Yes this is the Anipal Super Hero #pawpawty and we are all dressed up as Super Heroes. I am dressed up as the Greatest American Hero for the pawty.
But this week dad says I was a REAL Hero!
On Thursday I smelled smoke and I knew it was dangerous. So I had to convince dad that there was something wrong. First he thought I was telling him I had to go out but he reminded me I had just been out. But I just got more and more agitated and would just not leave him alone. I was whining and started trembling. I think the trembling was what did it.
So dad got up and when he walked in the other room he smelled something burning. He ran downstairs and there was two feet of smoke up at the ceiling all the way down the stairs. My grandma had left a pan on the stove with three hot dogs in it. All the water had boiled away and the hot dogs were ready to burst into flames. Smoke was pouring out of the pan. Grandma was asleep.
Dad says I may have saved the house from catching on fire and maybe even burning down so I am a real hero! Maybe I was a Dalmatian in another life!
Be The Change For Pets is asking everyone to post a 'less-adoptable' pet on their blog during the week of Sept 19-25. So the weekly anipal photo hunt is dedicated to this project.
I am featuring a sweet girl dog named Nico who is currently at the Peninsula SPCA. Nico is seven years old and black and has been at the shelter since August 2nd. Older animals and black pets are particularly difficult to adopt. Nico is a retriever/labrador mix and already spayed.
The Peninsula SPCA is where mom and dad adopted Majel who recently crossed to the Bridge and her sisfur Isis.
This is a great video about the work of the Peninsula SPCA. They also have a great counseling program to help pet owners work through situations that would normally lead to pet abandonment.
This blog post is part of 2 separate hops. First the Anipal Photo Hunt
and then the Be The Change for Anipals Adopt a Less Adoptable Pet Challenge hop:
Dad went to the beach with a friend Sunday. I guess that red stuff on his back he got the other day was not enough to convince him it was a bad idea. Mom was very thoughtful not saying too many times "I told you to make sure you put sunscreen on" and she put rubbing alcohol and moisturizer on the red stuff. This time he wore a shirt.
I wanted to play so I pestered mom until she agreed to take me outside. I love mom but she is just not as good throwing sticks as dad. In fact, she had the idea that she could read her book and I would play by myself. Hah! Since I have destroyed most of the stick population in the back yard, we brought my Chewber outside. Mom tossed the Chewber but I ignored it and played with the sticks until they were just tiny pieces. Mom does not throw very well so she was lucky if she even got one in the water. Eventually I started playing with the Chewber. Trust me, mom cannot throw like the man in this video although she got the Chewber in the water better than the small sticks.
I love the Chewber since it is way easier to pick up than a frisbee, way more durable (I have had this a year and not a single hole and it tugs good) and it doubles as a water bowl. But after a number of tosses back and forth the Chewber got a little muddy and the last time it sunk. Mom is sure if she had thrown it better it would not have sunk. I looked for it in the water for a long time - 20 minutes according to mom. I even tried tapping my paw in the water to make it float up. Mom was amazed I tried to find it for so long since normally I give up when I can't find sticks. The water in our pond is pretty cloudy so trying to see it was pretty impossible.
Wednesday, June 30th is Social Media Day. Mashable declared it so it must be true. To celebrate the wonderful anipal community's focus in social media, the humans working on BarkWorld Expo have decided to throw a Yappy Hour from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT. Of course the first social media event for pets would want to celebrate Social Media Day! BarkWorld Expo is August 20-22 in Atlanta.If your pet is not on Twitter, let them borrow your account for the evening and find our how much fun a virtual anipal pawty can be. There will be DJs (I am DJing 8-9 p.m. EDT), barktenders and prizes. One free pass to BarkWorld Expo will be given out every hour and there will be gift cards for restaurants at the exciting BarkWorld Expo venue - Atlantic Station. If you're not on Twitter, create an account for the event. I guarantee you will have lots of pals at the end of the #YappyHour.
If you have never participated in a Twitter pawty before, this is what you do. If you use Tweetdeck or Seesmic or some other Twitter client, make a column for the hash tag #YappyHour. I also like to do a column for the DJ of the hour and the host, @BarkWorldExpo in this instance. And if you have lots of columns, move your replies column close to them so you can see them all at once. Be sure and include #YappyHour in all your tweets. That's how we all stay in touch during the pawty.
If you are new to Twitter and just use the Twitter client, try TweetGrid. Select Party Mode and this will let you do a three column grid. Type in YappyHour for the pawty hash tag. The great thing is that Tweetgrid will remember to add that hash tag automatically to all your posts. One of the columns will be for you and you can use the third for the pawty host.
