And so it begins, this year 2017...

I hope you had the most wonderful beginning to the new year. May 2017 bring you naught but positivity and hope. (I know, for all us progressive, liberal types hope seems a tad out of reach, but remember all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. It's easy to feel hopeful when things are going well; it is in dark times, though, when the light of hope is most needed. Keep the flame burning.)

I'm sorry for my absence. I haven't posted for over a month, and haven't written a serious post since the A to Z Challenge ended. And I'm sorry about that. You deserve better—and there's been plenty to write about, just... not enough time to do it, I guess. Speaking of time, I won't be joining the Challenge this year, by the way... A multitude of reasons, but mainly because the rescue book—the one that began in said A to Z Challenge—will be coming out within the next couple of months, and promoting that will probably overlap with April in some way.

The cover for the rescue book. Photo by yours truly (yes, that's Sam),
and design by Matt Potter, publisher extraordinaire at Truth Serum Press.

A shame, really. I had a theme all planned out. The A to Z of Fostering Rescue Dogs, ha. A good follow-up to the Rescue posts of last year (and my publisher wants to work on a follow-up book, too, so... two birds, one stone, all that). In October I got involved in fostering again—which is part of the reason I've been so freaking busy. I'd been unable to foster since 2013 because three of my own dogs have 'issues' with new dogs, but... Well, the way things worked out, we didn't get much of a choice. (More on that later.) But, hey—perfect, right? I mean, this is all fresh material that will bring the whole fostering thing much more alive for strangers to the 'craft'...  Yes, I'd have had some excellent A to Z posts. And I still plan on writing them, and certainly on writing the Fostering book, but... No, it won't happen this April.

I may do something in April anyway, just to avoid losing the habit, but it won't be an alphabet thing. I'm thinking maybe a music thing. Maybe on the other blog. I saw this 30-day music challenge on Tumblr a while back and, with some tweaks (additions, deletions, combinations, etc.), it might be fun. Maybe, if you're not an A-to-Z-er yourself (and if you love music), you might want to join me. We'll be the rogue April Challengers—ha!

Anyway. I wanted to keep this short, but I promise to be back soon—like, within the week—to tell you about these fosters we've had. The first was a little Chihuahua mix that seemed to have some severe neurological issues; so severe, in fact, that he had us (heartbreakingly) convinced the kindest thing we could do was put him down and end his suffering. Then, a month later, he went to the best of the best forever homes—and we got a litter of five puppies, about 6 weeks old, who'd been abandoned in a plastic carry-all on the side of the road to die. One did, in fact, in my arms two weeks later, but the other four are doing great. The week before Christmas—the day of the winter solstice, actually (which I found beautifully coincidental)—they were declared healthy enough to receive their first vaccination.

The puppies! Clockwise from top left: Bowie (F), Jopie (M), Lemmy (M), Harper (F).

So. More on the foster stories, puppies and Chihuahua, coming soon. I promise. One of my resolutions for 2017 is to never abandon this blog (or the other one) for more than 2 weeks. Yes, you can hold me to that :)

Thanks for sticking with me, y'all.

Romy's Story (Part III — Naming Puppies)

A quick recap:

In Sept 2012, a small female dog was rescued from a garbage dump on the west end of the island and we offered to foster her. She was about a year old, of the nicest temperament... even though life had thrown her its worst. Not only had she been dumped (thrown out like garbage... Really, who does that???) and had suffered hunger, but she also had tick fever (ehrlichiosis), a host of intestinal parasites, and she was heartworm-positive. A month later, we found out she was also pregnant—and, in spite of the high-risk birth due to the medication she'd been on, it was a higher risk to terminate the pregnancy. Romy—that's her name—gave birth to seven big, healthy puppies on the night of Nov. 4-5, 2012. All of them survived.
And now the challenge was to raise them properly—socialized, well-behaved, loving—so they could find excellent homes.

(You can check out the full story at Parts I and II.)

Nov 5th, 2:52 AM. Six newborn puppies.
(Unbeknownst to me, there was a seventh still to come.)

With a litter of seven pretty uniformly colored — and uniformly sized — puppies, it was hard to tell them apart.

Now, Romy's wasn't my first birth. I've seen my share. And usually, even with uniform coloring, you can keep track by how dry their fur is, or at the very least by size.

But this time, as soon as Puppy #2 came out, I was clueless. In the end, we had four black ones, three dark-brown, and among them the only ones I could identify were The Girl (only one female in the litter), and a black male who was born with a short tail. (I'd never seen that happen, by the way. I didn't even think it was possible.)

