Gloopy Poop

Luna had a gloopy poop accident in the kitchen this morning, followed by throwing up all her brekkies and a water poop on the way to the vet...a first since she came over a year ago now. Fortunately it was Nobunaga's yearly booster shot day, so the vet was happy to give her a once over too. Nobu is the picture of health, Luna is only 14kg now and very anemic. He gave her a shot to stop the runs, and off we went to enjoy the winter sunshine in the dogrun.

  Luna wobbled around a bit and spent a lot of time on my lap while Claire and Nobu had some fun.

 We met Lily, who was also rescued from the jaws of death, and enjoying life with her Mum and human little ones.

 Nobunaga had a great time with a seven-month old beagle puppy Saburo, who was so friendly and cute, just wanting to play with everyone!

 Claire was after the river birds when they flew up into the mountains, running the arc of their flight across the dogrun in sweet speed adrenalin.

 Finally Luna really had enough and you could see she wanted to go home, no more sitting on Mum's lap watching the world go by, just snuggling feeling fulfilled, loved and resting on the journey home. Let's hope she's hungry for supper and keeps her food down this time.

In the Family

Going through boxes of photos to scan for my son's wedding event, I found this picture of Carol as a child with her dog...runs in the family, a love of dogs and cats. Those luminous eyes! I'm so glad we're alike in so many ways. Now I just have to write a book inspired by my dogs...
"The adults were looking in some horror at the beast sitting on its haunches through the woods in front of them. They saw a big furry head, a long lolloping tongue, big teeth and a matted coat, brown on top and cream-colored under the body. And an enormous tail....A lovely, warm feeling of acceptance glowed through Indalesh, smothering her fear. She approached the beast, noticing its big, diffident, reassuring brown eyes. She held out her hand. Slowly, Thumpus reached out his head and gave it a tentative lick. The last of Indalesh's fear evaporated. This was not just a wild beast. This was a wonderful being. It could love. How could they all have been so afraid of this?"

All Carol's books are currently available on demand at Amazon:

Pointers To A Spiritual Life. At 350 pages my major work.

A Way Forward for Humanity. The Spiritual Basis of the Findhorn Community.

The Chronicles of Thumpus Wumpus. A book for children and adults with lovely illustrations by Roy Chillingworth.

Tireragan – A Township on the Ross of Mull. A short study in local history with illustrations by Jackie Bradfield.

The Path to Love is the Practice of Love. A short introduction to spirituality with self-help exercises. Can also be obtained from me.

The Findhorn Community – Creating a Human Identity for the 21st Century. Also in French, German, Spanish.

Ofrendas de Amor. In Spanish. Inspirational guidance channelled from Satya Sai Baba. Also in English as part of Pointers to a Spiritual Life.

Talia Bath Salts

And when your bones are weary from the walkies, and you need a moment to soothe your soul, Talia Pure Dead Sea Bath Salts are there, so give yourself total relaxation in the tub...divine! 

Crested Setter

Soul Music

Mum has got herself a box of stuff from the 100 yen shop: silk flowers and feathers to be pulled apart and resewn into...don't tell me yet, Mummy, maybe I can guess sniffing...hmmm, doesn't really smell like dog stuff...

Doesn't look like I'll get any goodies if I guess right anyway...hmmm....

 Twinkly feathery crystal dress parts to adorn your bosom for dancing? Really, you expect me to guess that? Where's the fun in all that anyway? What happened to walkies?

And now you're bothering Nobu again, well, really, no comment...

Official Announcement

Today at noon the Xmas photo contest organizers announced Claire the winner with a total of 1822 votes. Thank you all so much. I expect them to contact me with details of how to proceed in the coming week. This has only been possible with your continued support and help. God bless you all! 

Talk to Me

Remember that every time you are close to a dog, you have a choice how to behave. You can act in a threatening or a friendly way. There is no, absolutely NO excuse for scaring a dog. Dogs are survivors. They defend themselves when they feel threatened.

By telling your dog you are friendly, it does not need to feel insecure in your presence. It can change the whole relationship to your dog.

You always have a choice. You can accept that your dog is giving you a calming signal to tell you that he is tired, or cannot concentrate any more, or that he needs a break, for example.

If you want your dog to respect you, you must also respect your dog. A good relationship is based on two-way communication, and living together in a well-balanced togetherness. Leadership does not solve anything; it only creates problems, in our lives as well as in the dogs' lives.

 It is your choice.

From Turid Rugaas (1997,2006) On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals 2nd ed. Dogwise Publishing p.73

Frozen

"The snow glows white on the mountain tonight,
not a footprint to be seen.
A kingdom of isolation and it looks like I'm the queen."

"My power flurries through the air into the ground.
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
Let it go, let it go.

And I'll rise like the break of dawn.
Let it go, let it go

The cold never bothered me anyway..."

Source:"(Disney's Frozen) Let It Go"lyrics. Robert Lopez, Kristen Anderson-lopez. 
Photos by Lelantos

Meet and Greet

 While Chiaro di Luna hasn't quite grasped the art of inter-doggie communication, Claire and Nobunaga enjoy the morning meet and greet with friends of all shapes and sizes.

 Claire used to be very doggie shy, she had one shiba, Ryu, who she would wriggle and cavort and invite to play, and otherwise she was most aloof, but now she's become quite a sociable lady, so I expect Luna will discover the pleasures of a joyful hello as time goes by.

 There's no stopping Nobu, he's a lad, hi there and hello and wanna play all rolled into one and never a care what size the dog, he knows how to make friends.

Photos by Lelantos

Twelfth Day of Christmas

Evening add-on: Voting is now closed, thank you all so much! The contest results will be published on January 16th, but as of lunchtime with an hour or two to go we had 1812 votes and were in first place, so it's clear to me that we won! WOOOHOOOO! Hip hip HOORAY! Thank you all so much!

