Monday, 31 August 2015

New on PawZaar: My Dog Rescued Me Bracelet!

dog-rescued

I just love our new fall arrivals in our PawZaar gift store! Every few days, we’ll be rolling out new products as we inch toward autumn, starting with this adorable “My Dog Rescued Me” cuff bracelet. Made of copper overlaid with a sterling silver engraved plate, this adjustable bracelet is handmade in Taxco, Mexico.

Don’t forget that our 30% sale ends at midnight! Use coupon code BIRTHDAY at checkout for 30 percent off ALL the items in the store. (And, as always, 10 percent of your purchase goes to help the week’s featured shelter or rescue!)

New Arrivals!









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Sunday, 30 August 2015

#PawPromise Adoptable Dog of the Week: Dolly

Dolly

Dolly
A playful pup who makes a pal of every person she meets, Dolly is a nine-month-old Boxer/American Bulldog who will tug at your heartstrings as she plays tug, carries her squeak toys around and romps during a game of fetch. Once playtime is over, however, adorable Dolly would love nothing more than to snuggle on the couch with her favorite human.

As smart as she is sweet, Dolly (who also enjoys the company of other canines) is crate trained, is almost completely potty trained and is learning the basic manners needed for a life with a forever family.

Already spayed, vaccinated and microchipped, Dolly (whose adoption fee is $200) is one of the many dogs, cats, puppies and kittens in the care of Southern Animal Rescue. An all-volunteer operated non-profit organization in Atlanta, Georgia, the rescue has worked to save the lives of abandoned, abused and homeless companion animals in the metro Atlanta area since its start in late 2008. So if you’re interested in adopting a fun-loving dog, stop by Southern Animal Rescue and say “Hello, Dolly!”


Help 9-mo-old Dolly find a forever family to say “Hello, Dolly!”
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PawZaar’s #PawPromise Program

Every week, we highlight an adoptable dog (and an adoptable cat over on CatTipper.com), choosing from among rescues and shelters nominated by our readers. If you’d like to nominate your favorite shelter or rescue, please visit our nomination form. Ten percent of the proceeds from our sales every week are donated to the week’s spotlighted rescue.


Photo Credit: Southern Animal Rescue

Saturday, 29 August 2015

Dog Lost in Motel 6 Explosion Reunited with Family

A dog that was lost in an explosion at a Motel 6 has been found alive and well, and was returned to her family.
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Forget Shark Week – It’s Pit Bull Week!

You’ll be hard-pressed to find cuter dogs than these!
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Win a $100 PawZaar GC!

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Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This week we celebrated the SEVENTH anniversary of the launch of DogTipper — and we couldn’t have done it without you. You have shared your joys and your sorrows with us, your challenges, your discoveries. You’ve helped us share adoptable pets and helped shine the public spotlight on all the great pets out there looking for forever homes.

pawZaar_BLACKWe’re so excited that DogTipper has now grown into a bigger business, part of an umbrella of sites that includes CatTipper and our new gift store, PawZaar, a site that brings our experience in travel together with our love of pets. Every week, we’re able to donate 10 percent of our proceeds to the week’s featured shelter. It really has been a dream come true, and we can’t thank you enough for sharing the sites with your friends, family, and fellow pet lovers.

To celebrate our big anniversary, we’re kicking off a giveaway for a $100 gift card for our PawZaar store, whether you’re looking for something special for yourself or for some early holiday shopping.

How to Enter

This giveaway is open to readers EVERYWHERE. You’ll enter in the widget below; as always, you can return to the widget any time for additional entries. Good luck!

Friday, 28 August 2015

DogTipper + Tiki Celebrate a Birthday!

altdorf

altdorf

Today we celebrated a big day: Tiki’s seventh adoption anniversary AND the seventh anniversary of the launch of DogTipper (and our anniversary of our switch from travel guidebook writing to pet writing!) It’s truly hard to believe that time has gone by so quickly.

We took off for a day of family fun today, heading west to the very dog-friendly town of Fredericksburg. We stopped at our favorite German restaurant, Altdorf, for lunch, followed by a fun drive home along country roads.

Tomorrow we’ll be back with a BIG new giveaway to celebrate the start of our EIGHTH year…stay tuned!