Nov. 11th, 2012
Romy handling motherhood like a boss.

Nap time!
(See the puppy with her head hanging out of the basket?
Yep. That's The Girl.)

Both of these, though — The Girl and Short-Tail — were black. Two other black ones, and all three brown ones, remained interchangeable for at least the first week. Maybe even the full ten days until they opened their eyes. They grew at the same rate, they seemed to have the same amount of energy, and exhibited the same apparent dominance in fighting for a teat or for the 'top of the pile' sleeping spot.

Except for The Girl; from the first, she was the Alpha of the litter, undisputed.

But going on a week later, it got easier to tell some of these babies apart. Mr. Short-Tail also had a white streak on his nose, and a thunderbolt down his chest. The Girl grew brown eyebrows and socks, kind of Rottweiler-ish. Of the brown batch, previously unidentifiable, one developed a white spot on a hind paw. Just the tip of the toes, like his foot had been dipped ever so daintily in white paint.

Remember this. It will change lives.

Sixteen days after they were born, we caught said white-paint-toe-dipped puppy on camera, exploring the world...

Not long after, the den had become too small for them. I started bringing them out to the patio for an hour or two at a time.

The first patio incursion, Dec 2, 2012.
The puppies were 3 days short of a month old.

And, because they were so big—and growing bigger by the day, almost by the hour—and because Momma Romy was so small and so skinny, we started giving them puppy formula to 1) supplement their nourishment and 2) begin the weaning process.

Dec. 4, 2012
"What's this? Milk not in a boob?"

You can see how quickly they took to the formula. And you can tell they were no longer unidentifiable. Our once-interchangeable puppies were becoming little individuals... And it was time to give them names.

The first one, perhaps the easiest one, was The Girl. From very early on, I started calling her Nena, which is "baby girl" in Spanish. (So sue me for lack of creativity.)

Meet Nena (aka The Girl). Looks like a little Rottweiler, doesn't she?
Dec 12, 2012

Another easy one was Bunny—Mr. Short-Tail with the white streaks on nose and chest.

Bunny, Dec 12, 2012

The others took a bit more thinking, but eventually I came up with names:

Sam
(Dec 12, 2012)

Zorro
(Dec 11, 2012)

Two of the brown puppies were getting lighter, and seemed to have shorter, less furry hair than the others. And, dammit, they looked like twins. I named them, but for another month or so, I wouldn't be able able to tell them apart unless I had them both in front of me. Look at them:

The twins, Benny and Dennis, Dec 12, 2012

There was another pair of quasi-twins, but I never had any trouble telling those two apart. You see, one of them was that wandering puppy, the one with the white-paint-dipped toe (although, by then, a few others had developed white toes). And I was smitten.

Duncan
(Dec 12, 2012)

Duncan and Sam were very, very close in coloring. In the photos above, the one on the upper right has Duncan sleeping in the foreground and Sam behind him. You can see the similarities... But Duncan was lighter than Sam. And, besides the white-tipped right hind toe (you can see it in the bottom right photo, if you look closely), Duncan also had that white star on his chest. And a white-tipped chin. And... I don't know, we had a bond. From the day he could see me and interact with me, something passed between us. He was my dog, and I was his human. Period.

Sam (left) and Duncan (right), playing in the patio.
Dec 12, 2012

Except, of course, we already had more dogs than we ever expected, or could handle. Aside from our own canines (Panchita, Rusty, Sasha, and Winter), in Dec 2012 we were fostering another dog, Blondie, who wouldn't get adopted any time soon (she'll get her own post soon and I'll explain)... And five dogs were already way, way far beyond the limit of 3 we'd agreed on as a family.

So I said nothing about Duncan. I kept this thing between us to myself. I thought, life will sort it out. Maybe when we got adoption applications, the perfect family would come up. Maybe this attachment I felt was just puppy love (literally), and I'd grow out of it. Maybe... Or maybe not.

To Be Continued

Home seeking puppies...

So. The puppies have left, all three to extraordinary homes.

Nena, the only girl, left on Friday August 22nd. Ochoa left the next day, Saturday August 23rd. Little Sneijder, whose plans for adoption had fallen through, found the absolute most perfect home for him.

Cor saying goodbye to
Sneijder just before we
brought him to
his new home.

We walked him over--it's only a block away from us (!!)--the weekend before I left for Mexico.

