We made it to Grand Rapids for Nova’s Pawty!!! (And back!) It was totally poawesome, of course. I don’t have much time to blog this evening. Took forever for Mom to edit and upload the video. So enjoy that for now. I’ll try to post again soon with more to say about the pawty and some still pics too.
Thanks for having us, Michiganers, and especially for all the tasty treats… if I couldjust get Mom to stop rationing them. Sensitive stomach? Pshaw! I like visiting the vet : )
Oh, and Mom is sorry about how shaky a lot of her filming is from that day. She was just too excited : D
Mom thinks it’s funny that Fall is my favorite month. It might be, except she’s one to talk – she falls way more than I do! Two leggers. Sheesh.
When Mom and I first met, in fact, I showed her how much I liked Autumn. I was at the shelter at the time. I didn’t have any toys of my own there. If you’ve seen my early blogs, you know that I need a buddy to take with me on my walks! So, without a toy, I would make do with a nice smelling leaf and call it Buddy, and carry it along. I still do from time to time –
By the way, I promised a book report on The Wooden Mile, by Chris Mould after we heard about it on our summer vacation to Virginia Beach. Another family of vacationers told us they were reading it and that it had three-legged dogs in it and the boys had asked their mom to explain what it looked like when the author wrote, “The dog trundled by awkwardly on its three legs.” And then they found a real-live three legged dog next door – me! I don’t think I did a very good job of showing them any awkward trundling. But back to the book –
I did like it. It was suspenseful and mysterious and the main boy character was very brave. However, I didn’t like how the three-legged dog characters were portrayed. You should know that they were very minor characters, which isn’t necessarily bad, but I mention it so that you don’t mistake it for a story about three-legged dogs. Even though they were minor characters, they didn’t think they should be such passive victims. But you know, this book had pirates in it too, and that got me thinking about Captain Jack. Now that would be a great adventure story – Captain Jack the Tripawd Swashbuckler!
I hope you all are having a marvelous Autumn and reading great books.
Mom decided that I turned three yesterday. We don’t know my actual birthdate, but both her previous dogs were adopted over the Labor Day weekend, so it seemed like the obvious day to use, since my adoption day is in January. Plus I get a three-day weekend in my honor – sweeeeeeeeeeet! What is labor anyway? Mom says I won’t understand.
To celebrate I got a new stuffed yellow duck. I carried her almost the entire way on my long walk this morning. Both myself and my roommate Biggie like making her quack. Her quack is a really high pitch though, I think because she’s a baby duck.
I also got a new super-short, red leash. Not every dog’s dream gift, but it’s part of my new uniform for pet visiting. I know a lot of tripawds have trouble walking slower or on a short leash. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a rear amputee or just lucky, but I can go slow ok – except on stairs. On stairs, Mom needs to keep up!
I had my first official visit to a nursing/assisted living home on my birthday. It was fun! Especially when the beds were low enough for me to lay my head on and just get petted and petted and petted – or when they had human visitors too and then I go to go from person to person to person and they all complimented me on what a good dog I was. I also got several tasty treats that Mom would never have let me have otherwise. It was like they knew it was my birthday! I’ll blog more soon about that or maybe have Mom do a forum post about what we’ve learned while pet visiting.
Here’s a short video of me enjoying my birthday presents!
Also, check out my last post if you missed it! I sort of got another early b-day present a week or so ago when our stuff from the Tripawds store came. Mom ordered a few things with the new Captain Jack design, as a small way to honor his life. What a guy.
Mom’s missing Yoda this weekend too, because she met him on 9/3/06 and brought him home 9/5/06. My being here can’t stop her from being sad or even angry sometimes that cancer sent him ahead so soon, but I can at least keep her from ever feeling lonely and take her out to walks, parks and pet stores, when she’s ready.
That’s my big brother the summer before his diagnosis, when he got to go to the Virginia Beach with Mom. I got to go there this summer and loved it! I blogged about that a couple blogs ago, if you missed it.
Well, that’s all for this edition. Hop on, my fellow tripawds, hop on!
