Happy New Years!

Hi everyone! Since we already wrote our Blogoversary post yesterday outlining all our favorite parts of the past year, we aren't going to go through all that again! But we did want to stop at our blog and set a few New Year's Resolutions and everything. We are putting our heads together and thinking!


For our blog, we'd like to set a goal to write at least once a week. Hopefully more. But we know we went months without writing in 2011, mostly because of Mama being busy or overwhelmed. So we've gotten her to agree that, no matter what, she will take time at least once a week to help us write a post.


For real life, Sammy-Joe says he'd like to work on spending more time out in the rest of the house and less time hiding out in his fort! He has already gotten a lot better at this and has been cuddling with the rest of us (Well, cuddling with Mama, and at least being near us dogs) more often.


On that note, Lily promises to stop barking at Sammy-Joe all the time! She will keep her angry words to herself! Mama has requested this resolution. Mama is very proud, by the way, that Lily has conquered her peeing-on-the-floor issues and is now wonderfully potty trained at least 99% of the time! (Of course now that we've written this, she may just pee on the floor tonight because she's stubborn like that!)


And Trixie promises to... hmm... well, Trixie is just about the perfect dog! We can't think of any resolutions for her! Mama suggests Trixie's resolution could be to be more assertive with Lily and not let Lily take away her bones and stuff. (Can you believe tiny little Lily is the bully in our family?)


Mama resolves to find us a new play group so we can go on outings more often, since our usual play group has kinda fizzled out. :(


And one more time, we just want to say how thankful we are to have all of our wonderful bloggy friends! This has been the most wonderful year. Happy New Year, everyone!

MySpace Glitter Graphics

Happy Blogaversary To Us!

Hi everyone! We know last week was Christmas, and tomorrow is New Years Eve... but today is a very special day for us. Its our first Blogaversary! 
One year ago today, we weren't sure what to do. Mama and Lily had just moved back in with Gramma and Grampa and the rest of us, after their living situation got too lousy to continue. Mama was sad, bored and lonely. After she read us a blog she stumbled upon, written by a dog, we had a great idea. Why not start our own blog? Mama could help us with it, and it would give her something to focus on and be excited about. And so, on December 30, 2010,  Sammy-Joe wrote our first post introducing us to Blogville. Before long, our first twelve bloggy friends... Twinkie, Derby and Ducky, Zazou and Calypso, Harry Spotter, Honeybuzz, Madi, Maggie Mae, Jazzi, Wyatt, Mayzie, Oskar, and the Monkeys... had send us welcoming comments! 


The next night was New Years Eve, and Trixie took her turn writing in the blog. She wrote about how Mama struggles with Aspergers, ADHD and depression, which made her not want to go to any big New Years parties, but instead was home alone with us pets. We told you how we had the job of being Emotional Support Animals, to keep Mama's spirits up and keep her from being sad and lonely too much. Again, ten bloggy friends commented, this time including Mr. Pip, Priscilla and Eva, Shibasenji, Aksharaa, Daisy, Brian,  and Tom, Tama-Chan, Sei-Chan and Bibi-Chan! We knew we'd found a home in Blogville.


As  2011 came, we did so much! We got involved in doing pet product reviews, took our first Pet Blogger Challenge, joined Pet Blogs United, pawticipated in Blog The Change, raised money for a sick doggie friend, played an April Fools joke on you, celebrated our birthdays, and pawticipated in a real-life Walk-athon. 


One of our favorite memories of you all is when Gramma and Grampa went out of town and Mama became very sad and lonely. We had to be at the top of our game to help Mama! When we told you all about it, so many of you responded right away, sending Mama your love and support! It really helped us all get through a rough spot. Thanks!


You were also there for us when Lily got spayed and when Trixie had her seizure. Whenever we had something to share, good or bad, you were there for us! 


And so, as 2011 comes to an end, we wanted to give you all our love. We want to let you know that we'll be continuing to blog... hopefully even more often, and better, than we did in 2011, We look forward to making more friends, and definitely to keeping in touch with the friends we've known for a year! 


Thanks everyone! We love you all so much! 

Look What Mr. Chewy Sent Us!

Hi, everyone! Not long ago, Mr. Chewy made us an offer we couldn't refuse! They gave us a promotional code to order $50.00 worth of merchandise from their site, so that we could review their site on our blog. Of course, we were all about that! We headed right over.


First, the pictures are worth a thousand words, right?
This is what we saw last week when we opened the door. A box! Addressed to... us! We know that whenever a box arrives on our doorstep, there is a good chance that its for us. So we got really excited! 

