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Scratching our heads...
2007-12-22 19:33:00
I got the results of Dax's blood tests back yesterday. She's perfect. Not fine, not okay, not even iffy. She's absolutely perfect.So why is her fur falling out? Why is she always freezing? Why did she get snarky with her dog friends at class?I'm planning to talk to a vet here who's into canine nutrition, holistic stuff, etc. She also does acupuncture, rehab, etc. I took Roc to play on her underwater treadmill when he had an issue this year.If she doesn't have any suggestions for us, I'm planning to blame it all on Tessa.
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Fun pics for the holidays!
2007-12-21 21:19:00
Golly Golly and MacDuffDax and RobbieCeilidh and her new favorite toyMerry Christmas, Happy Holidays , Happy New Year, all that good stuff!
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Training and tagged!
2007-12-20 21:17:00
Last night was Dax's and my first night at training in a while (vacation, flu, snowstorms - any excuse will do!) and I was surprised that she was a bit nervous at first. These are people and dogs she knows, in a place she knows. After we warmed up with a bit of heeling, Daxy seemed to relax a bit - until her buddy Buster (Cocker Spaniel) tried to horn in on her treats. My sweet little girl actually almost-snarled at him! Then she recognized who it was and settled - until her best-friend-in-the-world Ryder (Dobe) came up. And she snarled at him! I don't care how much she likes cheese - that behavior is not acceptable and won't be tolerated.As she watched, from a "down, stay!" while Ryder and Buster got treats, her attitude adjusted nicely. I think we'll be going to training more regularly from now on.Fuzzy Logic tagged me - 7 things that annoy me:1: Shrieking children. Playing does not require sounds that make me wonder if I should call 911.2: Drivers who can't decide which lane...
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Want to make the gods laugh? Make plans
2007-12-17 20:03:00
It's been an interesting 10 days.It's the busiest time of the year for us retailers. Golly Gear is both bricks-and-mortar and online.So our webmaster's (Fran's) computer died. Defunct. Kicked the bucket. Gone.Two of us, trying to work at one computer and not get in each other's way in a 400 sq. ft. store.Problem solved - I got the flu and was out for three days.I've got to say that having dogs is a mixed blessing when you're sick. There's nothing quite as comforting as warm, cuddly bodies snuggling close when you're under the weather. And nothing quite as uncomfortable as having to get up and walk the dogs when you're feeling lousy.Especially when the next event is 10 inches of snow, gifted to us by the weather powers on Saturday. The next-t0-last Saturday before Christmas.Today is a beautiful day. The new computer is working (knock wood), I'm fine (knock again), the sun is shining and all is right with the world. After a good laugh.
More About: Plans , Make , Laugh , Gods

Requiem for a PC
2007-12-14 23:41:00
My computer died last Saturday. Poor old thing. It was a good computer, but now it won't boot. Hope maintains that I drove it to an early grave (poor thing was just over 4 years old). It was not unusual for me to have five or six pretty intensive applications open at a time. Well, I use them all! Edit a photo in one, paste it to another. Check the email, print out orders, invoices and labels. Count them up! And, of course, I like to listen to my music while I work! I guess I should have ordered a new PC months ago when Hope first started bugging me to. Hope stopped in today, her day off and was horrified to discover that I was doing the same thing on her computer! Well, the next couple of days are going to be spent configuring the new one, which was delivered today! At least I was able to copy all the pictures of my babies onto a flash drive!
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Broken squeakers
2007-12-07 23:39:00
What to do with toys that have broken squeakers? The benefit of owning Golly Gear is that we have ready access to all sorts of great stuff. And the benefit of having dogs is that we have ready recipients for items no longer "sellable." We recently had to stop carrying some latex crabs. Cute as anything, but they didn't squeak like they were supposed to. We still had a couple in stock when we discovered this, so brought them home for the kids. Dax loves them! They've become her favorite toys. They have nice claws, and nice wide bodies. Dax steps on the body with her front paws and tugs on the claws or the eyes for all she's worth. She doesn't care one little bit that the crab isn't squeaking!
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180 degree switch
2007-12-06 22:46:00
Just occurred to me:In the summer I bribe the dogs to come in the house.In the winter I bribe them to go out.
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A good thing about winter
2007-12-05 18:58:00
So the weather gods very unkindly dumped about six inches of snow on us last night. It was actually a really pretty snowfall - no wind and big, fat flakes gently falling to the ground. This is what the side street by our shop looked like this morning. The best thing about it? I got to wear my brand-spanking new boots. It's actually not easy to take a picture of your own feet on purpose. I've done it loads of times unintentionally, but that's another story. So - what do you think? Are these cute, or what?
More About: Winter , Good , Thing

Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning
2007-12-04 21:49:00
I'm turning into a complete and total wuss. We've barely gotten a hint of winter and I'm already sick of being cold. The thermostat down at 65 degrees isn't helping - but we're such tree-hugging "do-be"s, that I can't justify turning it up to a nice, comfy 78. It also doesn't help that Dax is an even bigger baby about the weather than I am. The dog I depend on to go for walks, play and be an active, energetic 3-year-old is found, more often than not, curled up under the afghan on the couch. Or plastered to the heating vents.The only time I'm truly warm and comfy is snuggled in bed with my personal furnaces - Dax and Roc. I've never been a morning person. Morning s in winter should be outlawed.
More About: Hate , In The Morning

Brrr ... It's Cold Out There!
2007-11-30 22:11:00
It's starting to get really cold here in Chicagoland. It's to be expected at the end of November, of course, but the dogs view the changing of the seasons as a personal affront! Dax, especially, will look at us with a wounded expression when we open the door to usher the dogs out and she feels the chilly breeze (or gale-force wind as the case may be). Ceilidh at least will tolerate her coat but Dax doesn't like wearing clothes. We try to explain to her that the coat will make it feel warmer, but she just tries to scrape it off when we put it on her. Silly girl! Golly, totally opposite to her otherwise princess-like demeanor, doesn't care about the temperature. It can be 20 degrees or 80 degrees and she just doesn't care! She usually doesn't lie on the pavement in the sun when it's 20 degrees, though. Roc, typical boy, doesn't care about the weather either. There's one good thing about winter coming - the dogs are much less likely to sniff every blade of (dead) grass when it...
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The oh-so-glamorous photo shoot
2007-11-28 21:01:00
Ceilidh can't stay still Dax won't move Golly's always perfect Roc is either miserable modelling Or else he's yapping - Golly still perfect If Dax does move, she sniffs Wait! I think we've got one!Whenever we get new products in the store, one of the first things we like to do is take them home, see how they fit and get some pictures of our dogs modeling them so that our customers will have some notion of what they look like in actual use.This is much easier said than done. We got in new step-in harnesses, so last Sunday we brought home various sizes, colors, etc. to try on Golly, Ceilidh, Roc and Dax. Should be a piece of cake, right? All of them are obedience trained. Not so much. Golly is perfect, of course. But Roc is yapping. Which he does perpetually when outside. And with so many things moving (leaves, mostly) there's plenty to yap about! Just ask him!Then there's Dax, who finds every inch of ground absolutely fascinating to sniff. When she's moving. When she's exhau...
More About: Photo , Photo Shoot , Glamorous , Shoot

