Chill Out!

It's tongue-draggin' hot around here. 

The temperature here claims to be only about 93 but the weather peeps say it FEELS like 117 and they're RIGHT! We've noticed lots of you (and us) hanging inside close to the AC, so we thought we'd post something to help cool you off.  At least the THOUGHT of it might help cool you off!

These pics are from the Polar Bear Plunge New Year's Day (this year) at a local beach.  Now, we'll admit it wasn't all that cold, maybe in the 50's, but it SEEMED kinda chilly that day, especially compared to TODAY. 

You've heard of Polar Bear Plunges, right?  Yeah, well, it's not what you'd think!  There wasn't ONE polar bear in sight.  BUT, there were lots of strange-looking humans doing strange things.  Oh, yeah, there were some dogs.  Bet they were there to see polar bears, too, and got totally disappointed!

Before we show you the pics, we must warn you that there are some scantily clad humans in these pics and one that is just EXTRA strange - we'll put it last and give you another warning in case you might get, um, offended.  But we've got to put him in here 'cause we think he's trying to challenge Frankie for the role of Captain Underpants and that's just not right!

But first, we'll show you the Polar Bear Plunge in action ~ 


(Disclaimer: Not our video. Owner's info is listed here :)


Now, we'll show you some of those nutjobs up close and in person.

Dude looks like a lady!

Close up of a totally misnamed street sign

Hey, where's everybody going?

Water . . .get me to the water!

You want a piece of me???

 

Can you spot Abraham Lincoln?

Okay, here comes the one that you might not want to see.  Trust us, we're real sorry we had to see it!  You probably don't wanta biggify this guy!  Small is bad enough!

We think he may be the one of the local politicians! BOL!

So, are ya feeling any cooler???


The Road Dogs (trying to keep cool)

Owney - The Original RAILRoad Dog

We think this little guy may be our new hero!  Seems he might have been the original Road Dog - RAILroad Dog, that is!  We can imagine the adventures he must have had!  His name is Owney and he was the unofficial mascot of the Railway Mail service in the late 1800's.  He is now being honored with his very own forever stamp - debuting on July 27, 2011!  You can pre-order Owney stamps through the USPS.  There will even be a First Day of Issue Ceremony at the Postal Museum in Washington, DC. 

Here's Owney's story gathered from various sources:

Postal workers in the Albany post office found a puppy asleep on their mail bags in 1888. It seems that he had been attracted to the texture or scent of the mailbags and traveled with them as they were transported around the country on the Railway Mail Service train. He was considered to be good luck by postal workers, since no train he ever rode on was in a wreck.

 
Owney and a letter carrier

The clerks soon adopted the little dog as their unofficial mascot, and dubbed him "Owney", although the origin of his name is unclear.  As his trips grew longer, the postal clerks at Albany became concerned that the dog be identified, and, if necessary returned to them so they placed a collar on him that explained who he was and where he came from.  
 
Owney was soon traveling all over the United States via the Railway Mail Service. Owney enchanted people from New York City to Omaha, San Francisco to Boston, and Juneau to Atlanta, as well as countless small towns across the entire country just as he had the postal clerks in Albany, and people he met began to give him items to memorialize his visit to their city. Because of this, Owney collected at least two hundred tags and other mementos from the places he visited. They marked his travels by placing tags on his collar. Throughout his life, Owney accumulated over 200 tags, tokens, trinkets, and medals, many of which are now on display at the National Postal Museum; however, a comprehensive chronology of Owney’s travels did not exist.   




His longest adventure began in 1895 when Owney left Tacoma, accompanied by a mail clerk, on the Northern Pacific mail steamer “Victoria.” Owney visited Kobe, Japan, Hong Kong, and switched to the British steamer Port Phillip that carried him to Shanghai, Singapore, the Suez, Algiers and finally back home to New York. Now THAT'S a trip!  

Several books have also been written based on Owney and his travels. 





Here's to you, Owney - you were definitely one LUCKY DOG!

The Road Dogs (thinking it's time to pull out the maps and plan a trip!)

