Cat-O-Lympics

In honor of the Winter Olympics, one of my blogger friends is hosting her own Cat-O-Lympics - and even better, she's allowing dogs to compete!  So of course we had to enter a few of the events.  Since some of the pets pictured here have since been adopted, we do not expect these to be official entries, but thought it would be fun to share these pictures anyway. 

For the Bare Paw Fighting event, hosted by Milo and Alfie, we have Sedna attacking Venus:

Sadly, Venus was blinded by the flash of the camera and was unable to retaliate. 

For the Competitive Napping event hosted by Huffle Mawson, we have two entries. 
First is Reese, sleeping on the couch.

She's a most serious competitor, and enjoys sleeping in odd positions just about anywhere.

Second is Bear, the Puppy Bowl star, sleeping with his foot in the water bowl, on the floor of the car.

It's not that he wasn't supposed to be there.  It's just that there was a very comfortable dog bed on the back seat above him, and a human willing to cuddle him in the front passenger seat, and yet he choose to sleep on the floor in the back.  While the car was in motion.  Perhaps my mom's driving scared him. 

Our next event is the Synchronized Snoozing event hosted by The Island Cats. 

Our first entry is submitted by three previous foster cats - I think it was Astro, GiGi and Blaze.  They awoke right before I took this photo - just in time to glare at me for disturbing their rest. 

The second entry is Pepsi and Ginger, two previous foster puppies who often performed synchronized snoozing in various locations around the house.

The following entries would more appropriately belong in an event called Synchronized Sitting.  Since as of now this is not an officially sanctioned event in the Cat-O-Lympics, and I'm too lazy busy to set it up myself, I'll just post these pictures as an idea for future organizers to consider. 

Cute puppies - who can resist?  And who can get them to all look at the camera at the same time... with no assistant... and without breaking their lineup?

I'll give you a clue how I did it...it involved a hot tub and a laundry basket.

Another example of Synchronized Sitting is exhibited by George and Taffy. 

And the final event we'd like to enter is the High Jump Event hosted by Cats in Maryland.  I'm about 5' 6", so I estimate here that Remi jumped to over 6 foot.  Of course, his back feet were only a few inches off the ground - but he did the best he could. 

New Pictures

I took a few pictures at PetSmart last Sunday and thought I'd share them here....

This is Elvis - usually Sundays are just for cat adoptions, but he came up to be our "donation dog" since none of the cats can wear the donation vest. :-) I'm reading a very interesting book that talks about how to recognize your dog's emotions. It is called "For the Love of a Dog" by Patricia McConnell. It's amazing how much more I can understand about Elvis just from reading this book. For example, one of the signs of anxiety in dogs is if they keep their mouth closed and do "tongue licks" a lot. Elvis does this all the time - and now that I realize it, I have noticed he mostly does it when something is changing in his environment (my husband comes home from work, for example). I'm anxious to learn to "read" him better in order to help him be happier. I know some things to do for dogs who are anxious, but it doesn't do me any good if I don't know at the time that they ARE anxious! So this book is awesome. I'm definitely not a natural at reading body language and will need to work at it, and I'm glad to have a book to help me!

Here's a picture of Monkee. She is staying up at PetSmart while I'm on vacation, and I hope she finds a home while I'm gone. I'm wondering if she's going to turn out like Spock, my old cat. Spock would let my neice, or anyone else, pick him up and carry him around upside down or however they wanted, and he'd purr the entire time. Monkee has been picked up in an "uncomfortable way" by children a few times at PetSmart, and she just purrs and seems to enjoy it just like Spock!

This is Blaze - he used to be such a tiny kitten! Now he's getting to be bigger than my own cat George (and he looks a lot like him too). I keep saying one of these days I'm going to accidentally take George to PetSmart for adoption instead of Blaze. Blaze is awesome - he's stopped climbing up on people like they are trees, and is usually happy to just lay around now. Maybe he's starting to outgrow his kitten playful period? He has the most personality of all my cats - he just is this giant laid-back kitten, and nothing phases him. He doesn't seem to mind dogs, other cats, vaccum cleaners, or anything! He purrs whenever I pick him up and pet him, and likes to be held and cuddled for awhile, but then is happy just sitting back and watching the rest of the action. And not from the sidelines either - he'll lay down right in the middle of the living room floor and watch the action go on all around him! He's great. :-)

This is Tommy, another foster cat (not mine) waiting to be adopted. He's very soft and such a pretty cat. I like orange cats a lot - maybe because they remind me of Garfield (my favorite cartoon cat of all time). :-) If I ever foster an orange cat I'm going to have to name him Garfield. Hmmm... next time I foster a yellow (?!) dog I will have to name it Odie! :-)

And that's it for now! I leave tonight for the sunny shores of Florida, and maybe by the time I get back, one of my fosters will have a new home! I told them all good-bye before I left just in case.

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!

Introducing Noah, and new kittens

Here is a picture of Noah, the foster dog I brought home two nights ago.

He's such a sweet dog - he gets this really happy grin on his face sometimes that I just love to see. Last night I took him and Vala up to a "Party in the Park" event at Civic Park in O'Fallon. Noah wore an "Adopt Me" vest, and both dogs seemed to enjoy the park and meeting many new people. Noah is still very shy at times, especially with men. He loves to be outside, and I have to use really good dog treats to get him to come inside! He plays really well with Vala and Remi both. Last night they all three slept on the bed with me, along with my cat George. It was a little bit crowded, but I didn't mind. It's nice to foster such sweet loving dogs who are already house-trained! :-)

Here are some more pictures of Vala. She's such a loving dog - she has so much enthusiasm and just wants to be next to me all the time.

Next is one of my favorite pictures - my husband was trying to help me get a good picture of Vala, but she kept running up to me, so I asked him to hold her still. That worked, except she kept her ears back and I wanted her to put them up for the picture. So my husband tried to help me out by holding her ears up in the air. I almost couldn't stop laughing long enough to snap a picture. Vala puts up with so much from us sometimes! :-)

And finally, here are some pictures of my newest foster kittens, and my own cat George. First is Monkee, a female kitten with very unique markings.

Next is Blaze - a male kitten who looks like a smaller version of my own cat George.

And last is my cat George on the chair, and my last foster kitten Taffy (female) under the chair. Taffy looks a lot like her brother Blaze, but she has peach markings on the tips of her ears, her legs and the tip of her tail.