Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Ready?

Are you ready Mr. Woo?

Ready???

Get set ....

GO!!!!

.... lie down and eat snow.

Le sigh. World's Laziest Dog.

We hooked up with The Boy and his dogs today for a snowy walk. Piper was excited.

So was Hayden.

We all met up because I needed to take photos of his foster puppy, who is MINE ALL MINE MINE MINE MINE!!!

Actually, her name is Daisy and she is 6 months of cuddly snuzzle cuteness. She is almost ready for adoption ... unless I scoop her first!

But Daisy doesn't want to live with me; she wants to stay with The Boy and his dogs, because she only has eyes for Jackpot.

Wait for me Jack! I wuv you!

Yay! Me and Jack, Jack and me! Lemme give you smoocheroonis!

What the -? Where'd this thing come from? I CAN'T SEE MY JACK!!

Jack is sooooo sexy.

So if you are looking for puppy adorableness to add to your pack, look for Daisy on our website in 2009.


Moooommmm! Hayden's tongue is abnormally long!

... and Jack's in my photo!

This dog could not believe we crossed paths! (Owner recognized the two woofs, and The Woo, from the blog. Fans - my dogs haz some.)

Not a bad way to bid adieu to the old year ... good company and a pack o'border collies in the snow.

Except ... where's lazy pants Woo??

What?

Happy New Year to all of you, from all of us!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Hero

This man is my hero.



Thank you Jeremy.


I wanted to edit this to share with you all a coyote story of my own.

Many years ago I when I had just the one dog, Briggs, we used to go to a little used field every day after work to play fetch. Briggs was not so good with other dogs in his lifetime, and at this stage he was very very bad, so no off leash parks for us. No one else used this field.

One afternoon while throwing Briggs' kong-on-a-rope (pre-Chuck-It days!) a young female coyote appeared on the field, and sat down to watch. I was worried initially because I thought Briggs would for sure fight with her, and lose badly. I'd heard all the nasty coyote stories too. But he looked at her with mild curiosity and nothing else - she meant him no harm, and he knew it.

After a few throws, the coyote began to chase Briggs down the field as he chased his Kong. Then she went for the Kong herself and I thought "Oh great, there goes my toy."

But I was wrong. She dropped the toy within 5 feet of me, backed up in a play bow and waited for me to throw it again. She and Briggs took turns fetching the Kong. It was one of the most thrilling events I ever witnessed.

For several days running, Coyote would meet us at the park, she and Briggs would share a sniff and then they would politely take turns playing fetch with the Kong. It became our daily routine. I told no one, as I didn't want anyone to interfere with our game.

The last time we played with her, she tried to follow us home when we left the park for the day. She actually walked about a block with us before I recognized how foolish it was for me to let her come with us, into the neighborhood. I stamped my foot at her, and she shied away, merely confused. So I threw a rock near her, and she turned and bolted back to the park.

We never played with Coyote again - she never came back. And I know I did the right thing, but it still breaks my heart that she reached out like a dog to make friends, a very brave thing for a shy animal to do, and I had to burn that fragile bridge. I mean, you can't bring home a coyote to your urban apartment. But I've never looked at coyotes the same way since.

If this is not okay:


or this


This this is not okay either.


May the universe have mercy on the "souls" who would do this to an animal.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Bienvenido a casa, Food Lady!

Harumph. Some welcome.

This is our car, at YVR, covered in 3 feet of snow. Since all the other cars were covered in 3 feet of snow too, it was kind of difficult to locate in the parking lot.

The more observant of you may have noticed the tow truck in the background. It was there to rescue our car, which in addition to being buried under a mountain, was also stone cold dead.

Chucks and an autumn jacket were inappropriate homecoming wear, given the snowy state of our fair city. Best Place on Earth my fanny!!

