ridgewood reservoir + The Truth About Fostering

we're back! the big news is that we're now queens residents and oh yeah, carlos is no longer a foster dog. after three years of mere co-living we decided that carlos is part of the family for good. i mean, little bear is not exactly thrilled, but even she'd agree that carlos belongs with us.

moving to queens was a bit of a speed bump in carlos' progress in life, even as it cemented his position in our household - he started to resource guard aggressively (again) and was generally very much on edge. after re-instating the discipline of his early days (lots of on-leash and crate time), we got back on track and were able to do more exciting, and sometimes scary things...

there's a post somewhere in my drafts about vet visits and how carlos is the number-one absolute Worst at them. well, we found a home-visit vet that is the super Best at dealing with him. with a combination of fast moves and sedatives and scraps of a breakfast sandwich we have gone through TWO successful visits in the past month. it previously took two visits and five people wrestling the poor dog to a hard metal table to get a single shot administered, so let me just say - HOORAY.

another clear success - the (erm, first phase of the) reopening of the ridgewood reservoir.

we had a great time walking to highland park, eating pumpkin cheesecake from rudy's bakery:

taking in the fall foliage at the reservoir:

and rolling around on cement:

we also had a not-so-great time (from a certain ex-foster dog perspective) posing for pictures together:

suck it carlos! the truth about fostering is that sometimes, you end up stuck with a hugger who loves selfies.

norwood's dog days of summer - wet fur - REDUX

it seems norwood's dog days of summer theme for august 10 set of, literally, a storm of wet fur activity. after a morning of wet fur pictures and posts, a massive storm descended on new york city right as we began our mid-day walk. by the time we got back home, the water was coming down in sheets, and we were all soaked. but the rain turned the day from muggy to cool and this, along with watching carlos attack rain drops and bound into gusts of wind, made all the wet clothes and collars worth it. and that would've been the end of the wet fur saga if not for a little love story between a dog and a spray nozzle.

tonight at the dog run carlos became absolutely enamored with the new spray head on the dog run hose. here's some of the evidence:

he even got really good at keeping his head underwater for more than a second or two as he tried to fish out the nozzle. how do puppies even learn how to hold their breath?!

this went on for at least 30 minutes. it was only ever so reluctantly that carlos finally left the run. and then, in the glow of a 24hr parking garage off the west side highway, i took the final themed picture for the day:

wonderful, gleaming, wet furs

carlos had a great day today.
long live the dog days of summer!

norwood's dog days of summer - wet fur

it's photo contest madness in the village - thanks again to mango and dexter for tipping me off. this time around it's norwood's "dog days of summer" where every day for the month of august there's a new photo theme. the topic for august 10 is "wet fur. "

in this household we have two dogs, one who is extremely excitable about any kind of precipitation, and one who would rather NEVER be wet.

case number 1 - carlos "el amante del agua"
carlos LOVES water - even if it's frozen. he'll frolic in sprinklers, fountains, wading pools, snow, ice, whatever he can find! in the summer we have the extra incentive of wanting to cool off, and carlos always takes full advantage...here he is taking a drink from the park water fountain during an afternoon walk:

technically his lip furs are wet here, so it counts!

and most nights we go hang out in at the wading pools at a local dog run and carlos combines his two loves - tennis balls and water:

specimen numero 2 - bear "not so much aquaphobic, but rather aqua-iratus"
little bear hates the water - but when it's really, really, REALLY hot out, even she will deign to stand in the dog run wading pool and get doused with water:

those people behind me are coming off a latin booze cruise!

it's a miracle folks - two very different dogs, both with very wet fur. amaze with me, and then sit in front of the air conditioner until august ends.

dusty's birthday celebration picture contest!

often i go through and select "mark all as read" in my RSS reader when i get behind on the many many many many many blogs i subscribe to, but for my favorite sites i just let the posts pile up until i have some downtime. so when i was catching up on my reading at mango & dexter's blog and encountered dusty's super cool picture contest i was excited to enter, and then surprised to see that the deadline to participate is TODAY!

