Who’s afraid of a little cat? Until next time, Good day, and good dog!
Good shepherd
I always thought I’d be a golden retriever person. And I still am. Indeed, I am still very much into the gun dog breeds. I will always have one around.
But I’ve added to my canine tastes an entirely different sort of dog. Well, they aren’t entirely different. I really like the working shepherd dogs from the European continent. They are into retrieving, too, but their natural tendency is to retrieve with a very hard mouth. Half-wild sheep or cattle living on the North European Plain need hard tending.
Anka is a working German shepherd, whose ancestry I’ll never know, but I know she is from working lines. Her dark sable color predominates in those strains, and she is only 64 pounds.
She has decided that I am her main human and with me is as demonstrative and fawning as a golden retriever. With strangers, she is merely aloof. Aggression towards people really isn’t her thing. She loves children and will even adjust her wild playing to meet their needs.
I suppose now I will always have a dog of this type too. The two types of dog are an interesting juxtaposition to each other. Both are about seeking the approval of mankind. Both are about marveling at our species. As flawed as we are, there is something oddly comforting to look into the brown eyes of a dog like these two types.
A German shepherd is a wolfy enough animal for me to think of them as something truly primitive. But their primeval appearance is illusory. They were made wolves out of herding stock, and though they may have a bit of Central European wolf blood coursing their veins, they are working herding breed.
I suppose that as I gain more experience meeting dogs, I will have new ideas about them, and I have the right to change my mind as new facts and faces come to the fore.
I never thought I’d feel this way about a dog of this type, but I really do like her. I love her soft sensitivity, which she avails only to a select few, but it is so different from what I’ve seen in other “macho” breeds. The boxer and working bulldog types I’ve been around are not like this at all. They are many things, but sensitive souls they are not.
I feel so embarrassed that I was wrong about this breed. Dogs barking like maniacs in backyards or the ones that you pass at the park that growl at you as their owners hold their leads tightly are not truly representative of the breed.
In fact, those same dogs in the right hands might be the most stable working dogs. and with their owners, they might be biggest babies that cower before the Yorkshire terrier or cat that lives in the house.
Anka has this odd sense of humor. It is developed and refined. She greets me with a lick on the face, and then when I’m not looking at her, she will pop her jaws just an inch from my face. I will flinch, and she will look back at me with this goofy grin. Her eyes are so soft and gentle, yet you cannot readily see them through her black mask.
And the way those eyes look at me, I know that I am hers and she is mine, and all will go right with the universe so long as we can be together.
5 Cooling Products for Dogs on Hot Summer Days
When the temperatures hit the triple digits–and stay there–it’s important to take extra precautions with your dog. We’ve got some serious heat predicted for the days ahead:…
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10 Awesome Beauty Hacks Using Baby Products
I have been compensated by the JOHNSON’S® Brand for this post; however, I am sharing my own thoughts. All opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that help male Bubby and Bean possible.
It’s no secret that one of my greatest joys is finding ways to use my little ones’ baby and kid products for other uses. This is especially true when it comes to hacking their JOHNSON’S® Baby products for beauty use. I mean, we already have them on hand, they’re super gentle on skin, and they’re affordable – it’s a no brainer. It’s kind of exciting when you realize how many ways they can be used in place of expensive beauty products. Today I’m sharing with you 10 super cool beauty hacks you can do using JOHNSON’S® Baby Oil, JOHNSON’S Baby HEAD TO TOE™ Cleansing Cloths, and JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder. Woohoo!
1. Baby oil for taming split ends. I’m telling you guys, there is no better way to tame the ends of your hair than with a little baby oil. I like JOHNSON’S® Baby Oil with Aloe Vera & Vitamin E. I have naturally frizzy hair, which tends to show up the most in the ends. I just squeeze a couple of drops on my fingers and rub into the ends of dry hair, and they immediately look better.
2. Baby oil for removing eye makeup. My mom always used JOHNSON’S® Baby Oil to remove her eye makeup when I was growing up, and as soon as I started using makeup, it became my go-to as well. It even removes waterproof mascara with the swipe of a cotton ball.
3. Baby oil for glowing, shimmery legs. I read somewhere that rubbing baby oil on legs is a trick of celebrities to make them look shiny and glowing for events. And I’m telling you guys, it works! I apply a few drops of JOHNSON’S® Baby Oil with Aloe Vera & Vitamin E as soon as I get out of the shower while my legs are still wet.
4. Baby oil as a body scrub. Mixing JOHNSON’S® Baby Oil with some sugar and a couple of drops of essential oil makes an instant (and super softening) exfoliating body scrub.
5. Baby oil as a cuticle moisturizer. My cuticles get dry so easily, but I’ve found that rubbing a couple of drops of JOHNSON’S® Baby Oil into them before bed keeps them soft and under control. It can also be used for touch ups to remove excess nail polish from your skin when doing at home manicures and pedicures.
