Besides living, laughing, loving, and lazing in Loftinland we are trying to eat healthier....that goes for the dogs too!  The first of the New Year we started the dogs on a homemade dog food diet!  That's right, they basically eat what we do.  After reading a lot on the internet and studying and getting the diets just right for each dog....I can tell you they are THRIVING in Loftinland!  The itchy ones are not itchy, they don't scratch and chew on themselves all night long and keep us awake anymore....although i do wake up still to just check on them, and I am still amazed that they are peacefully sleeping....the one that really needed to lose weight and has tumors...well those tumors are shrinking as he loses weight.  He has a zest for life that he hasn't had in awhile....Bear's dribbly nose has stopped dribbling....and Cowboy well, he didn't have any issues but his issue now is WHEN IS DINNERTIME!!!!?????  It takes a lot of planning and time to cook for 5 dogs but then I do it because I love them.  My love goes into the cooking as well, and they are well just happier dogs!

Here is a picture of them on Valentine's Day, with the Grandpups in front...because - well exciting news we have a new grandson...he will soon be coming to Loftinland daily and he is going to love it here!

"Left Behind"

http://youtu.be/ll8-E2AhEFI

Four of our five dogs, Griz Bear, Cowboy, Sissy, and Eddi....howl when I leave the house with Russ to take him on his walk....although they all got their walk.  Everytime I leave the house with one of the dogs this is what I hear blocks away!  My neighbors have even heard them and have commented on the "pitiful" cries of my dogs!  

Rick hadn't left for work one morning when I took Russ for his early morning walk and so he got it on video....when he turned on the light to get a better video picture they all stopped instantly!  So funny!

Brief List of Things That Make Me SMILE

A crowded bookshelf, stuffed from end to end
Hand watering the garden, pail in one hand, morning coffee in the other
The rise and fall of laughter
Cheese and chocolate
Eating with a spoon
Dog
God

Celebration of Life with Dogs

I posted a picture on Facebook of my five dogs....many people wanted to know how I got them all to sit still for long....here is a video of our little photoshoot....it really wasn't that long and my camera takes pictures really fast so I just chose the best few of many!  They are used to me taking their picture and really don't mind, at least not for a couple of cookies!

Sweet Sweet Sarah

For the past 33 years I have been married to a cat lover....and because of that we have had one or more cats during our married life the past 33 years.....about a month ago that all changed.  We no longer have those mysterious loving creatures living among us.  The cat we rescued and named "Sarah" from living on her on about 15 years ago passed away in a blink of an eye.  We  found her so long ago in our neighborhood, other neighbors said she had a kitten but no one knows what became of it....it took us a good 3 months to capture her and bring her into a safe place to live.  The vet said she was probably a year old. We named her Sarah, but her name probably should have been "Gabby"....she was one of those cats that always had to have the last word.  My daughter, was around 14 when we captured Sarah (mostly due to my daughter's determination to rescue this beautiful girl) and so at that age she had a lot of  girl friends spend time here in Loftinland....her friends quickly became tired of what Sarah had to say.....she was noisy and irritating and yes, I felt that as well, in the morning while wanting quiet ....waiting for the pot of coffee to brew.....but Sarah always wanted to talk about something....anything....I miss that now that she is gone....and I wish I could hear her again.  It is sad those annoyances that drive us crazy are the ones we miss so terribly when they dissapear from our lives.  So now, the things that irritate me I try to  look at a little differently now, would I miss them if they were no longer here...and do I appreciate what they have to offer me and more importantly what they have to teach me right NOW?  Am I listening, oh I wish I would have listened to you more Sarah!  I miss you and loved you!  You talked a lot and filled our silence with your little voice...we miss it and we miss you!

Loftinland gets some exposure in blogspotland!

Thank you PetBlogsUnited.com for featuring "life as we know it" on your site!  We are soooo excited!  We are celebrating with EXTRA cookies today!  We had to practically push our jiji up the stairs to blog about us...we would have but we have NO THUMBS....such a cruel thing....because if we had thumbs - oh the things we could do!   Our jiji has been sooo busy doing some remodeling around Loftinland that she has had practically very little time for us, let alone time to blog about our incredible life here!   We get fed, we get our walk...but our afternoon naptime with her in the media room while she taps away at the computer talking about us, and blogging what we dictate to her...well she has just been so busy!  So we took matters into our own paws and literally pushed her up the stairs.  Checking her email, she almost fell out of her chair as she screamed with excitement that we were the featured bloggers for the week on your wonderful and  beautiful site.   Click on the button to take you to the site to read about our featured blog! 


We are not extraordinary (like our jiji says we are) but we do love our humans here....and it is our goal to make them happy each and everyday.  Some dogs do a lot more....while jiji has been working away at her painting and beautifying Loftinland we have caught a tear or two from her as she listened to NPR http://www.npr.org/ and the stories about 9/11.....one of the stories talked about the rescue dogs that found people alive and then after days only found people that weren't alive.  The dogs became depressed and so their handlers/trainers had to act happy and play games with them to pull them out of their deep depression.  What heroes those dogs were, but what heroes their handlers were feeling so depressed themselves but pushing past that and being literally the ONLY people around that were happy even if it was not true, they acted so well that they made their dogs believe them so that they could carry on with the work before them.  Our jiji said she couldn't imagine having to do that...we couldn't imagine having to do what those BRAVE dogs did.  With tomorrow being the 10th anniversary we wonder how many of those precious dogs are still around and if they remember, we are sure they do in their own way. 

Our jiji has promised us that she would catch up reading the other featured bloggers to us! We absolutely LOVE reading about other lands out there and all the fun they are having. It's a beautiful world and we are so happy to live in Loftinland. Oh, and please excuse those typos....sometimes she doesn't always let us proof before she hits the "publish post" button!

OH how FUNNY!



Coyote? on the prowl!

 Really....? A coyote?  This morning while walking Cowboy, I met another walker that I had never seen before....he apparently had never ever seen such a "Beautiful Creature" - his words about Cowboy.  His puzzled look and then the strange question about him being a coyote surprised me.  I am often asked if he is a wolf hybrid but this was a first - a coyote ....REALLY?  Yea, I am walking a coyote, don't people do that all the time?  HE was not kidding.  Maybe he meant to say wolf?  I don't know.  He looks like a wolf and is BIG like a wolf.  Coyotes are much smaller and they aren't so pretty.  Despite being mistaken for a coyote, Cowboy was very sweet and loved the attention and pats on top of his head that he got from this new friend this morning.  He really does love people, is very interested in them, and if he has met you once then he is going to have to stop and chat everytime he sees you.  I just wonder what our new friend told his wife when he got home, because he just kept insisting that he looked so much like a coyote.  "Honey, you'll never believe what I saw?!? - to which I'm sure she would have replied, Yea right, you saw a lady walking a coyote!  HA!

I can tell you for sure (almost postively 100% that he is neither coyote or part wolf....) that he is a Siberian Husky Shepherd mix.  Wolf?  Really...he's scared of his own shadow!

I love talking to people about my dogs, and I get a lot of questions about Cowboy.  I have been working on training him for the past two years.  His progress has been slow but he is beginning to get it!  The ones that walk when we do have observed and witnessed this "beautiful creature" becoming a really great dog, the "dog" he always has been!