so here's my last-minute entry and a super duper last minute call for participants for this contest. here's the deal, straight from dusty's family's blog:

To celebrate Dusty's 1st birthday, on the 27th July, I have decided to do a competition! To enter, do a blog post with your favourite picture of your doggie (or whatever else) included. The competition is based on this picture as the winner will recieve an original hand drawn picture of your entry! 

just go to the contest blog post and leave a comment w/ the url of your entry! but do it now. (or maybe yesterday, i'm not sure how the time difference works!)

and without further ado, here's my entry for carlos:

it's pretty much my favorite picture of carlos, which is why i use it everywhere, including his blog banner :)

little bear says: vote for my foster brother and i won't use my lazer-eyes to look any crazier

one mega super epic walk!

this past saturday we went on our fourth big apple pittie pack walk.

pitbull butts on parade

we got dropped off at the wrong side of the park so we had to rush rush rush across to make it to the starting point. luckily the pack hadn't given up and started without us, so off we all went - right back in the direction we'd come from! well, we were just relieved we'd made it and could enjoy the gorgeous weather with a beautiful group of dogs.

after the walk carlos and i met up with a friend and her beautiful baby.  carlos made his usual first impression...fortunately this baby boy loves dogs and was not swayed by the squawking pitbull routine. after a few minutes we were past the stranger danger portion of the day and were able to relax in the grass near the boathouse.

two out of three looking at the camera? i'll take it!

to celebrate our successful first-ever baby playdate, we decided to WALK ALL THE WAY HOME.

our most glorious and epic route

we did some sightseeing along the way, stopping by the penn station post office building for a picture next to an ugly planter. i blame my poor photo choices at this point on heatstroke.

burning hot sunlight pouring into your lens = do-it-yourself hipstamatic

all in all we walked 8 freaking miles and carlos never missed a beat. even when i made him sit next to a half dead plant in a beat-up giant planter. what a champ!

another ugly planter shot for your bemusement

when we finally made it home carlos got his lunch and a well-deserved nap. i, however, had an appointment to pickup some cool vintage clothes. so i went right. back. uptown (although i did take the subway this time).  not only were the clothes super cool, so was the person i met when i picked them up - she clearly has great fashion taste, AND as it turns out, she loves pitbulls.  maybe we'll have a new person at the next central park pack walk??

totally worth the trip

i made it safely back home a second time, to a couple of happy & tired dogs, only a tiny bit worse for wear from their adventure.

this is what happens when you drool and dry

our first big adventure of 2012 - the big apple pittie pack walk

last week carlos went on his first pack walk with the big apple pittie pack walk group. we didn't want to be late and the starting point was so far away that i decided to take a cab uptown.

here we are on 59th street, walking toward the water

while we were waiting for the walk to start, carlos had a hard time suppressing his communication skills so we hid behind a trashcan until we could get moving.

we walked along the water on riverside park south up to 96th street and i got a couple of shots of the sights

like these stone dudes and a distant highway sign

and new jersey!

but since i was walking carlos, i wasn't able to get any good shots of him. this was the best i could do, once we decided to sit and rest in the sun for a second somewhere in the upper west side:

little bear upstages carlos AGAIN

luckily along the walk we got to talk to jennifer from That Touch of Pit. she wrote about the walk here and got a nice shot of carlos looking like a thoughtful and sensitive beast. check out the picture, it's awesome:

carlos and 1/4 of my left shoe are FAMOUS!

carlos was a bit nervous most of the walk, but it was still a great experience - it was good exercise and sometimes a little social stress is good for a dog to work though. i had a lot of fun and i think over time carlos will enjoy the pack walk as much as i do. besides, we need more fantastic shots of carlos for his portfolio.

silver towers

 a good decade ago, i had a tiny 1980 honda civic hatchback on campus and i discovered i could drive between and over most of the bollards. i was always scared crapless i would get caught breaking the rules. pathetic.

these days i use bollards as dog stands. they are rarely scared of the consequences...

uhhh....

pllllbbpt