Good Morning Everyone!

I just woke up from my post-blogathon nap, all nice and refreshed. I have no idea why the human woman is in such a foul mood after having to go to work these past two days. I would think she slept enough during the blogathon so she wouldn’t be tired.

I know a lot of you are itching to pay up, and I really appreciate that, but Blogathon doesn’t officially close out until 6pm Eastern Time tomorrow. I need to hold out on my official sponsor prize drawing until then in case someone wants to do a lost minute sponsor thing. It wouldn’t be fair, so stop whining.

For those of you that want to go ahead and pay your pledge money, the human woman was nice enough to put a handy little button right on the HTHNBR Web site for you to pay through Paypal. Its right on the first page, right at the top, hard to miss.

For those of you that want to go ahead and send a check, just make it out to HTHNBR and mail it to:

Harnessed to Hope Northern Breed Rescue
P.O. Box 21202
Philadelphia, PA 19114-0702

For all of you prize winners, please e-mail your mailing address to me privately at:
meeshkaworld@gmail.com

In case you forgot:
Sitka and Tia
Dakota
Cyber-Sibes
Steve and Kat
Tasha and Eva
Khyra
Kodo
Holly
Gaels88
Peppersmommy
Chris D
Kapp Pack

All won really really cool prizes during blogathon. There will be THREE more prizes drawn for on Wednesday night, so stayed tuned for the announcement of the raffle.

You guys are the best, and we made well over $2,500 for Harnessed to Hope, much needed funds for much deserving pups.

As soon as the details are over with on Wednesday, I will begin my regularly scheduled complaining.

Oh, and I apologize to those who submitted HULA applications and they didn’t get put up for Blogathon. I had a lot to juggle that night and frankly around 1:30am, with the overwhelming smell of human woman hair smoldering, its just a blur.

Meeshka
(time for another recovery nap)

So Long For Now

Even though this is the last Blogathon post, I just wanted to remind all of my registered sponsors and those who still want to sponsor me that you have 48 hours to sponsor someone. There are a LOT of good causes for blogathon, so show your appreciation if you enjoyed their blog and pledge them a few bucks.

I'll also be holding a raffle for some more prizes after that 48 hour period, so check back to see if you are one of the lucky winners!

You probably won't hear from blogathon until after sponsorship closes, so don't be concerned if its a day or two before you get instructions on how to pay your pledge straight to Harnessed to Hope. It may also be a day or two before you hear from me about the prizes that everyone won. I'll be contacting you all to get snail mail addresses to send your prizes, but I will be waiting until all drawings are over with to save on shipping in case you win some more!

And now, from the human woman, Suck Up Gimpy Mutatoe Loki, Spineless Bionic Hip Puppy Sam, and myself:
Meeshka

Thank You Everyone

I just wanted to spend a little time to thank everyone for staying up all night with me (since the human woman was nearly worthless in this whole endeavor) and keeping me awake and entertained so that I could help a really good rescue continue to do some really good work.

Thanks to everyone that sponsored me, Harnessed to Hope Northern Breed Rescue will get some much needed funds to not only pay in full on Xia's much needed surgery, but to help other dogs find good, loving, caring homes where their humans don't blow all sorts of money on cookies and ice cream.

I hope you will be able to join them on 5 August 2007 and hear Karen Ramstead speak, she's truly an inspiration, and she loves all of her dogs with all of her heart.

If you are in the Pennsylvania area, I also hope that you can come out and participate in the first annual Hike N Howl! Three area rescues are teaming together to help homeless huskies and northern breeds find good homes, educate people, and just have a fun time. There is no admission fee to get into this fun fest, just bring your well behaved leashed dog of any breed, shape, size, or furriness and come join us. If you raise a certain amount of pledges for the hike, then you get a goodie bag. Its going to be really cool, with prizes and demonstrations, food, and fun.

HTHNBR will also be at events in Maryland, PA, NJ, and DE throughout the year, so if you get a chance, check out their calendar and stop by and see them, they'd love to meet you and thank you in person for your generosity.

I have one more post after this, and then I'll be leaping onto the sleep number (I'm a 25, who cares what the human woman is), stay tuned for the last post of Blogathon 2007.

Meeshka

A Rerun, But A good One

A while back, Sasha and I wanted to come up with the ultimate cartoon to show people what northern breeds were really like. We had heard the humans telling people what they were like, and sometimes it just doesn't seem to get through to them.

We came up with a funny, but realistic way to tell them what they're like and we call it "Husky Dance" (sung to the tune of Safety Dance). You may have seen it on my blog before, but I'm tired and I still thinks its funny, and its my blog so here it is for those who may not have enjoyed it the first time around:
Meeshka
(2 more and I'm leaping on the sleep number)

What Have We learned Tonight?