This is what we saw when we opened the box! Bones and treats and food for all of us!

Mama whisked most of the stuff away for later. She poured the dog food into the container with the rest of our food, and put all of the treats in the pantry. She hid the meaty bones, which we would later get for Christmas! But she did let us chew on the pig ears. Hmm.., Lily never tried a pig ear before! 

And what is it rhey say? Cats always end up just playing with the box?

And now, on to our review!


Mr. Chewy sells dog food and dog treats (including bones), cat food and cat treats, cat litter, potty pads, and flea and tick products. We found the website to be very organized, and it was easy to find things. For instance, the dogs among us eat Nutro Natural Choice dog food. When Mama wanted to see if they had it, all she had to do was click on "Find your brand," alphabetically find Nutro Natural Choice, and see a list of products. (They did have our dog food, by the way!) If you don't have something so specific in mind, you can click on one of the tabs We found searching this site a lot easier than searching the Petco and Petsmart websites. 


Mr. Chewy is proud of having over 70 brands to choose from. They definitely do... we counted 77 brands, to be specific! They don't carry every type of product that each brand carries. For instance, Mama was interested in adding some cat litter to our order. Although they carry our brand (Tidy Cats) they didn't have the specific kind we use. 


Mr. Chewy also boasts that they have lower prices than regular stores. We checked this out and found out that, at least for the products we looked up, this was correct some of the time. For instance a five pound bag of Nutro Natural Choice dog food is $14.99 at Petsmart, and  $14.39 at Petco, but only $12.99 on Mr. Chewy's site. We also checked Natural Balance L.I.D. Limited Ingredients Diets Sweet Potato & Venison Natural Dry Dog Food. At Petco it was $16.82 for a five pound bag, $41.57 for a fifteen pound bag, amd $58.39 for a twenty-eight pound bag, Petsmart didn't carry this brand so we couldn't compare it. But at Mr. Chewy, the prices for these sizes of bags were $12.99, $36.99, and $54.99. We checked Frontline Flea and Tick products, Frontline Plus For Dogs Up To 22 Pounds was $42.99 at Petco, but only $36.99 at Mr. Chewy. 
On the other hand, Halo Liv-a-Littles Healthsome Cat Treats were $3.39 at Petsmart but $5.99 at Mr. Chewy's. (Petco didn't have them.) The other sites also had lower prices for the cat litter brands we checked. 

One great thing about Mr. Chewy's is that they offer free shipping for orders over $49. They also have super speedy shipping! We placed our order on the evening of December 19th. The next day we got an email saying our order had shipped, and giving us a Fedex tracking code. By December 22 our box had arrived! Mama was really glad that it arrived with plenty of time to spare before Christmas, because our Dingo meaty bones were in there and she wanted to wrap them up and surprise us. We all know that our parents spend at least $50 on pet supplies every month or two. So if you were able to find the products you like here, we think it would definitely be worth putting in an order and saving yourself a trip! In fact, you can even schedule an order to come on a regular basis. For instance, if your dogs eat a 30 pound bag of dog food each month, you can schedule an automatic order to be delivered to your house each month! 

Another wonderful thing about Mr. Chewy's is their referral program. If you refer a friend to order food from Mr. Chewy's site, they'll not only give your friend 10% off their first order, but they'll also make a $10 donation to your choice of one of three charities: Best Friends Animal Society, Bidawee, and the North Shore Animal League. (You can also choose to have the donation split between all three uf you can;t decide!.) 

We thought shopping at Mr. Chewy's was similar to shopping at a small, neighborhood store instead of a superstore. They might not have as wide a variety of products,  but they're a more small,personal company with a real heart. If you want to try them out for yourself, save 10%, and generate a $10 donation to the three animal charities listed, please use our referral code of DUPA5498.

You can also find Mr. Chewy on Facebook! Upload your pet's picture to their wall to enter a weekly contest for a month's worth of free pet food! 

Bye everyone... we hope you liked our review! 

We (Mostly) Love Our Christmas Presents!

