Chopper turns 5

Happy 5th Birthday
to Mumble's very best friend - Chopper!

Mumble, at age 2

Mumble recently had his second birthday, and we had a birthday party at the Zoom Room in Culver City with a few of his dog friends. He jointly celebrated the day with Kihei, who turned 1 two days before Mumble's birthday. The party was lots of fun for the dogs and the people. We had food, favors, and of course birthday cake (both for people and dogs to eat).

Mumble has been through a lot of changes recently. Several months ago, his regular dog walker moved away and we started the lengthy process of searching for a good replacement. Mumble's new dog walker has not been with him very long now, and although I think in general it's working out, she's had her hands full with him as they both adjust to each other. Some days, inexplicably, he simply refuses to go on a walk with her for more than a few yards away from the entrance to my apartment building! He's such a stubborn, independent dog!

Additionally, Mumble had a sprained leg, which resulted in being on "house arrest" for a few months, with no daycare and no agility. He has recently been given the "all clear" to return to both of those activities, but we are supposed to be "slowly working up to full activity levels," meaning that at this point, he can only go to daycare for a few hours at a time.

I don't know if it was the change in his exercise levels, his "depressed" state when he no longer got to go to daycare, all the training we've been doing, or simple maturity, but definitely there have been some changes in Mumble's personality at age 2. He's generally a little less crazy / hyper and a little calmer, although still far from being what you would call a "calm dog" overall.

Health-wise, we are still on the ever-changing quest for the right balance of food, supplements, and medications to keep him healthy with all of his allergies and digestive difficulties. Certainly we have learned a lot, and all of those issues are much more under control than they were when he was still a puppy. It is such a relief to have less frequent allergy attacks, significantly less frequent bouts of diarrhea, and a quicker response to treatment when either of those things still happen!

Overall, I can (a bit sadly) report that Mumble is definitely more and more of a grown up dog and no longer a puppy!

Some pictures from Mumble's Birthday Party

Mumble recently celebrated his 2nd birthday at (of course) Zoom Room Culver City. It was a joint celebration with his friend Kihei, who turned 1 the same weekend! Here are some photos:


Mumble is checking everything and everyone out, and trying to decide if he needed to herd anyone back to where they belonged (according to him, at least). He spent the first half of the evening pretty much over-stimulated and trying to run around and control everything.

Mumble and his birthday hat - the dogs weren't nearly as into it as the humans wanted them to be :) They kept trying to remove them, but we managed to get a few pictures in.
Below is Kihei in his birthday hat!

Chopper hanging out during the party. Sadly, we didn't get pictures of all of the guests, but we did get this one of Chopper's big goofy smile :)

The Birthday cake! (thanks to Mandy)

Mumble and Kihei wrestling

Shelter Donations in Honor of Mumble's Birthday

Mumble's birthday is coming up, and I came up with a great idea to celebrate it!

We'll be having a small(ish) party for Mumble at one of his favorite places, Zoom Room Culver City, and inviting some of his doggie friends, and some of his favorite humans. In addition (this is the "great idea" part), I thought it would be nice to honor his birthday by making a donation to the animal shelter.

Mumble was found on the streets as a little puppy and brought to the South L.A. Animal Shelter. He was rescued from there when he was 13 weeks old by his foster mom, Erin. I found Mumble on Petfinder.com, where he had been listed courtesy of Star Paws Rescue. I knew the moment I saw his picture with his inquisitive expression and adorable floppy ears that he was meant to be my pup, so I contacted them right away, and the rest is history!

So many dogs are homeless in L.A., and the shelters are so overcrowded with pups looking for their "forever homes." Thank goodness for rescue groups like Star Paws, and people like Erin, who help locate good homes for countless dogs! With all of the overcrowding and lack of resources, shelters really need donations, not just of funds, but of desperately needed items! Mumble will be inviting lots of people to his party, and he really doesn't need lots of "stuff" from birthday presents! Although I'm sure he'd love a rawhide or two, he can't really eat most treats because of dietary restrictions, and his toy boxes are already overflowing! He has all of his needs (and most of his wants) already met, but so many doggies in the shelters, in the same place where he was almost two years ago, can't say the same thing!

So for Mumble's party, we'll be sending out a request with his invitations for people to bring one item from the shelter's "wish list" to be donated in honor of Mumble's birthday. Zoom Room Culver City has agreed to post a flier in their lobby to ask for items to be dropped off there anytime before September 19th. We're hoping to collect lots of good stuff, which I will then be dropping off at the shelter the following week.

Zoom Room Culver City is located at:
11836 Teale Street
Culver City, CA

South L.A. Animal Shelter's "Wish List"

Blankets/Towels
Newspapers
Dog/Cat Bowls (Stainless Steel Only)
Gallon jugs of white vinegar
Small and medium-sized rectangular litter boxes
Jingle cat toys
Cat treats
Laundry Detergent
Fabric Softener Sheets
Non Clumping Cat Litter
Dog Treats
Dog Food (Wet/ Dry)
Grooming Supplies
Reptile Supplies
Turtle Supplies
Rabbit Supplies
Hamster Supplies
Guinepig Supplies
Leashes
Collars (Martingales)
Heating Pads
Digital Camera's
Hand Sanitizer
Mops
Brooms
Dust Pans
Bleach
Dog Beds
Cat Beds
Parvasol/Parvo Away
Pooper Scoopers
Cat & Dog Shampoo and Conditioner
Grooming Aprons
Combs & Brushes
Collapsible Crates
Carpet
Indoor/Outdoor Carpet

You can also check out these articles online about the top things to donate to Animal Shelters, and other interesting facts.