Thanks to you I do believe we've won. Thank you all so much! I learned a lot from this contest:

Christmas Spirit- I think with the help of Facebook I must have reached out to 50 years worth of friends and family not only across the planet, but also across time. In retrospect it feels as though I sent out a spark of light, and you all lit up in response like a giant Christmas garland twinkling with beautiful holy light, across our earth, sparkling with a message of love and friendship, support and charity. Awesome, thank you angels!

Serendipity - I didn't plan to enter the contest, it just caught my notice via a photographer friend. I had just taken the Christmas pics of Claire and Nobu, and it seemed like a good way to raise awareness of English setters and how cute they are as pets, not just hunting companions. I didn't even know there was a $1000 prize, and then when I realized, it seemed such a great way for Claire to pay back some of the love and help she got when she was rescued. Entering was about raising setter awareness, winning is about saving setter lives :)

Vizualizing - I couldn't understand why other photos kept getting a flurry of votes every day...but wouldn't give up, visualizing a great wave of love and reaching out to more and more friends, f2f and online: even the dentist's assistant agreed to help! I thought it was one person, one vote. Then the competition organizers contacted me with a complaint that because of the huge number of votes rolling in I might be cheating with fake accounts or something, and I got into quite dark space...I suggested they make friends with me on FB to see that I was legit. Best friends reminded me to hold my head high, and as I looked at other contest photos I found a tweet calling for a vote from their supporters every day. I realized then that twitter at least could vote every day. And by now I know that with Facebook too you can vote every day! In effect if you understand how it works (and this knowledge was not clearly available in the rules), with a small but dedicated group of friends, you could plan to win by voting consistently every day for 20 days. In spite of the handicap of not understanding til rather late how click contests work, I kept seeing the light at work, and believing in the good of this cause, and we drew into the lead and stayed there, which shows that with a bit of positive visualizing, trust, determination and all of you, miracles happen! 

Enjoy - I have really enjoyed discovering imikimi software and making these voting pictures, and learning about other rescue organizations in the US, making new friends and revisiting old ones. Keeping up the momentum was getting rather tiresome, and it really is so all consuming, it will be hard to wind down, but the human contact, the warmth and the fun of the new software have helped me through and made it enjoyable. Plus, I haven't been too well, so energetically romping around with the dogs wasn't really an option this Christmas. All in all, you have made it a very rewarding time, thank you again. I look forward to posting pictures of me handing over a stash of cash to Gundog Rescue CACI. A final happy Christmas, and a very good New Year to you all. 

Tally Ho!

Tally HO!　Two more chances left to vote for Claire, once today and once tomorrow early, polls close at 1500 Japan Time. 

Yokohama (Japan)                    Tuesday, 6 January 2015, 15:00:00 JST UTC+9 hours 
London (United Kingdom - England)   Tuesday, 6 January 2015, 06:00:00 GMT UTC    
New City (U.S.A. - New York)        Tuesday, 6 January 2015, 01:00:00 EST UTC-5 hours 
San Francisco (U.S.A. - California) Monday, 5 January 2015, 22:00:00  PST UTC-8 hours 
Corresponding UTC (GMT)             Tuesday, 6 January 2015, 06:00:00 

Right now Claire is in the lead by 600+ votes, and I'd like to keep it that way! So please take the time to click two FB likes, today and tomorrow (four if you have twitter too).

https://smocca.jp/contest/pet_2014xmas/detail/177

The miracle is, we are winning in spite of my not initially knowing that you can vote once a day, every day! I only found out around Christmas, losing almost a week of chances, and even then I thought only Tweets could be done every day.
And so I am totally touched and overjoyed at your response around the world to carryher into first place in spite of the hurdles. Bless you all and thank you. Now, just keepgoing a teeny bit longer please and let's wrap this up with a fantastic show of hands!

48 hours left

Claire is trying to win a Xmas photocontest in the hopes of donating the prize money to Gundog Rescue CACI, the organization which saved her from death in the pound and brought her to me! They are such a wonderful organization, and I was happy to add Nobunaga and then Chiaro di Luna to the pack, knowing that CEO Rie Kaneko chooses the dogs so carefully to match in temperament to each other and us fur parents so that we gel to make one happy family :) Let's just keep going with voting, clicking FB like/tweet at this link and sharing another two odd days-Yes, We CAN! 
https://smocca.jp/contest/pet_2014xmas/detail/177

I'm really happy with Claire's pictures made on Imikimi , introduced to me by US rescue friend Sheri Minkema Lopez, it's a great way to customize photos and add text: simple and sweet. I'm thinking I'll be enjoying making another one tomorrow.

Dogs and Babies

Nothing like a bit of family time to welcome in 2015. We're still voting for Claire until 1500 on January 6th, just go to the link and click like/tweet, and share for more votes. We're into the home stretch, just 72 odd hours to go: make that vote count, please.
https://smocca.jp/contest/pet_2014xmas/detail/177

Year of the Wood Sheep

Happy New Year to you all. And here is Luna looking sheepish. What a lovely cuddly warm year it's going to be, start this year with LOVE! Vote for Claire by liking in FB, tweet and share, and know that with your first actions of this new year will save English setter and pointer lives here in Japan in 2015. The $1000 prize will be donated in its entirety to Gundog Rescue CACI, the birddog rescue who have saved my three babies, Claire, Nobunaga and Chiaro di Luna among so many others over the years.

It's easy to vote: Click FB like/Tweet icons at https://smocca.jp/contest/pet_2014xmas/detail/177, and actively tweet/and share this link on your FB/ Twitter timeline for more votes! If you tweet every day, you can add more votes that way. Most votes wins, deadline January 6th. Let's keep Claire in first place, only another six days to go!