Nature Friday ~ October 23, 2026

June's Tea PartyHappy Friday. Today is a special day, I’m penning a two-for-one post! First, as we typically do, we are joining the Adventures of the LLB Gang. But following our regular nature post, I’m galloping over to June’s Tea Party of the century at Zoolatry. We hope you’ll join us over there once you’ve strolled through our autumn photos. Click on the links to check out all the fun.

Looks like autumn has finally arrived with trees beginning to show some color change. Yesterday on our walk, we finally found some leaves actually changing color. Some are still green, some are yellow and brown but others are finally changing to red/orange. We’re still getting used to the area on this side of town so every day as the landscape changes is an adventure as to what is going on visually.

Autumn leaves
What…I can’t hear you…that tree is too loud.

With a few trees showing some bona fide autumn color and not just the yellow from all the cottonwoods near our house, you can see the creek is barely running now. Trees along this stretch are mostly yellow (and/or brown) since we still haven’t received much rain. It’s ironic as southwest Colorado (Pagosa Springs, in particular) are experiencing some serious flooding the past couple of days. Nature sure is cranky. Maybe when I go to June’s Tea Party, I’ll offer her a cuppa so she can calm down.

Autumn leaves

Autumn leaves

If you look way in the background, you can see a couple of trees that read the memo about changing colors. Mum and I walked over one of the bridges at the golf course to see if there was anything colorful toward the west. The sky was cloudy and threatening all day but we only received about 15 drops of rain. Nature continues to tease us.

We found a lovely out-of-the way spot along the trail near the tap house so naturally Mum had to stop and made me pose for her. Give that woman a camera and she’s all up in your grill. Notice my furs were stolen this week? It hasn’t been cold yet for me to shiver, it’s just nice and crisp for our morning saunters.

Wilson - autumn

Well that’s it from me. Time for me to sashay over the Tea Party and serve some cake to the guests. I’m going to volunteer to clean up any crumbs left on the grounds. We hope to see you there. Both Mum and I wish you a great weekend and hope you’ll be able to get out and walk about in crunchy leaves and enjoy the sights and sniffs autumn provides.

Nature

Live, love, bark~ 🐾

Monday Musings ~ June 15, 2026

Greetings, peeps. We hope today’s morning smile doesn’t involve anyone to be unnecessarily dressed up…just a straight up delivery of your favorite wake up beverage. Happy Monday.

Monday smile

Make it a terrific Monday!

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Work Like a Dog Day ~ 2025

We don’t generally post on Tuesday but today is one that really applies to Wilson which is why we’re joining our friends at The Cat Blogosphere for “Work Like A Dog Day” today. This celebration is held every August 5th. Drop by their monthly calendar for all manner of cool celebrations and announcements.

While this is strictly an unofficial holiday, we think it’s important to celebrate all the hard work that working dogs like herding dogs, hunting dogs, rescue, service and in our personal case, therapy dogs who work hard, providing help and cheer for their humans. Please notice that the House Pony takes his daily contributions quite seriously.

Wilson

Cat Blogosphere badge

Happy Tuesday peeps!

Monday Musings ~ September 9, 2024

Monday smile

Seriously…? It’s got to be a mistake. However this happened, we hope you make the best of it. Happy Monday!

Everyone at the Ranch is in a celebratory mood because it’s a special someone’s birthday. Happy Barkday to our pal, da Phenny! We hope it’s ‘pawfect!’

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Celebrating August Friends

Wilson badgeGreetings sports fans, yeah, I know it’s not our usual day to post but I just couldn’t contain my excitement that our friends Ann and June from Zoolatry featured the House Pony on her blog today. Way to go Wilson, although I’m sure I would have been an equally pawsome feature subject. Elsa here, I’m very proud of my oaf of a brother, especially because he will begin bringing joy and smiles to all kinds of folks when he starts visiting the staff and patients at the new Lutheran facility which opened earlier this month. And a special shout out to dear Ann who created such fabulous badges-we love them both. Isn’t she amazing? Be sure to visit her website-she’s so creative and quite generous making badges of all types for the cats and dogs of Blogville. We are so very grateful to her for her work here and throughout Blogville. Way to go Ann!