THIS is the best place on earth:

The Caribbean is possibly the most beautiful place I have ever been. I didn't know water even came in that colour! It sure has our oceans beat by several bazillion miles. It's even kind of warm, if a bit wavy-crashy. A rogue wave (never turn your back on the ocean) in Tulum caused me to flash my sister's boyfriend (never wear a bikini AND turn your back on the ocean), but snorkeling in Puerto Aventuras was heavenly. The water was calm in the bay, and it was literally deserted ... it was just me, and a whole lot of extremely curious and friendly fish who swam right up and kissed my mask. Meanwhile, my mum was back at the pool downing fruity boozy things, and my stepdad was clinging in terror to the side of the fishboat that took us to the snorkeling place.

But you sort of can't blame him. On the way to the snorkeling bay, he was fishing and caught two of these:

Barracuda. With really big, sharp, pointy teeth. And they were angry. So you can see why he was reluctant to get into that same ocean!

Everywhere I went in Mexico, I befriended dogs. We went into Playa Del Carmen and wandered around, and I made friends with this little cutiepie button sugar lump that I named "MINE!!!!"

She was dirty, and super skinny, and very mangy and was obviously someone's dog as she was "protecting" their property. But she was also about 6 months old and as wiggly as an orgasmic eel and keen to make friends. I thought she would make a beautiful compadre to Wootie Boots, but my parents would not let me take her home. This was a theme throughout our entire trip: "No Food Lady, you cannot have that dog either." Harumph.

Bye bye MINE!!!! :(

When we went to Tulum, I also made some friends there. I called them Guy and Bunny. First Guy appeared at my side and strolled along the water's edge with me, and after about 20 minutes Bunny appeared out of nowhere and joined us. And we walked and walked, while I threw sticks for "my" new dogs and got lots of snuzzles, in between wrasslin' bouts.

The dogs live very differently in Mexico. There doesn't apear to be any leash laws in Tulum, so while these two fellas obviously belonged to people, they were free to wander around the beach at their leisure. I never did see their humans. They also know not to come up to the hotels along the beach.

I was thinking about how much a dog like Mr. Woo would like that sort of lifestyle (it would terrify Tweed, who can't do anything without checking with me first) but I also felt a bit sorry for the dogs there too. Even the owned dogs were dirty, and had ticks or patches of mange, and they were all skinny. And every single one of them had testicles the size of bowling balls. Apparently neutering is not a priority in Mexico.

There is a really interesting group called VIDAS ("lives") that is composed of volunteer veterinarians and staff who travel around the world administering vet care to dogs and cats in low income areas. They are very active in Cancun, Puerto Morales etc. Our fishing guide's girlfriend works with VIDAS.

I didn't see nearly as many street dogs in the Yucatan as I saw in Puerto Vallarta last time I was there, but I did see loads of cats. And every single last one of them appears to be retarded. They too are mangy and ticky, but they are also mostly cross eyed and have weird broken meows. They all look like they are drunk.

This fella was slinking around the Mayan Ruins in Tulum:

And this big bruiser was yowling at us in Akumal:

"No Food Lady, you cannot take home the cats either."

*shakes fist at cruel parents*

I saw just one border collie in Playa, and it was only an inch tall. It was herding a small flock of ducks in a creche outside someone's house:

RANDOM BARRACUDA INTERLUDE!!

One of the coolest places we went to was something called Crococun Zoo in Puerto Morales - once upon a time it was a commercial crocodile farm, where the giant lizard things were raised for their hides. But as the crocodile is now an endangered species, it has become a crocodile sanctuary, where they breed and raise crocs for re-release in safe areas.

Ummm hi! No fence between me and this mouth, btw.

Crococun offers guided tours to the public, to help sustain its conservation efforts. You get to walk in and amongst the crocodiles and even hold the little ones.

What you cannot see in this photo is the lump of poo in my stepdad's pants. HAH!

You can also hold snakes. In this photo, my stepdad looks very concerned ... not because he is holding a snake, but rather because our guide told him the snake was about to SHED. English is not Carlos' first language, so he thought the snake was about to SHIT and he was kind of worried it would shit on him.

