You know that proverb “cleanliness is next to godliness”, I think Cooper doesn’t want to imply that he’s even slightly like the man upstairs.

Recently I started been reading a blog called 1000 Reasons I’m a Crap Mom. It is adorable. Being constantly bombarded by parenting tips she is constantly reminded of her failings as a mother.

I don’t have children. I have pets. And even as a pet owner I have my failings. So its probably best that we are putting off having children. So imitating my inspiration I bring you 10 Reasons I’m a Bad Pet Mom.

1. I let my pets self feed. Yes I have a fat cat. But I don’t feel a need to put him on a diet. First my other cat is a skinny little thing, second what is the point of making my poor ex-stray fear he will starve. My dog is self fed and he is skinny as anything. So 2 out of 3 pets are skinny enough, that is a 66% success rate right?
2. My animals have to ask to be fed. It doesn’t matter if I filled up his dish ten times the night before, HappyCat always greets me with yowls as I come down the stairs in the morning. This usually means his dish is empty. This is also the real reason my pets are self fed, I cant really be bothered to feed them regularly enough.



3. My dog feels a need to steal from the trash.  We keep trying to break him of it, but he does it anyways.
4. My animals feel a need to drink out of the toilet. We keep trying to stop them but its so funny to see a cat trying to drink out of the toilet without falling in. I’m not sure what is wrong with their water dish, it is usually full when we catch them drinking from the magic fountain.



5. My dog plays with non-dog toys. His favorite toys tend to be soccer balls too big for his mouth and plastic water bottles he finds on the side of the road.
6. I don’t give my pets routine. Apparently animals thrive on routine. We purposefully tried to keep Cooper off a routine when he was a pup. I didn’t want him to get upset if we came home late, or didn’t take him to a park on Sundays.
7. My pets live a double standard. Cats are allows on furniture, dog is not.
8. I don‘t let them do what they want. Audrey wants to go outside, so shes not allowed. HappyCat wants to stay in the house, so I try to take him out. Cooper wants to be with me at all times, so he’s left alone in the house.



9. I’m terrible with a brush and nail clippers. But they don’t seem to enjoy it anyways so why torment them (mats and sharp claws that is why).
10. I love leaving my pets with strangers. Go on Vacation, get someone else to take care of your animals. Preferably with very lax instructions like, feed them this whenever you feel like it and if they get sick here is their vets number.

Why are you a good or bad pet owner?

On Saturday Cooper and I hiked to the Summit of the highest Mountain of New Hampshire. We came down the Tuckerman Trail, which was so crowded I was thinking that people could link up arms as they climbed up the trail.

• “Did he actually summit?”
• “Do you think that was a full poodle or a mix”
• “Shouldn’t he be in pom poms somewhere?”
• “He’s small for a big poodle”
• “Ohhhhh Cute!!!”
• *Discrete* attempts at taking pictures of dog.
• “Are poodles part mountain goat?”
• “Can I cuddle with your dog?”
• “World energy crisis solution: harness your dog”
• “That is the coolest poodle EVER”
• “Can I borrow a couple of your dog’s legs”
• “If a poodle can make it to the top, so can I”

And the best compliment I can be given:

• “What an exceptionally well trained dog”

A couple questions made me want to give a snarky response:

• “Does he like hiking?”
• “How can you be sure he’s not tired/hungry/injured?”

First of all, we probably do 90%+ of our hiking off leash (thus tons of well trained dog comments). This allows Cooper to set his own pace. He’s been hiking since he was 9 weeks old and has gradually increased in distance and difficulty.

As an intelligent dog he will often run ahead and lie down and wait for me to catch up.

As for feeding and watering him. I regularly take breaks to offer him food and drink. Often he just wants to get back on the trail and looks annoyed that I’ve stopped for any reason at all.

Injury wise, I also pay close attention to his gait/pace. I am prepared to carry all 36 pounds of him down the mountain if I have to. I have in the past. When we hiked Mt Tom this winter he developped ice feet. It was painful enough for him that he sat down on the trail and wouldn’t walk. I carried him down for a mile wrapped in sweaters until his feet thawed out.

And finally, clearly he loves it. Watch him as he bounces around from rock to rock. There’s a reason lots of people compared him to a mountain goat.

So to those who said nice things, thank you. To those who doubted that I had my dog’s best interest at heart, I hope you are now a believer.

Dear dog,

I know you have spent your life from 8 weeks of age on with a high quality, fancy lens, high speed shutter camera in your face.

How about an example:

So when I’m trying to take a picture of you with a low pixel, built in lens, takes forever, cell phone camera can you please keep still long enough for the picture?

Maybe we will have to try sedatives or something… Can dogs have ADD? How about ADHD?

OK, Thanks!

As I’ve mentioned before one of my favorite parts of the Vermont 100 is watching the horses. The owners take such good care of their animals, at the Tracer Brook Aid station they stop to let the horses cool off in the stream. Here’s a little photo story I put together.