Hi everyone! We hope you all had a great Christmas! We did! Mama, Gramma and Grampa went to visit their relatives on Chrismas Eve, which meant that on Christmas Day they got to spend the whole day with us!
We were so excited on Christmas morning when Mama showed us all of our presents. Grampa even took a video of us opening them, but then he deleted it by accident. Boooo, Grampa! We'll just have to tell you what we got.
Both of us dogs got big Dingo meaty bones! They taste like meat! They are so big that Lily's bone actually looks bigger than her! When Lily unwrapped hers, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to lift it up, and she was just standing there licking it for a while. But she figured out she could carry it, and she's been carrying it everywhere! The two of us have a game. We each hide our own bones for safekeeping, and then we try to steal the other dog's bone so that we can have two!

Lily also got eight Kong Airdog squeaky tennis balls. EIGHT! She was so excited she started jumping around and playing with them all right away! Mama tried to take a picture but Lily was moving around so much, it was just a blur. All day long Lily was desqueaking balls. She can now take a squeaker out of a ball in less than a minute!


Trixie's second present was a Wiggly Giggly ball. Mama thought she'd like it because she thought it would move around by itself, and she thought Trixie would play with it the way she played with the Zuzu pet that she eventually broke. But the Wiggly Giggly ball only made funny noises and didn't move by itself, so Trixie didn't really care about it. Mama might get her a different ball, with a motor this time, for her birthday in March. For now, Trixie is happy enough with her giant bone!


Sammy-Joe also got two presents. One present he got was catnip bubbles! They are just like regular bubbles, but they smell like catnip. Mama has to blow bubbles for Sammy, and he tries to catch them. Unfortunately he always pops them! He gets aggravated that he can't eat the catnip, so Mama gives him some real catnip when they're done playing. Sammy-Joe also got a cool little ball that lights up and twinkles, so he can play with it at night. Unfortunately he already lost it. He may have hidden it somewhere but he's not telling us! Anyway this is what the ball looked like the last time we saw it.

Mama got Grampa a Beatles Monopoly game, which the humans played on Christmas. It is kinda like regular Monopoly, but instead of houses and railroads and stuff, there are albums and tickets. You have to get all of one color of an album in order to build listening parties on your spaces. Mama had a lot of different colored albums, so Grampa and Gramma kept asking her if she wanted to trade for things so they could build listening parties. So Mama ended up owning four concert tickets, which meant any time anyone landed on a concert ticket they had to pay her $200! She only owned one color of album, but she had enough money to build three listening parties on each space, so then people had to pay her $1000 when they landed on those spaces! Thats how Mama won at Beatles Monopoly. We know, it sounds very confusing to us, but Mama says its the coolest game ever! This is a picture of the game, in the very beginning when Mama wasn't winning yet. (Mama's place is where the round Coke bottle is,)

For Gramma, Mama got a back massager thingy that buzzes a whole lot and massages Gramma's sore back! And for the whole family Mama got a waffle iron so they could make waffles for breakfast.
As for Mama her favorite present from Gramma and Grampa was a camera, which she used to take all of these pictures! (There are a lot more, mostly of the doggies, so we're going to put them on our Facebook page.)


Oh yeah, wanna see our Christmas tree?

And here is all of us (except for Sammy-Joe) in front of our Christmas tree!

And so, friendsies, that was our great Christmas! It may have been our best ever! We hope you all had a wonderful day too. By the way, you can now find our blog on Networked Blogs! We don't know why we never put it on there before but now, if you'd like to follow our blog on Facebook, you can do so here! 


Toodaloo, friends! 

Merry Christmas, EVERYONE!

Hi, friends! We just wanted to tell everyone Merry Christmas, and share this Christmas card we made! We hope you like it! We hope everyone is having a great time with their families. Its our very favorite holiday! We love you, all of you, and this year of being bloggy pets has been the best year of our lives! Merry Christmas!

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Where Are The Presents?

Hi everyone! This is Lily, and I am a detective. I have detected where Mama hid my Christmas present!
Mama was trying to be really sneaky. When she came home from the store the other day, she had lots of bags from the store... but I could smell that my present was hidden in her purse! I stood by Mama's purse and started barking and stomping my feet. Finally Mama gave in and gave me part of my present... just one tennis ball! I ran off with the ball and was happy for a while.
While I was distracted, Mama must have moved the rest of my present. Because later, when I went upstairs, I just knew that the tennis balls were in her closet! I started running around by the closet and whining, hoping she'd give me just one more tennis ball. Mama wouldn't do it. Instead, she took a video of me in my desperate situation!



Mama keeps saying I have to wait until tomorrow to get my present. But why, Mama, why? Can't you see I'm being tortured here? How can Trixie and Lily be so patient about this! Grrrrrrrrrr. 
Raise your paw if you feel my pain! 