Tired Thanksgiving Day Helpers
2007-11-23 23:00:00
Happy Thanksgiving , everyone! We gave thanks for everything good in our lives - especially our little ones. The dogs love to help us in the kitchen. Mostly this consists of sleeping in the dog bed in the kitchen, or in the crate under the table. And yesterday was a prime example. We decided to do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner yesterday - turkey, dressing, cranberries, brussels sprouts (particularly appropriate, we thought, since we have Brussels Griffons!) and pie. The cooking fest began on Wednesday when I made my famous (in my own mind) chocolate pecan pie - from scratch. Many steps, very time consuming but not that hard. Then yesterday morning, while watching the Macy's parade we made the cranberry sauce first so it would have time to chill and set. Then peeling, chopping and browning 3 pounds of onions and a head of celery for the dressing. That took a while - and Roc, Dax and Golly helped all the way through. Ceilidh was sleeping in the other room, in front of the vent. (D...
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One Thing Leads to Another...
2007-11-16 23:37:00
As you may know, Hope and I share a house - we pretty much always have, being sisters. Golly has always slept with me, Roc and Dax have always slept with Hope. Ceilidh has also slept with Hope. But Hope's room gets mighty chilly in the winter and Ceilidh is "fur-challenged." So we decided that Ceilidh will sleep in my room. She loves this humongous round poofy blue bed that could fill a room on its own. I wouldn't want to deprive her of her favorite bed, so it came to my room as well. At first we put it on the side of my bed with a clear shot of the door. That didn't work, as I could only open half of my closet. There wasn't room on the other side of my bed - too much furniture. So - out goes one bed table! I'll make do. My clothes and Ceilidh are more important!
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Back to real life
2007-11-12 21:35:00
The best thing about vacation? Getting away from responsibilities and real life for a short while. The worst part? Real life is waiting to greet you the instant you get back!I have to admit, we're luckier than most - when you love what you do for a living, you never really go to "work." It's always fun to come into the shop. We love meeting dogs and their owners, love solving problems for little dogs (and their owners) and just have a good time every day. When we first started Golly Gear, I referred to the store as my "play pen" and I still feel that way. Of course, we missed our dogs horribly when we were away. I have a feeling that we're going to try to take them next time we go on vacation. It will restrict where we can go, but it will solve one chronic vacation problem for me. I never sleep well when I'm away from home. I'm firmly convinced it's because I'm totally reliant on French Bulldog snoring for a lullaby!We did have a wonderful time - the weather was in the 80s an...
More About: Life , Back , Real Life

Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here
2007-11-03 21:40:00
Went swimming with my friends Theresa and Tursi today. Aren't they pretty? You can meet them at the Dolphin Research Center: www.dolphins.org
More About: Time , Wonderful , Were

Not exactly dog related, but I promised
2007-11-01 22:31:00
As the GollyLog's loyal readers know, I volunteered to work at the World Boxing Championships for three days. What an experience! I was able to put my very rusty Spanish to good use to help out a few boxers, and I became a much better Charades player. Since English and Spanish are the only languages I speak even marginally well, the only way I could communicate with the Russian, Czech, Polish, Ghanian, etc., etc., team members was by making some sort of motion to get the point across. Even some of the English and Welsh team members were tough to understand! No problem with the Canadians, though! The Venezuelan team manager had to shake everyone's hand when he came into the Guest Services office.The Colombian boxers were real characters - mock fighting with the guys from the Dominican Republic over computer time in the Internet Cafe. At least I think it was mock fighting...A very attractive volunteer made friends with one of the Georgian boxers, who wrote her a very sappy love note...
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Lessening the Halloween headache
2007-10-31 21:08:00
A few years ago, trying madly to contain four dogs who all wanted to lick tiny little trick-or-treaters to pieces, I came up with a great idea. And for no cost whatsoever - I'll share it with everybody. Those of us with dogs will use it about once a year - every Halloween .It's not exactly a dog-friendly holiday. The doorbell rings constantly for four hours. And the dogs weren't allowed to see any of our visitors, for fear they'd dash out into the night. I solved our problem by taking out the top window of our self-storing storm door. I lock the storm so it can't open, even when four furry bodies go dashing at it. Even the tiniest trick-or-treaters can hold up their loot-sacks for me to toss in some goodies. The dogs get to see the kids. The kids get to see the dogs. It's a win-win situation for everybody. Including the people over at Bayer. Whose fine analgesic pain relievers we rely on tonight.
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Cute!
2007-10-27 19:26:00
Doesn't every French bulldog need a sleeveless sweatshirt?
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You Left Me!!!
2007-10-26 21:59:00
Yesterday was a long day for the pups - all of 7 1/2 hours! I had to be downtown (Chicago) pretty early for my first volunteer shift at the World Boxing Championships - more about that later - so I left the house very early. And Hope left later, but I didn't get home until about 4:30 in the afternoon. (The reason that this is exceptional is that we leave the kids almost every day but the longest is usually five or six hours. We're really lucky!) The greeting when I got home was unparalleled! You would have thought I'd been gone for days! Even Ceilidh, who usually makes a beeline for her toys, was jumping all over me! Maybe I should be gone for longer periods more often, to get a welcome home like that!About the Boxing Championships - it's an Olympic qualifying event for the 2008 Games in Beijing for some countries, so it's a big deal. I was assigned to Guest Services in the home hotel, where all the athletes and their support staff are staying. The first thing I saw when I got ...
More About: Left

