Wat is a "Life"

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. :)

Secret Project

Cara and I have a secret project in the works--a hopeful webcomic! I won't reveal many details, mostly because we're still working on it, but it's gonna be sweet. It's kind of on the backburner at the moment since we're both pretty busy, but it's ALWAYS in the back of my mind. I spent a few days nonstop doodling for it, and we figured out the designs for the main characters!









The last pic was one of the many tossed designs for her, we went with a shorter ponytail to kind of give an approachable appearance--one thing I really wanted was a girl that wasn't typically pretty. Someone relatable. She has a bandana to mirror her dogs bandana, and she wears jean shorts and kicks. Her dog is a mix of our dogs, he has Didgeridoo's coloring and one floppy ear, medium length legs and he has Mason's pointy ear and his blaze! I think they make an adorable baby.

To give a brief hint, it's a girl-and-dog adventure story with some mythical overlays and it's going to be set in Australia!

EDIT: 3/27/12: Here's an illustration of the two main characters by Cara! I LOVE IT:

Fetch and Frisbee

So I'd like to think I have one of the smartest dogs alive. Mason is a PRO at fetching, but he's always been afraid of frisbees. The other day I spent 2 minutes throwing a frisbee to my mom and making it look like it was the coolest thing ever while her dog ran around and acted like he wanted the frisbee (he didn't), and Mason instantly started going after it. After a few minutes of just going up to where it landed and pawing at it, he started catching it. In total, it took under 10 minutes for him to start catching the frisbee. I took him out today and practiced--he's not doing as well as he did that first time, but I'm sure it will take some time for him to get used to jumping as high as he did every time for it. Here's a video:



I was going to just write up some advice on how to teach your dog fetch, because had he not been a SUPER longtime pro at catching a tennis ball and returning it, it would have made that endeavor a LOT more difficult.

Mason learned how to play fetch at a relatively young age. Honestly those super baby days of his life kinda blur together to me now, but I remember spending a long time throwing a ball and having to go get it, and him refusing to give it to me.

The ball I used to generate his initial interest in going and getting the ball (because why would he? BORING!) Was a 2 dollar Kong squeaker tennis ball. Like most dogs/puppies, Mason is nuts about squeaky things, so he was all over it (before it got destroyed by a dog at the dog park in under a minute one day, then we moved to normal balls, which he had laying around at home and chewed on). Also rolling around a normal tennis ball to a puppy gets them chasing it short distances, and builds up interest.

To get him to return and drop--well, it sounds like a simple and basic concept, but honestly I used cheese. I was all about using cheese when he was little to get calcium to his ears so they would stand up, and now they form a little triangle sometimes as you see in that video. He LOVESSSSSSSS cheese, and I would just treat him every time he'd go get the ball, which would make him run back WITH the ball for the cheese, and then I'd say drop it when he dropped the ball for the cheese. Tons of practice and patience later and he was a pro. You basically have to find your dogs one vice--the food he will go NUTS over, and use it against him repeatedly.

Mason is a fetch FANATIC now, and I really do believe it gives him a job to do and he is more satisfied after a good round of it.

Here are some photos from the day he learned how to catch a frisbee, where he puts that video to shame.







He busted those 2 frisbees in the photos, by the way. They were hard plastic normal frisbees, both alleged for dogs but obviously not able to withstand any sort of catching. I went to check out the Kong frisbee, but at 15 bucks my cheap ass was like HELL no. So I checked out Petco's cheap frisbees and they are sort of soft and flexible plastic, and so far no busting and they seem like they'll hold up a long time and be cheap to replace. (3 bucks for a big one, 2 bucks for a mini one).

Friends and Junk

So, my friend Cara finally got her blog up and running again! She's the author of Monster of All Cakes over to the sidebar to the right there and she wrote the sweetest entry where she mentioned me, Mason and Beetlejuice here! I've actually been waiting for her to post and mention her pup, Didgeridoo so I can write about her as well so here goes!

Cara and I have been friends since my freshman year of college, and although we had our falling out and whatever, I'm really glad to call her my friend once again. We've always had an insane-lot-in-common (and still do evidently, even with our time apart!), and I'm sad that we managed this and then I left Memphis so we never get to hang, but we still talk often about dogs, bikes and a potential comic that we wanna start, which is exciting beyond BELIEF because I've been wanting to start a new webcomic with a friend!

She got Didgeridoo, what is possibly a catahoula/lab/aussie mix a few months ago, and he's wonderful. He started my love of catahoulas, as mentioned in my last post about what kinda dog I want:


(Photo from facebook!)

To nerd about him for a moment: he has the cutest floppy ears, the most handsome merley-patchy-coloring-with-tan-points and the sweetest face! I wish so badly I could have snatched up one of his siblings, but he's definitely made me really want my next dog to have a bit of catahoula, because I'm a sucker for him! (Him and a dog I follow on instagram named Charlie--he's a catahoula corgi mix (his owner refers to him as a corgahoula) and he has Didgi's face on a short lil body! SO CUTE!)

He apparently gets some flak for his breed and barking (some people say he has cattledog in him, which I also mentioned in my last post where most people judge them to be sour tempered), but I know he's a sweet boy. Cara has raised him really well, socializes him regularly and he gets plenty of exercise.

Cara also rides bikes waaay more than I do and for way longer, and she does Hardcourt Bike Polo and Fixed Gear Freestyle, both of which I find crazy awesome. I'd like to eventually do some tricks, and I've been practicing my trackstanding and riding backwards in the garage the past few rainy days!

Anyways, I don't know if many people read this, but I wanted to write a bit about her in hopes you'll enjoy her blog as well. We both will be writing about our dogs and junk, so I know they'll both be fun reads!