Peanut Butter Banana Cookies!

Hi everyone! Mama and Gramma have been making a lot of Christmas cookies lately. So Mama decided we should have some special Christmas cookies! (At least the dogs among us.* Mama still hasn't found a good recipe for kitty treats. Does anyone know of any?) 


Mama found a recipe on Bullwrinkle.com. Here is the recipe she used:

Ingredients

½ cups water(add more water later if required)
½ cup oil
2 eggs
3 tablespoons peanut butter
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
½ cup cornmeal
½ cup oats

Directions

Blend wet ingredients together. Whisk dry ingredients together and mix into wet mixture to form a ball of dough. Roll out and shape. Put onto a non-stick cookie tray or lightly greased one. Cook 20 minutes at 400 F. Turn off oven and allow the biscuits to cool in oven until crisp and hard. Store in airtight container. 

Mama only made a few changes here. First, she didn't have any cornmeal, so she used extra flour instead. (She Googled it first and found out this was fine.) Second, we had some overripe bananas in the house, so Mama mashed one up and added it in. 


Finally, Mama used a cookie cutter to make gingerbread man shapes for us! The only problem was, she couldn't find a rolling pin, so she tried to use the jar of peanut butter to roll out the dough. The result was that instead of lots of thin cookies, we had about ten really thick cookies! Thats fine with us, since Mama only lets us eat a little piece at a time anyway. 


Here is a picture of our super-thick "gingerbread men" with no gingerbread in them! 

Since its Christmas, Mama thought she'd turn some of these cookies into Christmas gifts. (What? We don't get to keep all of our cookies? Boo, Mama!!!) So she put a few in bags. We are sending three to our cousin Judah in California, and bringing two to our second cousins Rocky and Nugget on Christmas Eve. Also Mama packaged up three for our very favorite neighbor dogs, Andi, Betty and Finn! Here is what the cookies looked like, packaged nicely by Mama. 

We got to taste the cookies and we were so happy! Mama tasted one also and she said they were kind of bland. She said it was because there was no sugar, and she's considering adding a little brown sugar in the next batch. We think they're fine, though! No blander than our usual Milk Bones! 


We love it when Mama bakes for us! So we asked her a question. We all got together and suggested to her that she make her baking a monthly thing! We thought that, every month, whether she likes it or not, Mama should bake some delicious treats for us. And she agreed! She said we can try out a new dog recipe every month, and blog about it here! Mama says she actually loves to bake, but her treats for humans don't always work out so well (for instance, every time she tries to make chocolate chip cookies, they come out puffy, dry and bland) and she thinks pets are much easier to please than people. 


Next we told Mama, maybe she could start a whole new business! It could be called the Pet Treat Of The Month Club! People could subscribe, and each month she'd send them a bag of homemade dog treats. We'd become rich! And she could quit her job and stay home with us full time, baking and baking and baking! 


Mama told us our imaginations were getting a little out of control.


Anyways, we sure do like our peanut butter banana "gingerbread" men! We can hardly wait for Mama to bake something else next month! (Lets just hope she doesn't forget.) 


*We have to edit this part because later Mama did give Sammy-Joe a small, kitty-sized piece of one of these, and he happily ate it! 

Wordless Wednesday... Some Love For Sammy-Joe

Its Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

Hi everyone! The other day lots of you were surprised that our mystery box had a Sammy-Joe in it instead of a Christmas tree! But it turns out you were partly right. That box used to have a tree in it. The humans took it out of the box and stood it up in the living room. They do this every winter, inexplicably. They put lots of little things up on the tree. It looks very pretty now! We wonder why they don't leave this tree up all of the time! 

Lily is kind of mad at Grandpa because he turned one of her tennis balls into an ornament. Now she keeps running to the tree and crying, saying, "Give me back that ball!" Mama explained to her that she has fifteen more tennis balls just like it (yep, literally, fifteen) and that she never played with that one anyways. Her favorite tennis balls have all of the fuzz chewed off, and you can see that this one has barely any fuzz chewed off. Also her favorite color is blue, not yellow. Still, Lily does not like to share. Not even with a tree! 

The humans did another strange thing. They took a bunch of socks out of a box, and hung them over the fireplace with care. Everyone in the family has a sock with their name on it. Even Mama's brother who doesn't live with us. Even our sisters Chopper and Zip, and our parakeet brother Woody, who are at the Rainbow Bridge now! Look at all of our little socks. 

