After being the world's worst blogger, I wanted to write one last quick post! 
Bailey and Bonnie have started to show a little aggression between them, which I call the 'Sister-Sister effect'. They spend all day together, and when one of us walks through the door it suddenly becomes a competition of who missed the humans more. Dogs tongues flying everywhere, crying, cats meowing, the realization that I badly need to cut everyone's nail to prevent someone loosing an eye- these are the things I face when my keys turn that lock. It now seems as though they cannot eat at the same time either. Not sure if they compete to see who can eat the fastest.....but when that happens it's usually followed by who can puke the fastest. Not fun.

Either way, having two dogs is definitely more fun than just one. And having four pets is a little bit border line insane, but hey- no one had a good time doing everything by the book ;) I love having them all with me at home, reminding me to enjoy life a little bit more. Heck- they get me to stop and smell the flowers. Well....not flowers. They get me to stop and wait while they smell another dog's pee while we're on a walk...but you get my point! I wouldn't trade any of them for anything. Rascal, Zoe, Bailey and Bonnie are the bread and butter of my life, and I wouldn't have it any other way!

I'm hoping to eventually get more chances to write on here, but as the past few months have shown it's a wee bit tougher than I thought. With a new incredibly busy job and life throwing crap at me left, right and centre, me and the gang are going to take a hiatus! Thank you for reading and keep writing cause I love to read all those blogs out there!

And if there's one thing you take from this blog, remember to adopt, don't shop :)

-RaZoBai(Bon)

Twas the night before the end of the 'end of the world', and I sat at my desk thinking about all the things I had left to do before the holidays. As my head dances frantically from one gift idea to another, I couldn't help but think about how terrible of  a pet blogger I've been. I wanted to get one last post in before Christmas, and here I am. I thought about blogging on how Bonnie ate my brown suede boots, and then proceeded to puke them up in random areas of the house. I also thought about blogging on how Bailey is increasingly looking more like a cartoon character than a real life dog. Heck, I even thought about blogging about how I cannot wait to see my dogs around like crazy in the snow every time I pull into the driveway. But in the end, I think the best thing to blog about on this snowy Thursday night would be to wish all those out there happy holidays.
I'm very lucky to have my family all in town so close, allowing me to spend this time with them from the comfort of my house. I hope that everyone out there travelling to and from do so very very safely, and enjoy spending time with those they love the most.
Wishing you all happiness, health and safe travels!

I apologize for the language. Life has been nothing but busy busy busy, and from that this blog has suffered. I hope that I have offended anyone (assuming there are still people actually checking in) by being such a poor blogger :(

The past few weeks have all been weird, each in their own way. We've been adjusting to new living conditions, Christmas decor and a massive increase in work for both of us. Within all of this, we've watched Bonnie experience snow for the first time (turns out it gives her a mad case of the zoomies), watched Rascal willingly plonk himself down into a wad of snow and roll around (I told you he was half dog), witnessed Bailey become even more of a social butterfly, and of course tried to keep up with the demands of living with a Zoe.

Somehow we've also come up against situations that involve us fighting for our pets. It's obvious that I will fight till the death for my animals, regardless of the costs. This past week it was brought to my attention that I am allergic to cats and was told to get rid of them. A statement to which I bluntly replied "That's not an option. If you have some alternatives for me, that's great. But let's be clear- getting rid of my cats like that is.not.an.option". We've also come across other obstacles where characteristics that were not true were being attributed to our dogs. If and when a complaint or concern has been expressed about our dogs, I take immediate action. For me, making sure that my pets are not causing a disturbance in ANY way is beyond important. But, sometimes I think people end up taking advantage of this and play up things that are not necessarily true. It's unfortunate and upsetting and at the end of the day I end up being aggrevated that someone would lie about my pets behavior. Although I shouldn't, I take it so very, very personally.

I realized that I am  and probably always will be fighting for them. I fight for their right to live in our home, to be outside, to have a park to run around it. I fight for their personality and work hard to ensure that they are not being painted as terrible animals (something they are absolutely, without a doubt, the farthest thing from). Heck, I'm even fighting my own body to keep the cats with us. It's just how it is.

But still, I wonder. Are we the only ones doing this dance over and over again for our pets? Are other pet owners out there constantly fighting for their decision to have a dog, two dogs, a cat, two cats? It seems as though behind every corner there's someone offering their unsolicitated harsh judgement without a second thought about the reprocussions their statements might have on how things might affect my family and my pets.

Despite my lovely rant above (sorry about that y'all), the holidays are near and that means I get to put a Santa hat on the dogs. Really- how could you be upset with that?

