but this is one worth mentioning from the article;
"Other poisonous residues that may show up in rawhide include arsenic and formaldehyde. Even dog skin is a possibility. An ongoing investigation of the fur trade by Humane Society International, an arm of the HSUS, resulted in this information, as listed on their website: “In a particularly grisly twist, the skins of brutally slaughtered dogs in Thailand are mixed with other bits of skin to produce rawhide chew toys for pet dogs. Manufacturers told investigators that these chew toys are regularly exported to and sold in U.S. stores.” "
And as I stated before, on top of that there's the risk for intestinal blockage. Rawhides don't digest like normal food, and if one has been swallowed whole or in large pieces it can possibly create a cause for surgery.
Obviously they're not an end-all-be-all you're dog's gonna die danger, but it's something I totally wasn't aware of.
I took Mason and my niece and nephew to the park the other day, which is what most of these photos are from. Two are from us just taking a walk down a main road and then a dirt road. Anyways, Mason proved his teenagerdom on the park day--he was a total scamp. He ran around and would play frisbee but when the kids were running around he started following them and jogging circles around them holding his frisbee like "this is fun! We're having fun! What are we doing? Is this fun? I'm coming up there. Wait up. Where are you going? THIS IS FUN." And would not, even if I was probably on fire, listen to me. He even got on the playset and went down the SLIDE. Weird ass dog.
Anyways he's back to listening and falling over if he's in trouble as of the past few days. I took him to the park to play frisbee in the abandoned baseball field and we saw a few dogs. I need to take more photos of the baseball field--my brother played softball there and it's really neat, it's off of the main strip in Broadway which when you go behind it it just looks like this nice neat row of houses next to a road, then there are train tracks between it and the field. On the other side there are trees and a river a bridge. I dunno, it's just a really cool setting. (You can kinda tell in the first photo what I'm talking about).
Just a fun video of Mason walking. His tail gets weirder by the day--first he held it up like a flag, now it's getting more fur so it's heavier and does this floppy half curl that most of the time comes down and touches his back like a scorpion tail. Also you get to see his little drumstick legs moving, which is always funny.
Today someone mentioned on the CorgiPals facebook announcement of the new fundraiser for the several corgis that all need help at once about having CP be a resource for preparing for these kinds of disasters as well as helping out. I thought this was a great idea, and I'm going to work on a pitch for that here, and keep editing it in the future. So...that's what this is.
I think something many people should consider (including myself) is setting up an emergency fund for your dog. One thing I've realized being involved in CorgiPals is the worst CAN and WILL happen, and if a place like CP isn't available to help, it's a good idea to have an amount set aside for things like this. From what I've seen emergency medical expenses can range anywhere from 100-3000 dollars. I think something I'm going to implement in the future gaining of a dog is putting back 15 bucks a month for the first 2 years of owning him. That gives 360 bucks, which is a good start towards a down payment for any large issues that may arise. (Such as eating something, cancer, DM, ANYTHING).
Another option that I'm aware of is CareCredit. If your vet offers it, it's basically a credit card for large vet bills. I need to do a bit more research into it, but I believe there's no interest for the first 6 months. This in combination with a little bit of a fund set back can really make all the difference in being prepared for any shit hitting the fan. And hey...if it doesn't, then you have a little extra cash, so it's a win-win, amirite?
Of course I don't think these are at all necessary to pet ownership, and honestly I don't have the extra funds to set back for Mason, but I am aware of the CareCredit option and plan on using it if anything ever happens to him. I'm hoping to research a few more assistance programs like CareCredit for people like me, who are broke ass college grads who just want to know there are ways to survive a dog getting super ill and not get stressed at the thought and feel unprepared.
PetVetID is a business started by my friend, Tavia. Right now it just needs networking, so I thought I'd write an honest review now that I have my card:
What PetVetID offers is a card with all of your pets information on it, for easy access at vets and emergency clinics. I sent Tavia a copy of my records for Mason and she whipped this up--it has my name and address, Mason's breed (or what I'm guessing he is for now, he's either a cardi or a mix!), his age, sex, if he's fixed, weight, medications he may take and any medical conditions he may have.
On the back are his vaccines, card expiration and Microchip information, including his personal URL and one of those smart phone photo link thingies!:
I have yet to register my account, but basically you go register on the website and the url listed becomes the pets url for easy access to all of this information.
For 9.99 a year (to keep everything updated and current, you would need to replace your card yearly), you get all of THIS--a handy way to be prepared in an emergency for your pet. And because they are laminated cards that are the same size as your average drivers license, they fit easily into your wallet.
I would recommend these to anyone--it's a great thing to have, it's cheap and it's an extra layer of security for your pet. Please check them out! I love mine, the quality is great! Plus I get to carry around a little ID card for my dog in my wallet, and nothing is cuter than that.
Mason went to an Easter Egg hunt today, and he sucked. He was too busy pulling and regressing in his good behavior because of all the other dogs he couldn't go say hi to to find any eggs. It was awful.
But in other news, I was talking to Cara today about how I was going to write an entry about weight earlier when I realized it wasn't really anything about myself, I was just kind of being critical of others caring about it, and I didn't want anyone to get offended--plus this a blog about myself, so I should reserve it for things about myself. I just worry that people focus so much on the way they look that they lose sight of how beautiful they are--and that's my opinion on that.
In other-other news, I got an awesome new hoodie. Target is having a sale on their men's Mossimo hoodies in tons of cool colors. I got a medium to fit over my big ol' hips, but it's cotton so I'm hoping it will shrink a bit since the top is baggy. I want to go get a hilighter yellow one too...
I guess to connect a photo of myself to the aforementioned weight discussion, since why the heck not, I know I'm not the prettiest person alive. I don't try to be. I don't wear makeup, I try to burp as loud as possible and my glasses and shoes are always dirty. I eat whatever I please and I wear tshirts more than I do dresses. But I don't feel like I need to look a certain way to validate myself--I don't care. I just wish people would not care too, because everyone is amazing and beautiful in their own way.
