My favorite traveling with dogs photo

This is my favorite picture of myself. Ok, I know, self-absorbed! But isn't that what social media and the internet is for, when you think about it?

This photo was taken in 1987 during my very first trip to the island of Tobago in the Caribbean. Nobody ever knows where Tobago is. It is the sister island of Trinidad, and is located about 90 miles off the coast of Venezuela -- due east of Aruba, if you will. Tobago is the very last island in the Caribbean chain before you reach South America, more or less.  In fact, my mom, when she was alive, would always say, "Are you going to South America?" instead of "Are you going to Tobago?" ha ha.

My favorite pic of myself, with Tobago the dog!

I deliberately did not retouch or Photoshop this picture. It is actually a paper snapshot from "back in the day" before digital cameras. 

The way I see it, this should not be my favorite photograph of myself. I was going through a horrible time in my life. While I was in Tobago, my father died, 6 days after the birthday we shared. I was going through a divorce, and had just come off of the worst six months in my (relatively new) travel career:  the terrorist attacks of 1986 (terrorism was new then) had caused thousands of our customers to cancel their 1986 and 1987 tours. I had spent six months handling phone calls from angry clients wanting refunds. It was a horrible time. I spent the first few days of this trip with Gil, and then he went home. It was while I was by myself at his house that I learned my father died. I didn't go home for the funeral. People said I would regret that for the rest of my life. They were right, but I was 27 years old, young and stupid. I needed this break from "life". I needed to recharge and find myself. I stayed on the island and did not attend my father's funeral.

A week after Gil left, and I had been by myself (can't believe I did that!) my co-workers arrived, and we spent another two weeks on the island. It was, and would be, the only time I would spend a month in Tobago, even though I have been there dozens of times since. One of my co-workers snapped this photo for me.

The dog in the picture is named Tobago. Most dogs on the island are not big. He was the biggest dog on the island. If you see dogs on Tobago these days, you'll notice the black snout, and the brown coloring. We feel that Tobago the dog bred himself very strongly on the island (to this day there is still an aversion to spaying and neutering -- as with most Caribbean islands). We think his genes live on in the Tobagonian dogs of today.

Tobago the dog was a jumper. When he would greet people would jump on them and scratch the hell out of them (not deliberately), but because most people were wearing bathing suits, they'd get some awful scratches. But other than that, he was a pretty cool dog, and he lived a long time in Tobago years, which is not very long (dogs die young there, as a general rule). 

The island of Tobago is frozen in time. While the landscape changes due to erosion and too much building, the people never change. The locals still fish using large nets and everyone in the village helps pull the nets in each day. It's incredible to watch this more or less primitive tradition taking place. Tourists call Tobago "paradise". I'm not sure it still is, but back in 1987 it was as close to paradise as I had ever experienced. The Beatles and Princess Margaret (separately!) spent time on this island.

The most beautiful sunsets are on the island of Tobago -- second to none!

While I didn't travel WITH Tobago the dog, because he lived there, I became friends with so many dogs during my years traveling to Tobago. Here's a picture of one that I bonded with during one trip. It was my birthday. I usually went to Tobago for my birthday, as was tradition. I was sitting on the back porch crying (as I often did during these trips) and this dog just popped up over the back steps and laid down in front of me. He walked on the beach with me every day after that, and we became rather attached. We ended up helping his owners out for a couple of years, buying food for the dog and stuff like that. I doubt he is still alive, but I like to think he was sent to me, like an angel, by the birthday angels.

My canine 50th birthday present. Sent to me by angels.

Decades later! Gil and me in Tobago on my 50th birthday. It poured rain all week, but I didn't care. 

Do you have a favorite photograph of yourself? What is it about that picture that you like?

Tell me in the comments, or share it with me on Facebook. 

One of the things we used to do in Tobago was read books. We would "race" each other to see who could read a book the fastest. He always won, but not by much! We could read about a book a day. 

Go local for pets!

The k2k9 crew has been spending September attending the various dog/cat festivals in and around our area.

These are local events that support local pet-related charities and businesses.  A valuable part of attending these events is not just spending money making donations or buying products from local folks, you also get to socialize your dog(s).  [Cats are usually not invited, although we did see Spike and his dad, and his famous cat brother (sister?) that their dad wears like a mink stole around his neck.  Yes, a real, live cat!  At a doggie event!  These folks actually attend a few of these events, and I've seen them a few times.  Spike is a wonderful, black senior dog who is SO friendly.  The cat is very docile.  I tell their dad that he is VERY brave!]

