Helping Haiti

We're sure everyone has heard about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Here in South Florida, we have a large and industrious Haitian population, folks who are part of the fabric of our community and are frantic about their families and fellow countrymen in Haiti.
Haiti may seem very far away to most of you -- but this poor poor country is in tragic circumstances and needs everyone's help. Even the hospitals are down. The Red Cross and other agencies, including the Haitian musician, Wyclef Jean, are accepting donations.

Jake and Just Harry

Couch Pawtatoes -- and an Award

Now that it's started to thaw a bit, we've gone into the photos from our holiday road trip and, as promised, will be providing a series of vignettes.

The first one is called COUCH PAW TA TOES...

Here am I on our first stop in Orlando -- wondering what's happened and why my bowl of food isn't in the right place -- or even if it is my food.A few days later, we found ourselves in a cabin in Monteagle Tennessee, where we got the first suggestion that we were not in Florida anymore. It had rained a cold rain the whole time we were on the road and we were wet and hungry -- and I was still wondering why my bowl of food was not in the right place. (Mom's note: when we travel, it takes a few days for Jakey to accept that the food in his bowl is the same food that he gets at home, and is in the same bowl. The addition of pumpkin somehow overcomes his reluctance to eat -- but it takes a bit of patience.)

Once we got to Grandma's in St.Loulis, things seemed to fall into place. We found our spots on the couch -- in between walks in the increasingly frigid weather (subject of a future vignette).

After Christmas, when we stopped at our human brother's house in Athens, Georgia, we discovered that our cousin Marcy, a beagle/perhaps pointer mix, shared our love of couch curling.

And...Ah, but what is this????? Whippets? Paws akimbo on a couch? Dogdad took this photo of a photo at the AKC Dog Museum -- as a surprise for the waggle.

A few days ago, Moose, who also has been bearing up with the unexpected chill here in sunny Florida, and has reported that he too was aware of falling iguanas, honored us with the Superior Scribbler Award. We tracked the award down to its source, and found that it has an unusual history. We'll describe that in a few days, along with the rules, but in the meantime, we wanted to thank Moose for this flattering, much appreciated, award.

Thank you, Moose!!!

Your pal,

Jake of (chilly but slowly warming up) Florida

How cold is it????

Apparently the phenomenon of iguanas falling from trees as the temperatures drop below the lizards' comfort level, even here in sunny Florida, has excited reporters all over the world. As Florida residents who are managing to survive even with unexpected icicles dripping from our muzzles, we dogs feel sorry for the poor creatures. The human population, however, mainly in Palm Beach where these iguanas have proliferated like bunnies, is kind of pleased that a hibernating iguana is comparatively easy to remove, especially when he/she has landed with a kerplunk on the pavement, unlike the problems presented when said iguana is munching on all the plants in the landscape and leaving his/her iguana poo all over the place.

We were going to add a photo to this post -- but could hear all those "eeeeewws" and decided just to provide this comparatively benign link:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/jan/04/cold-snap-causes-iguanas-drop-trees/

Our Pittsburgh pals, Laciegirlie et al, are planning a visit and have suggested we break out the grill. More later on this intriguing idea.....

Wirey woofs.

Jake and Just Harry

Wordless Wednesday

To All the Dogs We've Sniffed (and More) Before -- and Aft!

Here starts a several-part narrative of our adventures between here and St. Loulis and back over the holidays. Since we are dogs, writing primarily for other dogs, we thought the best place to start would be with our canine encounters -- whether as related to us by our humans when we were not present or as experienced ourselves.


The first two encounters fall into the first category. We were not there. Why we were not there is another matter. But as we said before, we are dogs so sometimes we do not get to make the choices we want. On the other paw, as you will see below, sometimes we do get to make the choices we want (BOL) with interesting consequences.


So (get on with it, Mom): here are our St. Loulis pals, Gussie and Teka with their muzzer and dad. The humans had brunch together one very rainy morning. Since we live in South Florida, where it is mostly too hot to leave dogs in cars, Mom didn't realize they could have brought us and let us stay in the car, the way G and T did. As it was pouring rain, however, our post-brunch vicarious encounter with our two pals was very brief -- but we have to say, Gussie was looking spectacular and Teka quite the provocative imp. Muzzer and dad weren't too bad either!

Next, and this surprise is for Khyra and the Op Pack and Tubey -- we actually have Sibe cousins - Alexandra and Chinook. Our silly humans thought it would be too much if we came along for a visit, so once again we had only a virtual encounter. Smiling below is Alexandra, with her brother curled up behind her.
Alexandra and Mom hit it off -- Mom does do a mean scritch, having practiced on us. And Alexandra and Chinook enjoyed Dogdad as well.

How 'bout them floofs??? Ah, but finally, after we left St. Loulis for Paducah, we got to do again what we'd been looking forward to ever since last year: spend another evening with the waggle (and their very special humans)!!! Here are four of the waggle in their private waggle room: clockwise from the right: Mama Pajama, Lindy Loo, Swede William, and Sam I Am.After a while, Swede William, known for his savoir faire and gentlemanliness, was allowed out to greet us. And here is where we once again embarrassed Mom and Dogdad so much that they almost denied knowing who we two "hairy dogs"* even were. Jake? Just Harry? Nope. Not ours. Never seen them before. * In case you don't know the story, whippets prefer whippets to all other dogs. And they disprefer hairy dogs, like we terriers, to most all other dogs.

Let the videos speak for themselves.

Things quieted down a bit, or so the folks hoped, after we left Paducah and visited one of Dogdad's colleagues in Georgia. They live on a huge farm, and have several dogs as well as beautiful horses. Here's one with our new friend, Meredith.The tiniest dog was Daisy, a Jack Russel Terrier like Teka.

And the largest was Biddyock, an Irish wolfhound puppy --who was to celebrate her first birthday on the same day as I, Jake -- January 1st. She and Meredith are almost the same height.But then things weren't all that quiet as JH seems to enjoy trying to get it on with the ladies. Daisy wasn't interested in playing with him. And Biddyock was a bit too young to even know what was going on. But we decided you can't blame the lad for trying, right???

The last stop on our canine caravan was at our human brother's in Athens, where we played with our beagle-mix cousin Marcy. We don't have those photos as yet -- but we do have several statues of the University of Georgia's mascot "UGA." Like many cities, Athens has commissioned statues that artists can decorate as they like.

We don't think lover-boy JH would have been interested in trying his charm on these somewhat aggressive-looking characters -- but since we weren't there to find out, we can't say for sure.

Next time, we'll share a few different vignettes from our trip. In the meantime, if you look at a weather map of the US and see a tiny tiny yellow spot at the end of the Florida peninsula, contrasted with all the blues and purples everywhere else in the country -- that's us. It's in the low 40s, which is kind of chilly for here -- but we know it's better than anywhere else except Southern California right now.

Jake and Just Harry

It's My Pawty and I'll Bark If I Wanna'

Yep. It's my barkday!!! I'm eight!!

But it's also New Year's Day. Champagne. Silly humans. Sigh. And a pink flamingo??? Sigh. Whassup with that???

Oh well, Happy New Year everyone!!

Wirey love,

Jake