One final thing. If you have a private/locked account, you will have to unlock it to enjoy the most of the pawty or only folks that follow you will see you at the #YappyHour.
Other good hash tags for this event #BarkWorld and #SMDay.
Oh, and costumes are always optional but fun. Here is mine. I think it is appropriate for Social Media Day!
Mom has been chattering away about BarkWorld Expo for amany months now. The event is August 20-22 in some place called Atlanta which mom says is a cool place. It is also far away from Furginia and she is going to drive. That means I could go with her because the hotel is pet friendly. But I think she wants to leave me at home with dad.
Her reasons are, in my opinion, weak. Okay, maybe the first one makes a little sense. I am not the best car rider in the world. It's 10 hours which is about 4 hours longer than my longest trip. Mom says she cannot take 8 hours of my high pitch whining.
Her other reason is that I have not been around a lot of people and dogs. But who wouldn't want to meet me? When I meet new people I greet them by putting my paws on their shoulder and giving them a big Yoda Smooch. Surely that would make everyone love me. Right?
Well, what do you, my pals think? Be honest with me - don't pull any punches.
The Expo is going to be all about social media and the wonderful on line animal community. There is something for people who have never thought about letting their pets tweet or have a blog or Facebook page, and something for those of us that have been at it for a while, and something for people who have businesses that sell stuff to our community. There is also going to be lots of non-profit people who want to learn how to do better raising money for their anipal causes. You have GOT to check out the main speakers (humans call them keynote speakers) and the schedule.
When you look at the names of the humans doing the sessions, you will see an awful lot of my pals staff. This is going to be THE EVENT of the anipal social season. So those of us left behind have to have our own pawty so our humans can go and have a great time in Atlanta!
Hard to believe it's another weekend and blog hop! Where do the weeks go?
This is Bear Creek Lake that the park is named after
Well, I do know where mine went this time. On Wednesday mom, dad and I packed up a rental car and headed 3 hours west to Bear Creek Lake State Park. Most of my pals probably know by now that mom works for Virginia State Parks. Mom had to go there to work but dad and I got to hang out and have a good time. We felt a little sorry for mom, but not too much.
This is the Bear Creek Hall where mom had to spend the whole trip working. It is great for meetings and special events.
The new cabins they have built in the last five years at mom's parks are really great for me because they have a porch that goes around on two whole sides. Mom can lay down a rocking chair to block the stairs on both ends and I can play on the porch while they sit out on the deck and enjoy their pursuits. Mom likes to read a book and dad played his guitar. It was really hot while we were there but dad and I still went hiking around the park. We had a good time. Even though mom was working, she seems more relaxed.
This is a 2 bedroom cabin like the one we stayed in and you can see how the porch is.
Here I am admiring the view as dad enjoys an adult beverage on the porch.
Mom was there helping train mostly college aged young people who will be supervising kids 14-17 who will be living and working in her state parks for three weeks this summer. The program is called the Youth Conservation Corps. The first session of this program begins next week, and with a week in between, mom will be pretty busy traveling around visiting those programs the next seven weeks. I think she gets done with that just in time for Bark World Expo!
Get the link for the hop list by clicking the picture above
Through the Blog Hop, I have met some great new friends and cool bloggies and new friends have checked out my blog. Special thanks to Romance Puppy and Macy's Puppy Tales for awarding me with this Versatile Blogger Award!
There are rules for accepting this award. (1) Thank the blogger who gave you this award. In this case two bloggers - lovely Sallie from Romance Puppy.
2) I have to share 7 things about me. Okay here goes:
I am a big kisser. I lick your face, your arm, your leg, and not just sweet little kisses but giant lick the skin off your face smooches. When I send you Yoda Smooches, you need to understand what it really means.
I live with my mom and dad in a house that has a pond in my backyard and I go swimming a lot.
I am a stick-aholic. I see you with a stick and I have to take it. If you throw it I will chase it but I won't bring it back. I usually chew and destroy the sticks.
I have four kitty sibs but they do not like me much. I try to play with them but they are not interesting. So maybe playing to me (65 pounds of Yoda chasing poor little 12 pound kitty) is a little scary to them.
I have an older brother dog and my mom's mom's dog that live in the house but downstairs. By brother Goliath has to live downstairs because he has bad arthritis. Neither Goliath nor Roscoe (would he be my uncle?) like to play with me because I am old and bigger than they are.
I love chewing on bones. My favorite are piggy hooves. I also like the treats in the Big Red Bag by Merrick from Best Bully Sticks. Merrick makes the piggy hooves too and I get them from Best Bully Sticks too.
