Category: Fun Fursday

Norman Wins An Award ~ 2022

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 81 Comments

Happy first day of Autumn, everyone!

For the second Thursday in a row, we’re sharing a post to welcome our favorite season as well as sharing highlights from a couple of events the Ranch in-house pet therapist participated in recently.

First, the Annual Pet Therapy Awards program was held last Friday (following a 2 year COVID hiatus) and then Norman joined a few other pet therapists at a nearby event, “Bark In The Park” in Arvada on Saturday. Participation in events like this to help showcase our program and demonstrate how volunteers and their pets make a positive impact in our community.

This year’s awards get together was a delightful surprise since I didn’t think we’d qualify for any recognition. Norman has only been a member of the hospital’s pet therapy program since last June yet our hero managed to qualify by having more than 20 visits during the year. Even though our program has diminished in size, it is still full of spirited and loving pet therapists and their owners. Here are a few pics from the event.

Norman
I’d like to thank my Mum, my agent, my Ninja sister, Lutheran, all my fur-pals in the program… [cue the “get off the stage now” exit music]
Before the presentation, the early birds were rapt with attention and enthusiasm with fellow teammate Janet’s seemingly endless supply of treats which she cheerfully doled out to the piglets good dogs. I think I need to bring a replacement bag of treats to her for all the ones the biggest piglet ate.

Here’s the majority of the dogs in attendance. There were a couple who are part of the program but who did not attend. It can be somewhat overwhelming and some excellent therapy dogs prefer quieter event rather than a conference room filled with lots of high energy, amped up pooches.

Pet Therapy

It’s always hilarious trying to get everyone to stay in place long enough to get a group photo. One notable missing pup, Norman’s Corgi pal Zoe, had her photo taken separately with her mom, Amy who was this year’s organizer for the event. Isn’t she just too adorable? Just look at that cute face!Corgi

Corgi
Zoe’s award ceremony bogarted by a certain sheepdog who was making sure the name was spelled correctly

For some reason, Norman seem to make it his mission to photobomb several of the presentations. Truthfully, there are enough outtake pics, that would merit their own separate post  {#oh that dog}.

Norman made sure the award was suitable for sweet Riley, an enthusiastic and sweet Golden Retriever. For the life of me, I could not keep this big oaf from getting his big fat head in nearly all the frames. I’ve never been so embarrassed by this ox-maybe Elsa has it right when she rants about his bigger than life presence around the Ranch.

Riley

At Saturday’s “Bark In The Park” event, our pet therapy program set up a booth to educate the public about our pet therapy program and to potentially recruit new members to join our team. It was a good event which also benefited the Arvada public dog park. Proceeds from the event will be used to spruce up the park and perform much needed maintenance work over the last two weeks of September so dogs and their suburban owners can continue to enjoy the large wide open space.

As you can see, personable Norman who doesn’t know a stranger, made friends with the folks in the booth next to Lutheran’s. PetWell Clinic is opening a new location for affordable and convenient walk-in vet care in the Sloan’s Lake area in November. Vet tech, Christina graciously appeared with Norman and we chatted about their expansion. We are excited about visiting them once the space opens.

Bark in the Park

All in all it was a super filled weekend but one that was super fulfilling for me and Norman. This boy is such a sport when it comes to events like these. He definitely deserved a few rejuvenating naps following both events.

Norman

Have a great autumn!

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Exciting News

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 96 Comments

Last week we promised to share some exciting news about the goings on around the Ranch and today is that day. Normally we don’t post on Thursdays so today seemed like the perfect opportunity to share the news.

As you probably know, Norman was rescued from the Old English Sheepdog Rescue of Colorado two years ago. Since bringing this sweet boy home, I’ve become more and more involved as a volunteer with the rescue. They are a great group of folks whose sole mission is totally dedicated to the rescue and rehoming of unwanted, abandoned and neglected Old English Sheepdogs. Like most rescue groups, we’re constantly trying to stretch limited financial resources to best fulfill our mission.

