Tippy met a new friend over the weekend. He loved her and kept saying, “pup-peeee” over and over again and reaching out for her. It’s the first time his mom said he had uttered that word.
WORDLESS WEDNESDAY: NEW FRIEND
Bark For Life
BARK FOR LIFE
Our Bark For Life went really well yesterday! We didn’t have as big of a turn out as I had hoped, but everyone who was there had a great time and the day was perfect for being outside with your pet.
Huckleberry and her mom, Jane, had been at the beach with some friends and stopped by the event on their way home. She commandeered her friend Brittany and furbaby Tucker to come with her. They all had a really good time and Brittany posted, “Tucker never knew fundraisers could be so fun!”
We had all types and sizes of dogs, ranging from a Great Dane to a tiny Yorkie. Everyone had fun with the Strut Your Mutt parade, and the dogs seemed to love showing off their best tricks, giving vocal performances, smiling, wagging their tails, and participating in a peanut butter eating contest, among other things.
The regional news was there and ran a short story at 11 o’clock.
Tippy got second place in Happiest Dog and Best Trick. She also got first place in fundraising, so her picture will be the largest on the poster calendar we are putting together. Here she is with all of her prizes.
I had intended to include in this post how the reunion with Tippy and Huckleberry went. However, my internet was acting up today and it literally took me all afternoon and evening to get these pictures up and the post written to this point. I will do my very best to post about the reunion tomorrow. Sorry to all of my followers who were looking forward to hearing about it today.
SISTERS
I found out a couple of days ago that the lady who adopted Tippy’s sister is planning to come to our Bark For Life event on Sunday, so they will get to meet for the first time since they were just puppies!
It all started on a Saturday in late June of 2014. Someone had posted pictures on Facebook of two adorable puppies that they had found in the ditch in front of their house. They were going to give them to anyone who wanted them. Since I had decided it was time for me to get a dog, I called to ask about them. By that time, they were on their way to drop them off at the Humane Society, so I told her just to go ahead since I wasn’t 100% sure I would want one of them. I showed up at the Humane Society early on Monday to have a look and try to make up my mind. Here are the Humane Society pictures of Cartwheel and Pinwheel, aka Tippy and Huckleberry.
Too cute for words.
Adorable, even if a little blurry.
It doesn’t surprise me that Pinwheel’s picture was blurry as she was very active and Cartwheel was the more mellow of the two. That, and the two different eyes were what drew me to Cartwheel and not her sister. See my posts The Beginning: Prissy and The Search Is On for details on my adoption of Tippy and just why she was initially “sluggish.”
I was thinking today how Cartwheel would have been a good name for Tippy when she was a puppy. She would take off running as fast as she could, try to cut a quick corner, and her momentum would carry her on, causing her to do somersaults across the yard. She finally figured out that cattle herding talent and no longer goes tumbling.
When I decided to find Tippy’s sister’s owner, hoping they could get together, I connected with the lady who initially adopted her. Unfortunately, their current dog and Pinwheel did not get along, so they had given her to a friend who lived in Chattanooga, about 3 hours away. I was able to connected with her on Facebook. She is a Tennessee State Park Ranger and got transferred to a park that is only an hour away a couple of years ago. We have been wanting to get them together ever since she moved, but haven’t been successful.
We are both excited about them meeting on Sunday, and are really hopeful that they get along. Maybe, in some deep seated memory, they will remember each other and be glad to be reunited.
TIPPY’S TV DEBUT
This past Monday, Tippy and I were invited to be on the local news, with my friend Kelly and her dog Kimura, to promote Bark For Life, an American Cancer Society fundraiser that she and I are putting together.
Tippy was excited until she found out she had to take a bath in order to look her best. Since it was for a good cause, she tolerated the dreaded water torture.
All wet and suds up.
That wasn’t too bad.
I love her curly ear fur when she’s wet.
We had to be at the studio at 9am. It’s a little over an hour drive, so we got up early on Monday morning and took off. I don’t know if Tippy knew what she was in for, but she was definitely more relaxed than I was on the drive.
Once we got there, we walked around a little bit to burn off some of Tippy’s energy. Fortunately, the rain they were calling for hadn’t started yet.
The doors to the studio are locked, so you have to ring the doorbell and wait to be let in. I’m pretty sure the receptionist was not expecting to see a dog and, from her reaction, or lack thereof, she is NOT a dog person. Tippy couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to pet her and didn’t react positively when she put her paws on her desk. Some people!
We were told to go to the waiting area and she would let them know we were there. Kelly and Kimura came in a couple of minutes later. That’s when things went downhill. Tippy went to greet her. At first, all was good. But then, Kimura gave a little growl and Tippy was NOT going to back down like Kimura’s sister does. I had Tippy walk away, but she started her full blown barking that she does when a perceived intruder is in the area. This is not looking good and we were just hoping that the newsroom had great sound attenuation.
I got her to calm down, but if Kimura moved toward her, she would start barking again. So, we tried “walking together” up and down the hallway. For the most part, that went well, with only a little growling as they passed each other. We went back in to the room and they had a few moments of tolerating each other.
Two young ladies came in to wait for their segment. Kimura hid under the table. Tippy went over to greet them, but, when they reached out to pet her, she gave a low growl and walked away. The ladies were dog people, so that didn’t bother them at all. We all thought it was funny that she went over “to be petted” and then growled when they tried.
She laid down for a few minutes and then got up and laid her head on my lap. I was petting her when Kimura inched her way toward us. Tippy went into full blown protective mode with the really mean bark that she has. Geeze. Really? When I realized that she thought she was needing to protect me, or claiming me as hers, I had her to lie down beside of me. That calmed the situation and they were good until it was our turn to be interviewed.