We had the BEST guide named Frank, who was from Belize. He saw how excited I got when I saw the Xolo dogs, so he brought some up out of the pen for me to snuzzle.

And then I got loads of Xolo Snuzzle Time.

They feel really cool, cuz they have no hair. They were all warm and shizzat, and this one was super friendly and licky.

Look at that face!

And look at THIS face!

There were other super cool things to play with at Crococun as well. I got to pet and feed deer:
*dies from cuteness*

and feed monkeys.

It was the best Christmas Day EVER. So if you ever go to Puerto Morales, make sure you stop in for a tour at Crococun. You can read more about the park here. And make sure you ask for Frank as your guide, cuz he was great!

All week long at the hotel, I tried to catch one of these things, called an Agouti.

I figured Wootie would really really like one a whole lot. They look like rabbit/pig/deer/guinea pigs and they were all over the hotel grounds. But the little suckers are super fast and too hard to catch.

Mexican crows:

and toucans

and parrots. Oh my!

And now I am back with my own Canadian beasties, and we are out 'enjoying' weather that looks like this:

It's a little difficult to reconcile!

Feliz Navidad and Prospero Año Nuevo dear readers!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

If the Mountain won't come to Mohammad

Then Mohammad is going to load two people and five dogs into a mini van and visit the damn Mountain.

Cypress Mountain I mean.

Last week's snowfall was a bait-n-switch. For two hours big happy flakes drifted slowly to earth and blanketed everything in a Christmasy fashion. I got up to use the washroom and when I came pack it was pouring rain and all the snow was gone. WTF?

Well, that's just not good enough. Dammit, my dogs wanted winter snowtimez, and by doG, they were going to get it. So we went and found some.

Loads of it.

The folks at Cypress could not be nicer, even though it was opening day and the mountain was packed. They gave us back country passes and a map, and sent us out to let our dogs enjoy the trails. We felt really sorry for all the dogs we passed in the parking lot that were stuck in cars whilst their people skied. Poor woofs.

WARNING!!!

This is your dog:

And this is your dog on snow:

RAAWWR!!

Captain Ice Beard wants to give you smoocheroonis.

The dogs were soooo happy!

Yay! I'm king of the snowtimez!

Think again, Ice Balls!
(and Tweed goes down)

Ha ha! Eat my snow!

And then Tweed got stuck.

Umm ... a little help here?

hahahahaha!

Oh yeah. Real funny. Hi-larious.

I'll just add this to the list of Reasons Food Lady Must Die, shall I?

Abominable Snow Jenn!

Oh look! Family portrait:

Okay, not really, cuz that's Jenn, not Piper. But whatever - they are both small, they both have enormous ears, and they are both more evil than the devil himself.

How dare you. I am *nothing* like that Jenn bitch!

Oh, umm, really?

You're probably wondering where all the Wootie photos are. Well, he kindly posed for a picture or two ...

And then he took off, and we didn't see him again for like an hour. Mr. Woo follows the beat of a different drummer. Too bad that drummer is not smart enough to walk on the trail instead of swimming through deep drifts.

Robyn wants my job. And if it means sitting in the snow ... well, she can have it! Brrr!

I have to say, I really love SnowFaces. They crack me up!

Especially SnowFaceTweed:

And SnowFaceJenny is just hella cute.

Ok. A REAL family portrait of two extremely happy woofs and an ecstatic Woo!

And today's photo WIN goes to Jenny, who's all Why you pointin' that box in my face, bizzatch?

So at long last, the dogs got their WinterSnowTimez. There was some whining on the way back to the car - worse than kids!! "My feet are cold and have snow in them; the ice balls on my stomach are touching my weiner; I can't feel my toes." (oh wait, that last one was Robyn) but now they are all fast asleep under my chair.

It's funny, because today I was looking at this:

And this time next week I'll be looking at this!


So if I do not get a chance to post again, Merry Christmas, dear readers. I hope Santa is as good to you as he's going to be to me!

Many blessings on all your houses :)