Our friends Fred and Gloria at Basset Momma gave us this lovely award. Thanks! Her blog is a really cute tribute to her adorable bassets and has lots of great photos and stories. Definitely check it out!
The first thing I am required to do is to tell you ten things about the Hounds you don't know. (Hopefully I wont repeat any earlier reveals).
1) Baby (our first pet)
is named after the leopard in the classic film Bringing Up Baby.
We watched the movie, one of our favorites, right before we adopted her from a local grooming shop in Bay Ridge Brooklyn.
2) We were originally going to name Tubby (shown here as a three year old),
Tuppy, after Tuppy Glossop a character in the Bertie Wooster books by PG Wodehouse, but my husband suggested Tubby was cuter and it is. Its now my favorite dog name of all time. I plan to always have a Tubby in the house.
3) Norbert's,
official name is Norbert Nicholas. When he was adopted from the Staten Island CACC his name was Nicholas. We changed it to Norbert, after the dragon from the first Harry Potter book (unfortunately later revealed to be a girl!), but kept the Nicholas for a middle name.
4) Ping, Tubby, and Bob
where all in some way "gifts." My parents gave us the money to get Tubby as a wedding present, they had always told me I could have a dog when I got my own place or got married. Ping was a present from my husband when I graduated with my Masters Degree from Teachers College at Columbia University and Bob was a 6th anniversary present. These were all heavily discussed presents and we picked out the dogs together, none where surprises. Still because of this I am not really a supporter of the no dogs as gifts message that many rescue groups have. I understand that dogs make terrible surprise presents, but I think that if they are a gift picked out as a family and well discussed it as a good idea. I also think that the popular wisdom that no one should get a dog around the Holidays is not necessarily true. While some houses are very chaotic at that time, others are pretty calm. I for example always have a vacation from teaching around the Holidays and my husband and I spend the Holiday season at home with our dogs, not traveling or attending parties.
5) Ernie (show here cuddling up with Bob)
came into our family after I was working part time at Loving Hands Vetrinary Hospital in Manhattan. He was brought in with a severely injured leg. The young lady who brought him in was a student and could not adopt him. The vet amputated his leg for free and I fostered him for awhile and decided to adopt him when he became very fond of our dogs.
6) Dr. Zira
is a mom. When I got her at the age of 9 from her breeder, she told me that Zira (formally Samantha) had had one litter.
7) Scooter
is named after a favorite toy I had when I was little.
8) Bob's
registered name is Red Brick Robert Mitchell by Shack N-Lo. I got him from Red Brick Bulldogs in PA. His Dad is the handsome Red Brick stud Simon. Bob has been very healthy from day one, despite the reputation of English Bulldogs in disparaging articles like the one recently published in the New York Times, and I credit his breeder and the care she takes to ensure the health of her dogs.
9) Bob
has his CGC, Canine Good Citizen, but he is a Rally-O drop out. We took him to one Rally class and he absolutely hated it so we decided to stick with just the basics.
10) As a family
we are firmly committed to positive dog training methods like those espoused by Patricia McConnell. I don't claim that my dogs are obedience whizzes, far from it, but I believe that our peaceful existence stems from our commitment to positive training methods. When Bob was an adolescent we had a period of difficulty when he fought with the other dogs, using positive training methods and techniques we were able to get past this problem and today he is peaceful with all other dogs in our home. He still isn't a dog park dog, and never will be, but we can easily introduce dogs to Bob on our home turf and be assured of peaceful co-existence and he is very well behaved on leashed walks.
I am know passing the award on to six great blogs.
1) Pug Slope Check out the adventures of the adorable Sid in Park Slope Brooklyn.
2)Finn Howard Read about the daily life of a young, active, golden retriever named after my favorite fictional character of all time (Huckleberry Finn).
3) Red Berry Cottage-A lovely blog about some really adorable dogs. Logs of gorgeous pictures!
4) Pupparoos-Check out the criminally cute Stewie and Tucker.
5) A Day in the Life of Pugs-Four absolutely adorable, and very well dressed, pugs. These guys definitely have professional modeling potential.
6) Bouncing Bertie-An adorable, and funny, blog about a wire-haired fox terrier named after my other favorite fictional character, Bertie Wooster.