The weekend after Labor Day, Charlie and I attended Pet Rock Festival.  Now in its 17th year, Pet Rock was inspired by a news report of a horrific animal cruelty case -- a Worcester-area woman had a band named Pet Rock, and she wanted to do something to help animals.  Pet Rock Festival was named after her band, and over the years has become a fun gathering of music, vegetarian food, and all things dog, cat, pet.  This year the event was held at Becker College, in Leicester.  This was a great venue because of size, and a perfect fit since the college offers a popular veterinary/animal program.

Charlie Brown at Pet Rock

A week later, was New England Pet Expo.  This is a nationwide organization (may include Canada, as well?) that does Pet Expos in various cities each year.  There are usually two in our area:  New England Pet Expo, and South Shore Pet Expo.  But this year, there was no South Shore Pet Expo.  Pet Expo is a bit like a home show with dog/cat products.  Ferrets, reptiles, birds and horses, are featured, too.  Shorty Rossi (The Pit Boss) usually makes an appearance at each Expo, and there are other well-known animal trainers, agility courses, police k-9 demos, and other activities.

Me, and Shorty Rossi in 2012 at NE Pet Expo

I brought Cooper to Pet Expo -- it was Cooper's very first event like this.  He did quite well.  He only has three legs, so walking from the parking lot to the venue can be an issue.  I thought about taking advantage of handicapped parking, but I didn't think that'd go over well!!  Anyway, he did ok, but he got a little "testy" with a couple of dogs after being over-stimulated for a few hours, so we were soon outta there.  I was very proud of both of us.  No one got bitten, unless you count me. (Trying to entice him out of the building with a tennis ball in my hand! Ow!)

Cooper at Pet Expo

Yesterday was festival number three, of several:  Woofstock!  Similar to Pet Rock, this is a music and food fest with booths from the usual suspects.  I should point out that many pet companies attend ALL of these conferences; but some only attend one or two.  So, you don't always see the same people twice, but when you do, it just reinforces the networking.  Networking locally is SO important!

Posing at the Woofstock/Buddy Dog table, while I added to my impossibly unmanageable t-shirt collection.

Coming up:

Oct 3 & 4: Animal Weekend -- hosted by Second Chance Animal Shelter and Wellness Center.
(our pals at Second Chance are going to be exhausted, because they have been at EVERY one of the aforementioned conferences, AND they're doing their own full weekend next week.  I'm tired just thinking about it!)

Cooling off at Second Chance's booth during Woofstock-- see you next weekend!

Oct 3:  Great Dog Rescue Meet & Greet. Harvard Farmers' Market, 27 Mass Ave in gorgeous Harvard, Mass.  (Great Dog Rescue is the place I adopted Charlie and Cooper from!)  If you're looking for a great dog, you might just meet her or him here.

Oct 11: Pug Rescue of New England (PRoNE) Pug Social -- right here in beautiful downtown Spencer (at the fairgrounds).  If you love Pugs (and who doesn't?) this is a can't-miss event.

Oct 24: Klem's Annual Dog Halloween Costume Contest, at Klem's in Spensah!

Oct 31:  Sweetpea Friends of Rutland Animals Halloween Spooktacular, at Camp Marshall in Spensah!!

(Can you tell how excited I am that all of these things are right here in SPENCER!!!?  Have I used enough exclamation marks?)

November 7:  Goodness Gracious Run for Rescue 5K.  This 5K is being held in dog-friendly Marblehead.  If you've ever been to Marblehead, you will notice.... dogs!  It seems like everyone who lives there has a dog.  What a wonderful community!  Our friends at Great Dog Rescue have a team participating in the race, so if you want to donate to the Great Dog team, here is the link.

If it weren't for Facebook...

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  Mostly hate.

I hate that it's addictive, I hate that if you are a blogger, pet advocate, business owner or photography buff, you are more or less obliged to have a Facebook account and/or page.  I hate that they are now pushing page owners down, down, down on the totem pole unless of course you want to pay $5 a day to "boost" your posts!!  I hate that most of all.