Behold the Golly Force!
2007-10-23 23:07:00
Whenever we get new inventory in our store we torture our own dogs by making them model. We shoot a lot of pictures, hoping to get a couple of good ones that show off the product. When we do these photo sessions we really don't look at our dogs, just the products. We think they're always cute. Sometimes they're more photogenic.This shot really isn't all that wonderful of the coat - but Golly just looks so darn cute with the head tilt that I had to show off the darling girl. The picture was taken on Sunday, her 12th birthday. The G o lly Force in action!
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Small dogs, rescue, Iggy and Ellen
2007-10-17 18:18:00
I had to write about this - having been there, done that. There probably aren't going to be any winners in this situation. We're hoping that Iggy , the Brussels Griffon mix at the center of the controversy, will find a good home, well away from the spotlight.Rescue organizations have rules for reasons. Most that focus on small dogs have very specific rules about households with children. Dogs that wind up in rescue often have issues. If the dog has been hungry it will often protect its food bowl. And if small hands reach for the dog while it's eating, it's the dog who will be blamed when the hand is bitten.We fostered a rescue Brussels Griffon several years ago. Spike hadn't really been abused, just neglected. He was underweight, not particularly socialized, had no idea what toys were for and little, if any, housebreaking. Brussels Griffon Rescue, generally speaking, will not place dogs in homes with small children - for everyone's safety. Our job, aside from taking care of Spi...
More About: Small , Ellen

Walking all weekend
2007-10-15 20:50:00
All this weekend we were at a huge trade show for the pet industry. We found some wonderful new stuff for small dogs - it'll be rolling in here over the next few weeks. Just a few quick impressions:Small dogs are still huge (so to speak)We don't care what anybody says - other than Halloween & costume parties, dogs do not need their fur dyed, or wigsPaper is heavy and carrying a thousand catalogs around in a tote bag results in sore shouldersWe're very glad we cheated and brown-bagged it - $13 is too much to spend on a turkey sandwichJust because you're not at work doesn't mean you're not workingGood shoes are crucial for conventionsOn a mixed positive/negative note - we saw at least a dozen French Bulldogs at the convention. That's a pretty clear indication that the breed is getting very, very popular. And while we think everyone who meets one will fall in love, we all know it's not the healthiest thing for any breed to get too popular. Unscrupulous people will always ju...
More About: Walking , Weekend

