Well, I think I can go ahead and mention a new project that I’ve been working on. I’ve put togeher a little company called Silver Lining Ideas, www.silverliningideas.com , with the intent to make iPhone/iTouch applications that will help benefit animal rescue.

Just the other day after a couple of months of work, we finally sent our first app to Apple for approval. The app is called Rescue Cleaner and it should be live in the Apple App Store around the 28th of September. Here is the promo write up that will be on the apps Apple webpage -

Is your iPhone/iTouch screen dirty? Then Rescue Cleaner is the app for you!
Rescue Cleaner has lots of dogs just waiting to help clean your screen. You can have Fargo the Landseer Newfoundland, Tina the Golden Retriever, Woody the Greyhound or any of the other dogs clean your screen. Just select one and watch them go to work cleaning your screen.
Best of all, while you watch one of Rescue Cleaner’s dogs clean your iPhone/iTouch screen, you can feel good knowing that you just helped an animal find a new home! A portion of the proceeds from Rescue Cleaner are sent to animal rescue groups, helping them find animals new loving homes.
Features:
> Benefits Animal Rescue.
> Real drool used by the dogs to help clean the screen.
> Choose from 6 different dogs:
        Fargo – Landseer Newfoundland
        Claribelle – Springer Spaniel
        Woody – Greyhound
        Hyde – Newfoundland
        Ursa – Great Pyrenees
       Tina – Golden Retriever
> Looks cool!

Note: No animal was harmed in any way during the making of this application. The animals are not actually touching your screen and the drool used in production of the videos will not cause water damage to your device.

Here’s a clip of a couple of cleaners working together (which are Fargo and Ursa) -

 

As noted, a portion of all proceeds go to help various animal rescue groups, so please be sure to let all your friends know to keep a look out in the Apple App Store around September 28th.

I just recieved this email:

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Hi,

Wanted to let you know that the Bobcat is back on Citation Dr. again. It is feeding under my birdfeeder again, and has been seen by the corner of Whirlaway and Harwich.

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And as most of you are thinking, so what you guys live in the country. There are probably Bobcats all over the place. And you would be right, except this email came from my mother who lives here -

Dang near in the middle of Dallas Texas. Just goes to show you that nature will adapt to whatever enviroment they have to to live.

As of today Piper has been with us 21 days and it is now official. Little Piper is no longer a foster!! Where is her new forever home, you ask? Why where else but right here.

After much debate, it was finally decided that there was just no way we could let this little sweet Newf go to another home.

As you can see, she’s already quite comfy in her new surroundings.

Since we haven’t taken her out much as we needed to first get familiar with her and her with us. Then we had to deal with her getting spayed, here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea just how tiny our little 2 yr 9mo old Newf really is.

Here is Fargo at 1yr old and 115lbs in a standard childs wading pool

Here is Piper in the same kiddie pool

As you can see, pretty tiny for a Newf…and yes, she really is a Newf! We have the AKC papers!

 This is Piper, our new foster girl.

Here it is the 7th of July. The 4th was 3 days ago. We decide to go ahead and take Sadie out front to work on some retrieving exercises for her water title and what happens? We hadn’t gotten off the front porch when the people 2 houses down from us start blowing up fireworks.

Of course this freaks Sadie out, as well as our Pyr, Ursa, who is in the house and now she doesn’t want to do anything but get back into the house. Wonderful, an evenings work out the door before we even get started.

Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good evening of blowing up fireworks as much as the next guy but on the 4th of July, not on the 7th. I get rather tired of that and now we have to deal with getting Ursa to come out from in the closet as well as hoping that tomorrow Sadie will have forgotten and want to go out front.

We thought we had avoided that whole scene this year as we decided to go out of town for the 4th of July weekend and had put the pups into a kennel we use all the time that is in city limits where fireworks can not be shot off. I guess we forgot about the other days around the 4th being a problem as well.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

This will be sort of neat as the last post was her first day just last week. So you can see the changes such as going to the boat this time and pulling it in, which she wouldn’t do last week.

This weekend Sadie started her Water Rescue training. It’s an informal group that is getting together every Saturday to work on training our Newfoundland dogs to get their Water Rescue titles.

Sadie did pretty well as one of the "beginners". There were clearly things that need to be worked on but overall, not too bad for a first time at this.