Wilson's wagon

Wilson’s Wagon will begin his probationary visits at the hospital next week and both Mom and he are so looking forward to bringing comfort to the folks at Lutheran. Once he completes his probationary period, he’s be awarded the purple scarf indicating he’s a full fledged pet therapy pooch. Couldn’t be more proud of the dude! Way to shine, “Intern Wilson.” You’re on your way to becoming a full fledged dogtor. And again, thanks every so much, Ann for doing an amazing job on today’s badges-you’re the best. That Denver skyline is the bomb! Don’t forget to drop by her truly wonderful blog. She’s the best!

Friends header
Live, love, bark 🐾

Monday Musings ~ July 15, 2024

Monday smiles

Here we are again. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about setting another record breaking day…but hopefully it will be the last one for a while. We hope everyone had a good weekend, stayed as cool as possible as well as hydrated and that this week is kinder and more gentle to you. The countdown for a cool front to arrive is on to which we say…yes please.

Have a great day and an even better week. Happy Monday.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Nature Friday ~ October 6, 2023

ElsaDoh-de-do-do…”leaf your worries behind,” I always say, because it’s now October. Oh hi, Elsa here to share some 411 about leaf peeping with scenes from around the ‘Hood and our state. As always, we are joining our pals, Rosy and Sunny from LLB in Our Backyard. Don’t forget to click on the link to see what else has been shared.

So a ‘funny’ thing happened this week. We didn’t see it but heard about it on the news. The weather people were saying if you planned to catch any “gold in them thar hills,” you better get a cracking because some white stuff dusted a few mountain peaks and snow always makes leaves fall quickly, from what I’ve been told. White stuff? What the dog?! Sure, I go on and on about the brutal summer temps but I wasn’t inviting Mother Nature to take me so seriously. Eek…I take it all back, Mother Nature. Can we do a quick rewind? We’re not quite ready for that drastic of a change, though Mom said it’ll be back in the 80’s before we see white stuff. ‘Course, I reminded her we do tend to get bouts of nasty weather around Halloween just to mess with the Trick-or-treaters. Time will tell who’s a better forecaster but you can bet your life I’ll be barking it in her face if it’s me.

Snow and changing leaves
Courtesy of Denver Channel 7, Alaine Nicole
Mountain Splendor in autumn
Courtesy of Denver Channel 7 website

Although it was pretty shocking to see snow in gold leaves on aspens, these are some of the prettiest photos Mom and I have ever seen of the changing colors. I think the first one is from somewhere around Crested Butte and the second one may be near Telluride (or vice-versa). Gotta admit though, you’d be hard press to find anything prettier than that lake reflection photo.

Meanwhile up on Quanella Pass near Georgetown, a mere 56 miles west of Denver, the leaves did what was expected of them this time of year…as in wow visitors and locals alike with their exquisite beauty.

Changing leaves
Courtesy of Denver Channel 7 website ~Quanella Pass

Pretty stunning, huh? Gotta love Colorado for it’s autumn gold. While we may not have the brilliant oranges and reds  typically seen out on the East Coast, I’d put our aspens up against them any day of the week.

High country roads have been filled tourists and looky-loos so Mom and I wanted to see if there was anything around our patch to avoid the cluster of driving I-70 after the recent trip to Glenwood. Turns out there are actually some spots of color around the ‘Hood with more showing up each day.

Flowers

Mom spied some red on a plant when she was scanning for weeds in a part of the yard that neither of us rarely go out to since it’s on the North side of the house. Initially she thought it might be a piece of trash that blew in on one of the windy days this week. But nope, it was an actual leaf trying to imitate some East Coast flora. Whoa…Mom thought that was a nice present from Mother Nature and I couldn’t disagree with her.

We also found some pretty maple trees just starting to change colors on one of our walks. Hmm…maybe Colorado does have a few reds and oranges but I know they’re nothing like what’s found back East.

Maple leaves in autumn

Late Wednesday, Mom had me pose for her in the Plumbago out in the garden. Regrettably I couldn’t find a plausible excuse not to, so I put on my most bored face and sat there like a lump on a log. Mom was making all kinds of weird noises to try and get some kind of reaction out of me…other than me just turning and waltzing away. Heh, heh, heh. Doggone it though, she grabbed me and put me back in a sit/stay position. Can’t pull the wool over her eyes often enough. She loves the Plumbago since it flowers those pretty blue flowers beginning in late August and turning a lovely shade of mahogany on the leaves as autumn moves forward. Those plants are filling in nicely too like a good groundcover should; in fact she’s had to pull some out of the middle of the flagstone path after they’d migrated where they didn’t belong. I think she should give them a sit/stay command so they don’t go wander off the reservation but again, she didn’t ask me.

