Jade was adopted!

Great news - Jade has found a home! She was adopted by a very nice family, and they have promised to throw a lot of tennis balls for her to chase. I am so glad she found such a good home. I was worried about her because even though she's friendly and well behaved, she still started out with three strikes against her - she's a large dog (most people want small ones), she's a black dog (always the hardest to adopt out), and she's high energy (too much for many people to keep up with). So when I received an e-mail from someone inquiring about Jade, my first thought was that "they must mean someone else". I found out that they had recently lost a dog that is very similar to Jade (beautiful lab mix named Mickey), and they were ready to add another dog to the family. I'm so glad they picked Jade - she has had a rough first year of her life, and I hope she only has great years ahead of her with her new family.

Jade was adopted on Friday. Saturday I had Elvis, Reese and the three kittens at PetSmart. I was hopeful that one of them would also be adopted, but it was not to be. We had a very slow, hot day on Saturday. We did get Toby adopted - he was a cute little beagle puppy that never even made it onto the website because he was adopted very quickly. Remember me talking about those two adorable beagle pups I wanted to take home and keep? Toby was one of them! The other one made his first trip to PetSmart but is still waiting on his home. Also we had two other dog adoptions during the week. Buster is a cute lab/basset mix who had a great personality, and Kiya is a Pharaoh Hound mix who was the mom to the puppies that I dogsat. Kiya was the escape artist who turned out to be smarter than me - I was never able to keep her in any enclosure - she just wanted to be with people so bad! She was adopted before any of her puppies found homes! Even though Saturday was slow for dogs, today (Sunday) was a little better for me personally. I took all three kittens to PetSmart, and came home with only two! Avalanche was adopted right at the end of the day - he went home to a great family who was looking for a new kitten to spoil. The three kids begged, pleaded, and offered thousands of dollars to their parents, and who could resist that? So Avalanche, my favorite kitten ever, now has his very own family to give him a lot of love and attention.

Kitten Adoptions

Three of my kittens have found new homes! Ace, Apollo and Taffy were all adopted on Saturday. I now just have two left from each litter. Blaze and Monkee are the slightly older kittens, and then Astro and Avalanche are the two remaining flood kittens. I'm hoping to teach Monkee and Astro to be more friendly this week, and to teach Blaze to be less friendly. Avalanche is already perfect. Monkee and Astro just aren't that interested in cuddling, so I'm trying to teach them how nice it is to be held and petted. Blaze just needs to be taught that people are not supposed to be climbed like trees - he digs his claws in and climbs from the floor to the top of my head, and then digs his claws into my head. He does this to everyone he meets unfortunately. I know a little bit about dog training and dog behavior, but nothing about cats, so it is time for me to consult one of the cat foster moms and learn some new things!

None of the dogs were adopted this week, but they did do very well at Petsmart. It's always hard to guess how a dog will do if they've never been there. Some of them are quiet and shy, some are friendly and outgoing, and some of them are loud and upset. I was afraid that Jade would be one of the loud and upset dogs - barking at every person and every dog that walked by. But she actually did very well - she turned out to be one of the friendly, outgoing dogs! We put a donation vest on her to try to get some donations, and she happily greeted all the people and dogs, and had no problems. I was very relieved about that. The puppies of course also did great, and enjoyed playing with another puppy that was there to be adopted (Yosemite Sam, the last of Molly's puppies still waiting to be adopted). We didn't get any new puppies adopted this week though - the only dog adoptions were pre-arranged ones. Now I'm hoping that someone sees one of my puppies on the website this week and decides to adopt them, so they don't have to wait until next weekend to get another chance at a new home.

Dog and Cat Pictures

The kittens have taken over the house, and the dogs are not sure what to make of it. Here are some pictures of the fun they've been having! As always, you can click on any of the pictures to see them larger size.

This is Ace attacking Remi (Ace won, of course).



Here, the kittens have taken over Samantha's dog food dish, and refuse to share with her.


George, the adult cat on the left, is thinking "where are all these kittens coming from?!"


Samantha and Apollo vye for dominance of the coffee table (as expected, Apollo wins).


Avalanche, surveying his domain!

Vala and Selena were adopted!

