Update: A winner has been chosen and emailed. Thanks for everyone’s entries — SO FUN to read about our pets. Astro says, “Woof!” He approves. ENTRIES NOW CLOSED. Stay tuned for July’s contest. Hmmmm. What shall I ask this month? Original post: Robin was last month’s winner of a “Love The House You’re In” custom collage made by our collage artist laureate Mel Kolstad. That’s Robin’s house… and her dog, woof!… all interpreted by Mel — she cut out each little brick by hand! Now, it’s time to find a winner for June. If you would like to enter to win a custom collage featuring your house and photos, read on….
To enter, complete these two steps:
- A bunch of our collage winners choose to include their pet. Hmmmm… So this month, step #1 to enter is to leave a comment on this post telling us about your pet. If you don’t have a pet right now… then, tell us about a hobby that gets your nurturing TLC.
- And, subscribe to my newsletter. Yes, this helps me build my newsletter list… I send ’em out just once a week, usually.
Please read all the rules here before entering. I’ll pick a reader next Friday morning.
Meanwhile — thanks again to Mel for a fabulous collage! You can find Mel’s collage works on flickr and her blog, Much Ado About Stuff. Thanks, Mel, you know I love your work, and I’m so excited to have this addition to the blog in 2010.
Laurie @ Little Blue Chairs says
We have two little kittens, Rocket and Daisy ( I bet you can tell we have little kids that picked out their names). They are still just learning all the rules, but they love the kids. They are always taking turns on who they are sleeping with. Rocket, I have discovered, also loves to come near me when I paint, which would be sweet if he wasn’t a long haired kitty.
Andrea says
I love reading about everyone’s pets—this is a great topic!
We have four adorable Tibetan Spaniels (aka “Tibbies”): Tali, Roxi, Charley and Kera. They regularly have “sleepovers” with their three Tibbie friends who live a couple blocks away. We have all seven of them right now for a week—our own little herd. Nothing like the pitterpat of 28 little feet skittering over the hardwood floors!
We moved into our ’52 Cape Cod four years ago, and many friends asked, “How does Roxi like her new house?” Roxi (almost 12) is quite short, and can’t do stairs anymore because of her back. Our Victorian was very vertical—inside and out. Our “new” flat house and yard suits Roxi (and, OK, her mom & dad too) much better!
I work at home and in this house, my office is downstairs, where the dogs can hang with Mom if they want to. Their beds (in our bedroom) are also on the first floor, so they can chill out in there if they want to.
In the old house, both office and bedroom were upstairs—and hence off limits except when they were carried up at night to go to sleep.
The Cape Cod HAS an upstairs, but we only use it for guest rooms and the dogs never go up.
The Tibbies spend most of their time on the sun porch, where the windows come down to the floor. From here they can survey—and vociferously protect—their (very small) kingdom, and watch for the “cookie lady” who lives behind us. Whenever Cookie Lady’s garage door opens, four (or seven) shrieking Tibbies demand to be let outside to receive their cookie. Cookie Lady has their undivided attention and 8 (or 14) brown eyes intensely follow her every movement. She only gives them one cookie each per day—but hope springs eternal, and their reaction is the same every time she appears.
We joke about our “Tibetan Meerkats” because all of them stand on their hind legs in a row along the back fence, anticipating their daily treat.
We all love our Cape Cod—such an easy-to-live-in house, for both humans and dogs!
David says
We have two cats, Selma and P.T. Selma was a rescue, we got her from a shelter. P.T., short for Princess Teykout, was found at a local Chinese buffet about three years ago. We were going to have dinner and she popped out of the bushes in front of the restaurant and ran up to me like we’d known each other all along. She’s a Russian Blue mix so she’s very smart and quite personable. We named her Princess because the place is called the Royal Buffet, and Teykout is a play on take-out. We got Selma about a year later because we’re gone all day and P.T. needed some company, she was already named Selma. They are total opposites, even down to size. P.T. is 8lbs, Selma is 15lbs, and she’s still a kitten!! She’s very playful and rambunctious, while P.T. prefers to sit at the window and quietly observe. We also have a dog, Gretchen, whom we inherited from a past roommate. She’s a shepherd mix, well trained and pretty well behaved.
Jessica says
We have two. Zorro and Rat! Yes, a dog named Rat.
They’re rat terrier mixes. And they’re FANTASTIC! Rat has a feisty attitude and Zorro is our shy wimpy boy.