Kelly and I were very worried that we were going to have a real news story with headlines reading something like, “Dog Fight Breaks Out On The Morning News.”
They calmly walked into the studio. We only had about 30 seconds to get them situated before the interview began. Tippy decided to lay with her back to the camera. With everything that had happened between these two in the waiting room, I decided I wasn’t going to try to get her to turn around. As long as they were calm, we were happy. Here is the link to video of our segment. If you listen all the way to the end, you can hear the news lady talking to Tippy. As soon as the camera was turned off, she had gotten up and turned around to get some lovin’ from her.
There were no more intolerant moments between the two. We are going to try to walk them together some at one of our local trails and see if that helps them get along better.
Apparently, keeping yourself off camera as much as possible is very hard work.
Bark For Life was originally scheduled for tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be awful – raining and a high of 43° F (6.1° C), so we postponed it a week. I’ll be sure to create another blog post afterwards and let you know how she and Kimura gets along.
TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME
In July, our local affiliate of the Houston Astro’s had Relay For Life night. My friend, Kelly, and I set up a booth to advertise for our Bark For Life event which will take place the end of October. As part of that, we were allowed to bring our dogs to the game! Tippy had a blast.
I think she thought everyone who came through the gate was there just to see her and give her some lovin’. I was very proud of how well she behaved and handled the crowd. She was a great ambassador for the event.
Hey everyone! Come see me.
Look! Here comes someone else. Think they’ll pet me?
Relaxing during the game.
Kelly brought one of her dogs, Kimura, with her. She and Tippy got along well, except for the one time that Kelly was petting Tippy and Kimura got jealous. Silly dog.
Kimura, relaxing on her bed.
It wasn’t easy, but we did finally manage to get a picture of them together.
The Assistant General Manager of the team, Kelsey, was excited to get to see our dogs and get some puppy loving.
Loving on Tippy.
Kimura wanted in on the loving.
We walked around the park, visiting with the fans and watching the game. One couple commented on how calm she was and wondered if she had always been that way. Of course, my answer was “no.” It takes time, work, and a little maturing from the puppy stage.
This looks like an interesting game.
Watching together
Go Astro’s!
I hope I get the opportunity to take her to at least one game next year. Maybe they will bring back “Bark in the Park” night. Paws crossed.
BARK FOR LIFE 2017
This past Sunday, Tippy and I participated in our local Bark For Life, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. The turn out was pretty good, about 18 teams of dogs and their humans, considering this was the first “Bark” in our county. We plan to make this an annual event, so hope it will grow as more people find out about it.
Since it is close to Halloween, there was a costume contest. Tippy has no costumes and I’ve been very busy, so I made her one at the last minute. Do you know what she is?
I thought it was cute, but apparently the judges liked the bought costumes better. LOL
We had a “Strut Your Mutt” parade where we all took a couple of laps around the track while the judges scored the dogs for awards to be given later. Afterwards, we had fun activities for all of the participants. We were able to show off tricks, compete in vocal performances (best bark), had a doggie limbo, jumped through hoops, licked peanut butter off of a spoon, and found hidden treats. Tippy was the first one to find a hidden treat and, of course, won the race to lick the peanut butter spoon clean. She was also one of the two dogs that jumped through all 3 hula hoops and crawled under the lowest limbo setting.
Tippy got along with most of the other dogs. She did growl some, but I’m pretty sure most of that was a play growl and not trying to be mean or anti-social.
Wonder Women and Bat Girl were lurking behind Tippy.
Dancing Yorkie.
Dalmation puppy.
Tippy and a black German Shepherd.
Tippy with two Pomeranians: bat and pumpkin.
We had a great time and are already looking forward to next year. I need to come up with new tricks for her to do though. Any suggestions? Right now, she does the basic stuff: sit, down, roll over, crawl, and high five.
After all of the judges votes were in, Tippy won 3 prizes: 1st – Best Tail Wag, 2nd – Best Trick, and 1st – Fundraising. With her awards and the goodie bag everyone got, she had quit the haul.
I love the Pet Album. Tippy loved the squeaky toys.
Pet Album
I think she had a good, tiring day.
BARK FOR LIFE
Tippy is an “only dog,” so I try to find ways to help socialize her. One of the things we did recently was attend a Bark For Life event in a nearby town. This is a canine event that raises money for the American Cancer Society. (Did you know that research funded by the ACS also helps in the treatment of pets who are diagnosed with cancer?)
There were lots of dogs there and Tippy was so well behaved. We walked the laps with the other dogs and she walked right beside of me, like that was a normal thing for her to do.
They had several contests for the dogs. One of them was for best vocal performance. It was funny, because not a single dog that was there would make a peep when we wanted them to. So, the judges just listened throughout the event for vocalizations. Tippy rarely barks. If she does, you know that something is not “right.” Well, she just happened to see a man walking on a part of the trail at the park up above us. To her, he was not where he was supposed to be, so she barked at him and won third place! What a surprise that was!
They also had a Best Trick contest. Not many people entered their pooch, so I decided to see how Tippy would do with her repertoire, which we hadn’t practiced in a while. We went up in front of all of those people and she just watched me and did what I asked the first time: look, sit, down, and crawl. She won 2nd place!
But, the best trick of all was getting this picture after we got home. Every time I started to snap it, she would decide she wanted to see what was in the bags.
I was so proud of the way she behaved and listened. I would encourage all dog lovers out there to participate in a Bark For Life in your area. It’s a lot of fun and raises money for a great cause.
Right to Brag
Tippy Tales 