Photo Every Day #194

Today was boiling in work! I think I was close to sweating all my new hair dye off?! But I have two days off now, so I'll try and keep out of the heat as much as possible. We took Stark to Lymm Dam for a walk this evening. We befriended a Labrador who shared her ball, they were both swimming after it in the water and Stark swam out further than he has before. Then we met two collie crosses then two German shepherds with an Akita.  I like Stark meeting other dogs as I want him to be friendly and capable of adapting to new situations. He's doing really well. 

Song Of The Day: Alkaline Trio - Private Eye

Reason: One of my ultimate favourite songs ever. 

Highlight Of The Day: A nice evening walk. 

Inspiration of The Day: Colour charts. Trying to decide what colours to paint our rooms with is definitely not a decision to be taken lightly! 

Photo Every Day #159

Stark made some new friends at the park. There was a big field where lots of people were walking all sorts of dogs, but he mainly played with some smaller cross breeds. They were so cute! All crossed with poodles and other small dogs so thy had superb coats. It was nice to see them all running around in a small herd and good to see how nice Stark is with other dogs. 

Song Of The Day: Queens Of The Stone Age - Feel Good Hit Of The Summer

Reason: I know it's a QOTSA pick again but I'm listening to them a lot and I love the double meaning of the song title. 

Highlight Of The Day: Seeing Stark wolf down some bacon ribs. 

Inspiration Of The Day: House magazines. I'm making a mood board to better envisage my style. 

Photo Every Day #147

Today we went to Lymm Dam to walk the dogs again and we saw this carving on a tree. We walk past it every time we go so it must have appeared in the last few days. It sort of looks like its been shot in one eye. Strange. 

Song Of The Day: One Direction - Live Whilst We're Young

Reason: I think 1D are a bit of fun. If only I was a teenage girl! 

Highlight Of The Day: A nice tea of stir fry with oyster sauce at my Dads. 

Inspiration Of The Day: I've been watching the MTV series Buckwild and I'd love to go and live in the rural areas of America. I enjoy being outdoors and its just so different to the UK.

Photo Every Day #144

This evening we went to our puppy class.   Stark was good as always and we've got a couple of new things to practice. It's really hard work having to look after Pixie and Stark, but I've realised it's because they're jealous of the attention the other one gets, not because they don't like each other. 

Song Of The Day : Eminem - Sing For The Moment

Reason: I love this song, it's so honest and really speaks truth. 

Highlight Of The Day: Puppy class.

Inspiration Of The Day: All the lovely tributes people have been leaving for the soldier that was killed by idiot fanatics. It's nice to know people can band together in the face of tragedy. 

Photo Every Day #142

Today was a busy day in the sunshine. We took Pixie for coffee and cake in the morning, walk with Stark in Delamere Forest, then pub tea with my Dad. Feels like its been a long day but an enjoyable one.

Coffee & Cake For One:

Song Of The Day: Iggy Azaela - Work

Reason: Super catchy, would be interested in hearing what she comes out with next. 

Highlight Of The Day: Spending time with Stark and Pixie. 

Inspiration Of The Day: Game Of Thrones, all of the episodes are like mini movies. Stunning. 

Photo Every Day #97

Today we moved the gecko babies and their tanks downstairs into the front room. They were in the study but I felt they were a bit neglected in there, so they've joined the rest of the family in the front! Hopefully the cats won't pester them (or rather the locusts) as much now they'll be shut away from them during the day.

Two Tanks:


Song Of The Day: HIM - Close To The Flame
Reason: I love the acoustic version. I haven't listened to HIM for so long! I caught a video today and it brings back memories of being a teen!

Highlight Of The Day: Walking the lovely dogs at the dog's home!

Inspiration Of The Day: The series of portraits by Lalage Snow of soldiers before, during and after tours of duty. It's crazy to see the physical changes from being in such a stressful, difficult environment.

Photo Every Day #90

Today we went to the dog's home again to walk some of the dogs. We've had soft spots for a few of the dogs and were pleased to see that two of our favourites, Rosie, a border collie and Jodie, a staffie cross, have gone to a new homes! We walked a couple of different ones that previous times, including Skye, a husky type dog and Rebel, a bull mastiff. They're among the bigger dogs at the home, with most of them being staffies or staffie crosses, and I was a little apprehensive about them being very strong or boisterous on the lead. We took them in the compound at they were really good! They're such nice dogs, very friendly and playful. Skye is like a big wolf; he's so soft and furry! Rebel is so friendly and has a lovely 'smiling' face. They even played tug of war nicely with each other! Both of them can be adopted so I would recommend going to the dog's home and checking them out! We met a volunteer who gave us loads of advice on some of the other dogs too, so that was really nice. This evening we also watched the first episode of season 3 of Game Of Thrones! It was awesome as always! I may do mini episode reviews as we work our way through.

Skye & Rebel:


Song Of The Day: Game Of Thrones Theme
Reason: Distinct and instantly captures my attention.

Highlight Of The Day: Playing with Rebel and Skye.

Inspiration Of The Day: Kristamas Klousch. Her self portraits are amazing!