Artsy Fartsy Friday

Today's edition of Artsy Fartsy Friday features a WHOLE SHOP full of lots of different artists who create DOG ART and ONLY DOG ART!  How cool is that???  (Um, sorry kitties ;\)

Artsy Dog is a new online shop for dog lovers and is only a few months old so this is just the beginning!  Here is just a sampling of the awesome handcrafted goodness that you'll find at Artsy Dog right now.  New items and artists are being added all the time.  You might even recognize a couple of the artists in the online shop ;) 

Bling Collar from The Twisted Cow

Hot Dawg Beaded Collars

"A Love Charm" Dog Collar by Tallulah Couture

"Delilah" Collars by The Cool Puppy

"Loki" Collars by The Cool Puppy

Gift Tags, Wrapping Paper and Notecards by Papergirl Designs

Dog on Wire Bed by P.L.A.Y.

Pillow by Designer Cushions

Bed by Martha & Ash

"Floating" Folk Art Portrait by Mary Jill Lemieur

  

Notecards by Susan Alison Art

Sweater by Dogs & Daisies

Sweater by Lollypups

Not only is Artsy Dog filled with all kinds of cool canine creations, but they are having awesome giveaways every month on Facebook.  This month's contest is "Cutest Dog Picture Contest" and the winner will receive a Burberry Plaid Collar and Leash set from R. E. Stowe.  This collar would make a spiffy addition to your Fall wardrobe.  So send in your Cutest Pics by July 29 and then go tell all your friends to "LIKE" you!

Find out the contest details and how to send in your Cutest Dog Pics on the Artsy Dog blog or Home Page under Featured Seller R. E. Stowe. Check out the competition on the voting page here.  You can follow Artsy Dog on the Blog, Facebook and Twitter to keep up with new items, giveaways and contests.

The Road Dogs

Anatomy of a Blogging Day

Today we're gonna try to explain a session of blog reading at our house. Some of you may remember that we've queried you on how you manage to get around to reading so many blogs. We seem to have difficulty getting around to reading all the blogs we would like to read. And it may seem that our reading and commenting is, um, erratic, to say the least. So, we thought we would take you behind the scenes on a day of blog reading and commenting.
First, you have to know a couple of things about us:

One - we have the attention span of this:

A Gnat



Two - we are as easily distracted as one of these:

A Magpie

Some days we start out with a plan. We have several plans to choose from:

Plan A - Visit our Mayor Frankie Furter first because he is so good at keeping us informed about the goings on in our little corner of Blogville.

Plan B - Visit the blogs that commented on our most recent post, if we haven't already.

Plan C - Go to Google Reader and start at the top and work our way down.

Plan D - If there's a Blogville Event going on, for example - the Fiesty's Three's luau, we'll start there.

Plan E - If someone pops into our heads first, we'll start there.  For example, if it's Monday, we know Shawnee has a post about her weekend hike.

You get the idea.

BUT - Regardless of which Plan we choose, our blog reading and commenting session always ends up like this:

All Over the Place



Here's how a blogging session might look to an outsider: (The following examples are hypotheticals only and used for the sole purpose of illustrating our point although the events might have actually occurred at some point in time but not necessarily in the order or at the time stated below. This should cover us against libel, slander or defamation.)

Sometimes we all gather around the computer and read and comment together.  Obviously, this is a slower process and we don't get to visit nearly as many blogs during these sessions.  But, most times it's just 1 or 2 of us because someone's got to guard the perimeter and someone's got to stand watch in the kitchen in case there's any activity there.

Okay, here we go.  Click on Google Reader and start at the top.  Oh, look, Frankie's first on the list so we get to do Plan A and Plan B at the same time - you know, two birds with one stone.  Now, taking this route means we intend to go to Frankie's place, read, comment, then come back to Google Reader and go to the next blog on the list, right?

Visit Frankie's Place - Where we find out the latest news about Charcoal and get a peak at Frankie's beeyootiful garden and find out the Fiesty Three are having a luau soon. And there's a photo contest for biggest bug on the planet. Leave comment -

"Oooh, beeyootiful garden, Frankie. Charcoal is looking better. Looking forward to the luau. We're sure South Carolina has the biggest bugs on the planet!" 