So being that the Bonster is from Mexico, she needs a coat. Ottawa winters can be dangerous, exhausting and downright chilly. Although snow has yet to fall on the ground over here, I don’t doubt for one second that it will soon be among us. While I sit here and fight my intense urge to hang the Christmas lights before the world is white and fluffy, I can’t help but think about what winter will be like for Bonnie.

Bailey (our other dog) loves winter. She runs through over and thru the hills of snow with ease and a drop of comedy (it’s the ears bouncing in the wind that kill me). The beagle in her contributed to the limited dog fur she seems to have, making me one anxious mamma when she’s outside in the cold. Last winter was our first as dog owners, and I was convinced that she was going to freeze her little tushy off being out there in the cold. For those that have the luxury of living somewhere warm or luke warm during the winter months, you should know that Ottawa can be as cold as -40 degrees (Celsius). To put it in perspective, would you want to go outside in freezing weather completely naked? Exactly.

Smaller dogs have this unwritten rule about being allowed to wear clothing. It’s socially acceptable, and no one bats an eye at that tiny little Yorkie with a pink sequenced coat. Medium sized dogs on the other hand get that “Why is that dog wearing a jacket?” look the second someone sees them in their attire. We really do try to be as stealthy as we can about it. Heck, I went out and picked up the sportiest looking dog coat I could get my hands on. The reaction? Why is that dog wearing a jacket? I must be one of those owners.

So each time this lovely little scenario plays out, I quickly pipe up that she’s from Mexico and isn’t fond of the Canadian weather. Then there’s a pause, immediately followed by “Wow. Mexico! How did she get here?”. And before I can think about how I need to get home and finish my ‘To Do’ list, I’m standing in the middle of the street talking about the story of getting Bonnie here.

Don’t get me wrong- I L.O.V.E. talking about my pets. So much so, I’ve written this blog. But we’ve all had those days where our brain is buzzing with the impending list of things to get finished and we can’t mentally take on the task of long explanations to outside parties. I’m sure there have been moments where these innocent bystanders are taken back by my “She’s Mexican. Came here on a plane. She’s cold. Got a coat” explanation, and instantly regret their decision to comment on my dog. And when I finally hit the couch to relax I look back and feel terrible about being so crude to these random people, I make a mental note to be the friendliest neighbor EVER next time I see them. I make a vow to bake muffins, and carry them with me at the ready to offer to the neighbors I was so rude to. But let’s face it, I bake the muffins, we end up eating them all and I am still in debt to karma. C’est la vie, I suppose.

In the meantime I’ve opted to come up with a few different explanations as to why Bonnie has a coat. All of these reasons are neither true, nor feasible. They are however, hilarious.

-she is actually part turtle and is considerably sick without a shell. The vet strongly recommended we purchase a dog coat as a substitute, a theory we are currently testing.

-she’s on loan from Reece Witherspoon and like her owner, is a celebrity. Reece contacted us via email asking if we could provide a home for this A-list dog, which include meeting the star worthy list of demands. As you can imagine, wearing a fleecy coat in this weather is completely understandable for a celebrity dog.

-Each morning we found her curled up asleep in the closet. At night she would push the kitchen chair over to the closet and quietly pulled up each and every coat. She would cry out while we preparing to leave for work, casually tossing our coats onto ourselves. After consulting with a pet psychic, they informed us that Bonnie wanted nothing more in life than her own coat.

-She is a part of a dog gang called ‘The Freezing Fidos’. They are easily distinguished by their fleecy gang coats.

So as per my dernier post, I mentioned that this week is Bonnie and me time. Turns out this Bonita is hilarious. She had a mad case of the zoomies Tuesday morning, which included looking like a maniac while playing in the sheets. And you know, usually I wouldn’t make a blog post about it. But the thing is, this is the first time she’s played with me. Ever. I’ve seen her play with Bailey and our friends’ dogs, but I’ve never seen her just play. It was fantastic. She was this loopy looking dog with her head completely buried under the duvet, butt wagging like mad and making fart sounding snort noises. She was, without a doubt, just a flat out happy dog. And as you can imagine, this made me the happiest person on earth.

“The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too”.  -Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912

We are SUPER touched to have been given a blogging award (our first) by the amazing Kristen, Zaphod and Hailey over at The Hailey and Zaphod Chronicles! It's called 'Seven Things About Me', where you guessed it- we list 7 things y'all don't know about us!

2) Scott initially thought that Zoe didn’t have a tongue (weird- I know). When we adopted her, she was barely three months old and didn’t know how to properly clean herself. Somehow this all led to Scott coming to the conclusion that she was missing her tongue, a concern I quickly dismissed after explaining how the humane society would have definitely mentioned if she were missing something like that. Ironically, Zoe licks everything, including Scott’s head.

