Old Dog Car Ride

I was sitting at a stop light the other day and something to my left caught my eye. As I glanced over my eyes connected with a pair of eyes looking back at me. It was a handsome old dog with perfect posture sitting in the back seat. Do you think he could actually see me or was I just an object that stopped moving next to him?

As our cars pulled away from the stop light I noticed the dog barely moved. He seemed to have great balance and sat with a sense of pride. I caught up with him at the next light and again we seemed to be in perfect sync as our eyes made contact, I could almost see a slight grin from him as if to say “Isn’t life grand”.

As the light turned green and his owner’s car moved ahead of mine that was the last I saw of him, but the image of that well behaved prideful old dog has been etched in my mind

Copyright 2010 OldDogPaws

A Family Laugh

Is your family like ours when it comes to getting a laugh by dressing your pet in a Halloween costume? It is estimated that families will spent 47.7 billion dollars on pets in 2010 and part of that expenditure will be finding ways to include our pets in holiday celebrations.

We weren’t successful keeping a full costume on our pets so we moved to purchasing hats and other head gear but we still like to look at the complete pet costume line each year and comment on how funny it would look on them.

Since we’re not doing this for a specific party or the little ghosts and goblins knocking on the door, we scope out what we think would be the funniest and get the silliest reaction and wait for the after Halloween sales. By waiting we have been able to purchase a couple of hats for our cat when we can’t agree on the best one.

Hope you and your pets enjoy Halloween 2010! Remember to take some pictures, they are good reminders of the day and will make you laugh every time you look at them

Copyright 2010 OldDogPaws

A Pets Charater Change

Pet Character Change.

When you have to say a tearful goodbye to one pet do you think your remaining pet takes on some of the departed’s personality?

We were blessed with three very loving pets, 2 cats named Star and Muffin, and one big old dog named Tikki. A few years back our kids returned home to find Star motionless in her favorite chair. A complete shock to us all and I believe to our remaining pets as well. Muffin and Star were always chasing each other around the house and seemed to work hard to make the other mad by getting to the best resting places first. After Star’s passing Muffin took on some of her daily habits like sleeping in the clothes basket even when Muffin was always jumpy around clothes on the floor. This was probably due to Star jumping out from them to scare him. Star was the cat that would jump up on your lap while you were watching television while Muffin was the cat that ignored you until he got hungry. Now Muffin has taken to jumping up next to us and even better allowing us to pet him.

After 17 years together our family recently had to say goodbye to Tikki. Tikki and Muffin always seemed to tolerate each other but not much more. Tikki would never do anything to harm Muffin and often tried to get him to play. Muffin would have nothing to do with the dog if he could avoid it. It was always funny to watch Muffin run to Tikki’s bed and stretch out knowing that Tikki would not try to get him to move. Many times we would come into the kitchen and find this cat all stretched out on the dog bed and this big old dog sleeping next to him on the floor.

Now that Tikki is gone Muffin seems to have taken on a dog’s mentality that is out of character for him. He follows people around, lays under the chair we’re sitting in, wants his water in the same spot where we kept Tikki’s water bowl, and will actually flop down in the middle of the floor to get his belly rubbed. All the same things Tikki used to do around our home. So we still have their memories in our hearts and their mannerisms in our cat, Muffin.

Copyright 2010 OldDogPaws