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Thursday, 27 August 2015

Fido’s Freebie Friday Prepares for a Big Day!

party-closeup-frame

party-closeup-frame

Friday is a big day for us: it’s Tiki’s 7th adoption anniversary, the 7th anniversary of the launch of DogTipper and the day that we switched from travel guidebook writing to pet writing! It’s hard to believe that seven years have gone by…

Watch for a big giveaway tomorrow to celebrate our special day. In the meantime, it’s time for another Fido’s Freebie Friday, co-hosted with AllThingsDogBlog.com and ToDogwithLove.com.

Each week’s blog hop features pet-related giveaways and, if you’re a blogger with your own giveaways for pets or pet lovers, please be sure to link up. Every Thursday at 3pm CT, we post a new blog hop.



Disclaimer: Each giveaway has its own entry rules. DogTipper, All Things Dog Blog, and To Dog With Love assume no responsibility for the legality of the rules governing the listings on other sites and giveaways that are posted here. We simply provide this forum as a gathering place for pet product giveaways to be offered. Fulfillment of each giveaway is done by the blog conducting the giveaway, not by the hosts of this giveaway hop; please contact the giveaway host with any questions regarding a giveaway or giveaway prize.

Grief is a hot potato

Ever since I started this blog, and even moreso since writing All Dogs Go to Kevin, people write to tell me about their pets who are no longer with them.

They used to apologize for writing, or say they weren’t even sure why they were telling me about their pet, but most people don’t do that anymore. I think they know that they don’t need to explain.

As followers of the blog know, I love birthdays. Birthdays are fun, and I love love love that my birthday coincides with National Dog Day. I always celebrate. This year, though, I could barely be bothered. It was so bad that I got a card in the mail last week from a relative and it took me a full minute to figure out why, exactly, she was sending me one. It was more than not feeling like celebrating, it was as if my brain consciously turned it off.

Part of me wondered if it was because I was finally getting sick of getting older, if my rotten back and increasing-in-number doctor’s appointments were finally clueing me in that birthdays stink. I went about my routine for the day, ran some errands, and came home to scrounge up something to eat for lunch.

And then I understood.

I have never in my life spent my birthday day by myself. Mom never would have let that happen. With the kids in school and my husband at work, it would have been inconceivable to her that I would eat lunch by myself, and we would go out. Always. Today, however, I was alone, and in that moment all the little sadnesses that piled up just felt like more than I was ready to hold.

So when people asked me how my birthday was, I said, “meh,” because it was true, and then I said, “I really miss my mom.” It probably was not the answer they were expecting or really knew what to do with, but it was honest and I had to say it.

2008/03/12 Hot Potato by Jason Taellious under Creative Commons license

2008/03/12 Hot Potato by Jason Taellious under Creative Commons license

Because grief is like a hot potato burning in your hands. If you don’t toss it up in the air to give your hands a break every once in a while, they get burned, and then you drop it and then have to pick it up with blistered fingers. The need to let go of what you are holding onto, for just a second, is all that lets you continue to carry it around.

So when people write, I get it, I really do. Because while many people look at someone walking down the street tossing a hot potato in the air like they’re nuts, wondering why they can’t just put it down, I just nod. It is too terrible and precious to throw away; all you can do is wait for it to cool down. It will.

Happy #NationalDogDay (and an early start to our own celebration!)

tiki-wet

tiki-wet

Happy National Dog Day! Although our own dogs would say that EVERY day is dog day (and your dog probably agrees!), this day celebrates the special love we have for our dogs.

Not only is today National Dog Day but Friday marks the SEVENTH anniversary of the launch of DogTipper, our dog Tiki’s 7th Gotcha Day — and the 7th anniversary of our move from travel guidebook writing to pet writing!

To celebrate, we’re kicking off our biggest sale yet in our PawZaar gift store! Use code BIRTHDAY to save 30 percent on EVERYTHING in our PawZaar store! But please hurry; like all birthday celebrations, the candles will be blown out on this one after this weekend!
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Tuesday, 25 August 2015

How Often Should You Wash Your Dog’s Bowl?

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pawscause-bowl-irie-distance

This post is sponsored by Paws For-A-Cause, a family-owned company featuring USA-made goods for you and your dog. Save 15% off your purchase with coupon code SUMMER-SAVINGS by shopping before 8/31!

How often do you wash your dog’s food bowl?

Let’s be honest: after most of our dogs are finished with their meals, the bowl looks clean, right? If your dog is like our Irie, every last hint of food seems to be gone after a meal.

Not so fast. That bowl, regardless of how enthusiastic an eater your dog may be, is far from clean. Your dog’s saliva and traces of food remain. That slimy coating is called a biofilm, a collection of bacteria that adhere to each other…and to the bowl. Not only is it setting up an environment for transmitting bacteria that potentially could cause a wide variety of infections, it’s just plain gross. Would you want to eat out of a slimy bowl?

