I'm Not Afraid of the Dark #EarthHour

Tonight in a few minutes we are turning out all the lights, the TV, and all electronics in honor of the World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour. Turning off the lights for an hour is a small start but mom says it symbolizes what individuals can do to make a difference. Mom says that global warming doesn't just mean hot weather but crazy weather. We sure had crazy weather this winter! The WWF is behind this event because the weird weather is threatening habitat and animals all over the world. Other things that man does to ruin the planet like chop down the rain forests also hurts animals and the whole planet - not just the countries where they chop them down.

There are lots of people that don't believe in Global Warming and many more that think it isn't man's fault. All the cow farts make lots of that carbon stuff. But why do we need all the cows? Cause people eat them. But call it global warming or not - air, water and land pollution is bad and caused because people want more and more and don't do what they can to at least minimize their impact.

My family is making a commitment now to do everything we can, every day, to save the planet!

Picture Contest

My friend Shawnee Shep tagged me for the Photo Contest. I think this is a cool idea. This is what I have to do:

1. Open your first photo folder
2. Scroll down to the 10th photo
3. Post the 10th photo and tell the story about it
4. Pass along to 5 other blogs

Well, I opened my very first picture folder which has the first pictures mom and dad took of me and this was number 10.


I was such a cute puppy. I was two months old in this picture and living in my pen while I was being potty trained. This was my "please I want to be on the bed with you" look. It usually worked.

Now for my five friends to tag for the contest:

Adore My Pets: I have to confess I just found this bloggie and I love it already!

Mario's Meowsings: I love Mario's writings.

Boris Kitty - 4 Paws for a Cause: We got our #SciFiPawty prizes this week. Dad is addicted to the BuckyBalls that Caesar won. Not a kitty prize anyway (although he got some treats in the package). I won the three stuffed urban legends. Mom and dad really liked them so given my history with plush, they are on display where I can't reach them. It's ok because I also got my Baby Patches Nip and Bones prize this week.

Love Always Bear: I always wait for Bear's latest installments

and last , but not least

The World's Most Stunning Cat: Well based on the bloggie title, Cathy Keisha is not humble but she is pretty stunning.

Mom has been so busy this week because at work they are switching email. She doesn't do the actual IT work but she helps all the users get ready (including emailing 280 users their new passwords). She has even been neglecting her work Twitter, Facebook and blog, so you know where I've been - out of touch. No email this weekend while the tech people do their thing, so mom and I are looking forward to catching up on all our favorite bloggies! Oh and the #puppypawty!

May the Luck of the Irish Be With You

I'm German and Labradorian so not Irish but mom is 25% Irish so I am all dressed up for St. Patrick's Day. Mom says many people who are not Irish at all (like me) think it is fun to celebrate.


St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland so that's why they pick his feast day to celebrate being Irish. It is said that St. Patrick taught people about the Trinity by using the shamrock as an analogy of the three persons in one God. According to Wikipedia St. Patrick's color was original blue but it changed over to green. There are lots of parades and celebrations on March 17th, St. Patrick's Day.

Mom and me did some research on the phrase "the luck of the Irish" but didn't have much luck. Seems no one is really sure what it means. As a people, the Irish had some really bad luck. In fact most of the folks of Irish descent in this country came from Ireland because of the great potato famine. When they got to this country they weren't treated real well either. But, one thing that seems to be true is that no matter how bad things get, the Irish keep on going. Maybe they make their own luck!

My cat brofur and sisfurs got together and practiced a traditional Irish dance with me to wish you all a Happy St. Patrick Day. Poor Caesar had to dress up like a girl. He has nice legs though.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

The Sunshine Award

The Shibbering Cheetos have awarded my bloggie the Sunshine Award. I am not sure if I am more honored to win the award or to have it bestowed upon me by the most famous anipal band in the universe. (I would have said "world" but after this weekend;s SciFiPawty, it's definitely the universe).

The award goes to a blogger who fills your like with sunshine. After this winter, we sure need all the sunshine we can get! And, I am so honored that I was selected. The rules for accepting the Sunshine Award are as follows:

1.Put the Sunshine Award flower logo on your blog or within your post

2.Pass the award onto 12 bloggers who fill your life with Sunshine

3.Link the winners within your post

4.Leave a comment on their blog letting them know they've received the Sunshine Award

5.Post these instructions so they'll know what to do!