We recently became aware of an amazing opportunity which will further our efforts. I am pleased to announce, Old English Sheepdogs of Colorado has been chosen by Canine Colorado Magazine for its latest fundraiser. The magazine features a two page spread of each dog from the recipient rescue and we’re very excited at the fundraising potential. Ranch Hand Norman is one of the dogs who makes an appearance in the magazine. Here’s a brief video look behind the scenes at last week’s modeling session (Elsa also had professional photos taken of her by DelaFoto Portraits, photographer for Canine Colorado Magazine but will not appear in the magazine- sorry Ninja…only Sheepies for this spread). The session latest about 45 minutes and the big guy was a total professional.

I may be slightly biased, but think he’s every bit as handsome as David Beckham’s days on the runway. Guess there’s more pressure than ever for him to sign an agent now with his new job as a SuperModel.

Once the final magazine is published, I’ll share more of this new newest modeling phenome. So far fame hasn’t gone to his head (yet) and he continues to be the same easy going ‘grounded’ pup as always.

Norman

In other news, we are no longer able to post images to Instagram. The “MetaVerse” has been less than responsive in resolving an issue despite multiple requests. Sadly we cannot even log in to see others’ feeds. On the plus side, it’s one less black hole to be dragged into go down {insert snarky snicker}. I’ve wasted enough energy and brain power trying to resolve this issue. I’m done. {mic drop}

See you guys tomorrow for our regular Nature Friday post. I hope to not post any more snow images though Nature isn’t quite cooperating and may need to dig into the old archives to avoid playing into Mother Nature’s cold, cruel hands. Happy ‘Fursday!’

Live, love, bark!  🐾

Ahoy Mateys!

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 54 Comments

Greetings swashbucklers…today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Created in 1995 by long-time friends John Baur (Ol’ Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap’n Slappy) of Oregon, who while playing a friendly game of racquetball and for reasons still somewhat unknown, began shouting pirate slang at each other. The silliness began to take on a life of its own when they decided to create a holiday celebrating ‘piratude.’ Summers has been credited with choosing the date (his ex-wife’s birthday).

For a few years, their holiday remained in relative obscurity until they happened to connect with the syndicated columnist and author, Dave Barry. With media coverage following Barry’s column about it, the event is now celebrated internationally,PirateNaturally the Knucklehead and Ninja are joining their Blogville fur-iends, Captain Da Nelly, First Mate Kismet and Swashbuckler Shoko in the merriment. So grab a bottle of beer rum and enjoy some good ole fashion pirate booty. Just make sure to watch your step if you plan on walking the plank…we hear that first step can be a dousie.

Pirate

Live, love, bark!

A Valentine’s Day PSA

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 61 Comments

 

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Nature Friday ~ January 11, 2019

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 76 Comments

Nature Friday

Kudos for surviving the week and if you’re like us, you’re excitedly waiting for the weekend to begin. Welcome to today’s edition of Nature Friday where we join our fur-iends Rosy and her brothers from LLB in Our Backyard.

While the temperature outside is the warmest it will be all day at a balmy 34F with a beautiful wet snow falling here, we thought we’d share a photo of a real snow storm from a few years ago. These kinds of storms are only in my dreams these days and can only hope we ever receive that much again.

Snow storm

However you spend your weekend, we hope you enjoy it.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Creating a New Year

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 47 Comments

Realizing a detox was probably necessary after my holiday fudge transfusion, I came to the conclusion I should probably detox my addled brain too. Along with my best intentions, I found myself diving down the online rabbit-hole a bit too much. When you finally come to your senses, look around and discover you just lost 3 hours when you only consciously meant to look up X  and wonder why the heck you’re now reading Y which was totally unrelated, you probably need to do a reassessment. Or have an intervention. Has this ever happened to you? What’s that old saying…the road to hell is paved with the best of intentions? Well, I reckon to change that now in 2019.