The solution is to wash your dog’s bowl every day in hot, soapy water. Even better, bowls like Paws For-A-Cause stainless steel bowls can be placed right in the dishwasher (just temporarily remove the rubber ring that prevents the bowl from scooting around as your dog dines). The heat of the dishwasher will leave your bowl clean and ready for the new meal.

Along with transmitting bacteria to your dog, the bowl is also a breeding ground for bacteria that may have been transmitted from the food or from your dog’s mouth–and could infect the two-legged members of your family. If you have young children that play on the floor or if you have any member of your family with immune system challenges, it’s especially important to keep that bowl super clean.

We wash our dogs’ bowls every day, putting them in the dishwasher every night. We have two bowls per dog so we just rotate the bowls through the washer. It only takes a few minutes and we have the peace of mind knowing that we’re feeding Irie and Tiki from clean bowls. After all, you wouldn’t think of feeding any member of your family from dirty plates and bowls, would you?


How often should you wash your dog’s bowl? #Infographic
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infographic-bowl

EOTW: Back to School for Brody One Ear!

Today we bring to you our second Ear of the Week:

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Yes, the kids are back to school this week, but why should they have all the fun? Just because a dog only has one ear doesn’t mean he can’t be fully functional.

Really, in many ways this ear surpasses the original one. His old ear didn’t have a pen holder, after all.

schoolear2

He’s already learned that the hat and the camera mean fun time and treats, so rest assured no one is more on board with this ear project that Brody himself.

Now if only I could teach him to make coffee…

Faithfully Yours, A Book Trailer that Will Make You Smile!

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OK, we all need a little smile after our busy Mondays, right? Take a moment to enjoy this beautiful book trailer for Faithfully Yours: The Amazing Bond Between Us and the Animals We Love. This new book by Peggy Frezon will be published in October by Paraclete Press. The book is filled with true stories about the human-animal bond–about how animals help us and about many amazing people who help animals. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for this book in the coming weeks!

Faithfully Yours

Sunday, 23 August 2015

Enter #NutrishPetMoments Contest: $1500 + 1-Year Supply of Nutrish!

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nutrish-meme-tiki

It’s hard to believe–really, really hard to believe–but this Friday will mark Tiki’s SEVENTH “gotcha” day when we adopted her at our local shelter. She’s not our most recent adoptee (18-month-old Lucky has that distinction) but Tiki’s arrival was definitely one that impacted our lives in a major way. With her adoption, just six months after adopting Irie, we decided to switch from travel guidebook writing to pet writing, and we launched DogTipper!

Over these past seven years, Tiki has become an integral part of our daily lives. Since we both work at home full-time, all of our pets play a big role in every part of our day. Tiki and Irie are definitely “working” dogs in our home, too, testing products and posing for photos.

Some of those photos bring back laughs–like last year’s Halloween photo shoot when Tiki gave me the look for daring to dress her in anything beyond a collar or harness. Or the time Tiki decided that she’d roll in the dirt–minutes after we’d just given her a bath…

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Or the time, just this spring, when Tiki decided that she’d claim the chair in a beach cottage we rented for a few days…

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Or Tiki’s afternoon nap, which always takes place on the bed, with her head on my pillow…

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Those moments — so minor when they happen — are the ones that really stand out years later.

Enter the Nutrish “Fur Real Pet Moments”

We know that you also have some great photos of your pets — and the only thing more fun than sharing them as a meme is the chance to win a great prize! Rachael Ray Nutrish has kicked off the “Fur Real Pet Moments” contest, a super fun way to enter to win a one-year supply of Nutrish AND $1,500. Entering is so much fun because it uses the “Fur Real Pet Moments” meme generator to celebrate those fun times, just like I did with the photos of Tiki above.

As I mentioned, along with the $1,500 cash prize, the winner will receive a year’s supply of Rachael Ray’s Nutrish food, all made with simple ingredients like real meat and wholesome veggies. And I especially LOVE that a portion of Rachael’s personal proceeds go to Rachael’s Rescue to help animals in need. Rachael Ray founded Rachael’s Rescue to help those forgotten pets and today her proceeds go to help fund veterinary supplies and treatment as well as food and care for those homeless animals.

Please be sure to enter the “Fur Real Pet Moments” contest!

And show your support of Rachael Ray’s help for homeless pets by following Nutrish on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, too!