This was a good weekend for me at Petsmart. Vala was adopted on Saturday, to a nice family with two young boys. I had a really hard time watching her go - they picked her up on Saturday evening from my house, and Vala happily jumped in the car, but when they got ready to drive away, she just kept looking out the window at me like "aren't you coming with me?". I still have this picture in my head of the car driving away with her looking back at me as long as she can. I know she'll settle in and be fine, but I hate that I can't explain to her somehow what is happening. Whenever I bring home a new dog, I give them a brief explanation on why they're there, and how its just temporary and they will find their forever home soon. Unfortunately most of them don't seem to understand, and Vala especially seemed to think we were her permanent family. I really really hope this works out, because I can't stand for her to keep leaving and coming back - its so confusing for her. She was adopted out once but returned the next day because the person's dog didn't get along with her. And then we went on vacation and she was sent to another foster home while we were gone. So she's been moved around a lot lately, and I really want this to be her forever home.

Selena was also adopted, and went to her new home yesterday. She took a very long time to get adopted at first, and when I found out she was being returned, I expected to have a hard time finding her a new home again. But she came back on Saturday, and was adopted again on Sunday! She is a great dog - no major issues at all, just very high energy. The lady who adopted her has another dog for Selena to play with, and has some experience with dog training, so I hope that it will work out for her.

I am back to only two foster dogs now - Noah and Samantha. Samantha is doing great - she's ALMOST house-trained, and she is just the sweetest dog. She follows me around and just wants to lay at my feet all the time. Now that her best friend playmate is gone (Vala), she's kind of lonely. Remi and Noah are both older and don't like to play as much. Samantha is only 7 months old. I know a lot of people only have one dog, but if its a young dog, I don't know how they do it. It is so much easier when they have another dog to play with!

I am hoping to work with Noah more now that it is a little less hectic at home. He doesn't know any obedience commands - no one has ever even taught him to "sit" - or if they have, he's forgotten it! Shy dogs can do really well with obedience training, because it increases their confidence. Think about it this way - if you learn a new skill (say, you learn to speak French) then all of a sudden you feel more confident when you go to France. Sure, you don't catch every word - but if you can at least understand the basics of what people are saying, you are going to be a little less timid. Noah is doing well at my house, but he doesn't seem to be showing a lot of progress. I'm hoping that some basic obedience training will help him develop more confidence.

None of the kittens have been adopted yet. I am trying to talk my husband into letting me adopt Avalanche as a birthday present. He's the sweetest kitten - he just wants to be held and petted all the time. I don't expect to talk my husband into it, but I'm going to keep trying. :-)

Kitten Pictures

I took more pictures of all my kittens to get them added to the website, so I'll share them here also. Here are my cat-napped kittens...

This is Monkee - she has such a cute little face, and her fur is soooo soft!

This is Taffy - she's my favorite - she always wants to jump up on my shoulders, and just stays there while I walk around the house doing chores.


This is Blaze. He's the only boy of this litter, and he is very friendly. I found him yesterday walking on Remi's back. Remi is my 150 lb Great Dane. Remi just looked at him like "Huh?! What's going on?!".


This is Ella - she's the mom of the first three kittens I fostered a couple months ago. She is still up at Petsmart and hasn't been adopted yet. :-(


Here is a picture of Ace - he's one of my flood kittens. He loves to play with feather toys, and will growl and play tug with it!


This is Apollo. He came back from the vet with this cute little bandana, and I can't bear to take it off of him! It has little mice and cheese on it.


This is Astro - he is my attack kitten. He loves to sneak up on and attack a small stuffed dog in the kitten's playroom. (Yes, my kittens have their own playroom -- they're a little bit spoiled.)

This is Avalanche. He's the tough guy kitten - he growls at the other kittens if they try to eat while he's eating canned food. Its a good thing he's so cute - its very hard to take him seriously with his little kitten growl!




Okay, back to dog news. We went to the Rascal's baseball game last night - it was one of their "Take your Dog to the Ballpark" nights. It was a lot of fun. My husband went with me, and we took Samantha and Vala. Then he decided to go back home and bring Remi up also. All the dogs had fun. Noah wanted to go, but we thought he might change his mind once he got there. He doesn't like all the people and noise, so he stayed home and watched over the kittens while we were gone. Vala and Sam got lots of attention. We had set up a table on the concourse, where we were able to talk to many people about Heartland, and met several people who had adopted their pets from Heartland in the past! Samantha collected donations in her "Donation Dog Vest" and we made around $40 in donations. All the dogs did great at meeting the people and even the other dogs. The only difficult part was that Samantha doesn't like the mascots. She would go crazy every time one came by -- and they have several mascots at that ballpark! But in spite of that, it was overall a very nice night. Their next game where you can bring your dog to the ballpark will be on Sunday, July 13th.