It seemed clear I needed to spend more time visiting the library than falling down the rabbit-hole, fun as that may be. Enter an old-fashioned concept…reading a book. I have a complicated history with reading. While I do enjoy it, taking 87 years to get my degree years ago (but by golly I did it and graduated Phi Beta Kappa eligible), reading for pleasure was a luxury I didn’t have, nor a habit that was very well-developed. Making ends meet while raising a couple of kids in a new urban location, working full-time and going to school at night, didn’t exactly lend itself to reading for pleasure. There was always too much required reading for classes or kids to parent or grocery shopping or cooking, cleaning…well you get the idea. It’s always easy putting things off, isn’t it?

Several months ago I entered a couple of blog contests and actually won a couple of amazing books related to my passion-pet rescue. One book struck a special chord with me. Mind you, I wasn’t actually the winner, but the author, Diane Rose-Solomon was touched enough by my entry describing Elsa’s rescue story that she generously sent a signed copy of her book nonetheless. A hectic summer turned into a busy fall, and then the winter holidays hit which brings me here. Excuses and apologies.

Although I finished the book back in November while in Mexico, I’m just now writing a long overdue review for which I sincerely apologize to Diane. This book is easy to read, provides loads of tips with resources and the chapters can be easily read in any order. Add to the fact Diane has a rescue named Ninja…well imagine how that touched me.

Organized into five modules, Diane shares personal experience from the heart and provides oodles of resources. You know…real life stuff. Have an issue with a particular aspect of rescuing a dog? You can easily find it covered in one of the modules. While I’ve rescued more than one shelter dog, Elsa’s story was complicated because she spent years in a puppy mill cage. Diane’s book gave me insight I hadn’t encountered with diverse resources that has helped with her socialization. A quick and gentle read, once I earnestly dug into it I was irritated at how easily I let myself get distracted with other things before finishing this pawsome book.

Even if you’re a seasoned dog owner, this book will provide you with expert advice from rescue specialists, veterinarians, dog parents, and pet business owners with links to the most relevant articles from pet professionals, making this book a one-stop shop for dog-related questions, before, during, and after adoption. I can’t urge you enough to have this excellent resource on your own bookshelf. Many, many thanks to Diane for being patient with me. It is most appreciated. And make sure you stop by her website to check out all the great things with which she’s involved. You’ll be glad you did.

Happy reading! I look forward to sharing more reviews of pet related books and articles throughout 2019. Now where did I put that library card?

Live, love, bark! 🐾

And the winner is…

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 52 Comments

ContestThank you to everyone who left a comment on Monday’s post for the bandana drawing. Sam here. Because Elsa sort of hinted she was rather amenable to bribery, mom made her sit out the actual drawing and only let her snoopervise from a distance. I, on the other hand, thoroughly read each of the comments before picking a winner. Drum roll please….

And the winner is…

Sue and her pups, Shadow and Ducky at In My Heart Forever. Woof-woof! Congratulations, your reversible bandana is on its way. We think those pumpkins will look smashing on either one of you.

Shadow & Ducky

We had a lot of fun with this contest, and mom is thinking she’d like to do another one soon. This time we’ll be sure to include a prize that our kitty fur-iends can enjoy. Mom was sorry she neglected to include something for them this time. And she says I’m the Knucklehead?

Live, love, bark! 🐾

A-Visiting We Will Go

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 40 Comments

If you don’t hear from us, it means that Sam and I are visiting with patients and staff for the next couple of days but are looking forward to sharing our adventures with you soon. Have a super ‘Furs-Day.’

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Did You Know? June 5, 2018 Edition

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 63 Comments

The Ranch is starting a new periodic feature called “Did You Know?” beginning today. I plan to take various issues or weirdness and share info about it. Today’s entry proved to be a bit of a doozy but one you too may have experienced.

You know that gurgling sound that comes from your dog’s stomach? Did you know it’s got an actual name? “Borborygmi.” Nope, that’s not a typo, borborygmi, pronounced [bawr-buh–rig-mahy]. What the dog?! Yeah, I know. I was blown away too. If anyone can explain why science has to get all ‘scientific-y sounding’ with its descriptions, I’d love to hear it. 