And now the house feels sad... and quiet.

Black & White Sunday -- August 10

The newest members of the family, albeit temporary. (More about them in yesterday's post.) From the left: Ochoa, Snijder, and Nena.

Thanks to Nola and Sugar for hosting the B&W hop--so glad to be back!

An absentee blogger's excuse

So some seven weeks ago, I got a desperate call mid morning: someone had found a box of puppies, less than ten days old (their eyes were still closed) in the street. Seven puppies. Who needed to be bottle-fed. Who would, most probably, die anyway. But an animal rescuer that gives up before giving it not just the best but everything is not an animal rescuer at all.

So I took them in. Just for a week, they told me. Another volunteer, with better facilities (remember some members of my seven-pack aren't exactly friendly, and I had no idea how they'd react to puppies, of all things), would take them in the following weekend.

Okay. A week is doable.

They arrived in a donated cat carrier, all seven of them, asleep and twisted around each other like snakes. I took out the one closest to the front and held him in my hand, and my heart sank. These puppies were newborns. Two days old, three tops.

I prepared myself for heartbreak, sooner or later. Probably sooner. Then I prepared a batch of milk substitute, also brought by the volunteer. Each can costs Naf. 50 (about USD 30); raising orphaned puppies has become a luxury.

I can't understand how it's possible, full into the 21st century, that we haven't come up with a better solution for feeding infant animals. Let me tell you: bottles do not work. They hate them. It feels artificial; there's nothing, let alone flesh, surrounding the nipple for their little paws to press against; there's no warmth, no furriness. And there's air going through along with the milk, which is, of course, Not Good.

Seriously. To any inventors out there, I'm begging: please--please--come up with something better.

One puppy did die, the day after I got them. He probably (we weren't going to do an autopsy on a tiny days-old body) aspirated some milk into his lungs, which caused inflammation and infection, and he asphyxiated. He died literally a minute before the vet got to him. Not that the vet could've done anything. No one could. (I keep telling myself that. Doesn't seem to work.)

That first week was hard. I camped out on the sofa, the puppies in a laundry hamper next to me. I slept when they slept, which wasn't all that much. I brought out the bottle as soon as I heard the first whimper. At that age, they need food (and liquids) every two hours, but they didn't like the bottle, so they drank very little. Slowly they began to understand that that ugly plastic thing that tasted funny was, strangely, where the food came from. Slowly they began to drink more, faster.

I ended up keeping three--fosters, not permanent additions to the family... at least not yet. Another foster took the other three. A load shared is a load halved, right?

Ochoa (black) and Snijder, 4 weeks, discovering
the pleasure of sticks--and of fighting over them.

When one began to open his eyes, we were able to calculate exact date of birth (count back ten days, presto): June 18th. We called them the WK pups (WK being the Dutch abbreviation for World Cup). And since they came to me the week before the NL-MX game, we named the three brown ones after Dutch players--Persie, Snijder, and Fer--and the black ones after Mexican players: Ochoa, the biggest one (seriously, he's double the size of his siblings), Rafa (for Rafa Marquez), and--oops, the third one was a girl. We tried several variations, but ended up with Nena (baby girl in Spanish). Her future mom is going to call her Nona.

The tiny one that died was Chicharito.

This past Wednesday they turned 7 weeks old. The week before, at 6 weeks, they got their first vaccination--and just in time, because a parvo epidemic has hit the island. May and June produced a record number of abandoned puppies, and most of the little ones are sick now. Several have died--including, today, one of the WK family, Persie.

Beautiful, smart Persie. Run free, little one.

I'm heartbroken. He didn't live with us for more than a week, but it was an intense week. He was the one that least liked the bottle (opposed to Ochoa, for instance, who got over the plastic discomfort pretty fast once he figured out there was food at the other end), so I spent a lot of time with him on my lap. My chest. My arms. He was the first one to open his eyes. The first to crawl out of the basket. The first to walk. He was so, so smart, and he would've been a fantastic adult dog. The world has been cheated out of a canine jewel.

I know I've been neglecting you. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry, too, for ending on such a sad note. It's a sad day. On the other hand, none of them had halfway good chances of making it, and here they are, five of them, alive and healthy and strong--and four are going to fantastic homes. The fifth one will find his "golden basket", as they say in Dutch; it's just going to take a bit longer. Which means we get to enjoy him all the more.

Oh yeah, cutie. You get to stay in this pack a bit longer.