I love that the site has connected me with old friends (one of whom I had lost touch with for over 30 years, and how cool was it to reconnect with that person!?).  I love that it has revealed cousins that I did not know before (ok, ancestry.com helped with that one, too).  I love that I can stay in touch easily with my nieces, nephews, cousins, sisters-in-law and aunts -- all at once, just by posting a stupid photo or remembering a birthday or anniversary.  I love that I am actually "Friends" with musicians I have adored my whole life.

And then there's this:

If it weren't for Facebook, we wouldn't have Charlie Brown; and we wouldn't have Cooper, either!

Five months after the sudden loss of our beloved Hector, we weren't looking for a new dog.

Handsome Hector Huge!  We love ya, buddy!

We were enjoying our time being a one-dog (and three cat) family.  Enjoying trips to the beach and the lake with Hobie, and spoiling him rotten.  Hobie missed "Hec" just as much as we did, maybe more.  They were brothers from other mothers.

Hobie, at the lake, after a spa day!
(Bandana provided by groomer)

I had been on Facebook for about 3 years, having joined because of a high school reunion.  So, after the reunion came and went, I ended up spending a lot of time-wasting on Facebook.  Once the cold weather set in, and trips to the beach with Hobie would be on-hold for a few months, I started looking at PetFinder and was following a bunch of shelters.  I kept showing puppies to Gil and he kept saying no, we are not ready yet.  At one point, he casually mentioned how his next dog should be a combination between Schulz (his beloved Collie-mix from before he knew me) and Hector (our beloved hound-mix).  Remember that for later: a collie, and a hound... 

A day or so later, I saw that a friend of mine had "Liked" the Facebook page of a local rescue called "Great Dog Rescue of New England".  I just went to their Facebook page and clicked "Like" for no other reason than it was something to do.  

And a few days later, there was this picture and post about a dog named Charlie Brown.  

Charlie Brown is a smart, cuddly, 7 week old Collie/Hound mix who weighs 8lbs. He was rescued along with his siblings after being discovered in rural Tenn by a construction worker who was sent to bulldoze a house. When he looked inside to do a final check of the home, he heard a cry and started looking around. That is when he found the momma, Kate and her 8 tiny babies hidden in a closet. The worker thought he did the right thing by taking them to a shelter, but unfortunately it was a kill shelter where Kate+8 faced certain doom. Luckily for this little family one of the kind shelter workers called a Southern Rescue partner of Great Dog Rescue New England. She saved the family and kept them healthy and well until they could be moved to MA where they now are living with one of our wonderful foster mommies who loves and adores each and every one of them! Charlie Brown is the leader of the pack and the first to climb in your lap, grab a toy or let you know hes ready for fun. He likes to be cuddled and play with toys and his littermates. He has the sweetest face and a tail that is always wagging.. Due to his age, he is not crate trained or house trained, but he is such a smarty, he should not have any problems learning. 

We didn't adopt Charlie right away.  Someone else had beat us to it.  But a few weeks went by, and I decided to see if Great Dog had any other guys available for adoption.  Lo and behold, the adoption fell through with the original family, and we were next in line!  We got Charlie Brown in 2012, and 7 months later, we adopted his brother and litter mate, Cooper, the three-legged cuddling machine!

So, you see, Facebook isn't all bad!  

To follow my Facebook page, go here:  K2's K9s and Kitties, on Facebook

Adopting a dog is a lifetime commitment

My 14-year-old senior dog, Hobie, was lounging on the bathroom floor yesterday morning while I was getting ready for work, as he has every day since we first adopted him at four months of age. It's our special time together, just the two of us.  He started the routine as a young pup, when he would actually hop into the shower with me!

With the exception of one cat, and one dog, each of whom had fatal accidents and left us much too soon, all of our pets have lived well into their teens, some of our cats even into their twenties. We've been fortunate to guide the majority of our pets into their golden years with love, affection and more-than-adequate health care.  Basically, my guy and I would do anything for our pets.

But shelters, rescues and the internet are overwhelmed lately with animals who aren't so lucky. Either abandoned, or surrendered properly to a shelter or rescue, dogs are generally given up on at two points in their lives by their human adopters:  during puppyhood from ages 18 months to three years, when their cute puppy-ness has faded away and the reality of raising a young dog gets to be too challenging for the human; and during their senior years when the dog has outgrown its usefulness for the family, no one is paying attention to it,  health-care costs are too much to handle for the caregivers, or the dog has simply become a burden.

