Wordless Wednesday: Posers

With my new computer up and running, I was finally able to get to these photos I took last weekend of the pups. I realized I hadn't taken any nice pictures of them together in a while. They really do seem to enjoy getting their pictures taken, even on a crowded bench. 

This is probably my new favorite picture of the dogs together. I love it. 

They really are such cute posers, but you have no idea how long it took to get them that way!

Their favorite part. "Okay!"

Tasty Tuesday: Blue Dental

February is Pet Dental Month. We are celebrating in a couple ways. The first is that I make Koira an appointment to get a full dental cleaning and a tooth removed for next week. Her canine that she broke a few years ago has been breaking more and more as time goes on, and it is time for it to be removed. Also, she is seven, so while her teeth look really good for her age, they could use a full professional cleaning.

The other way we are celebrating is by reviewing Blue Buffalo natural dental chews. Chewy.com provided us with the chews in exchange for an honest review here on our blog. Since it is pet dental month, it seemed perfect to review a dental product.

The Blue Bones chews we were sent to review are made by Blue Buffalo. While they don't have any major meat sources, the ingredients are solid, and even include glucosamine and chondroitin for joint health. We tried the Regular size dental chews, meant for dogs 25-50 lbs, and they were perfect for my dogs (32 and 40 lbs each). The chews also come in tiny and giant sizes, for those with larger or smaller dogs.

Long story short, my dogs both totally loved these chews. You wouldn't believe how hard it was for Koira to sit still long enough to get these photos!

In fact, if you look closely at the photos, you can see the bite marks from where Koira nabbed the chew during the photoshoot and I had to save out prop.

Pallo is also a big fan, but was not very into posing.

Overall, my dogs really liked these dental chews. I wasn't able to see much difference in how clean my dogs' teeth were, but I don't doubt that these chews are at least as effective at teeth cleaning as any other chew of this kind. And my dogs both totally reject the Greenies brand dental treats (Koira actually spit one out when someone gave her one at a booth once).

And on a more personal note, yay, my new computer arrived! Now I just have to figure out all the different settings, programs, etc, and try to get my picture hard drive connected to the new computer as soon as possible. And see if I can salvage anything off my old hard drive in the other computer, since I know I have some things saved on there that I would like (though nothing as important as my photos, which is why they are on a hard drive of their very own).

Tech Problems

Just as I was getting back in the groove of taking photos of my own dogs again (as opposed to other people's dogs for work) and posting regularly, my computer decided to die. In the past year it has gone through a graphics card and two power supplies. So when this second power supply went out last week, I decided enough was enough. My new (refurbished) computer should be here sometime next week. And I have photos from Valentine Day and a product review that need to be uploaded and edited before I can share them. Not to mention my upcoming photography gigs, where I will certainly need my computer for editing!

Technology. How I hate it sometimes. But I so hate being without it when it dies...

Wordless Wednesday: Beach Happy

Happy beach recalls

Wildlife Safari Village

The Village at Wildlife Safari is a free walk through area of the park. Since the drive through is charged per person, rather than per car, you could go to the park with a group and some could simply enjoy the free village while the rest of the group did the full drive through. Or you could even make the drive just to see the village, though I think you would be missing out on some of the best parts of Wildlife Safari.

There are a lot of red lemurs to see in the Village, and they are some pretty seriously adorable animals.

It was hard not to put in a million pictures of the red lemurs. 

This little guy looked like he wanted something from me.

Coati weren't very active while I was there, and shortly after I snapped this picture, they went back inside. 

A ton of animals are in the Village, including red lemurs, a huge variety of birds, and the cougars and maned wolves I shared photos of earlier.

This funky looking goose was pretty entertaining to watch. 

This was a stunning white peacock. 

I only saw two peacocks, one blue, one white. They had the run of the entire place, and we saw them in various pens, on the pathways, and even in the parking lot. 

Of course this is a bald eagle. 

And since birds will go wherever there is a good place for them, there were a ton of more common birds like ducks.

Big Cats

Wildlife Safari, where my sister took me for my birthday, is home to many, many animals. Among them are a number of large cats, including cougars, lions, tigers, and cheetahs. They actually have one of the most successful cheetah breeding programs in the world, helping keep them a step ahead of extinction.

