Anyone Else Feeling This Way?

Anyone else feeling totally pooped this week? You win time change, you win.

Act 3, Scene 5: Valentine’s Day

Our Valentine’s Day was low-key and lovely. From the tacky box of chocolates I gave Joey, to making a mess in the kitchen together…

(Nothing says I Love You like onion breath)

The four-legged ones got a special Valentine’s treat of course. Riggo’s tail was going at least 60 wags-per-second, and Moose got so excited he sat on his toy. Frosty Paws will do that to a dog.

Talk about love…

As for my Valentine’s Day card, lets just say Joey didn’t realize it opened up to a third panel…

Whoops. It’s a keeper.

And the mother-load…

You better believe we took a bite out of each piece. Some traditions are worth keeping!

Hope your V-day was filled with Love 🙂

xoxo

Pet Adoption Rules

Happy Gotcha Day Riggo! Today marks the one-year anniversary of the day we adopted Riggo! Another reminder of how quickly a year goes. I’ve shared Riggo’s homecoming story before (check it out here), so I wanted to use today as an opportunity to say how awesome pet adoption is, and how highly I endorse it. We found Riggo through The Lab Rescue of the LRCP , an amazing all-volunteer run non-profit, that rescues, fosters and places homeless, abused or abandoned Labs (and lab mixes). Each year they give around 850 dogs new and loving homes. How awesome is that?!

The passion these folks have for animals is inspiring, and my goal is to one day be in a position where Joey and I can volunteer and possibly help foster animals on their way to finding their forever home. By now you know we’re a Lab house through and through, but whatever the breed you may be interested in, please please please consider looking into a rescue group, or local shelter first. Without going all Sarah Mclachlan on you, my point is that there are so many animals in need, and through pet adoption you may just find your perfect match. We definitely did.

Life Lessons: A Dog’s Eye View

I could write a post about how Moose chewed my beloved heart rate monitor, because, well, he did. But instead of being insanely angry in that moment (I let Joey be the angry one, he’s the one who left it within Marley’s Moose’s grasp) I found myself just shrugging it off. Why get angry over something that is over and done with? No use crying over spilt milk, or chewed up exercise gear. And as I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly brought on my newly found Zen, I’ve been thinking a lot about these two crazy dogs of ours. I’ve decided there’s a lot we can learn from dogs when it comes to our outlook on life.

Here’s my top 5 life lessons from a dog’s eye view:

1. Go Hard or Go Home. Whatever these guys do, they do it full force. When it comes to fetching a ball it’s an all out sprint like their life depends on it, no 50% effort here. Time to play in the snow? They’ll play the heck out of some snow. Chew a heart rate monitor? There’s no stopping at a few teeth marks, they’re gonna eat the whole damn strap. Work hard, play hard, love hard, sleep hard. We should all approach our lives that way.

2. Be Here Now. This is something I wrote about when this blog was still a newborn (I think we’ve reached toddler status now, don’t you think?). Dogs have totally mastered the “be here now” mentality. It sort of goes along with #1. Whatever they’re doing in any given moment is the only thing that matters. They’re not worried about a tomorrow they can’t predict, or a past they can’t change. There’s only the here and the now. And the people that are in the here and now are the only ones that matter.

3. Life’s too Short to Hold a Grudge. I guess it’s easy when you have really bad short-term memory, but dogs will never hold a grudge. Trust me, I’ve tried to be mad at Moose but even after you yell at him for eating your shoe/ carpet/christmas ornament/etc, he turns around and looks at you with those big brown eyes that say, “I still love you.” You can’t stay mad at that! If we’re honest with ourselves, most of the things we get mad at other people for are usually very insignificant. Life is too short to say anything other than, “I might be upset, but I still love you.”

4. Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously. Don’t worry about looking like a weirdo. Get dirty, let it all hang out, seize the moment, make yourself comfortable. Do YOU. Because honestly, who are you trying to impress anyways? There’s the quote, “Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Dogs never worry about being judged, or looking a certain way. They embrace all their dogginess and just get on with their bad selves.  Work it!

5. Life is Better Together. Dogs are pack animals, and crave companionship. They know that life is always better when we have people around us to share it with. Being alone has its perks (like stealing an entire plate of cinnamon buns off the counter and no one is there to stop you from eating every last crumb), but there’s nothing better than togetherness. That’s why you can be gone for 5 hours, or 5 minutes, but you better believe there will be tails wagging when you walk back through that door. Reunions are always so exciting!