In both cases, the dog is just entering the threshold of two milestones in its life.  In the first instance, the puppy is about to reach adulthood.  A year goes by very fast.  The chewing of furniture does end, believe me.  By three years old, most dogs settle down and become loyal, loving, relaxed, well-behaved companions. But people are impatient nowadays, and can't deal with the waiting and everything that comes along with the wait, such as being responsible enough to put shoes and food out of the reach of the dog; giving the dog enough exercise so they don't destroy the furniture, curtains and wainscoting out of boredom; providing appropriate toys to chew on during the pesky teething phase, etc.  Since it's almost always the human's fault when a dog gets into trouble, it's our responsibility as pet parents to provide the tools a dog needs to keep him or her safe, trouble-free, and keep it from eating your house and belongings! Having a "conversation" or trying to treat the dog as if it's a 7-year-old human does not work.  Dogs are dogs.  They chew. It's a fact of life.  So, the impatient human decides they need to "get rid of" the dog like some sort of disposable, damaged goods, hoping someone else will want to pick up where they left off with their unfulfilled hound. The majority of dogs in shelters right now are young males between the ages of 18 months and three years.  Many of them will be killed, for no reason other than there is no room at the inn, and their number comes up.

In the second instance, the senior dog is (let's face it) probably going to die soon.  Some people can't deal with the burden of an elderly pet.  The dog is then put out to pasture, so to speak. Either it's euthanized prematurely, or it's surrendered to a shelter or rescue, to live out its remaining days (possibly years) without its familiar home, people, and routines.  The number of surrendered senior pets posted by shelters and rescues on the internet these days is staggering. Even in a photograph, you can almost always see the confusion in their vision-impaired eyes. Imagine being an old dog, unable to see or hear anymore, reliant on smell alone, unable to walk easily or climb stairs, solidly grounded in your daily routine at what you thought was your loving, forever home, with people you assumed loved you as much as you love them.  Suddenly, you're taken from your home, put in a strange place, confined in a cage or crate, on a concrete floor with barely enough room to turn around, let alone stretch out,  without your favorite couch, chair or doggie bed, being cared for by strange (but kind) people, eating different food, and nothing smells familiar. Even the water smells different!

If the reasons for surrendering a pet are financial, there are organizations that can provide assistance if the person qualifies.  Local veterinarians often have low-cost services and clinics available.  Shelters and rescues and pet-related fairs almost always have low-cost or free vaccine sponsorships going on throughout the year.  Some organizations actually specialize in providing pet parents with food, medical costs, etc.  Dumping or abandoning a pet does not have to happen in the 21st century.  There are people and organizations available who want to help prevent the surrender of pets to shelters in times of financial difficulty. 

Want to know more?  Read my post on FairyDogParents' blog, "The Myth of Free To A Good Home".

Raising a puppy is hard.  Caring for a senior dog is hard.  If in the market to adopt a dog, remember that it's a commitment for the lifetime of that pet.  It's like a marriage, except the other party (the dog) doesn't have free will and options like a human partner would.  If you adopt, for better, or for worse, for richer/for poorer, you agree to take care of this dog for the rest of its life. This is not a temporary assignment.  If you envision yourself going through life changes that will cause you to "get rid of" the dog in the future, then owning a dog is not for you.  It's that simple. Be prepared for the hard work, the expense, the huge challenges; and then be prepared for something else: the reward of unconditional love and precious moments that come from sharing your life with a canine companion.

Hobie spends most of his time sleeping nowadays.  He's on pain medication, and can't see or hear very well.  Sometimes he needs help going up or down stairs.  But he's happy, and he's enjoying his life with us. Occasionally, when one of the younger dogs barks, Hobie raises his head off the floor, ears forward, not quite sure if he heard anything.  After looking around the room, he puts his head back down, and snoozes.  I observe this, and then his life flashes before my eyes in a blink of a moment, and I realize how terribly fast these years have gone by.  I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Every day we get to spend together is a gift.

Our other two dogs, litter mate brothers, Charlie Brown and Cooper, are just over two years of age. They're rowdy, clumsy and they make me mad on a daily basis! They're also cuddly, affectionate, adorable, "wicked smart" and predictable as a clock. I'm proud that I've successfully raised two puppies who are turning out to be pretty good dogs, who will one day (hopefully) become old, senior dogs with health issues. I wouldn't trade this for anything, either.