You should have seen how excited Mom was to get our Jackers Gear, ordered in honor of the passing of Captain Jack, 14+ month cancer survivor – what a guy! I thought there must have been a beef trachea in that package or something, the way she was acting – alas, no. But it did have a long-sleeve shirt and tote bag for mom, and a couch pillow for me and my roommate Biggie to share, all with this really neat picture of Captain Jack, created by his mom for Tripawds to use in their store.
Mom was impressed with her new tote bag. She uses it to carry her work stuff in. She’s been saying she needed a bigger one for a long time. Even though she couldn’t tell if this Tripawds bag would be bigger or not, she couldn’t resist the Captain Jack bag. And look! It’s huge!!! No offense to Bone Cancer Dogs, (especially since members gave Mom a free one when she crashed their reunion in Madison last October) but the Tripawds bag is waaaaay bigger. (See pic above).
I like the new pillow too, but wanted to make sure you all got a good view of it in Mom’s picture, so I pulled my head down under it (see below).
My roommate Biggie didn’t quite get the idea -but you can tell he loves the new pillow too.
You alllllllll want to check out the Tripawds store now, don’t you???
I went to a place called Virginia Beach. And every morning before the sun got too high, I got to hot along the beach. I looooooove sand and all the smells within!!!
Mom was really worried that she shouldn’t take me along for a couple of reasons. First, because I used to get really nervous when riding in the car. She wasn’t sure if I had gotten over it enough for two long days of driving. I wasn’t sure either, but we brought my bed along and that made it comfy to just lay down and snooze most of the way. I liked that alot! You’ll see a little bit of me snoozing at the end of our vacation video. Her second worry was (can you believe she only had two worries?) that the wooden stairs up to the beach house we were staying in would be too slippery and or steep. It was harder than the stairs I’m used to, but it was fine. I could manage. Mom insisted on holding onto my harness handle almost every time. It was more the heat that slowed me down on the steps than traction or steepness issues. Sorry, Mom forgot to get me on video doing the stairs.
So, at first, I just thought the Beach smelled pawesome and the sand felt great…
The relatives dug this hole for me! Didn’t they, Mom? Not really? Oh well, for whatever reason it was dug, it was a nice, shadier spot after dragging Mom across the beach.
But I can’t believe it took me until our last full day at the beach for me to realize the joys of digging for crabs! (Yes, Mom was very relieved that it took me that long). And to see that, you must check out our beach video. Mom decided to try it without music this time. She’s not sure it was a good idea, since she feels it sort of drags at the end as I go from crab hole to crab hole to crab hole to crab hole… well, I don’t want to spoil it or it will drag on…
Crab hunting in Virginia is exhausting work –
– but it was worth it!!! Thank dog for air conditioning, right?
Spending time with family was great too. My human baby cousin was a little confusing though. He’s crawling now and talking a bit now. He kept calling me “Cece!” (His dog’s name is Gracie and that’s what he calls her). And sometimes he’d crawl over to my leash, pick it up, and hold it up high. Well, of course, I thought that meant it was time for a walk, so I’d go grab my toy to carry along to show I was ready to go. Mom said my cousin isn’t old enough to walk me though. Bummer.
Sigh, it’s nice to be home with our dog and human roommates again, and to have Internet access again to visit Tripawds and blog, but I wish we had crabs here in Madison, WI – and more relatives.
P.S. Gerry’s Mom here! Just wanted to add a neat encounter with some people staying at the beach house next door. A woman and her two boys stopped me and Gerry on our way back from the beach to ask if they could pet him. The mother explained that they were reading a book called The Wooden Mile and they were just past the point in it where the character(s) discover an “island of three legged dogs.” The author had written something to the effect of they walked well, but awkwardly, or something like that and the boys were wondering what that meant. Well, awkward-looking or not (eye of the beholder, I guess), Gerry showed them how a three legged dog really moves. They had not yet learned in the book how this island of three legged dogs came to be. Anyway, I’m curious now, so I put the book on hold at my local library. I’ll have Gerry do a book report for his blog, heh heh.
Rhoohooo! Another successful pawty. Apparently we were having such a good time, that someone felt the authorities should be called. Seriously, a park ranger stopped by. We NEVER see park rangers at the dog parks. He was probably there to protect us from the bears. And it worked. Didn’t see any. Awww, what a guy.