I also love toys. I am real hard on my plush toys (I eat them) and do tend to destroy most of my toys. But, I have some real good ones and my favorite store is Nip and Bones. My pal Baby Patches is the Chief Kit of that operation.
Now Rule 3 is to list fifteen bloggies I have recently discovered that I think are fantastic. Fortunately the Blog Hop has brought 15 new bloggies to me to bestow this award to. If I give you this award and you have just won it and done your post, just thank me. No one should have to keep finding 15 new bloggies to honor! (This also makes it easier for me so I don't have to do due diligence to find bloggies that haven't already gotten the award). AND, if they hadn't just given me the award, both Romance Puppy and Macy's Puppy Tales would be on this list for sure!
My blog roll is getting really long (110). Mom said it took two hours to read a week's worth of blogs and check out some new ones on the hop. There were 104 bloggies on the Hop this week! And we have not checked them all out yet. If you are one of my regular readers, please check the ones listed above out. It's worth it!
Well, Yoda Smooches to you all (and maybe you all have a better idea of what that means now)!
My mom is kind of geeky but not real technical so she likes techie things if they are easy. She tried out the new Twitter Blackbird Pie (sounds nommy not techie to me). It is supposed to give you an HTML code that you can paste in a blog that will show the tweet instead of all that nasty print screen and cropping you had to do before (if anyone even bothered). It is easy as pie (why all the food references?) and works in Blogger bloggies. What you see when you are writing the post is a little messy looking but it looks great when posted.
Anyway, that's not what this post is about. I saw this tweet last night (warning: video and link in the video is a bit disappointing so don't bother). It caught my eye because it is exactly what BE THE CHANGE MEANS. Oh, and @MasterrYoda is no relation but he has a cool name. Guess he owns a dog named Yoda too.
I think the problem too many people are too selfish. It is so easy to get caught up in just what they want and what they need. Here's another saying that fits: THINK GLOBALLY and ACT LOCALLY.
@ConfuciusCat understands and that's why he started #Purrs4Peace. Anipals also started the #Pawcircle that @DanaPixie coordinates and so many anipals help so much with, because we know that we can make a difference. Whether you believe in the power of prayer or not, the caring and compassion for our community members makes a big difference. What I love about my Twitter friends is that we all believe we can make a difference -- so we are!
Special Yoda Smooches to all my pals and their humans who make a difference every day!
And did everybody get their Be The Change shirts from @BZTAT like my mom?
One thing on Twitter makes me laugh more than anything else - BOTS.
I think it all started when I began tweeting about bacon. Probably at Dudefest. All the sudden bacon people were following me and retweeting me whenever I mentioned bacon. Since mom does Twitter for her job she started wondering what kind of apps these guys use. Anyway, we had some fun about the bacon bots.
Then there's the pet bots: @Anipals, @ASmarterDog and @PetBizRipoffs. Well, we think they are bots because all they do is Retweet folks. They seem to be affiliated with something called Pawsville that isn't in service any more. Who knows. What's funny is that they randomly retweet my tweets and others and sometimes it is just so funny. Tonight they decided to retweet what I tweeted about mom drinking coffee with Kahlua White Russian mix in it. Seems like lately they are retweeting me more than usual. Maybe efurrybuddy else is blocking them. I kind of enjoy them.
Then there was the Twitter people that kept registering all my new avatars. I think they are behind a few so maybe they stopped.
Who or what is behind these Twitter accounts? Makes my head hurt to think about it so I just bark out loud when I see them.
Then something spooky happened the other night. I was tweeting with @MattieDog and mentioned I was thinking about going a little risque with my next avatar. He told me to go for it. But then, @_magic8ball tweeted me:
OMD - it told me not to. Bad thing was I had already loaded it up. It's a good avatar but I have had a few pals talk about my limited endowment and a bunch of pals mention that I'm nekkid. Was @_magic8ball right? NAH! The new avie is fun!
P.S. Nekkid in famous art is perfectly okay. This is a famous fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo called "The Creation of Adam."
The votes are in - on the bloggie and Twitter - and the winning avatar for #Chilipawty is, ta-da
Mariachi Yoda
Most of my pals thought the guitar suited me. I had votes for the two other pictures too and the votes were so high for #2 that I decided that by day and night I am Mariachi Yoda but when I have to put the bitey on bad guys, I turn into, you guessed it
Zorro
I thank you for efurryone that voted to help me make up my mind. And now I am going to put this costume on and get my guitar ready. I'm DJing at 7 p.m. eastern so be sure and come by and listen to some tunes!