4) I have never seen a dog get as excited as Bonnie does when I show her the leash. I mean- ever. She doesn’t care where she’s going- I think she’s just happy that she’s leaving the house WITH us, and not watching us go to work. She does this happy Snoopy dance around the front hall, with some intense ‘hands up’ action.

6) I suffer from a condition called anosmia, which basically means I don’t have a sense of smell. Long story short, I fell off my bike while riding without a helmet and severed the nerve (let that be a lesson to all you kidlets!). And before you ask, yes my taste sucks and I haven’t been able to smell for almost 12 years so I don’t overly miss it. It does however make it difficult to find out where the dog has peed…..or pooped…You know the ‘find the poop’ game? Well it’s like triple harder for me. It’s more like “find the mysterious poop that is purposely hiding from you’. Dark rooms with hiding poop are my nemesis.

Here are some of my FAVORITE blogs- not all are pet oriented. BUT still deserve some honorable mention :)

The Hailey and Zaphod Chronicles
The Lucky Dog Rescue
Furry Four Legged Fosters
Life With Desmond
The Joyful Turtle
Life With Claire
Barley & Ali (not active, but old posts are still a fabulous read!)

Have no fear- Batman and Robin are here!

‘Double the trouble’. That’s what people said when we got a second dog. Naturally, I’d respond with “double the fun!”, which is still true. But double the trouble….seems that although I hate to admit it, there is some truth to that statement.

I work during the day, and so Bonnie is crated and Bailey has free range. It’s not to be mean, or to clearly play favorites. Bonnie is new in our house and tends to have some anxiety when we walk out the door. I learned this through the untimely death of our guestroom mattress. But hey-  you live and learn. We learned that Bonnie being free in the house is a no no.

Bailey on the other hand had begun being out of the crate about a month before we brought Bonnie home. She was doing awesome possum the entire time. Well, obviously not the entire time- otherwise this story will be pretty boring. For the last week she has decided that she would like to be the ‘bad dog’. This decision means that helpless bystanders like my leopard print high heels, Scott’s running shoes, throw pillows, remote controls and my ‘delicates’ have become victims. It’s easy to know when something is up, because her little face isn’t peering through the window as I pull into the drive way. So I’ll be driving home, all “Tra La La” and suddenly it dawns on me that her little face isn’t in the window. Then I’m praying to the powers that be that my new slippers will live to face another day.

Let me paint you a picture. It’s called ‘Yesterday’. Or Wednesday. I come home, open the front door to see a pukey stained crate containing Bonnie and the reminisce of her lunch. Then, I veer to the left and see Bailey crouching down in the corner, guilty as can be. Tuffs of pillow everywhere, random chewed objects blocking my path. And right in the middle of the carpet I see it. That box, all chewed up. The silver wrapping still intact on one side- with five pills remaining. I don’t know where she found it, but Bailey got her paws and chompers on a box of Reactine.

So what do you assess first? The heartworm positive dog puking for no reason, or the dog who may very well be hopped up on allergy medication. I call the vet, they squeeze me in a half hour before they close, and into the car we pile. Two hours later…..I don’t know what’s going on with Bonnie. Bailey had to be brought into the back and forced to vomit in an attempt to get anything pill like out of her stomach. After a mix of charcoal food to absorb any Reactine, we went home. Both dogs were insanely happy to get out of there, and oddly enough both Bailey and my wallet were lighter than when we got there.

In case you’re wondering, it’s $175 to have your dog puke and get the charcoal treatment.

Double the trouble, that’s for sure.  

When I was 8 years old, my mom organized a family portrait. I remember it specifically because I had a side pony and retainer, while my brother was rocking the mushroom cut. I am now 24 and have this family shot haunting me since that fateful day at Walmart photo centre. The thing is, I love pictures. They are EVERYWHERE in my house. And although I do love my family pictures from the wedding, I wanted to have some that were a tad bit less formal. With Bonnie being officially a part of our family, it seemed only fitting to get some shots of everyone and their dogs. I think this was the fourth time Liz and I had to reschedule due to the weather. Waking up Sunday morning and seeing those clears skies definitely invoked a happy dance!

You know what is really difficult? Getting four dogs to sit still. If it wasn't Liz behind that camera lense, I'm sure all those shots would have been us surrounding by blurry dog bodies.

Here's my favorite shot- the whole fam jam plus those four legged ones. Below are some more shots of the dogs

I'm going to have to hit up IKEA for some more frames. Yay!!!