Dog Days of December

This little cutie was a lucky one! "Adopted" was the note on her CVHS kennel!

Oh what fun!

Christmas time is the time of animal shelter open houses. Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control is having an open house this weekend and last weekend the Cedar Valley Humane Society had an open house as well. Last weekend I stopped out at the CVHS open house where I found a long line of people and dogs awaiting a chance to have themselves sketched. As I let each shelter dog give me a good sniff I was happy to see many "Adopted" signs on the kennels! The parking lot was full and it looks like the open house was a big success! Good for them!

This sweet dog is Johnny, a border collie mix. Johnny is currently available for adoption at CVHS.

Intelligence by breed, how does your rank?

In other news,......
Doing some blog reading and found Patricia McConnell's post called "Your dog has a brain in his gut" super interesting. The facts seem surprising but also intuitively correct, don't you think? At my house we put so much emphasis on food, growing an organic garden, canning and freezing and lots of home cooking for ourselves and our pets. Also, science reminding us that yes rich foods do actually make you feel (emotionally) good (in the short term at least) relieves some of my guilt for the chocolate covered pretzel cravings that seem to be haunting me every day of December!

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On the home front

     Yesterday Craig told me Harry has been whining the past few days and had a fall. I'm riddled with guilt as I have been gone pulling long shifts at work and racking up the OT that affords Christmas presents for family and maybe a little something for the pets too. It's days like these I wonder how old Harry really is. I was researching methods to help your aging dog stay pain free and found this article about how toxic some pain relievers used on humans can be for dogs. I had no idea ibuprofen was toxic to dogs. Also read the article Relieving Arthritis. Which has made me think a more regular addition of fish oil to Harry's diet might be in order.
I got myself all stirred up in worry about Harry. But after a day back home I see he's doing just fine. During our evening walk he still insists on peeing on every mail box post. Oh, that Harry Dawg. I  wont be surprised if he's still got a few surprises yet in store for me.

Happy. Handsome. Harry.