What else? Well, there seemed to be a Labradoodle convention going on at the same time as our three-legged dog convention, as will probably be evident in Mom’s video of the pawty. Zuzu was definitely among her peeps, er pups.
I did have a tussle with a collie, as Harley’s Mom alluded to in the Tripawd Pawty forum posts. Just a minor disagreement. I said Rin Tin Tin was cooler than Lassie. Also, he was a really BIG puppy invading my space and I was probably goading him too much, and then we both got mad. No blood, no foul.
Other than that, just lots of water drinking, finding shady spots and giving each other kisses. No wonder the ranger was called – all that drinking and kissing.
Here’s Mom’s video:
Here are me and Holly – the official tripawds:
Holly is like – “Why are all you two and four leggers soooo slow!”
I’m like – “I’m not slow like the even-leggers!”
Here are the “honorary” tripawds, or siblings/roommates – Toby, Biggie and Zuzu:
And here is the group shot:
All the group shots taken with my camera came out with a blue haze. Clearly, the Spirit boys (Yoda, Harley and – we decided – Jerry) were not going to be left out of the picture! Rent Sixth Sense if you doubt me.
(The haze was darker initially, before I edited the photo – had to lighten it or you couldn’t make out Gerry from the shadow of the tree).
Mom also really likes this picture she snapped of the sisters – Holly and Zuzu. So here’s that too:
By the way, for those interested in our donation pledge ($10 to Tripawds.com per tripawd attendee to the pawty today), the somewhat imaginative total we came up with was 13. But if you wanted to donate $10 per tripawd attendee as well, without getting quite so creative, there were three actual, earthly tripawds (we had one additional member of the public – G.I. Jack from Iraq – no kidding!) and at least two spirit tripawds, though Harley’s mom and my mom agree that Spirit Jerry was at our pawty too – so that would be three spirit tripawds. (Was he the one I thought was Rin Tin Tin, Mom?). So between $30 and $60, unless you want to count park rangers and count more for Iraq veterans, etc. and then it’s more like $130.
By the way, Mom will only do Madison area pawties by request now for the rest of the year. Pawty planning has pooped her out. But of course, this really doesn’ t mean anything, except that someone else has to pick the date. Because if you give enough notice that you want to come to the Madison area for the pawty, she’s still gonna try to advertise (she can’t help herself) and definitely we’ll come at least!
And we will be MORE than happy to try to travel to any tripawd pawties in the midwest that anyone else wants to organize.
Tripawds Rule!!!
G-Dog out…
No seriously Mom, I wasn’t just being gangsta – I drank a lot of water at the park and I gotta go OUT.
Alright! I just got the approval from Mom and we’re going to pledge to donate $10 to Tripawds for each tripawd that attends my next Tripawd Pawty in Madison.
…Yeah we can’t really guarantee that that will amount to much, but Mom might be surprised. Maybe we’ll count legs instead or have more pawties and add those up too. In any case, we hope to get everybody thinking about what they can give. Tripawds is so so important for keeping our pawrents sane. Some of them start off a little funny to begin with ya know, and if you add the stress of amputations and cancer… huh? What? Nooooo Mom I’m not talking about yoooooooooou… *ahem* as I was saying –
Tripawds.com is a life saver! The support Spirit Jerry’s crew gives has saved dogs’ lives by raising awareness for many who might otherwise be persuaded that a cancer diagnosis could be the end or that a three-legged dog can’t be just as happy as a four-legged dog. They helped my mom to take a big ol’ two-legged leap of faith once for Yoda and again for me! And it was totally worth it. So we are grateful and Mom knows we gotta take a leap for Tripawds in return.
Think about what you can give. If you don’t know how to decide on a number of dollars – like us – feel free to join us in our pledge. We’ll let you know the total number of attendees when we post the pictures and videos from it : D Or come to my pawty and we’ll donate $10 FOR you!!!
Meanwhile, I’m just waiting for my next pawty while it rains and rains and rains here…
Like my new hedgehog? I think he’s my first four-legged toy – if you don’t count the toys I steal from my roommate.