Well, we learned an awful lot about Malomars that we really didn't need to know. By the way, Alfredo died a horrible eaten death.

We've learned not to trust the human woman around the bug zapper, or trust her to stay awake for 24 hours. Yeah, just when its ending she comes stomping down the stairs all sleepy and raring to go after her long coma.

We've also learned that eating strawberry gum isn't a great thing after all, but the most important thing we learned was that if you do yack it up after you eat it... blame someone else.

And we learned that when it thunders here, it seems to thunder everywhere, therefore Merryland is the center of the world, and all over the world, dogs are wearing stupid looking shirts.

What have you learned from Blogathon 2007?

Meeshka
(I have enough paw pads to count how long before I crawl into bed)

Final Prize Fest Goes to...

Yes, it was very close, but Holly edged out Dakota by a nose!

Holly! You win this really rare Sammy stuffie, but you could always say that its a rare albino Malamute.










Dakota, congratulations, you've won the howling husky keychain!!!

Well everyone, that's all for Willy Nilly Prize fest. I still have some posts to go before this ride is over, and after I eat breakfast, I'll be right back to start wrapping up on Blogathon 2007!

Meeshka
(bleary eyed but bushy tailed... and very fluffy still, never lose the fluffy, gotta have the fluffy, and we're down to 4)

P.S. Steve and Kat, the husky sleepy pants are from stock that isn't sold anymore, but if you e-mail me after I wake up, I may be able to hook you up with a pair.

3rd Prize Fest Goes to...

Sitka and Tia, congratulations you've won an authentic (that means real) 2005 North Wapiti Kennels Iditarod Patch! Donated by Karen Ramstead, you can sew this patch on your favorite leash or collar and wear it proudly!

Second prize goes to Steve and Kat! Congratulations you two for not only staying up this long and blogging for a great charity, but for managing to post comments on my blog when I have been oh so lacking in commenting back.
I blame it all on the human woman since I've been forced to take over all the typing since the bug zapper incident. You get this... very soft, strange looking husky stuffie.


Ok everyone, this is going to be the last Prize Fest of the night. Remember, after blogathon is over and I get my much deserved rest, there will be a drawing where ALL registered sponsors are eligible for really cool prizes that I'll figure out after I wake up.

Ok, are you ready for last prize fest? I'm sure you're not, but here goes:

In the 2007 Fur-ever homes, what is Shiloh's new name?

Meeshka (I think we're down to 5 posts left)

2nd Prize Fest Goes To...

Tasha and Eva! Way to go to be the first to answer Prize Fest Question #2!
For all of your hard work, you win this wonderful Jack Daniels Official Sponsor, Last Great Race t-shirt that was donated by Karen Ramstead. Just when you think it couldn't get any better... wait... there's more!

This black shirt contains official KARA FUR!! Yes, that's right, there's official Iditarod siberian husky fur on this t-shirt.



And the second place winner is: BAMA!

congratulations Bama, you've won this official pawprint keychain...ok, its not really an official anything, but it certainly is stylish and you'll be the talk of the town!


Ok, everyone, ready for the next one?

The next prize goes to the first two registered sponsors who can tell me:

Which non-looking northern breed recently had to come back into rescue because she didn't like to be without other dogs?

Meeshka (only 6 more posts to go)

Congratulations!

Congratulations Kodo and how appropriate that you named Snickers. You've won this very special autographed picture of Karen's Pretty Sled Dogs, and look who is out in front leading.

For those of you who may not know, Karen lost her faithful and wonderful lead dog Snickers during the 2007 Iditarod to a stomach ulcer, an illness that is tragically common in athletic dogs. In Snickers' name, Karen has even started a fund to help research, find the cause and find a cure for this illness.

Please note, that the picture does not have that annoying glare thing near the top, that's the human woman's flash.



Ok, now for second place, the winner is HOLLY!!!!!
Way to go Holly, you get this fabulous little laying down wolf howling ... thing. Really, its cute, no really it is, really.

Ok, for two more prizes: in the HTH Husky "We Like to Lounge" section, who is a professional lounger?

Meeshka

It Free For All Prize Fest!!

Yes, everyhusky, dog, and girl-girl and whoever else is insane enough to be awake this early or who hasn’t gone to bed yet, its time for prizes to fly willy nilly and now all bets are off, its every breed for themselves! Remember, only registered sponsors are eligible.