We seem to remember that this means something. Something about... that dude whose lap we sat on a few weeks ago... and... PRESENTS! 
So... how long until the presents get here?????

Whats In That Box?

A mysterious, large box has appeared in our basement over the weekend. What does it mean? What do you think could be in it? Any ideas?

Lets just keep our eyes on it. 

Hmm...

See anything suspicious yet?

:

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:

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a

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f

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:

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OMG Hi!!!

Rescue LuvDuv (and some Rescue Me Week updates!)

Hi everyone! During Mayzie's Rescue Me Week a few weeks ago, we promised to start writing every week to feature dogs from Almost Home Foundation who need homes. Well, Mama didn't go there for a few weeks because she was so busy with tests for school, and other things, but she did go do some volunteering there today. And she thought we should tell you about LuvDuv! 

LuvDuv is a terror. Wait, a terrier! Nope, terror might be right. Not in a bad way, though! LuvDuv is just a very mischievious and adventurous 16 month old Cairn Terrier mix. Her foster mother loves her lots and enjoys telling stories of the things LuvDuv does! A lot of these adventures involve food. For instance,  when her human foster brother left a jar of peanut butter on the floor, LuvDuv carried the entire jar down a flight of stairs so she could enjoy it in peace! She did not want to share! Keep in mind, LuvDuv is only a nine pounder, so it was pretty tough to carry that jar down the stairs. But she did it! She also managed to climb up onto a table to drink a glass of red Kool-Aid. Her foster mama couldn't figure out who drank the Kool-Aid, until she saw LuvDuv's red muzzle! We heard she did another trick once with a cup of coffee! We also hear that LuvDuv is very playful and enjoys squeaky toys, playing with her human and animal friends, and going for nice walks with her foster mom. She is also housetrained and is currently not crated while her foster mom is out. She stays out on her own and manages not to cause any trouble most of the time! She is happy for attention and love from anyone, including human adults, children, other dogs, cats, etc. She will cuddle and play with anyone who is nice to her! LuvDuv has also been known to dress up in clothes, including a straw hat. (We wish we had a picture of that!) 
We think LuvDuv would make the perfect doggie for just about anyone, as long as they have some extra attention and love to share with her! Since she enjoys being with people and other animals a lot, we hope she'll find a home with people who really love and enjoy dogs and want to spend time with her. If you think that sounds just like you, and you live in the Chicago area, dial (630) 572-3738 or email dogs@almosthomefoundation.org! 


We also wanted to share some updates about the dogs who we talked about during Mayzie's Rescue Me Week! We don't really get to know the specifics of all of the dogs... we really just know whether they were adopted or not. A lot of times we only find out from looking on Almost Home Foundation's website. But still, we thought you'd like to know!
Heathcliff, the sweet two-year-old standard poodle we wrote about, WAS ADOPTED! 
One of the days, we wrote about a hoarder who gave up 25 of her 50 dogs to Almost Home Foundation. Specifically, we wrote about Brandy and Coco. Brandy WAS ADOPTED! But Coco is still waiting for a home. Remember we mentioned how Coco was deprived of human contact for the most part, and although he is a very laid back dog, he can be very timid around new people and will just sit there and stare at them. However, he's so cuddly... in fact, Mama got to hold him for a while this morning, and he just melted into her like a teddy bear! If you live in the Chicago area and are interested in a sweet 5-year-old Griffon/Brussel/Schnauzer mix to be your own personal teddy bear, call (630)290-3384. 
Prince Pom, the very happy and loving Pomeranian mix with the great smile, WAS ADOPTED! 
Mar Lee, the adorable brindle doggie who reminded us of Mayzie herself, is still looking for a home. The website doesn't give much information about her, but strangely, they have changed her breed from an American Staffordshire Terrier mix (pittbull) to a Plott Hound! Plott Hounds are generally brindle, so this could make sense for little Mar Lee. She is now four months old and sweet as ever. If you're interested in adding a Plott Hound to your household, you could call (630) 775- 1819 for more info about Mar Lee!
Finally, Bermuda, the shy chihuahua who is wary of strangers but loyal to her loved ones, is still looking for a home. Our Mama saw her today and said she is doing great, and even getting a little better about allowing strangers to pet her. If you like chihuahuas and have the patience to get to know this sweet girl, contact her foster dad by emailing him atc22036@email.mot.com, or calling him at 224-715-2526.
So, for Rescue Me Week, we wrote about six dogs, and three of them have been adopted. Thats not bad, is it? We'll write again next week and tell you about more great puppies!