Bubblezzz

Thanks guys! :D Both our cameras (film & digital) are spoilt (technology hates me. :oops:), so we didn't get to take pictures ourselves! I'm waiting for my friends to email me what they have. ;)

:D :D :D At the doggy Hallowen dress-up contest!! :D I didn't take photos but my friends did! *Photos coming soon, I promise!* We were also featured in the news on TV!!! :D

Sorry, I just realised that my post sounds so morbid!! :lol: Those days are a LONGGGGGGGGGGGG way away. :oops: Sorry! Meanwhile, Happy Birthday MEG!!!! :D :bday:

I'm so sorry that you and Meg have to be seperated. :( I agree with Abker. That you have to be apart is a terrible injustice. But I believe that when the time comes, it'll be YOU she greets at rainbow bridge. :D

GO Kes!! :D

Congrats! :D

We spent the whole weekend working on our costumes! But iwe had fun. ;) Cosmic looks really miserable in his Lion costume . :lol:! I suck at posting pictures, but I'm gonna do my best to get some pixs uploaded! :D AllAMericanPUP - awwww... and I thought we'd be able to post pictures of our similar costumes... :( Ah well, wizards are cool as well. ;)

If a "crate" means a sort of enclosed box that's just large enough for them to lie & turn around in, I'm going to jump in and say that IMO, I don't believe that dogs should be crated anymore than 4hrs at a stretch. :oops: What do they do for entertainment? And if they need to go potty? :-? It took us a quite a while to train Cosmic to be left home alone reliably. It was a long, drawn-out process that involved us leaving him in a huge playpen (enough space for him to run around in) to start with. Then we'd start leaving the house for short periods, while he was OUT of his playpen. If we came home to any sort of mess & destruction (and YES, that happened frequently enough :roll:), back into the playpen he went. It took blardy long MONTHS for him to get it and start behaving, but the long & short of it is that it DID work. Now, we leave him uncrated, unpenned all by himself & he's completely reliable. :D That's my 2 cents anyway. :P They CAN be trained to be GOOD at home alone. :lol: It also means that I can leave kong & hidden treats around to keep him entertained while we're gone. Then again, I only have 2 dogs at the very most (Cosmic plus a foster), so I suppose the dynamics (and ability to look for trouble :lol:) are very different.

If the main objection is that 10hrs is too long for a potty break, won't it be far easier to just train the dogs to go potty at a specific area (when they need to) indoors as well? We have newspapers laid out all the time, just in case Cosmic needs to go potty between his walks. Courtnek, I'm not sure what the average families are like in the case of this rescuer you mentioned. In my country, most of the would-be adopters we see are full-time working adults who ARE away from home most of the day. If we had to strike them (and people like you & me) off our lists, we wouldn't be able to find homes for most (if not ALL) of our dogs. :P We simply DON'T have the luxury of sticking it out for families with someone home all the time. That WOULD be wonderful, unfortunately it's far from the norm. IMHO, the most important qualifier for a good home is one where the owners [i]constantly[/i] try their best to do the best they can for their dogs, despite less than ideal circumstances. Of course, all the basics like shelter, food, training and spoiling the dog silly have to be fulfilled as well. ;) Anyway, I guess my point is that I think (and I bet so would most of the rescuers I know) that you make a damn fine home for your dogs. :)

This is just horrible. :cry:

[quote name='AllAmericanPUP']we're plannin on having our own party. ozzy is going to be the same thing he is every year :oops: cause i'm poor like that :lol: he's a jail dog...but me and my cousin and my brother are doing wizard of the oz so ozzy is going to be our toto who got in trouble with the law for selling drugs and dorothy is going to be dead in eli's kennel cause she ratted "toto" out so "toto" had her killed by the mob(eli lol). :evilbat: :evilbat: :lol: :lol: the rest of the dogs will most likely be locked in my room upstairs because it gets a bit too crowded in here with 6 dogs and a bunch of people :lol: and i would have to worry about them bolting out the door if someone left it open..i dont have to worry about that with ozzy cause he doesnt bolt [b]i just saw that you guyz are doing wizard of the oz too :evil: :lol: i'm going as the lion, my cousin is going as the scarecrow and my brother is gonna be the tin man[/b][/quote] :lol: :lol: :lol: We're going as the all-innocent version though. :lol: No perverse twists in the storyline. :lol: (Young dogs in the house, ya know!)