For the first prize on free for all prize fest, I’m not even going to tell you what it is, you just have to trust me that its a good prize, a really special prize that has meaning to a certain Iditarod musher that will be coming to Pennsylvania to speak and all proceeds to her tickets sales are graciously being donated to HTH.

All you have to do to win this prize is name just ONE of her Pretty Sled Dogs. It can be any one of them, but you have to find her site. I’ll give you a hint, there’s a link on the HTH site, that will take you to a link that will have her speaking engagement listed and if you click on that, there’s a link to her site.

Any of her dogs, just name one of them and this special prize will be yours...if the name is right (ok, there’s no “right” name, I was just spoofing that game show thing).

But WAIT! The person who posts second will also receive a prize! OOOH and I’m not going to tell you what that prize is, but its cute, and its ... a prize. No, its not the gimpy suckup mutatoe, the human woman wouldn’t like it if she woke up and found that I’ve given away her foot warmer.

Meeshka
(after this, only 8 more posts to go)

HULA Hall of Fame

There is something special about this bunch. When HULA was first conceived, the actual brainchild came from reading their human woman's exploits and their fine art of driving her stark raving insane, and yet she also spoke of their misdeeds with such wistful fondness. It is with great pleasure that I am hereby announcing the first ever entrants into the HULA Hall of Fame.

Without further ado, I present the exploits of true HULA covert operators: The Hubley Hooligans!

Meeshka,
We Hooligans can truly say we've done it all, there's not much we haven't subjected our Mother too and we feel she is well on her way to the nut house.

All our dirty deeds are on BLOG http://hubleyhooligans.blogspot.com/

1. we regularly disturb Moms sleep, destroy her ability to travel, make her clean daily, we always make sure one of us gets sick if she's going away :)

2. make like we are not breathing, disappear or hide on her, Pride growls at her if she even points at him and won't come when he's called, Weaver screams like he's being murdered, once in Petsmart and always when he's sledding,

3. Destroy anything we can get our paws on, couch, moulding, dog house, fencing, chair, CD's, remotes, money, Cross Stitching, leather whip (Gemini pooped that out for days on her walks :), toilet paper is fun,

4. When Mom shops she always has to get something for us and she spends countless hours in the basement chopping up our raw lamb for us

5. she will attempt to dress us up but it never goes on long if there's a group of us so she has to separate us to dress us up

6. we all like paper towel & Kleenex, Tasha used to be able to get Moms garbage can open in Moms room and eat Kleenex and spread it every where for Mom

Hubley Hooligans
"Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the hydrant."

I seriously don't understand humans

While trying to stay awake (easy enough with the human woman’s snoring) I was cruising through the news stories of the day, and I have to say that some of the things that humans do really, really confuse me.

For instance, here is an interesting story about a boy who swallowed a “grill”. I thought the boy swallowed a barbecue grill, and I was pretty amazed and about ready to nominate the human boy into HULA for such a feat, but apparently humans have some kind of teeth thing that they wear to make them look as though they have metal teeth.

Ok, so my first question is... why?

My second question is: what kind of mother buys her 7 year old son fake metal teeth to wear? Do human pups even have their teeth at that age? What purpose would there be to have a 7 year old human pup running around with metal teeth?

My third question is: what kind of mother buys her 7 year old son fake metal teeth from a FLEA MARKET? Euw!

That’s sorta like buying underwear from a thrift store... its used!

Oh sure, we’ve been known to roll in a dead thing or two, and yes, I admit that I’ve eaten poop (which can certainly be considered “used”) and I really have no idea what goes through the human mind at times... but I’m a dog! I can lick my private areas, but that’s only because we don’t have opposable thumbs and can’t work a washing machine, so its not like I can use a washcloth. Admit it, if you could lick...

I mean seriously, I just don’t see why you humans go to all this trouble to wear makeup and put metal things on your teeth, and all that.

Apparently the kid is expected to poo out the “grill” but the parents are concerned that it hasn’t come out yet. Welcome to the world of the human woman and get yourself some exam room gloves. At least they won’t have to go out in the yard in the rain to look for it. At least they have that going for them.

Meeshka
(about the only thing I like on a grill is chicken)

P.S. Don’t worry Tasha and Eva, even if you could remember your mailing address, chances are I’d lose it right now.

Well, that was a bit of a mess

I'm glad I'm not the only one that is a bit fuzzy tonight.

I never expected anyone to guess Kate Bush, but Tasha and Eva pulled that out quick. The kleenex was very tasty and you win a stylish husky key chain. Let me know if you prefer black/white husky or gray/white husky. That also doesn't count against the two prize rule.

As far as the winner of the mom and pup goes... well, Mud Monster and DWB happens to be a volunteer for HTH just playing along for fun, so she doesn't win.