The Jenny says
We have 2 smush-faced cats and one really ugly cockatoo in the orange house. Pumpkin is gray spaz and Innocent is fat and white, both Exotic Shorthair cats, they really do look like Persians in pajamas. The ugly bird in question is named Chicken, an Umbrella Cockatoo, and she shreds her own feathers. She is my husband’s bird and dearly wishes I would go far far away so she could have him all to herself. We have a relatively peaceful yet noisy coexistence under our small roof.
Thom Watson says
We have two cats, Mojito Houdini (the latter because he can get out of any collar in seconds), a brown-and-cream tabby-pattern Maine Coon, and Tiki Bar-bara, LLD (Hon.), a black-and-orange short-haired tortie. They’re Mojo and Tiki for short.
Mojo, like most of his breed, is a big boy, weighing about 15-16 pounds; when stretching out on the bed he’s more than 3 feet from toe to toe, and almost four if his fluffy tail is fully extended. Like many other Maine Coons, he also trills and chirps more than meows. He has a favorite toy mouse that likes to bring and drop at my feet whenever I move to a new room. He also likes to groom our hair and beards.
Tiki’s a little thing, weighing under ten pounds, but she has a big voice when she wants attention. She’s also quite acrobatic, leaping to the top of the refrigerator or the top shelf of the closet directly from the floor. She’s very skittish, especially with strangers, when she’s awake and roaming around, and won’t tolerate being picked up or touched. But she loves to cuddle next to us on the couch or in bed, and at those times we can rub her all over, even her belly, and she purrs contentedly.
Ericka says
We have two cats, Claudette and Wilma. Claudette is a seven-year-old big gray tabby and Wilma is a petite three-year-old patch tabby with white. We found Claudette at an animal sanctuary when she was a few months old. Wilma came from a local cat rescue organization. Claudette’s favorite activities are head-butting with me, eating, and generally being in everyone’s business. Wilma’s pastimes are bird watching, eating, and getting warm under the covers.
We just moved them into our new wonderful 1950 house two days ago, and we’ve been keeping them confined to the main floor by closing the (original and pristine!) pocket doors to the kitchen (swoon!). The first night we slept there, Wilma wandered out to the rest of the top floor in the middle of the night. About every half hour she came back to bed and excitedly told us about every new room she found! 😀
They’re finding their favorite windows and I think they’re going to love having all of the space they didn’t have in our apartment. Now that we have a yard, we’ll probably eventually have a dog, when the right dog finds us.
Siobhan says
We have a dog, a cat and a beta fish. My 7 year old son claims they all belong to him, but I, of course, tak ecare of them!
Our dog is a mixed breed (black lab mix) from a neighboring county’s shelter that has a Pound Puppy program. Inmates at a local correctional facility are trained to be dog handlers and assigned a dog to live with them for a minimum of 2 months. The dogs work on house breaking and learn basic commands. This is my second dog from this program and I can’t recommend it more! Our Dogs name is Ichabod. We call him Ichy which is very fitting as he does some pretty disgusting things! But he is sweet and lovable and scares away bad guys so we look past it.
Our cat’s name is Uno. We got her from a local cat rescue called Colony Cats. Uno’s mom was a feral cat that had been trapped, spade, and released. Her kittens were kept and spade/neutured and adopted. Uno is very entertaining and we affectionately call her “Crazy Barn Cat”
The fish’s name is Rockstar. He swims and that’s it.
Kristin Gallagher says
We have 2 pups!
One is 10 months old named Rita. She is a Rottie mix and we’ve raised her since she was 2 months. She is very independent and loves to hike. She has one ear that goes up and the other goes down, it’s adorable.
We just got her a playmate last week! Bo is a black lab mix and he’s 4 months old. He is very dependent and has a funny overbite that makes him look really goofy.
We spend a lot of time teaching and training, as they are both still very much puppies. They love to play together. They are both very sweet and loving dogs.
Renee Crabtree says
Lucy, the Airedale Terrorist….an 8 month old Airedale who is smart as a whip. We named her Lucy quite appropriately. I wanted a vintage name and we knew Airedales are natural clowns so the name Lucy was fitting. Has she ever lived up to it! She can open appliances. One day we didn’t close the dishwasher quite all the way and she opened it, climbed on the door and we found her literally laying down on the counter eating cat food. We’ve had to put an alarm on the refrigerator because she likes to help herself to the meal of her choice. We’ve Lucy-proofed the cabinets in the kitchen because she will open the child-proofed doors to eat the garbage. If this were any other dog I wouldn’t be in so much love. But Lucy is a clown. She is a child in a dog’s body. She is my children’s best friend and great protector. The look in her eyes when she stares at you lets you know that what you are saying is truly important to her (as important it can be to a dog) and that she loves you. Lucy the Airedale Terrorist has given our family a novel of stories and just as much love.