The logo is in this post and I am going to put it on the side of my blog in a place of honor as well. The next part is hard because some of my favorite bloggies that we read all of the time and enjoy have already won the award. In fact, I noticed today that the flower pictures were popping up all over my bloggie roll. I have made the best effort to not select bloggies that have already been honored but if they haven't accepted the award, what could I do. I even checked out a couple of my pals who also won to make sure I didn't pick their honorees. As mom and her government people would say, I did my due diligence!

Here go my 12 favorites (in no particular order):

The Shenanigans of Shawnee the Shepherd by @ShawneeShep - I think Shawnee's was the first bloggie we started reading on a regular basis and it was because we saw on Twitter about the big trip to deliver @BusyButtons to her forever home. Then we started reading about all of the wonderful hiking Shawnee does with her mom so it is our absolute favorite blog. Mom got to meet Shawnee and her mom on her way home from the Shorty Awards. I was so jealous. Shawnee and her family also do a great job with product testimonials and mom and me are working to be better bloggers with them as role models.

Confessions of the Plume by @BabyPatches - Baby Patches is a really sweet kitteh but I love her best because her momma has my most favorite store - Nip and Bones. Mom buys me really cool toys there. I love reading about the Chief Kit's duty at the store - kind of a behind the scenes look at running a business.

Albert the Cat's Blog by @Albertthecat - Well, no one would say that Bert is a cheery bloke but his escapades and the way he talks about his family always make us laugh. And, he seems to be an anipal that can write posts as long as mine.

Teeny's Friends by @TeenysFriends - While I had been following Teeny for a while on Twitter, I got to know him better when we were both DJ's for the Winter Olympics Pawpawty. I learned more about all the work Teeny and his organization does to get toys to needy anipals. Even a shelter animal's life can be made better with a toy! So he brings lots of sunshine to needy anipals not just me.

Call Me The Breeze by @Kittehboi - I love his bloggie and his Yellow Snow post still makes me chuckle. I was also taken with his tribute to Laika, the first Russian Cosmonaut. I am glad there is a space program but I don't like the idea of sending animals to space without being able to get them back home.

Rockum Sockum's View On Things by @RockumSockum - We love reading about Rockum's large animal family. There is so much love in that house. I like that each animal gets their day out with mom and a couple of double cheeseburgers too.

Shelter Diaries - I actually don't even know if they are on Twitter. This blog does not bring us happiness. In fact it always makes mom and me cry. Like just now when we looked at the updates on some of the posts. But the sunshine goes to the animals at the Shelter in Texas where this man volunteers and brings love and kindness to animals, many of whom are eventually euthanized. We wish we could adopt them all. It is hard for us to read about it but this man goes back time and again and I know his heart must break.

Fido & Wino by @FidoandWino - Shauna just moved their blog from Blogger to Wordpress with their very own URL. We love reading about Mickey and Kayloo as well as Shauna and her husband.

Cleo's Day by @GrouchyPuppy - I never really thought @GrouchyPuppy was that Grouchy (certainly not in Albert the Cat's league), and we really enjoy Cleo's bloggie. Cleo introduces us to a lot of Grouchy's friends which is fun. Besides, I really enjoyed the post about the dog hair song.

King's Meow by my brofur @Caesar_OSkeezix - Okay so this one is a little self-serving. There is no secret that there is no love lost between me and my kitteh sibs through no fault of my own. Well no fault that I can control since I can't help it that I'm a dog and I'm big. So I am hoping this will be a peace offering of sorts. I must say I am still laughing about Caesar in his Jabba the Hutt costume.

The Days of Johann, an agility dog! by @JohnannTheDog - I thoroughly admire all that agility stuff and now that they are opening up agility events to doggies whose papas were rolling stones like mine, I aspire to learning the agility stuff. Well, just as soon as I learn to stop jumping up on mom.

Lou, Mama's Boy by @LouPeb - Since I have been on Twitter I have run into a number of dogs that look a lot like me. Lou was the first one I noticed. That's why I started with the "Papa was a rolling stone" comment (ok it's a musical reference since I'm a DJ - "wherever he laid his hat was his home" meaning he really got around and had a lot of families). I enjoy reading about Lou and his sisfur Pebbles.

Well that's my award winners. Now I need to post on their bloggies they have won and give them the rules.