Sometimes it takes the horse a little while to want to enter the water.

Water is pretty cool on the feet after the hot ground.

But it tastes so good. It’s a genuine Vermont Spring.

This bay looks like it’s sticking out it’s tongue to the crowd.

The riders have sponges attached to a rope that they lower to soak the horse and cool it down.

But this guy had his own idea about splashing to cool things down.

The riders try to push the horses into a deeper pool.

Not so bad eh buddy?

It actually looks quite refreshing.

Next time I’m feeling overheated I’ll just remember how relaxed the horses looked in that chilly stream.

I’ve been a fan of domestic rats for a long time. In fourth grade I babysat the class rats over Christmas break. One of the kids I babysat in high school had a rat that pretty much lived in her sweatshirt. As a college kid I had a few rats of various colours. I’ve always admired their intelligence and how friendly they can be.

That goodwill does not extend to domestic mice or wild rats and mice. I’m generally horrified when I find a mouse in my house. I love that our cat Audrey is such an expert mouser.

But once in a while I see a mouse in a position that makes me just think Awww. If you have never felt that way about a most likely-diseased, parasite-riddled wild mouse you may not want to look at the next few pictures.

I don’t want you smashing at your monitor.

We have been tearing apart the front porch/mudroom to deal with some rot issues. I went outside to take some progress pictures and found this little mouse crouched on the ledge.

Sure it still looks scraggly. But it had such cute little beady eyes.

I just hope it doesn’t make it into my house and skitter across my kitchen floor. Then it wouldn’t be cute anymore. It would be a disgusting varmint that my cat should immediately kill.

Last weekend we traveled to Vermont so Adam could run the Vermont 100. As did last year I blogged about the horse race run at the same time on the same course on my FillyRunner blog.

I wanted to share some of the pictures I took of these amazing animals that were more portrait like.

This fellow just came back up from a soak in the stream. He was still a very stunning dark bay.

This is my favorite picture from the day, I just love this horse’s bridle.

This was actually part of a series of three pictures I took. In all three a different horse has it’s head turned. I think they were looking for treats.

It took the rider a bit to convince her horse that it should go into the stream. But once he was in, he didn’t want to leave the stream. He actually kept pawing the water.

I loved how each horse had it’s own hair style. Some had manes cropped short. Others had braids. And others just had long flowing manes.

Arabians have such beautiful little heads, and some have such a beautiful metallic sheen.

Most of the horses were grays and bays. I did see a stunning blue roan pinto arabian on the first day, but I didn’t get a picture of it. I never saw it on the course.

Despite fewer horses, I still loved looking at each and every one. I guess there’s still a little horse obsessed girl in me. If only I had the time and money to make owning one possible.

One of the purposes of this blog is to stay in touch with friends and family. I post a lot about my life, the hubby and our pup Cooper. I sometimes mention Audrey, our pretty gray kitty. But I realized this weekend I very rarely mention our third pet.

HappyCat is pretty much just a mellow cow cat. He was once a thin kitty, we got him as a stray at the animal shelter. But since he has the shelter of our home, he’s pretty much spent his days doing this.

Sure he plays with Audrey a little, he snuggles with Cooper and he occasionally patrols the house, but he most enjoys cat napping.

And informing me that the food dish is empty. An empty food dish is an emergency to him.

This weekend, when Audrey was locked in the guest bedroom due to various openings to the outside world, Happy just sat at the openings and showed no interest in entering the outside world.

I think he knows he has it good. And I think he’s a very pretty cat, I sometimes wish that he wasn’t such a lump.

I think Cooper misses his winter hiking booties. I mean, why else would he avoid perfectly good rocks to walk right through the swamp. I guess the booties are stylish and all.

And that he’s a pretty noticeable fellow with them on. But wouldn’t it be preferable for him to not have stinky muck on his feet.

I guess he’s a dog after all.

Cooper has always been incredibly easy on toys. He still has a stuffed teddy bear that my friend Dawn picked out for him the day I picked him up. That was over a year ago. He plays with it regularly and it still looks great.

He prefers to shred things he finds in the trash. (He is only 16 months old, he can’t be too perfect or we will figure out that he’s actually an alien).

But generally we assume that the things we give Cooper will last a long time. So imagine my surprise when I noticed something amiss before I had even put in my contact lenses in the morning.

My perfect poodle was completely naked. He wasn’t even wearing his permanent accessory, a slip on Martingale type collar (think a fabric prong collar without any prongs). I have evidence that he was wearing it the night before.

A few feet away, at the top of the stairs where Cooper usually brings his overnight conquest of the trashcan, was his collar in two pieces.

I have no idea how it broke or if my poor pup was in a panic that caused him to have to break it. All I know is that I’ll have to replace it. Because right now he’s wearing a collar I only intended for him to wear when I bring him to cheer on Northeastern by the side of the river. And that collar was too expensive to end up on the ground.