Anyway, Sam recently experienced some unusually loud stomach gurgling. I mean REALLY loud. So I did what many fur-mom’s do…I consulted Dr. Google while waiting for the vet to call back. Not one to put blind faith in ‘Net misinformation hyperbole, I figured I’d do a bit of research and the kindly Doc did provide lots of rabbit holes to dive into where I rather quickly found some reliable sources. Dogs, cats and even us uprights experience ‘borborygmi.’

The simple  definition is intestinal agitation caused by moving gas. Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place? So let’s dig a bit deeper into this weird scientific phenomena. So it’s apparently normal for there to be gas in the intestinal tract and it’s also normal for the intestines to engage in motility…the condition whereby intestinal contents move around, thus audible intestinal gurgling is pretty normal.

According to Dogster, “abnormally loud intestinal noises occur when the intestines contain abnormally large quantities of gas, or when the intestines experience abnormally increased activity. Both of these phenomena often occur simultaneously.” Super loud (as in, you can hear it from across the room) is not normal but does not necessarily mean a crisis is brewing. Stomach grumbling may indicate something is off or, your pet could be hungry. Empty intestines in dogs may start to exhibit activity in response to anticipated feeding, thus the audible intestinal noises, or “tummy grumbling” may occur. Serving a meal usually takes care of that since the intestines of hungry animals do not contain significant quantities of food and thus have a higher ratio of gas to solids. Okay,so far  this sounds legit.

In Sam’s case, he acted normal (well, as normal as he is capable of acting). He displayed no other symptoms indicating there was a problem (i.e. lethargy, fever, stuff like that). But then he began experiencing some diarrhea. Not good but I figured a couple of days of bland rice and pumpkin meals should clear up the upset. Sadly, it didn’t clear up and I feared dehydration so off to the vet we went.

I wasn’t able to get into my regular TV star vet any time soon but they were able to refer me to another clinic close by. They asked whether Sam “had perhaps partaken in some sort of digestion indiscretion” (a diplomatic way of saying your dog may have gotten into the trash or had eaten some novel food or worse…goose poop…really? who admits to that). Nope, nothing like that had occurred, so they decided Sam was suffering from a minor gastro-bug after ruling out intestinal parasites, IBD, or foreign bodies (which would be Elsa’s speciality).

Long story short (ironic since we’re probably 600+ words in but I digress)…a couple of doses of Metronidazole for inflammation and an antibiotic for the bug, brought Sam back to normal poops while simultaneously clearing up those loud gurgling sounds. Other than expecting specially prepared meals after recovering (sheesh talk about one spoiled baby), he’s back to his usual knuckleheadedness.

So the next time your pooch’s stomach is gurgling figure out if he’s just hungry or suffering from borborygmi. Your family will think you’re trying to land a fat contract on Animal Planet but if he eats with his normal enthusiasm and the noises stop, the problem is solved. If like Sam it was accompanied with diarrhea, put your TV career on hold and check with your vet to rule out other issues.

I’m better now. So where’s the Chicken Souvlaki with Tzatziki Sauce?

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Tally Thursday

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 48 Comments

Looks like the vote is in and Blogville has spoken! Hi there, Sam here. Unlike a few incumbent candidates who lost primaries this week, I, on the other hand, managed to get my worthy message out directly to the people and they agreed with me.

Mom said the count wasn’t even close, you all thought I deserved treats. She’s been sighing a lot since counting up the votes but I’m as happy as a clam at hide tide. You guys rock! Thanks so much for believing in my plea campaign for equality when it comes to the treat dispensing on our training sessions. When I excitedly told Elsa, she shrugged her shoulders and said. “pfft…I’m still mom’s favorite.” But you and I know better, don’t we? 

Thank you for all the fur-bulous comments. I am basking in your empathy good judgment. Let’s get the celebration started and quickly move on toward Friday. You with me? I promise not to upend anyone.

Live, love, bark! 🐾