Of course all the big cats are kept in enclosures away from the people, with two fences at least between any person and the animals. The cougar enclosure even had a top on it to prevent the cougars from getting out.

The cougars are the only one of the big cats that are easily seen without doing the drive through of the park. You can walk right past their enclosure and see them hanging out. The village at Wildlife Safari is actually free to go to, so you can see many of the smaller animals without paying for the drive through of the full park. 

The lions are enclosed within the greater Africa area of the drive through part of the park. They were pretty lazy while we went through, napping near the top of their enclosure.

The lions are best seen on the drive through of the park, but there is an overlook in the Village where you can see into the lion enclosure.

The tigers and cheetahs are the last animals that you see on the drive through of the park.

The tigers are only visible when you do the drive through of the park. 

Of course, even though in most of these photos you can't really see the fencing, all of these animals are completely fenced away from people. Other animals in the drive through area of the park are only fenced into the park, but not fenced away from people. But the large cats, of course, are fenced in.

Some of the animals seemed interested in the humans driving by. Others could care less about us. 

The cheetahs were my favorite of the large cats. There is just something about them that makes them seem more like giant house cats even than all of the other large cats. All of them do the same things, lounging in the sun, sit in boxes, nap in hammocks. But the cheetah just seem friendlier.

These were the two cheetahs down "Lover's Lane" which is where the cheetahs who are in the breeding program lived. These guys were up near the front gate, waiting for feeding time. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Wildlife Safari has one of the most successful cheetah breeding programs in the world. They have had 140 cubs born there.

Me and my sister went through the park twice, and the second time was late in the afternoon. Adorably, many of the cheetahs had moved indoors under their heat lamps for bedtime.

At the end of the day, the cheetahs had mostly moved into their houses, under their heat lamps, for bedtime. 

Maned Wolf

This past week, my sister took me down to Wildlife Safari in Winston, OR as a sort of belated birthday present. I've been wanting to go down there for a while, and ended up having a great time.

One of the highlights was getting a chance to see a maned wolf in person. I've only ever seen photos before, and it was a lot of fun to see them in person, and see their funny behavior. They may look like a fox on stilts, but they act a lot like dogs.

Maned wolf at Wildlife Safari

He got his head stuck in the cheez-its box, and it was pretty much exactly what I've seen my own dogs do. 

And then this one's head itches, so there was some adorable head scratching done. It reminds me of the trained trick Pallo does of putting his foot up on his nose. 

Basically, maned wolves are adorable. I saw two at Wildlife Safari. I'm not sure if they have more who were just inside at the time or if they just have the one pair.

And of course, the maned wolves were just one part of a very large, awesome park. I'll share some more photos and stories from our trip as well.

Wordless Wednesday: Hover Dog

Hover dog, hovering.

Tasty Tuesday: Seafood Dinner

Happy Birthday To Me

And happy Gotcha Day to the dogs! My birthday is February 4th, and I adopted both of my dogs within a few days of my birthday, a few years apart.

First running bit of crazy.

We headed out to the coast for the day, and our first stop was the beach.

I don't think there is anything the dogs love more than a chance to run on the beach. I don't know what it is about it, but man, they sure go crazy.

Once the dogs have a chance to get out the biggest part of their energy, a nice long walk on the beach lends itself well to them exploring the rocks, driftwood, and all the smells of the beach, though still with some random running and playing thrown in.

After spending almost four hours on the beach, I headed to Rogue Brewery for my birthday lunch/dinner before heading home. The weather was warm, mostly dry, and pretty much just amazing weather for a beach trip.

Sexy Beast

Sexy Beast is a dog collar company that makes some pretty awesome leather collars. I entered Pallo's photo in a contest on their page, and would love it if you all helped me get some votes for him! Just follow the link below. Thanks in advance!

http://s.heyo.com/7fe829?media=df4a30d0-c644-413c-a85c-be18884d7dc1

This is the photo I entered, which I shared on the blog back in December. I think Pallo is a pretty sexy beast, and as such, should totally win the Sexy Beast photo contest.

Mr. Pallo balancing on a trike we found.