May The Force Be With You

Today I went to @BorisKitty's #ScifiPawty and it was so much fun. All of the DJs played sci-fi related tunes. Oh and there were really good scifi quiz questions and really cool prizes. Caesar and I both won one.

The best parts was all of the costumes. Boris even had a costume contest so the anipals went all out. I had to go to the pawty as my namesake Yoda so this was my avatar for a couple of weeks. It did start getting confusing though cause some other anipals were also dressed as Yoda.


Apparently mom has something for big ear characters so she also dressed me like Quark. She and dad were great fans of Deep Space Nine. We feel that many people have forgotten about how great that Star Trek series was.


Of course we are Harry Potter fans so with her big ear thing she had to dress me up as Dobby. Dobby was not the brightest character in scifi so I was a little insulted. But if my good friend @ShawneeShep as smart as she is could dress up as Jar Jar, I guess I can be Dobby.

Finally, my brofur @Caesar_O'Skeezix also went to the pawty and we dressed him as Jabba the Hutt. I call Caesar Tubby the Tabby so I think that costume was really appropriate.

It was a great pawty! And the good news is the original fundraising goal for the Animal Rescue League of Berks County was doubled with more than $1,000 in donations. Anipals ROCK! We anipals have lots of fun at our various pawties but we always remember those less fortunate than us by helping raise money for animal charities.

New Toys!

As many of you may know if you read my bloggie, I am a little hard on my toys, especially the stuffed variety. So mom tries really hard to find toys that are extra strong. Even if they don't last as long as she wants, she figures it's better that I eat a toy than the furniture or other stuff that mom and dad like.

So on payday mom finally moved some items out of the @NipandBonesLLC wish list to the order cart. Yay! She made dad promise he wouldn't open the box until she was home in case they came when she was in New York. This is because sometimes the toy gets destroyed before she can get a picture.When mom came home for work on Monday there was the box straight from @BabyPatches. I knew it was here cause @BabyPatches told me she saw the delivery confirmation. Mom gave me all three new toys at once so she could see which one was my favorite.

Hands down the favorite was the Busy Buddy Waggle. Mom ordered the medium/large one for me because I am a big doggie. The small one would be good for toy queen @busybuttons.

The beauty of the Busy Buddy Waggle is that in combines a really strong rubbery chew toy with treats. Mom puts some of my little training treats inside and they come out gradually. I learned right away that if I munch the ball end it makes the treats get littler and they come out faster.

You can see that I was really sliming this toy and maybe a little bit the bed cover. Sorry mom. Oh and it looks like I'm overdue for a nail trim. By the way, the waggle is on sale at Nip and Bones!

My second toy was a duckie so I could join the duckie club. This is a really strong duckie. You could tug and tug all day and it would never tear or open up. However, if your intention is to eat the head, you might be successful. Just saying.

At Nip and Bones, this guy, who I named Sir Quacksalot, is a Pentapull. They come in 4 different animals. The Duckie, cow, hedgehog and squirrel. It says they are Dog Approved for tugging, pulling, and shaking and that is really true. It passed the Yoda tug test.


The last of my new toys is really fun but I need help to play with it. It is a really cool Kong Tug Toy. This toy is also on sale at Nip and Bones. I have been having a great time tugging with mom and dad with this new toy. Read the instructions and keep out of doggie's reach when not playing because it is not a chewing toy and some foolish doggie might try to eat it.


I told mom to leave my eyes green for this one since it make me look even more fierce. I look like I deserve my spikey collar with this toy.


All in all, I got quite a haul! Well, maybe I'm not up to @BusyButtons toy box yet.

I Think It's Spring!

Today it went up to 59 degrees (15 degrees Celsius for my International readers). Hard to believe it just snowed Tuesday night (before the nor'easter washed it away). That meant, you guessed it, time for swimming! Dad thought it was too cold to go swimming but how could anyone resist this?

Hurry dad! Let's play!

Dad took me out in the backyard and there I was swimming with the geese!

I just went swimming right away - I didn't even wait for dad to throw a stick!

Then he threw sticks in the pond and I fetched them over and over again!

Maybe I have some retriever in me?

Since dad took the pictures, there were 40 different shots of me pooping. He seems to be fixated on that. Fortunately it's mom that helps me with my bloggie so we picked one that gave me some privacy.

Privacy Please!

Too soon the fun was over.