A treasure to be prized
2007-10-10 17:38:00
There is only one good chew bone in our house. This is it. Today. Ask anyone who has more than one dog - regardless of how many actual bones are in the house, there is only one good one. And the other dog has it. As long as there's no battling over it, we try to ignore it. One dog has the "good" bone - last evening it was Ceilidh. The others sat and watched her chew it. And drooled. When she was distracted, Dax moved in and grabbed it. And then Ceilidh sat, watched, and drooled.Dax has a habit of rolling onto her back while she chews, so she loses control of the "good" bone. It falls to the floor and Ceilidh takes it back. So Dax sits, and watches, and drools. Roc is a clever little beast. He waited until both girls were distracted and moved in for the "good" bone. Then he trotted it over to his favorite bed to chew on it. While Ceilidh and Dax sat, watched, and drooled.You'd think it was unique, this bone. Prized above all others. There are six more just like it in the dogs' toy...
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Golly was blessed
2007-10-08 17:25:00
The synagogue nearest our house had a short service yesterday to bless the animals, and invited people and their animals for the service. (The Torah reading for the week was Genesis 9:10-11, Noah, his family and all the animals emerging from the Ark after the Flood.) We had planned to take all the dogs, but it was about 85 degrees, so just brought Golly. Amazingly, she's the most heat-resistant of them all and we felt that she could spread the blessing around the best (Golly being the Princess). And, true to form, the Golly Force was strong, drawing all to her presence.
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I definitely felt a pang
2007-10-06 23:04:00
A local organization, the Recyclery, that "rehomes" bicycles after refurbishing them was having a donation day today. So, this morning, Fran helped me brush the spiders and their webs off my old 10-speed stored in the garage and load it into my car. I planned to drive over to the donation site after work.Just loading it into the car inspired some nostalgia - the unmistakeable "tk tk tk tk tk" of walking a 10-speed. I loved that bike. It was my birthday present when I was 15. Other kids were looking at getting cars - I knew we'd never be able to afford that. But I could get a brand, spanking new 10-speed bike. I researched for months - the best bikes, the best brakes, the highest consumer ratings. And I found my perfect bike. Today, I gave it away. I hope it makes another short girl as happy as it made me. To her, whoever she is - I hope you enjoy your 19 inch, Grass Green, Nishiki Olympic 10 speed. It was painstakingly chosen - just for you!
More About: Felt , Pang

The Princess and the rest of us
2007-10-05 19:25:00
Golly's fine - the vet didn't say anything about the growth, so we're taking that as no news is good news. If there was anything, she would have called us. And Golly's healing nicely, too. She's a little concerned about the areas that were shaved - will her fur be as lush in those spots? Golly would not allow me to take a picture of her bald spots. She feels that only photos of the Princess looking her best can be published. Golly's princess-ness is growing, too. Golly demands that she be let in the house first. Golly demands that she get the first treat. And Golly demands that her subjects (Ceilidh, Roc and Dax) leave any bed that she wants for herself. She actually barks as if there was something interesting in the other room, and when the bed's occupant vacates the premises, Golly lies down in the bed. Like I said, a Princess.
More About: Rest

Big night
2007-10-03 16:34:00
Tonight's a big night for us - a new training hall for our obedience club and the start of the baseball playoffs. As a lifelong Cubs fan, I can't believe I'm not even going to be home for the start of the game - but real life goes on. If Roc is ever going to get his CDX, we have to keep training. I've pretty much decided that if we hit 15 and 0 for qualifying legs, we're going to give up. (Our dismal record is now 0 for 13.) I can't keep beating my head against a wall. Roc knows all the exercises, does them beautifully in training, but can't seem to qualify to save our souls.And the most important thing for us to remember - we play obedience to have fun. When it's not fun, it's time to move on.
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Foggy, foggy night
2007-10-03 16:32:00
Night before last it was so foggy we couldn't even see to the end of our block.
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And Now For Something Completely Different
2007-09-28 21:36:00
As my friends know, I'm an Olympics nut. I love watching the Olympics. Winter, Summer, it doesn't matter. So when Chicago, my home town, won the ability to represent the US in the 2016 Olympics bidding process, I was ecstatic. Wouldn't it be cool?!?! So, I logged onto the Chicago 2016 web site and asked to be apprised of future developments and volunteer opportunities. Well, Chicago will be hosting the World Amateur Boxing Championships next month and the powers that be called for volunteers. Not that I care a whole lot about boxing, but, what the heck? It could be fun. Hundreds of young guys from all over the world... It could be worse! There was no Agility class last night (the instructor is at the Terrier specialty show, I think), so I went to the first volunteers' information meeting downtown. A couple hundred or so people of all different walks of life were there - black, white - and everything in between, men, women, young, old! I think the Olympic delegates who attend the...
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Can't stop watching it!
2007-09-26 21:19:00
This is just fascinating. Have you seen it? Blogger Play is a stream of photos uploaded to Blogger from bloggers around the world. Mesmerizing!
More About: Stop , Watching