Elsa in the Plumbago

I’m sure trees will begin changing in earnest here in the city soon. Hopefully we’ll have more to share next time before we have to start raking them up. Till then, we hope you all send strong, healing energy to Blogville favorite, Brian who’s battling a nasty infection (click on the link to send him your healing thoughts and prayers). He looks like such a nice kitty and could use the collective energy of Blogville to feeling better. I can totally relate and sympathize with him since anesthesia is a bad thing for me too because of my epilepsy. It’s probably why Mom totally freaks out at the slightest little thing.

Purrs for Brian

Well, that’s it from me this week. We hope whatever you do this weekend, you get outside and enjoy the fabulous autumn weather and see a few leaves turning colors. I’ve got my paws crossed for you.

Nature Friday

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Fall Festival ~ 2022

Greetings autumn lovers, Norman here, your pet therapist and honorary firefighter to share more pics taken from the weekend event. Yesterday, we shared a photo of me yesterday in my firefighter costume from the event but today I’m going to share some of the professional pics taken by the hospital photographer of me as well as my fellow pet therapists.

Norman & Mum
Mum and I

I’ll give her credit for ‘trying’ to get me to go inside the fire truck but those slippery floors made me VERY nervous. The steep stairs didn’t help much either, and after coming to the conclusion I’m bigger and stronger than her, we abandoned the notion of a photo inside and doubled back for our group pic and parade. I’m better at managing schedules and knew we were never gonna get a pic in that firetruck. But on the ‘pawsitive side,’ aren’t we a good looking group?

Pet Therapy
L-R Dolly, me, Zoe, Penny, Roxie and Riley

Although our group wasn’t as large as in past years, we made up with it by our sheer charm and handsome good looks. After our group photo, as Grand Marshals, we kicked off the official festivities by leading a parade down the center of the long line of booths manned by hospital staff and various vendors. There were loads of fun activities for kids of all ages to partake in, including pumpkin and face painting, and various games of skill. With lots of little people around, you can imagine us therapists didn’t have any trouble doing what we do best-putting smiles on faces.

“On your marks, get set…” Waiting for the go signal was hard because as the professionals we are, we knew what was expected of us. Here the group patiently waited for Mum to fix my wardrobe malfunction. [Note to self: make sure Mum brings me with her when shopping for a costume in the future since she clearly has no idea of my actual size.] In her defense, you’d think a XL would fit but alas, it was sized way too small. Frankly I can’t see any kind of dog fitting in those front sleeves. Nobody has armholes that teeny.

Pet Parade

Finally the signal blared over the loudspeaker.

And then we were off…more like an ambling, waddle in the close quarters than anything, but you get the idea. With the signal in the background, we walked the path up and back.

Pet Therapy Dog Parade

We walked the length of the tents, stopping frequently for petting and checking out things. I kept hoping we dogs could do some trick-r-treating but Mum said absolutely NOT! What a killjoy. Sigh.

Pet Parade

We were led by sweet Riley, a Golden Retriever, who was naturally a big hit with her lion mane, followed closed by 16-year old Roxie, the Miniature Poodle who was voted the winner of the best costume award along with her Mum. Roxie also does dance competitions and can waltz and boogie as well as Fred and Ginger which probably helped her win over the judges. That girl knows how to step fancy on the dance floor as well as in the parade. Here is Roxie posing with Dolly, the Golden Doodle/Monarch Butterfly another favorite before the parade at a photo booth.

Pet Therapy Parade
Good dogs

After fulfilling our official duties, we were able to mill about and do our therapy thing. It was a bit chaotic with lots of kids and parents, many who brought their own pets from home. As mentioned yesterday, a Rottweiler apparently took objection to me in particular and after a brief dustup, we avoided him so as not to cause a scene. As usual, I took the high road but it became clear to Mum that it wasn’t as enjoyable on the fringes and with the denseness of so many people along with the other pet therapists, we took our leave and headed homeward after making polite rounds.

It was a nice event for hospital families and friends and we pet therapists always make it a fun event for everyone. Have you ever gone to a Fall Festival where pets and their owners were in costume?

Thanks for swinging by the Ranch and checking out another pet therapy event.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Monday Musings ~ August 8, 2022

Today is International Cat Day where cats of all stripes are celebrated every August 8. Created in 2002 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, it is a day to raise awareness for cats and learn about ways to help and protect them.

Angus the cat

So in honor of International Cat Day, the Ranch Hands thought it appropriate that I share a pic of my neph-mew, Angus, one of the most interesting cats I’ve ever known. He is one fascinating and handsome Maine Coon kitty.