Black & White Sunday: Benny

Benny's first sortie at the Kabouterbos (Dwarf Forest, in Dutch). He was surprisingly calm. Made me proud.

Happy Mother's Day!

Especially to the awesome mothers of kids with paws ;)

Youth vs. Age (#atozchallenge)

After yesterday's post, you probably think I'm partial to puppies. Who wouldn't be? Little bundles of cuteness overload, a pristine mind, character yet unshaped. Puppies--like the bunnies and chicks that symbolize Easter--offer a fresh start. A blank page. Holding a puppy in your arms is like holding the future. And our dreams for it.

It's no surprise that puppies get adopted a lot faster than adult dogs. Which presents a problem for rescue organizations.

Two, actually.

The first, most obvious, is that adult dogs have ever-narrowing chances of finding a good home. By "adult" I don't mean "senior"--even one- or two-year-old dogs get passed over for puppies. And every time that happens is another nail in their coffins. (If only they had coffins.)

The second problem is, actually, the core problem of dog rescuing. Where do all these homeless dogs come from? Sure, a lot are born homeless (especially in third-world locations like the Caribbean and Latin America)--but not all of them. A huge number started out life in homes, in families--a family that wanted that "bundle of cuteness overload", that "fresh start". But puppies don't stay puppies forever. They grow. Oh, so very, very fast.

Raising a puppy is every bit as challenging as raising a child. With one significant difference: you've got around six to eight years, depending on the branch of child psychology you prefer, to form that child's foundation of values and principles. With a puppy, you've got months. And not that many.

I get it; all you want to do with a puppy is cuddle and take pictures. What do you do when you find him cutting his tiny baby teeth on your Gucci loafers? You go Awwww, snap a photo, post it on Facebook, and all your friends go Awwwww too. And how can you possibly leave that itty-bitty baby in a crate all night? No, no; he sleeps in the bed with us. Plenty of time to teach him later.

Too many people fall in love with the baby cuteness and forget its days are numbered--until, one day, the puppy is no longer a puppy, it's a grown dog that growls at you when you try to get him off the bed. Off goes the ex-puppy to the shelter (or the street).

Raising a puppy to be a calm, independent, happy adult--the companion of your dreams--is hard work.

An adult dog comes with challenges, too, but they're of a different nature. They're already there, immediately visible so you can decide whether you can or cannot deal with them.

An adult's basic character traits--full of energy or mellow, social or not, a cuddler or a loner--have already been established and (unless you're into rehabilitation, which is a whole different ballgame), won't change.

An adult is much easier to train; they've lived enough to know, for example, that going potty in the same place where you sleep or eat is a bad idea. They test boundaries less. They love with less distraction, less challenge.

And yet ninety percent of people will stride past the adult cages at a shelter without so much as a second glance.

Why is it that we value youth so much more? Not just a dog's--ours, too. The golden years were in our teens, our twenties. Growing old seems like the end of everything, a tragedy that most people go to extreme lengths to postpone--as if it could be. Lying about their age; using all sorts of creams, make-up, concealers, magic potions. Studying pop culture to be in with the newest slang, the latest fashions, the hippest music. Going under the knife.

Why? Why is the passing of time so dreaded? Isn't it through this very passing that we acquire experience? Why is being older so bad?

Older dogs may not have the effervescence of puppies--thank heavens--but they have plenty of energy to keep any human company in the exercise department. Older dogs don't have to chew on everything to figure out what they like; they already know what tastes good, what doesn't get them into trouble--and they can spend more time chewing that.

Relationships with older dogs are more fulfilling--more time spent in quiet contemplation rather than in a tug-of-war to establish who's who. Power struggles and pissing contests aren't necessary.

I think that's also true of our own relationships as we get older.

~ * ~

Thank you for visiting, for all your awesome comments, and for helping make Life In Dogs's 

first A-to-Z Challenge a huge success. 

I look forward to many, many mutual visits.

Xanax, Eat Your Heart Out (#atozchallenge)

Depression seems to be the illness of our times. Everyone's either depressed, has been depressed, or knows someone who is. Xanax, and its fellow multi-colored pills, can be found in bathroom cabinets and bedside tables everywhere.

Is anyone getting better, though?

In my not-so-humble opinion, they're taking the wrong medicine. The wrong approach. I propose

Puppy Therapy!

One-on-one therapy at home has produced excellent results. Intensive out-patient therapy is available--free of charge--at your local shelter or rescue organization. For severe cases, we recommend volunteering at least once a week with a rescue organization. Aside from the endorphins your brain produces around chubby, furry, warm, and playful creatures, nothing gives your life a sense of purpose like an animal that needs you.