Top 10 Things to Donate to Animal Shelters, by associatedcontent.com

Animal Rescue Donations, by hubpages.com

10 Household Items to Donate to Animal Shelters, by apartmenttherapy.com

Agility Birthday Cake for Chopper

Happy Birthday Chopper!

Earlier this month, we celebrated Chopper's 4th Birthday with a small gathering at Zoom Room Culver City. It's hard to believe that it's been 3 years and 3 months since Mandy adopted Chopper at the Best Friends Animal Society adoption event.
Chopper's one of my favorite dogs ever, and I'm so happy to be part of his life!

About the cake:

Because Chopper absolutely LOVES agility, I wanted to make him a special agility birthday cake with both dog-friendly and people-friendly cakes. The cakes themselves are store-bought - I purchased a white cake with white frosting from the grocery store (very plain sheet cake) and a doggie cake from Three Dog Bakery (peanut butter flavored, size 7").

To set up the agility course, I placed the two cakes onto cardboard cake sheets I bought at Michael's. It took two big sheets to make the area the size I wanted.

The "people cake" was made to match the blue and orange agility equipment with blue sprinkles across the top and orange sprinkles around the sides.

The difficult part, obviously, was creating the miniature agility equipment. After searching online for small model agility equipment and finding none, I realized I had to make these from scratch. I found some other blogs or online posts where people had done this and took some ideas from there, but basically I was making it up as I went along! Thank goodness I grew up with a very crafty mom, so I'm pretty creative myself :)

For supplies, I bought the following from Michael's (well, actually, some of this I already had):

• 1 package of white lollipop sticks (in the candy-making aisle)
• 2 variety packs of small wood pieces (I found these in the wood section where there are materials for wood painting projects - each package had pieces of various sizes from tiny little squares to rectangles about 5 or 6 inches by 3 inches in size)
• Orange and Blue paint
• Orange and Blue craft foam (the kind that comes in sheets - about 2 sheets of each color)
• 1 sheet of white craft foam
• Markers
• Wood glue
• Foam glue

For the A-Frame -
I glued two of the larger rectangle pieces of wood together at a 90 degree angle to make the A-Frame. Once the glue had dried and the frame was securely together, I painted it completely blue. I then cut two smaller stips of orange foam to make the "contact points" at the bottoms of each side (see picture above) and pieces of blue foam to fit over the remainder of the top of the wood piece, and glued these on.

For the weave poles -
These were the simplest to make. I took about 6 of the lollipop sticks and painted two tiny blue stipes around each one, close together and near one end of the stick. These were later put directly into the cake to make a line of weave poles.

For the jump -
I only made one jump, and it wasn't as easy as I had anticipated. Again, I used the lollipop sticks for this, two for the sides and one for the horizontal pole, although I found that the sticks were a little longer than I'd like for purposes of the horizontal one, so I cut one off by about an inch. For the two side poles, I painted one stripe around the pole, towards one end (this would be the top end when it is all together). I then glued the horizontal pole onto the two other poles to make the jump. The glue didn't really hold it, and I ended up using tape as well.

For the Dog Walk -
In my variety pack of wood scraps, there were strips of wood pieces about one inch across and varying in length. I used two pieces about 3-4 inches long, one longer piece (maybe about 5-6 inches) and four little pieces about 1.5-2 inches in length. First, I used the four little pieces to make two "V" shapes that would be used as a support at the bottoms of the Dog Walk. I just glued two of these pieces together at an angle to make this. I then glued the medium lengthed pieces onto one side of my "V;" turning the "V" upside down, I just lined up one end of the medium piece with the bottom of one side and glued it on. Then I glued the longer piece onto the other end of each medium piece, connecting the whole thing together (see picture above). Once it was all glued (and it fell apart and had to be reglued at least twice), I painted it all blue. Again, I used the orange foam to cut small pieces for the bottoms of the dog walk as the "contact points" and blue foam to cover the top of the rest of the piece.

For the Teeter -
The teeter was fairly simple. Again, I used two small rectangles from my wood scrap bag to glue together into a "V" shape as the base, and painted this blue. I then used a longer wood piece for the top, painting this blue and then applying the orange foam contact points and the blue foam over the rest. I simply set this on top of the base to balance there to form the teeter totter.

For the Tunnel -
I ended up making two tunnels, because the first one I made wasn't long enough once I put it with the rest. Although I initially rejected that first one, I ended up using both in the end (in the picture above, the small blue tunnel is on the top of the round dog cake, and the larger orange tunnel is on the cake base under the Dog Walk. To make the tunnels, I just cut a piece of foam about 6 inches wide and the desired length (about 5-6 inches for a longer tunnel, 3-4 for a small one). I then rolled it up, and used the foam glue to secure it together.

Missing from my cake - the Tire -
I tried to locate something that would be the right size for the Tire - some small round, donut-like thing that I could paint blue and orange, but I was ultimately unsuccessful and gave up on this :(

"Happy Birthday Chopper" -
Instead of having writing on the cakes themselves, which may have been difficult to arrange with everything else, I made a small square from white foam, on which I wrote with blue markers "Happy Birthday Chopper." I then glued the white foam square onto a slightly smaller blue foam square. On the top of the cake, I inserted two of the extra lollipop sticks for the Happy Birthday sign to prop against.