Oh, today has just not been a good day and it all started at 2am when the 4 legged house mates teamed up against me.

2am – After synchronizing his watch earlier with all the other 4 legged house mates, Fargo on queue, starts phase I of "weeknight operation" and comes to my bed and wakes me up to supposedly go outside.
While I am preoccupied dealing with a Fargo potty break. Widget (one of the cats)moves into position.
2:20am – Fargo is now back in (finally) and has settled back down for the rest of the evening. Widget commences with Phase II, the booby-trapping of my side of the bed.
As I come back to bed after dealing with Fargo, I realize that Widget is in the way and isn’t wanting to move. I finally pick her up and put her onto the floor where she quickly makes a move to get out of the way as she knows what is next. Unfortunately, in the dark I don’t see the booby-trap and as I roll into bed, realize that I am now laying on something wet. Of course being half asleep, it is very difficult to gain complete dexterity of ones limbs and manage to raise my butt out of whatever it has just landed in and maneuver back out of bed and not fall back into the wet stuff.
Finally I get back out of bed, click on the bathroom light to see that Widget has thrown up a full stomach of cat food.
2:28am – Clean up the cat puke.
2:35am – I now have to wake up sleeping beauty (which is dang near impossible) and get her out of bed so I can get the sheet off the bed (R did wake up enough to help with this), only to find that it has soaked through to the liner.
2:40am – Get a towel to cover over the wet area and try to go back to sleep.
2:55am – Fargo now commences with phase III. He comes in lays down and starts to loudly clean his privates.
2:58am – Fargo is ushered out the door.
3:10am – Sadie kicks in her part by starting a wrestling match with Fargo in the den. which I go out to stop.
At this time, I decide that I will sleep better on the couch as the towel is soaking up the yuck from the bed liner.
3:45am – Ursa, on perfect queue, starts phase IV, her scared whimpering act (not sure why other than to keep me up). This goes on for a good 20 minutes.
4:30am – Alarm goes off and it’s time to start the morning process.
5:45am – R and I decide that it’s been a long night and we decide to call in sick.
7:00am – realize that it is Friday and the lawn guy is coming by to mow and because of a late job meeting, it hasn’t been done.
7:30am – Backyard finally all picked up.
8:00am – Finally the last Phase, Phase V is kicked into gear. Leon (another one of our cats)at an earlier pre-arranged time while I was cleaning up the backyard, has deftly knocked my new, one week old glasses off the kitchen counter and Sadie has gotten them.
8:15am – a lens is found by Ruthanna. 2 minutes later the rest of the glasses are found, completely destroyed. Even worse than the first pair(which were clearly was a test run for tonights mission) that got destroyed a few days back by a particular black dog.

Weeknight mission accomplished

It seems a Newfoundland breeder in an attempt to make the breed look better to the casual internet cruiser and posted this on their website:

“One of the not-so-obvious advantages of owning a dry-mouth Newf is reduced smell and therefore, grooming costs (likely your largest expense with these dogs).”

“Our experience has shown that a typical, healthy Newfoundland dog, costs, on average, $100/month, or $1200/year in food, training, grooming and veteranarian bills. Being a large, long-haired canine, regular grooming is essential to the health and beauty of your pet. We live in a temperate climate with four distinct seasons and find that the dog will require its greatest grooming needs in the spring and autumn when things are wetter.”

“Newfoundland dogs tend to be quiet dogs that don’t have a reputation for chewing or digging”

Let me tell you and show you about that!

First, let me address the cost statement. If we take the Newfs to the groomer, who gives us a very good deal, it will cost us $140 to groom both of them. This is about half of what most groomers charge!

Second, Dry mouth. Let me tell you, if I could figure out a way to harness the drool that comes out of Fargo’s mouth and fuel my car, I would never have to buy gas again! Sadie on the other hand very rarely drools but she still does on occasion. We consider ourselves very fortunate that so far she hasn’t become a drooler but I suspect that as she continues to grow, that will not be the case.

Third, digging. While they may not naturally be diggers, it can be taught and our Pyr, Ursa, has done a fine job of that! Just see our past posts on our backyard.

And last but not least, quiet. All I can say is, hahahahahahaha! Here, I’ll let you be the judge…