Gosh, we've got to pack for the luau and get plane tickets!  Oh, and let's look through our photo library for some bug pics.  Spend the next hour looking through our photo library.  There's a few bug pics, but none that are outstanding.  Get camera and go outside hunting for humongous bugs.  Blogging session over for the day . . .

NEXT Blogging Session - We promise ourselves this one will be better - we'll stay on track and visit lots more blogs.  We're really behind on commenting and we haven't visited Ms. M and Mr. B in a while OR the Grey Ladies and Morgan and hey, is Puddles back yet . . .

Okay, let's get to it.  Focus, focus, focus!  Go to Google Reader.  Start at the top. 

Great!  There's our pal, Pip, at the top of the list.  We start there.  Oh, look how adorable Pip is in his sungoggles!  Oh, wow!  They sold their house!  Yippee!  (We're hoping this will be true soon!)  Leave comment about how happy we are that Pip will have his very own yard soon.  Oh, look, there's a comment from Wyatt.  We need to go see what's growing in his garden.  And we're off . . . Google Reader abandoned.

Visit Wyatt.  See all the gorgeous flowers!  Wyatt and Stanzie are helping their folks with some important gardening projects.  Leave comment.  Wyatt always reminds us of George (although we know they're not the same breed :), so we head over to George's to check out his steps.  Leave comment. 

As we're leaving our comment, we get distracted by the list of blogs he follows on the right side over there AND there's pictures.  There's Frankie with pic of a toilet plunger.  Oh, that's gotta be funny.  There's Sam and Pippen looking adorable.  Oh, there's Sarge!  Okay, we'll visit those three and then get back to Google Reader. 

What's that?  Shhhh.  Did we just hear a peanut butter jar opening?  Let's go check it out.  And we're off . . . Blogging session abandoned for the moment.

False alarm.  No peanut butter.  Back to blogging session.  Where were we?  Can't remember.  Back to Google Reader.  Scroll through Mom's arts and crafts blogs looking for our blogging furiends.  Oh, there's Corbin and it looks like Oreo's back.  And those beautiful Sibes!  And, oh, look out the window - did you see that beautiful cardinal?  He was SOOOOO red.  Ack, is that a SQUIRREL on our fence.  No, no, no, focus, focus, focus.  Ah, there's Roo on his boat.  And Mayzie . . . Oh, WHERE do we start??? 

What?  Dad's calling us to go play!  How will we ever finish our blogging session? 

So, you can sorta see how this goes pretty much every day.  We just wanted to explain and we hope you understand our bizarre blogging habits.  We LOVE ALL our blogging friends even if we don't get around to visiting as often as we'd like!

The Road Dogs

Blog the Change - BSL

We're Blogging the Change for Animals today! Here's what's on our minds today ~

BSL (Breed Specific Legislation) - Many breed specific ordinances focus on the way a dog looks rather than the breed of the dog. Why? Because accurate "pit bull" identification is difficult, if not impossible. These ordinances are worded so broadly in order to include ANY dog that simply resembles a "pit bull." In addition, some towns have restrictions on "dangerous" dogs and include many breeds in this category. Check out Understand-A-Bull for breeds affected by BSL. You might be surprised! We're not moving to Fairfield, IA - that's for sure!

We think of some of our funny, lovable, snuggable furiends that are pitties, or have pittie characteristics, and can't imagine Blogville without them! Ms. M and Mr. B over at Two Pitties in the City who are more well-behaved than most people we know. Roo whose is such a funny guy and a really big ham whose antics always crack us up. Corbin, who loves the water and is such a good playmate and foster brother - and sometimes wears a tie (hey, we can't even get our DAD to wear a tie!) Mayzie, in all her brindle beauty, who is such a good sister to her canine brother Ranger and feline brother Cap'n Ripley. These are just a few of the pawsome pups we've met whose appearance might subject them to BSL. How crazy is that???

If knowing all of those wonderful pups that have pittie characteristics isn't enough to make you want to put an end to BSL, check out Brody's story HERE

So we're blogging today to ask all of you to help put a stop to Breed Specific Legislation. Check out STOP BSL for more info or search "BSL" for lots of info. Once this kind of discrimination gets started, there's no telling where it will go. Who knows, chihuahuas may be next on the list!

Okay, down from soapbox. As you were . . .

The Road Dogs