Photo Every Day #80

This is one of our favourite dogs at the dogs home. She's called Holly and she's amazing! She's only a year or so old and is so cuddly and friendly. We took her and her kennel mate Sally into the compound to play with them for a bit and they were lovely. They ran after rope toys and wanted lots of fussing and attention.

Adopt Me:


Song Of The Day: Beyonce - Halo
Reason: Beautiful song.

Highlight Of The Day: Getting a new job as assistant manager at a local pet store. It's only temporary for the moment, but will hopefully lead to more in the future!

Inspiration Of The Day: This is a horrible article on the daily life of animal shelters in the USA. Such a shame that they put them down rather than trying to save them.

Crufts 2013

I've never been to Crufts before nor have I even watched it on tv properly. Since we've been talking about getting a dog I thought it'd be a good idea to go somewhere to look at different breeds and find out some more information first hand. I really enjoyed the day, tickets were only £14 each so I felt we really got value for money.

French Bulldog Kisses:

Photo Every Day #75

Today we had our induction for volunteering at Cheshire Dog's Home. We had a little talk about the place and what was expected of us and then we paired up with an existing volunteer and helped walk all of the dogs! We walked Buster and Buzz, two staffie crosses who are lovely. Then two more staffie crosses who were terribly excited and raced around and two lurchers who were as good as gold. We walked them round the track a couple of times and also had a bit of a play with them in the fenced off compound where they're allowed to go off lead. It was really nice to see how excited they were to get out of their kennels for a bit. It's a shame so many lovely dogs are unwanted and left there. If you want to volunteer, make a donation or adopt a dog have a look at their website and see if you can help! I also got round to watching comic relief and donated £5 to the cause!

Donation:


Song Of The Day: Brigit Mendler - Ready Or Not
Reason: Chirpy song for when the sun is out

Highlight Of The Day: Walking the dogs!

Inspiration Of The Day: The volunteers at the dog's home. It's really kind how they give up time for the sake of the dogs.

Photo Every Day #67

Today we went to Crufts! I've never been before so have been looking forward to it for a while. Today was the utility and toy dog competitions but we also saw some agility, heelwork to music and display teams. I'll write a proper post and go into more detail tomorrow.

French Bulldog Hugs:
 

Song Of The Day: Patti Page - How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?
Reason: Woof woof! 

Highlight Of The Day: Meeting some stunning dogs, including the one in the PED called Squiggle.

Inspiration Of The Day: Agility training! Going to start looking into it!

Photo Every Day #42

Today took a trip to a couple of local animal rescue places to find out more about volunteering. I'm hoping that we hear back soon as I'm really desperate to start gaining experience. I was very tempted to adopt a dog or another cat, but none were really suited to us and our existing pets if I'm honest. Very sad to see so many unwanted animals who are just desperate for a home.

The Pillow Game:


Song Of The Day: Katy Perry - ET
Reason: Adore the make up and styling in this video. Amazing.

Highlight Of The Day: Seeing all the beautiful animals.

Inspiration Of The Day: Being at the rescue center. It made me want to help and to get into nursing even more.

Dogs Trust Sponsor A Dog - Lexi

Whilst we were at HOYS yesterday we signed up to the sponsor a dog scheme run by the Dogs Trust charity organisation. They take in stray and unwanted dogs and try to rehome them. They also never put healthy dogs down just because they don't have the space or resources which is great. I think it's really important to invest a small donation as regular as possible into charities such as this because animals can be treated so cruelly by heartless people which is never their fault. They don't deserve to be treated badly and I'd be heartbroken if anyone abused or mistreated my animals. So whilst I can't adopt every animal going like I would like to, we've chosen to adopt Lexi, a dalmation-labrador cross and give £9 a month towards his keep. He lives in Liverpool and we can actually go visit him! So I definitely want to do that at some point and take him a toy and some treats. I will also be making sure I keep you updated when he sends me his updates and making sure I stick to my Charity Of The Month blog posts as they really could make a difference, even if one person donates a couple of pounds to a cause.

Dogs Trust - Lexi

Photo Every Day #85

Today we went for a walk with the dogs in Delamere Forest to make the most of the nice weather. I decided to play with the randomise setting on Hipstamatic and take some nice nature photos. Here are some of my favourites.

Sunny Skies:

Photo Every Day #25

Today's PED is a bit of a photo story. I've spent most of the day with my 'These Guys' crew doing some test shots for the storyboard. However, we also decided to bath the boy's doggies! They don't mind having a bath but don't really appreciate being wet for ages afterwards.

Luke is an old English sheepdog, he's huge! This is him sitting in the bath, he looks a bit sad but he did enjoy it!:


Whilst Luke was getting into the bath, Benji decided to get into the shower for a quick lie down:


Luke waiting for the washing to commence:


After Luke was soaped up and being rinsed, Benji was lifted into the bath to join in. This is them looking rather soggy:


Little Benji was a lot dirtier than Luke, who didn't seem that mucky at all:


After they were all clean and finished, they were both towelled down before running around like crazy mutts. Benji wrapped up in a towel giving the boy kisses:


Song Of The Day: Black Street - No Diggity
Reason: Heard it on the radio and it's still a great tune!