This past Sunday I met Max and Edward and their human mom Meg at the dog park in Badger Prairie Park in Verona, WI, near my home in Madison, WI. AND we all met Callie (not sure how it’s spelled) too! She couldn’t stay long. She had come early and was out of water and ready to go home. But we did have some time tovisit and drink water together. Mom gave her mom a bandana and told her about Tripawds and she sounded excited to check out the website.
Then, when Callie had to go, Max, Edward and I continued on. My grandma even came to visit with cookies for the humans. That didn’t seem right at a party for dogs that only the people got the treats, but I’m on a restricted diet now anyway, so I’m more indignant on Max and Edward’s behalf. It was sweet of Grandma to stop by at all though, I guess. She’s a busy lady.
I then promptly disappeared. I double-backed to the entrance to make sure there wasn’t anyone else to greet. Boy did that wear me out though! It was really hot. Mom says with the heat index it broke 90 degrees – whatever that means. Mom helped me strip off my harness and bandana at that point, because she was afraid I was too hot to catch up to my guests, who were waiting further in the park. So me and the boys drank a lot of water and eventually claimed ourselves a picnic table. Max was very good at defending it so that we’d have plenty of shade. Though at times he did let smaller dogs visit with us.
Mom says I have to draw your attention to the cutest part of the video she took. (Really I think the humans find any bit with little Edward in it is the “cutest”). But apparently at one point, he was playing with my tail. I thought I felt something.
Alright on to the video and pictures you’ve all been waiting for:
Rhoohoo, my pawty is tomorrow! Or our pawty, I should say. All you tripawds will be there with us in spirit. But we’re hoping for a lot in bodies too. No idea if anyone else is going to show besides ThreeLeggedMax and his crew, but he’s bringing a 3 1/2 legged buddy along, so we’re still making progress. That’s one more tripawd (honorarily at least) than my pawty with Holly… when was that… last month?
The pawty is tomorrow starting at 10:15 a.m. in the Badger Prairie County Park’s dog park, which is in Verona, WI (but really close to the Madison border). Never sure about addresses for parks, but I saw it listed in one place as 6720 Highway 151, Verona WI. You can also follow this link to a map of the area and zoom in on the one marked A – that’s the park we’ll be at: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=Badger%20Prairie%20dog%20park%20Verona%20WI
So, humans, remember you’ll probably want a hat and/or sunblock. There’s not much tree cover for shade, and not many clouds expected tomorrow, but the dogs at least can go under the picnic tables if they need to. Bring water for humans and dogs. Tomorrow is supposed to be a low in the lower 60s and a high in the upper 80s. Oh and don’t forget cameras, if you want them! My mom will have her little Flip video camera and maybe a camera for still shots too, if she doesn’t have too much to carry and you know she’ll post the video and pictures for everyone to see here. Wish you could ALL come!!!
On a different note, I’ve gotta post my big brother Yoda’s tribute video. He was diagnosed with bone cancer a year ago this past Thursday. He died on October 14, 2009. Besides just being a great guy, he was a super example of a hoppy, well adjusted tripawd after his amputation. I never met him while he was alive, but his spirit is still near and I wouldn’t have gotten mom without his influence. Many of you will have already seen the video posted by my mom in the forums, but here it is again for any who missed it:
The deal was as long as I passed, I could have my pawty and invite everybody! Well, last week I received my diploma for my beginner dog training class. I have an intermediate outdoor class coming up soon, because Mom says we have some refining to do. I’m still kind of a nutball at the park. We have not yet discussed what I’ll get if I graduate from that class, but another pawty would suit me!
Don’t forget that my pawty is going to be on Sunday, May 30th at 10:15 a.m. in Madison, WI at Badger Prairie Park (oh, technically it’s in Verona, WI, Mom thinks). I know some people can’t make it because of human graduation pawties, but if you’re not otherwise committed or too far away, come celebrate my graduation!!! Like I said though, I’ll be asking Mom to let me host more pawties this summer. So there will be other chances to get together.
Mom made a video of my new skills – of course. But yes, she absolutely edited it to make me look better behaved than I really am.