Here’s your smile in honor of International Cat Day. Make it a great week.

Smiles

Live, love, bark! 🐾

The ‘Dogtor’ Is In ~ National Pet Therapy Edition

National Pet Therapy Day

Happy Saturday and welcome to a special post we are honored to sponsor today relating to the celebration of National Pet Therapy Day. Normally we don’t post on Saturday’s but this is a subject very near and dear to our heart. So get ready…there are a lot of pictures here so you might want to grab a cuppa of something tasty, sit back and see out how Norman celebrated his first National Pet Therapy Day. Special thanks to Ann at Zoolatry for the ‘wagnificent’ badge celebrating today.

Norman

Dogtor NormanAs a hospital ‘Dogtor’ Norman regularly visits patients and staff at a local medical center which includes a hospital, hospice and mental health center every month. We try to raise awareness by educating the public on the role therapy animals play in enhancing health and well-being of humans-be they patients or staff and bring a bit of comfort to all we encounter. A few days ago, the hospital hosted a special event in support of National Pet Therapy Day.

Various pet therapy teams assembled outside the front entrance of the hospital to meet and greet visitors and staff.The event was extra festive as the Volunteer Department provided a dog-bone shaped cake for the dogs with treat bags for them and their handlers. The cake must have been quite tasty judging by all those slurping tongues among the attendees.

Cake

Bindee
Our pal, Bindee, has the longest tongue I’ve ever seen on such a little dog.

Dogs

It was great seeing the dogs together with their owners. When Sam and I began pet therapy over eight years ago, there were more than 50 dogs. The passage of time has sadly thinned our ranks and we’re down to just over a dozen ‘Dogtors” these days. But there is a diverse variety of pure and mixed breeds in the program from tiny Chihuahua Bindee, to ginormous OES Norman along with Corgi Zoe;  miniature poodle, Roxie; Golden Retriever Rylie; yellow Lab Fiona; Italian Spinone, Bella; and agility champion Shetland Sheepdogs, Logan and Bismark. One of Norman’s favorite pals is Oreo, a sweet Shih Tzu who had been very sick earlier this year but who has recovered and returned back to work. Also in attendance were deaf dog Spanish Galgo Greyhound, Penny. Other therapy dogs not in attendance include Bellaroo, a Lab/Husky/Border Collie mix; Corgi-mix, Teagan; Coco, a retriever mix; GoldenDoodle, Dolly; and Standard Poodle, Indie. All the dogs are loved by patients and staff alike.

Fiona
Pet therapist Fiona with her handler.
Norman
Norman with Roxie, Zoe, Logan, and Bismark (L-R).

The pet therapy teams initially milled about catching up and greeting one another as well as visitors and staff before cake was served.

Norman & Oreo
Norman greets pal, Oreo.
Norman
Norman with the ‘Pawparazzi’

The ‘pawparazzi’ always show up for events like this. Not only is Norman the largest dog in the program, he’s also the furriest with a soft coat that begs to be touched.

Norman

Norman loves everyone and is always a hit with kids, young and old alike. He’s also a favorite of Kyle, the hospital valet attendant who always spoils him with lots of attention.

Norman

Norman

Cake

That cake looked tasty enough for humans to eat but was especially baked for the dogs. [Note the blue tongue from the frosting on Bindee-probably safe to say she liked it.]

Bindee
Bindee and her blue blep.
Norman
How come I got such a tiny little piece of cake, mum?
Norman & Roxie
Roxie and Norman.

Once everyone had their fill of cake, treats and attention, we had a mini-parade near the hospital entrance. Norman and Roxie were co-Grand Marshalls. Roxie, being the ultimate professional she is, followed the route perfectly. Norman, ever the gentlemen, let her lead…but I think mostly because he had to stop and visit with each photographer and well-wisher along the route. He may also have also been hunting for more treats.

Roxie

All in all it was a fun event enjoyed by all attendees. While Norman isn’t officially ‘certified’ through Alliance of Therapy Dogs or any other therapy group, I have no doubt he could easily pass any certification exam. He loves people and always seems ready to bring a smile to their face.

What about your dog…do you think he or she could be a therapy dog? To be clear, all of our therapy dogs are evaluated twice a year by board certified vets to make sure they are up for the task and each handler must pass an annual safety exam to ensure they are up to date on all hospital rules as well as all HIPAA regulations.

Live, love, bark! 🐾