Kilo is my adorable, mischievous four-year-old little Pug mix. He is one of the ambassadors for our Talent Hounds #RescuesRock Campaign and the host of www.kidspetclub.com, www.facebook.com/kilothepug, and @kilothepug on Instagram.
My name is Marjorie Dawson, and I am the creative dynamo behind the busy New Zealand based cat blog DashKitten.com.
On an average day, I run out of my house with dog hair and drool all over my leggings…looking like the tossed-away strip of a lint roller. But it’s cool. Most of the people I see first thing in the morning know how many dogs I tend to have in my home. I wake up two hours on the low end of enough sleep before I have to be out of the house, because I can have up to eight dogs that all need bathroom breaks, outside time, and breakfast before I can leave.
Originally bred to flush badgers and foxes from hiding places in the rocky terrains of Scotland, the Westie came in all colors. However, multi-colored dogs were sometimes mistaken for the game they flushed. They were then bred to be all white for their own safety. The dogs were named for the areas in which they lived such as Pittenweems, Poltallochs, and Roseneaths. In the early 1900s the breed was officially named West Highland White Terriers.
Have you ever wanted to spend your days playing with kittens? Do you love the idea of kittens but know you aren’t in a position to adopt a litter knowing they will turn into cats? That was the position I found myself in back in the ‘90s. I was recently unemployed and wanted to do something with my day besides pounding the pavement looking for a job—-that, and I knew it was easier to find a job when you have a job—-so I went down to my local animal shelter and started volunteering.
If running a team of Huskies across snowy trails is your dream, Robert Forto, lead musher and dog trainer of the family-run Team Ineka in Willow, Alaska, shares that love. His daughter, Nicole, has trained for and run Team Ineka in the Junior Iditarod for the past two years. “There is something magical about being out on the trail with a dog team,” says Robert. “Many times we have been out on the trail when it is 20 below zero, and the Northern Lights are dancing over our heads. It is totally silent except for this swish, swish, swish sound as they dogs are running in total unison together.”
With holiday songs with lyrics of “dashing through the snow” still echoing in our ears, did you know that in some areas, the dashing is done not by reindeer, but by Siberian Huskies? And, believe it or not, the cold white, fluffy stuff is optional for these snow dogs!
Three-year-old Molly the Fire Safety Dog, a Dalmatian with a red vest, badge, and red toenails, is a fire service dog and mascot for the Keep Kids Fire Safe Foundation.
Let me just start out by saying I love dogs. No, really, I LOVE dogs. In fact, my whole family loves dogs so much that we have three. While we don’t have an “open door” policy when it comes to taking in dogs that need a home (our neighborhood has restrictions on the number of dogs we can house at any given time), we do what we can to help a dog in need, even if that means a temporary home until something more secure is located for the pup.
Everyone has their own adoption stories, but today I want to tell you about his. In 2011, we were in the process of filling our new home with a dog. We knew a puppy was out of the question. We stopped by our local animal shelter a few times a week, checking out the dogs and getting to know them. There, in the third kennel on the right, I locked eyes with him. He was shy, scared; and silent; a dog who wouldn’t come anywhere near me. The kennel attendant took him out into the main yard so I could hang out with him. He followed the kennel attendant everywhere like a lost dog.
