Please go to http://boulderhumane.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=426416&lis=1&kntae426416=9A0E1659F700447AA908E0FFE5C7B2A8&supId=300361433 and pledge a few bucks for the effort next week. Even easier, text “PAWS” and “Robert Guglielmetti” to 50555 to donate $5 to my effort.

I am raising pledges for A Cause for Paws Doggie Dash on September 11th. Your support will help the Humane Society of Boulder Valley provide food, shelter, medical treatment and behavioral rehabilitation to animals in need. I’m not gonna pull a Sarah McLachlan on you and show you a bunch of doggie and kitty sad-eyes here, I’m just going to appeal to your greater sense of kindness and throw on a heaping dose of guilt. I was baptized as a Catholic, after all. That shit works.

• We Look for a Dog
• We get a dog
• We reflect
• We get a cat
• We reflect, again

I found Hooper waiting for me as I clutched our dear departed cat Emma’s ashes in my left hand, having just picked them up there from our friend Elissa who is hard at work coordinating this very event I’m asking your for money for. This fund raising event is a great way to get together with all the other Crazy Dog People of Boulder and raise awareness and dollars for the joint, and for the dogs to have a good time. Mainly, it’s a way to help keep those doors open, not only to the strays and unwanted of Boulder County, but also to the victims of overcrowded shelters near and far.

So next weekend I’m gonna trot along for five kilometers and I’m hoping you can pledge a few bucks in support. My goal is $150 — not a lot of money, really, but enough to transfer one healthy dog to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley from an overpopulated community, which is exactly how Hooper & I came to know one another; Hooper was a transfer from an overcrowded shelter in Vernal, UT. Come on, that’s a good story, right?

• Visit http://boulderhumane.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=426416&lis=1&kntae426416=9A0E1659F700447AA908E0FFE5C7B2A8&supId=300361433 and pledge
• text “PAWS” and “Robert Guglielmetti” to 50555 to donate $5 to my effort

I hope you can help. Brenda’s doing this too (https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=426416&supId=181900100), with the same pledge goal. Help her, help me, help us both, whatever you can do. Thanks.

Settling up, I’m up on points. Here’s to everyone else beating the odds next year.

When one of us does take Hooper out for a walk, Ellie is quick to come down, hurdle the gate, and start exploring the lower levels. Of course, she likes to do this from up high, like on top of the kitchen cabinets:

Hooper finally got his own bed, but currently he believes it to be a giant expensive chew toy. Deep down, he knows what he’s supposed to do on it, and eventually he settles down and demonstrates, like so:

This post also is the first one that employs a new plugin that I installed, which allows for a slick Javascript display that enlarges the images in my posts. Try it out; click on any image in the post and it will expand to a slightly larger size, with caption. I plan to refine this a little bit more and then I’ll incorporate this effect into all the previous posts, since I need to update them all to work with my new theme. Feedback welcome!

Yes, we got another cat. On December 23rd. And we named her Noelle, a play on the season. But this was not an impulse buy.

Brenda & I have talked about getting another cat since the dawn of discussions about life after Emma. We actually had a kitten on hold the same time we had Hooper on hold, but we decided one thing at a time. But as time wore on, we thought we should add a cat to the mix sooner than later, lest Hooper get too used to the idea of being the sole recipient of our attention. And so, Noelle, a.k.a. Ellie.

She’s three years old, and recently gave birth to a litter, even more recently was spayed, and her owner gave her and her brother up because she was moving out of the country.

We went to the Boulder Humane Society on Saturday, and placed a hold on one cat that we liked, but we didn’t quite have the vibe, in much the same way we didn’t feel a connection with Happy the Plott Hound we tried out the day before we met Hooper. The next day we planned to look at Loki, a handsome tabby who we liked the day before but didn’t have a chance to meet before the adoption center closed. When we got there, Loki was already being visited but we saw that his sister was mewing fiercely and so we met with her, and she lived on my lap, purring, me melting, and Brenda said “let’s just take her home”.

And so, we now have a cat and a dog. They are living separate lives for the moment, but we’ve had some meet and greets. They are going well, and I think it’s all going to work out. Ellie has her claws (which I can attest to), and Hooper seems more afraid of her than anything. Here are some snaps from tonight’s meeting.

First, we have Hooper happening upon the aloof Ellie, lured by treats:

Moments later we have Ellie being petted by Brenda as Hooper retreats to the living room:

Cats rule.