(If this seems contradictory, because you think rescuing animals exposes you to too much pain, remember: there's no light without dark, no day without night, and no joy without pain. It's part of life.)

Choose the course of therapy that best suits you. Except for allergies, no counter-indications apply.

~ * ~

Thanks for stopping by, and happy last three days of A-to-Z-ing!

Us & Them (#atozchallenge)

I've had to stop taking all the dogs to the beach together, and I miss it. It was such a joy to watch them chase each other, splash into the water together, hunt in unison. Beautiful.

But unsafe.

Not when it was just the three of them--Panchita, Rusty, and Winter. If we ran into other dogs, they'd sniff a bit, Winter might get a bit snappy (she's short; Napoleon complex), but it never escalated. Same thing with people. None of my dogs like kids (they do say dogs resemble their owners...), but they behaved as long as the child didn't harass them. (And I made damn sure they didn't.)

Even when the puppies came. Puppies--they're 17 months now, but I guess they'll always be The Puppies to us. All seven of us (six of them, one of me) would walk the beaches like one big, friendly family.

And then they grew up.

Sometime around their 10-month birthday there was an incident. A couple of teenagers in a kayak got attacked. Sure, I told them to stop lunging with the oars at the dogs and they didn't listen, but in this world a dog is guilty until--no, no defense possible. A dog is guilty and stays guilty. Fortunately it wasn't even a scratch; no blood, no doctors.

But it taught me a powerful lesson.

In a pack, my dogs--my lovely, sweet, and wonderful dogs--become dangerous.

In a pack, accepting strangers--people or dogs--becomes impossible.

In a pack, all their little quirks of behavior that seem so manageable--or even harmless--at home become exacerbated, magnified, replicated like a mirror in a mirror.

They become a threat.*

Just like humans.

I'm not talking just about mobs (or soccer fans)--those are the ultimate extreme. Families, homeroom groups at school, neighborhoods, cities, countries, even continents: all of these give us a sense of identity. But in that very identity lies the problem. We define ourselves by differentiating from others.

There can be no Us without Them.

This behavior, the pack mentality, is so ingrained it probably resides in our lizard brain. Every animal has it; maybe even plants do. It's a matter of protecting resources, of survival; one can't just allow any dog to waltz in and take over our food, our human, our safety. Spontaneous generosity towards a stranger can be dangerous.

I get it. I do. We all need, in lesser or greater measure, a place to call home, a group to call our pack.

Strength lies in numbers, after all.

But I wonder. Can't we use it, this strength, for something other than division lines? 

Now I go to the beach with one, maybe two dogs. It's still Us, but I'm working on turning around that Us vs. Them into Us and Them.


It's a start.






* Note: Pack behavior that becomes a threat to others happens because of faulty leadership. Meaning me. My mistake, not theirs. I'm working on that, too.

~ * ~

Thanks for the visit, so sorry about the late post, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

(P.S. -- I will catch up on visits. There's so many great blogs I've discovered this April that I think I'll be busy until October reading everyone's A-to-Z posts.)

No Fear Is Irrelevant (#atozchallenge)

This is Sam. The most reactive of my (seven) dogs.

He lives in fear: of the vacuum cleaner, the broom, a plastic bag dancing in the wind, a branch falling from a tree, the garbage truck, loud laughter from the neighbors', slamming doors, strangers, the street, my absence.

I get it. The human world is full of scary stuff for dogs. Mechanical stuff. Loud stuff. Stinky stuff (like the garbage truck). His fears might not be reasonable, but--I get it.

His abject terror of a cow, though, I don't.

Sam's nightmare cow

It's a four-inch-high decorative sculpture. Sure, the colors are maybe gaudy, and the thing has horns, and the head is down low (stalk/attack position), but--seriously? It's an inanimate object. You'd think a dog, with their outrageous sense of smell, would be able to tell there's no danger here, imminent or potential. And yet he won't even get close enough to sniff it.

It's a fifth of your size, Sam! Stop being such a drama queen! (Or king, whatever.)

Completely by accident, I came across a post (by Eileen, one of my favorite dog people): Is My Dog A Drama Queen? Ha, thought I, this one's for Sam.

No. It was for me.