6. Baby cleansing cloths for quick skin clean up. When you have two little kids and spend a lot of time outside chasing after them, you get dirty fast. I carry a container of JOHNSON’S Baby HEAD TO TOE™ Cleansing Cloths in my purse everywhere I go – they’re a life saver for quick skin clean ups. They’re also great for feeling fresh after a flight or long road trip.
7. Baby cleansing clothes to remove hair dye from skin. The older I get, the more often I’m touching up my grey roots at home. (SIGH.) Because I am far from an expert colorist, I always get excess dye on my forehead and cheeks. With a gentle scrub of a JOHNSON’S Baby HEAD TO TOE™ Cleansing Cloth, I’m good to go in seconds.
8. Baby cleansing clothes for on-the-go makeup remover. When I’m traveling, I always bring a package of JOHNSON’S Baby HEAD TO TOE™ Cleansing Cloths to use to remove my makeup at night. So much easier than carting around all of my cleansers! (And so handy for quickly removing dirt and food from my kids’ faces too!)
9. Baby powder as a dry shampoo. A dear friend taught me this trick when we were at a festival in Yosemite years ago and didn’t have access to a shower every day. JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder (I love the Calming Lavender variety) is made from pure cornstarch (no talc!) and with a few shakes and a brush through, my hair feels clean and is full of volume. One of my all time favorite beauty hacks!
10. Baby powder to keep eye makeup in place. I give my eyelids a quick swipe of a little JOHNSON’S® Baby Powder after applying shadow and liner, and my makeup is set in place all day long.
If you have any other beauty hacks you love using baby products, please share! And if you’d like to try any of these yourself, head over to your local Walmart (we get ours there, in the baby product aisle inside of the kids’ section) and grab some JOHNSON’S® Baby products of your own!
If someone is reporting an adverse event or a product quality complaint, please tell them to call the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) North America Consumer Care Center at 800-361-8068 during normal business hours of operation: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET. After normal business hours, they can report adverse events or product quality complaints through www.jnj.com Contact Us page.
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Barli Meets the Zwig! #ZwigvsTwig #WestPawUs #DogsBestFriend
As you know from our photos, Barli is a fiend for sticks… Since day one, he has searched the yard for sticks–big or small–and proceeded to destroy them… We’ve been…
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Posted in Pet Care Articles
Tagged #DogsBestFriend, #WestPawUs, #ZwigvsTwig, Barli, Meets, Zwig
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New life
The hours passed on nice summer day. All day the mother dog has panted and stared. Her maiden litter was on its way, and I was there to watch them come.
A sweet little golden retriever, she was too sensitive to push unless she knew her people where there to stroke her ears and tell her what a good girl she is.
As the night drew near, she climbed on the bed between us and then began her long night of pushing and pushing. A wave of contractions would rise from within her, and she would rise in discomfort and turn around. Then she would go prone again against the bed, but the next wave would have her rise, pushing and turning in her primal mammalian dance of parturition.
At one point, her vulva was just inches from my face, and in her pushing, I could see the coming amniotic sack, and then I saw the head of a golden retriever puppy emerge from her body cavity. It was perfection just wrapped in a sheet of biological plastic wrap.
Another push or two, and the bitch screamed as the puppy passed from the prenatal state into the breathing and screaming existence that we call life.
Then the membrane that held him so securely then split away from his face, and as the oxygen filled his little lungs, he inched over to the milk-filled mammaries and helped himself to a good helping of colostrum.
But he was still connected to his placenta and for what seemed an eternity to me, he was both nursing off his mother and tapping into her blood supply. He was trapped between both states, but one was about to let him go and sink into the other.
He suckled ravenously, and the mother dog expelled the placenta. And thus the first of a litter of seven little puppies entered the world. Through the dark hours of the night, two little girl puppies and four more little boys lurched forward into the great bursting of existence.
And the mother dog shared it with me. She, a beast perfected over the eons to serve mankind, needed us to hold her as she began to force her progeny into the world.
I have never before been privy to such a spectacle. I have no interest in producing a child of my own, and all of my experiences with dogs whelping have been fleeting memories from childhood, where the bitch whelped black crossbreeds in the back of the garage and I hoped that the daddy was a Labrador and not the fierce boxer from up the road. And obvious flattened muzzles exhausted those hopes very quickly.
But to know a dog like this one, one that trusts me enough to share this intimate aspect of her life, is a moving experience. I am better for having been privy to the entire spectacle.
And I am happy. I am content. And I am free.
Dog Food Hack
I never have trouble getting my Penny to eat, but I have no doubt this would work if she ever did turn up her nose! Until next time, Good day, and good dog!