http://www.cincinnatipetphotographer.com/PHODOGRAPHER/Blog/Entries/2010/1/31_Ike_Needs_a_Home.html

Hmmmmm!

I bought this song on iTunes a couple of months ago and I swear I listened to it non-stop for days. Something about it makes me love it and bop around whenever it's on.

it's not that i haven't been on the computer. it seems that i'm on some sort of strange self-imposed second shift when it comes to all things online. i goof off, yes (jersey shore anyone?) but mostly i'm tweaking and researching. ALL EVENING. EVERY EVENING. thank god i have the flexibility to do that! i feel quite lucky.

i've had the worst luck w/ my logo. WORST LUCK. i had an idea which i had a kind person on flickr who is also a graphic artist offer to execute for a bargain $200 price tag. she got some stock artwork and put it together and i didn't like it. i didn't like the way it looked.. too generic, with the stock art.. and i didn't like the colors and could not make them into something i liked. so i get to pay her $200 for a logo i'm not using. AND then i get to pay someone else $400 for the logo i WILL use. i found someone to do it... we've gone through the logos a bit and i asked for feedback from a successful pet photographer and she said it was too cartoonish so i gave that feedback to the graphic artist and she said cool, she'll come up w/ some new concepts within a day or so, followed by a rambling email from me about how i do like what she designed and maybe i'll stick with it, but i sure would appreciate seeing some options just so i can be sure... and that was two days ago and i haven't heard from her so i dunno if i pissed her off or what. sigh!

oh, get this. my cousin:

seriously. SERIOUSLY. she's my mom's sister's daughter, lisa. she pretended she had CANCER. bald head and everything. chemo "port" on her chest. it was all fake. she was applying for SSI benefits and apparently made up her own medical records and got caught. she had said she only had 8-12 months to live. so umm... all that work for less than a year of pay? OKAY.

the part that really pisses me off is that my family had a benefit for her. my brother-in-law drove all around the town getting donations from local businesses so they would have stuff to auction off. they all attended the benefit, bid on items... and it was all fake. everyone was stepping in to try to help.. her mother has passed away so my mom was trying to be there for her. we offered to have chris look at her medical records since it sounded as if her doctors were giving her a runaround with her treatment due to her condition and/or insurance. when she didn't send the records, i started to wonder.. i felt like an ass for thinking the worst of her, but it turned out i was right. !!! LOSER.

okay, back to my 2nd shift business buildin'. :)

Yep, a scruffy, dirty little white dog. I went over to it and it ignored me, so I got down and did the play bow and it - she - ran right over to me. I picked her up and we went knocking on doors but no one answered even though it was a weekend and there were cars everywhere. I found a kid walking down the street looking as if he was headed to work at a fast food joint. He said he had never seen the dog before.

Soooo... What else? We took her home.

I gave her two baths and the water ran brown. Then Chris helped me trim all the mats off her fur. It was crazy... her ears were literally twice the size they should be due to the fur matting together. Inside her ears, she had dreadlocks. She had poop on her butt, huge burdocks stuck in her fur, big mats everywhere, eye boogers the size of quarters... ooh, and fleas! Yay, fleas!

The Humane Society has no record of anyone reporting her missing and she isn't microchipped. Chris at first had said to put up signs in the neighborhood, but he realized what I did quickly - that if this dog recently "belonged" to anyone, they were not taking care of her AT ALL. So screw them.

This is her after three baths, an hourlong grooming session, and multiple follow-ups with me using scissors to cut off pesky tangles as she chewed rawhides:

I want to name her Daisy, but someone is coming to look at her tomorrow so I'll give that lady the honor if she decides to take her home.

A little about her:

She is ADORABLE.

She has extremely white teeth, so I think she must be young.

She is extremely sweet.

She is really playful. She bounds across the pool deck if you call for her, dragging a rawhide in her mouth.

She is very happy-go-lucky. What a difference from when I brought Maggie home! So she may have been neglected, but it doesn't seem like anyone's been mean to her. She snuggles and lets you lay her on her back and all sorts of cutie goodness.

She is extremely patient - she sat still so well for us to trim her down, and during the ensuing catch-fleas or cut-out-tangles sessions, she has sat completely still for me. None of MY dogs would do such a thing.

She's a perfect size. Small enough to pick up and hold and snuggle on your lap, but not so small that you have to worry you'll, like, break her or something. About 15 lbs?

She was waaaay too interested in the cats when she first arrived, but as of the second day she was here she was moving to the side to let Kitten have her food. Yes, she is scared of cats now. :D Not so much Oreo yet though..

She sleeps in weird positions. Draped over the back of the couch, for example, or smooshed between my leg and the arm of the chair.

She is not potty trained, but we're working on that. No accidents in the house today! We're crate training. No fun, but necessary.

When we have not watched her carefully, she has chosen multiple rugs and carpets to do her business on. We have a wood floor, chica - go on that!!!

Whoever gets her is going to be really, really lucky. I'm jealous!

i did a shoot for by's boss today. she has more animals than us - 2 horses, a miniature donkey(!!!), two tortoises, seven dogs(!!!), and four cats. she lives out west where you can get lots of land and i'm jealous.

i did just pics of the daddy's favorite, a bulldog named daisy. cuuute. just finished processing a bunch and uploading them. overall i am not all that happy with them, but at the same time it was a good first shoot i think. i had never met a stranger to shoot their dog before. it was like an hour before sunset, so that would've been good, only the skies gloomed up and it was pretty dark. that sucks. and the dog was difficult in a few ways so i didn't get the variety i wanted, but not all dogs are going to be easy so it was good. i am looking forward to practicing more. before i used to dread it.. fear of failure. but now i think i have a LITTLE confidence and it has made me want to try harder... i feel like i am learning a lot and have a lot to learn so have nowhere to go from here but up. and that'll take work and practice!

in other news, amanda got here tonight. poor kid had such a bad time flying by herself for the first time. but she's here and hopefully her luggage will join us tomorrow.

tonight at the pet store i am surprised i didn't get kicked out. i had a bit to kill between shoot & airport so went to the store to get a treat bag. some lady was buying a bunny for her kids. a CUTE ADORABLE TINY baby bunny. of coures the store guy was telling her a bunch of b.s... they were picking out rabbit shampoo when i walked over there, for chrissake! that and he tried to lie and say the bunnies were already spayed. already spayed my ass. but i tried to make the lady understand that you need to spay & neuter rabbits and you can litter train them (she had no idea) and that it makes keeping them way more pleasant, AND that she could make sure she integrates the bunny into their lives rather than just leaving it in the cage. i hope it works out for them. i honestly just worry so much... a life in a cage by yourself is just no life, you know? so i hope that's not what they give that little sweet girl.

okeeeee, time for bed. early for me but i got a niece to wake up for now!