About halfway through the post I found this (Zani is Eileen's Sam):

"I need to remind myself that this house, with my other dogs and me, and the places Zani gets to go–these things are Zani’s world. She is utterly dependent on me. She has things she likes and dislikes, things she looks forward to or not. They are perfectly real and important to her."

And then:

"I need to take Zani’s frustrations and stresses seriously, not just brush them away as cute, silly, or annoying. [...] I need to change my internal response."

Bam. 

We've established dogs cannot lie--they're, quite literally, incapable of it--so why don't I take him seriously? Why am I labeling his reactions as "drama"? Because from my point of view his fear of the cow is unreasonable? Unjustified?

Who am I to judge?

I think I do this with people, too. I have very low (read zero) tolerance for drama queens. Your boyfriend cheated on you, your wallet got stolen, you crashed your car and don't have insurance, you lost your job, your house burned down? Here, have a kleenex, have a drink. Stop the sniveling, it's not the end of the world.

Isn't it? Maybe it is drama--or maybe, for that person, this thing that's happened really does feel like the end of the world. Who am I to judge?

My decorative cow is the stuff of Sam's nightmares. One person's drama is another person's abject terror. A good human--a good friend--should understand that.

~ * ~ 

Thanks for the visit, and happy A-to-Z-ing!

[Want more Lessons In Life From Dogs?]

Let It Go (#atozchallenge)

Do you hold grudges?

Let it go. You'll live happier.

Thank you for visiting! Welcome to another week of A-to-Z-ing 

and more Lessons In Life From Dogs. 

Tomorrow: Memory--Short or Long?

Beggin' You Please (#atozchallenge)

Ah, Benny. It's so hard to say No to that face.

Dog training is based on a simple concept: reinforce the behavior you want.

Dog sits, dog gets treat. Behavior reinforced.

Simple.

(I can hear all you dog owners laughing already.)

Here's my scenario every morning at the patio doors: seven furry babes ("babes" that on average weigh 20kg) clamor to get in. Against the glass doors.

Instinct takes over. I run to get the door open before someone breaks that glass.

Next morning, same thing. The one after that? Mm-hmm. And it doesn't take Cesar Millan to help me figure out why.

I'm reinforcing the behavior. I'm telling my dogs that the key to getting inside as fast as possible is to jump against the (glass, dammit) doors. Oh, see the human run! It works, guys! One more time, everybody together!

Training doesn't only happen from human to dog; this here's a great example of dog-to-human. You don't like me banging against this transparent thing? Well, then: HURRY UP. That's it, good human. I'll stop the banging now.

Kids--newborn babies, teenagers--do this to their parents all the time. Adults do it to each other. It's conditioning, a kind of Pavlov response; that's how all us animals learn about controlling our universe.

And we keep on doing it. Consciously or otherwise.

Which is why it's a good idea to take a look at the conflicts in our lives and ask ourselves if maybe, just maybe, there's a bit of conditioning at work here. What behaviors do we reinforce in others--and in ourselves? What behaviors do others reinforce in us? What do we reward? How do we reward it? Are we absolutely sure that we're reinforcing the behavior we want?

Or are we racing to open those glass doors?

Black & White Sunday: Awwwww...

Zorro, one of Romy's puppies.
January 2013

Thanks to Nola Dachshund and Sugar: The Golden Retriever for hosting the Black & White Sunday hop, and thank you for visiting. Not sure I'll be participating during April; the A-to-Z challenge's got me stressed out already :) But I do have some cool photos I'm dying to share, so... Well, let's leave it at maybe.

Black & White Sunday -- Duncan in Water

No, those aren't fangs. He doesn't fly, either, though he thinks he does. (He thinks he has fangs, too.)

You must be fed up of water- or beach-related pics on this blog. I do apologize for the lack of image variety... It's just that, first, that's where we spend most of our time, and (kind of an obvious) second, that's where I snap most of our photos. I do hereby solemnly promise to jazz it up (i.e., no water) next week. Solemnly.

Thanks to Nola Dachshund and Sugar: The Golden Retriever for hosting the Black & White Sunday hop. And do come back next week for my last B&W post--last until May, at least. With two blogs in the A-to-Z challenge and fiction writing deadlines I can't seem to keep up with, I'll need those Sundays off. But I hope you'll stop by for the April posts--lots of dog joy planned for those, too :) And this Tuesday I'll be posting an A-to-Z tips & tricks for those of you awesome pet bloggers joining the April challenge. 

(P.S. - If you're joining the challenge, let me know in the comments and I'll add you to my to-visit-daily blogs.)