A good shake after a great swim - priceless

Dad never dries me off (much to mom's dismay), so I brought back lots of water to share with mom.

Speak! Daddy, Speak!

This is Yoda's daddy. He gave me permission (bunch of licks to the face!) to post a blog here, so here I am.

I never had a normal pet when I was a kid. I had a couple of turtles, a few goldfish along the way, and even a couple of anole lizards billed as "chameleons" at the Woolworth store in downtown Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. But not the first sign of a cat or dog. The closest I came to any mammalian pets back then were two rabbits my cousin captured in his garden one day. They lasted about a week on our back porch and it all turned out so darned sad in the end. When I married Nancy, Yoda's Mommy, I came into things and gained two cats as pets. The two cats have increased to four, and I am quite attached to them, thank you. But as luck would have it, the evening Yoda came home was a major page turner for me.

This is Yoda as a puppy when we had him in a big pen while he learned to be potty trained
How could you not love a face like that?

I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh giving one of his rants against PETA, and he said something about animals not wanting rights, but we as humans have a duty to treat animals kindly and humanely. It should be obvious from such a statement that Rush never had a dog in his life. That really does explain a LOT! I am in no way "anthropomorphosizing" when I make the following statement:

Dogs really do feel and show a full range of emotions. We've all seen angry dogs, and frightened dogs. But take the time to notice the look of utter happiness and joy on a dogs face when a favored toy is offered for play. Check out the way a dog positively SMILES when mommy and/or daddy walk into the room. I even witnessed Yoda being totally concerned about my welfare, in spite of the fact that I was very angry and he was very afraid, yet he STILL tried to physically calm me down with LOVE, and the look on his face was proof positive that he was feeling the very things I am describing.

Rush, get a dog!

Yoda showing his affection

My Present from Shawnee

Yesterday my mom got to meet Shawnee and her mom while she was on the way from the Shorty Awards in New York City. Shawnee wrote a great blog about it and since she was there, you should read that for the details.

In addition to sending me some good smells (thanks for pointing out the shoe Shawnee that was a good one) and doggy hair on mom's clothes, Shawnee sent me the neatest gift. It is a green gecko just like that little guy on the TV commercials only better - this one has two squeakers and stretches real good in the middle. As Shawnee pointed out, it is a good toy for me because it doesn't have much stuffing in it. All of you that read my bloggie should know my history with stuffed animals!

Usually even the ones without stuffing are not safe. While we were on vacation I got one of those and I just ate it piece by piece. So far so good - it's almost 24 hours and the gecko is doing great. He may be missing one of his paws but otherwise he is perfectly healthy and I have been playing with him a lot. So great toy choice Shawnee!

This is when mom first gave me the present bag

Notice I put my face all the way in the bag - I could smell Shawnee's whole family

Next I will go through my routine for testing my new toys:

It squeaks real good

It's fun throwing it in the air

I like testing my toys from all angles, especially upside down
Shawnee's mom gave my mom good advice on how to fix my eye here but
she left this one cause it matches the gecko!

The final test is the nommy level. For this test I have a video. Mom now realizes this was when I was working on eating the poor gecko's paw. I didn't quite get it before the end of the video.

My two favoritest toys right now - Gecko and my bone

This is my Buttons imitation - using my toy as a pillow!

All I can say is Shawnee gives really good presents! Her mom also gave me something called a supplement. Mom says it will make my coat even more handsome. Dad was a little worried about the "sustained energy level" aspect.

Empire State of Mind

Mom is enjoying herself in New York City. She had a great dinner with @BZTAT (aka @BrewskieButt's mom), @FrugalDougal's staff, @BayChildCare and @Tildatoo. Their waitress took this picture.

From left to right, mom, Lynn @BayChildCare, Theresa @Tildatoo,
Vicki @BZTAT and Lynn @FrugalDougal's staff.

I like this picture of @FrugalDougal' staff

Lynn @BayChildCare and Theresa @Tildatoo

Theresa @Tildatoo and Vicki @BZTAT

Tonight is the Shorty Awards so wish them luck. Since mom's competition is @NASA she is not planning on winning but she hopes to get some good publicity for Virginia State Parks. It was also a not to miss opportunity to meet some of our Twitter friends!

Course I had to give this post a title from a song since I am a DJ. Here is a link to the song: http://blip.fm/~m3zw3.