Khyra... you almost had it, but Yaya? I'm sure little Yeva the life giver won't like to be called Yaya, but hey, its 3:30 am, so I'll give it to you anyway, I'm sure it was just tired claws on the keyboard. That means you've hit your two prizes until free for all prize fest.

If anyone didn't pipe up because they thought someone else won, then let me know and I'll throw another one into the hopper for free for all prize fest.

Meeshka
(my brain is leaking now)

My Mind is a Blank Slate

After dealing with the human woman’s cookie melt down, I’m afraid my brain has just shut down. I never expected to have to babysit her all night, I mean, come on, last year she at least lasted until 4 am before she fell over. You would think that I got her up at 5:30 am this morning and wouldn’t let her go back to sleep or something.

Oh, ok, so that actually did happen, but geez, its not like 24 hours is THAT long!

Ok, I have a confession to make. I’ve sat here for the past 5 minutes clicking my razor sharp claws on the powerbook and frankly... nothing, nothing is coming to me, total blank, hitting the wall, zoning out, and dream of sheep (secret prize for anyone who can tell me who sang the lyric “and dream of sheep”, I’ll give you another hint “running up that hill” if anyone gets that... I’ll eat a kleenex, well, I’d eat one anyway).

Ok, for the real contest, since time is ticking away, who can name any of the puppy mom combinations that HTH has had in foster care. For the first registered sponsor that names the mom and puppies, you will get the cool stuffed husky that’s holding a puppy in its mouth.

While you are all looking for that answer, I’m going to go take a quick tinkle and stretch my fluffy yet sleepy legs and perhaps steal the pinwheel cookie the human woman has just named Alfredo.

Meeshka
(sleeeepy)

I should have let her sleep

Oh for the love of fur, she’s awake and cranky now. I should have just left her alone on the floor.

First I got to hear all about the fact that she’s out of liquid non-dairy creamer. Stop the world, she’s out of non-dairy creamer and has to use the powdered stuff!! AAAAH the world is ending!

Gee, its not like she JUST went to the store yesterday and stocked up on enough junk food to feed a small nation of pot smoking hippies.

Then there was the “oh, these double stuff oreos just don’t have as much filling as they use to, they’re skimping on the filling and they’re slightly stale too, I hate slightly stale oreo cookies without as much double stuff as before”.

I’m not even going to get into the crying Malomar rant that lasted a good 15 minutes.


It got so bad that even suck up gimpy Mutatoe went into the bedroom and curled up, even he had enough of her ranting and complaining.

That's pretty bad when even the Mutatoe (who is a suck up) runs off and hides from her.

I'm trying to convince her to eat another turkey sandwich so I can type in peace.

Meeshka
(EUW she just drooled on me!)

And The Winner Is!

I actually piddled a little bit when I read this one.

Congratulations Sitka and Tia. Since you've won 2 prizes tonight, you can play along, but you can't win any more prizes UNTIL (sound of dramatic music) CONTEST FREE FOR ALL!

Contest free for all will start promptly at 5am and that's where wackiness will ensue and prizes will be flung willy nilly and all registered sponsors will be eligible to win to their heart's desire.

Its Create That Thought Bubble Time!

Ok, everyone that's still awake and semi lucid (which doesn't include the human woman), and a registered sponsor, the object of this contest is to write (in your best rendition of ME) what needs to go in this thought bubble.

The best caption (in my humble opinion) will win their very own autographed copy of "Pretty Sled Dogs".

You have until 1:45am to submit your entries and the winner will be announced with the winning entry in the thought bubble for the next blog entry at 2am.

So, you think its easy coming up with witty things at 1:30 am...here's your shot!

Meeshka
(Its ok Tashi, you're still my sister, and I forgive you for that Vegas bender and forgetting to tell me about dad... no you can't have 5 bucks)

Oh this is a very sad day!

The other day when I saw Tashi I asked her how mom and my dad (her grandfather) was doing, and she said fine, but she said it in that sorta “fine” way, like she probably didn’t really know anything. She never calls mom because mom always needs money, and Tashi got her money handling gene from mom, so they’re always asking each other for money, so I’m guessing she never called mom, otherwise she would have told me that my dad passed away!

I was going to go out and show you my dad, because I look like him so much and I also act like him a lot, and then show you a picture of mom so you could compare it to Tashi (who is a spitting image of mom) and there at the bottom of the page was a picture of dad and the ol’ “In Loving Memory” thing!