He's much better off without them! :roll: What I'm also curious to know is: Didn't anyone at the shelter speak to these people (about what they should expect from the whole puppy experience) prior to the adoption? Isn't there usually some kind of pre-qualifying interview? I have limited experience working with rescue organisations. The ones I work with are small - we have no physical shelter. Rather, the dogs are kept with fosterers until they find homes. Our adoption criteria is pretty strict though - we are required to speak in detail to all would-be adopters, which also gives us a chance to suss out those whom we think wouldn't make good owners. Which is why I'm surprised that this family was allowed to leave with the puppy in the first place. :-?

How many of you will be attending a Halloween Party with your dogs? What/who will you be going as? Cosmic, bf & I will be going to our halloween do as characters from the Wizard of Oz. :D I'm still trying to convince bf to go as Dorothy. :lol: Cosmic's costume (cowardly lion) will have to be homemade as I haven't been able to find anything to buy! :P

TDG, I have shared your website with many of my friends - we're always amazed at the amount of information (and obvious hard work!) that has gone into your site. Guess I just want to say a huge [b]THANK YOU!![/b] :laola:

I'm with the rest - I think you should lodge an official complaint & definitely involve the media. That was a totally awful situation you were subjected to - I can't imagine being worried sick about a loved one & experiencing what you went through. :evil: And the cop who made that comment about his gun... ?$#^$%@ I have no words. :x

I'm glad everything turned out well! Must have been quite a scare to come to to kitty in that state. :o

Do they still have their old beds and blankets? If not, you could try leaving yours behind for them. Familiar smells would help some. :)

We do a half-wrestle with Cosmic: It involves us turning him on his back and sort of swiping at his paws with our hands. :lol: He LOVES this game and gets really excited. It usually ends with him rushing to get a toy... so we can play tug-of-war. :lol: That said, Cosmic is VERY secure in his position as "baby" of the family. ;) he knows that we rule the roost. He's also non-aggressive. I am also proud to say (boast! :oops: :lol:) that his bite reflexes are fantastic. 8) I could splay my fingers wide over his toy during a crazy game of tug - and he won't bite. ;) Cosmic plays at a disadvantage - he has to 'mouth-feel' the toys we hold & only bites down when he feels ONLY toy and no fingers. (He's still darn fast!) We practice 'bite-inhibition' (tug!) games almost everyday. :lol:

Congrats! :D

[quote]Sam runs off and starts rolling in something. My wife walks up to see what it is...a dirty diaper. Dirty as in #2 dirty. [/quote] Ewwww!! Unbelivable how some people think nothing of dumping their trash anywhere. :evil: A friend's cocker once thought it was great fun [i]playing with dried-up poop[/i]. :lol: She carried it around in her mouth, proud as can be. Think it might have been monkey poop too. *gag* It [i]was[/i] funny watching them play tag though. :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol: I just noticed THIS: [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/Abker/Sigs/Dogosig5.png[/img] TOO funny!! :lol:

I'm gonna TRY making Cosmic's costume this year too. :D Was thinking of going as "Sheriff and his Criminal" - Cosmic being the sheriff & me the criminal of course! :lol:

I can't imagine how worried you must be. :-? Sending warm thoughts to you & your pups.

I'm sorry for your loss. :(

[quote]I'm always afraid I will see them around town. It would kill me not to say anything but at the same time I'm afraid of intruding into their new worlds. [/quote] Oh Tammy. :( I can't imagine how horrible this mix of emotions must feel. I only have had one foster - and I've made friends with her new owners, so we get to meet up with the dogs. *Hug* Remember that because YOU chose to take them all in, they now have loving homes. If you didn't take that step, who knows where they might be now? :-? Things could have turned out very, very differently for them, so stay focused on the positive ok? :)