This is horrible! Not only is it thundering, but now I’m dadless! Nobody bothered to call me and tell me! I’m sure mom took all of his money and squandered it on lotto tickets and generic smokes (gee, don’t know where Tashi got those habits from)

Here is a picture of my mom Beaner and me when I was a tiny little puppy:



and if you go here and scroll down near the bottom, there’s a picture of my dad: Aesir’s Red Dawg, and his tribute is also at the bottom.

sniff
Meeshka

Congratulations Kapp Pack!

Even though the site says “giver of life” (or something like that) it also means Eve (a giver of life), so I’m going to give it to you!

The human woman appears to be drooping again. I figured that if she got a latte, stopped playing with the bug zapper and ate some pinwheels (which, do I need to remind you, aren’t as good as malomars) that she could manage to stay awake a while longer, but apparently I was wrong. All I did was get up to stretch and she just lolled right over in the chair. Eesh.

On a happier note, I received some good HULA training information from the foster human woman of the North Carolina pups just now:

“They earned their HULA stripes tonight, by completely trashing a room when they were left alone for about 15 minutes. Which I would generally NEVER do, but had to talk to one of my contractors and it took a while. Uh, the bag of beef jerky in my purse on the floor from today's drive from NJ probably was what got the party started. I came back to find they had destroyed some of the jerky, some of its bag, a comb from my purse, some papers from my purse, the coin purse part of my wallet, and some of a roll of paper towels. In addition, they had knocked over a glass of ginger ale I thought was out of reach and tracked that everywhere, and lastly of course, made one pile and one puddle. When I started cleaning it up, they switched off between trying to steal my trash bag, and body-slamming each other into the sticky ginger-ale mess.”

Oh, there’s nothing like puppies covered in sticky ginger-ale to make your night! I’m so very proud of their training.

Meeshka
(I’m having a brain fart and can’t think of a closer)

Only 9 More Hours to Go

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to 29 July by the human calendar, and we’re going on hour.... hmmm...I don’t have enough paw pads to count that high and frankly I’m a bit distracted at the moment.

To throw off the gimpy suck up mutatoe and the spineless bionic hip puppy Sam, the human woman went upstairs and did all of the preparation for going to bed, including giving us goldfish crackers... MY goldfish cracker blogathon snacks mind you, and then she turned out the light and I thought for sure I was going to have to do some serious whup clawing if she headed for that bed, but she went downstairs and sat in front of the powerbook like a good little minion and waited me to come down and dictate.

I guess she realized that if she didn’t do that, the suck up gimpy mutatoe would pitch a fit and scream until she got him his crackers and tucked him into bed. He was actually fooled for a good hour before realizing that she wasn’t in the bed and finally came down, gave us both a dirty look, curled up on the cushy pillow with his nasty sucked on lime green shirt and fell asleep.

Ok, I feel like giving out a really REALLY good prize now, so the first commenter that can tell me what the name Yeva means, will get the totally cool and very fluffy (almost as fluffy as me) Red stuffed husky (as seen here)

Meeshka
(the human woman is drooping again)

A Moment of Silence for the Passing of a Sweet Pup

I hate to put a damper on the festivities, but Pippin’s comment made me aware that one of our dogs with blogs members has crossed over the rainbow bridge.

I’m sure Oscar would want us all to go ahead and have fun and enjoy this time, but I just wanted to take a moment and have everyone helping me with blogathon go to Oscar’s blog and send their condolences to his human woman.

Run free Oscar, run free with Nikki, the old guy-guy Nova and that other dogs with blogs that have passed before you... and say hi to Fu-Fu for us while you’re there.

Meeshka
(sniff)

Xia's Day Out

Xia and some other dogs got to go to an HTH event today and meet people and get all sorts of attention. Meanwhile I’m stuck in the house with the singed hair human woman and Mr. ogre in my pants.

Apparently she kept trying to run around and leap on people (like a good husky) so she had to spend a lot of time in her recovery crate because she’s not suppose to be doing that on her newly fixed gimpy leg.

Here’s a picture of her in action:

She’s very cute, but not very fluffy at all. I have found out that she’s learning how to become a good covert HULA agent by using small humans as mattresses, and doing things she’s not suppose to be doing on her gimpy leg, which counts toward the freak out the humans points.

Wow, according to all of you, its thundering EVERYWHERE! I don’t like thunder, it makes me need to claw the human woman and get her to safety... well, get her to safety so I’m safe too. I’m no hero, I’m looking out for the number one fluffy, but the number one fluffy has to eat and the human woman can work the can opener... well, she can sorta work the can opener. She actually just bought a new one (apparently the place called Bed, Bath & Beyond, which sorta looks like the house of a hoarder, doesn’t carry the ones you plug into a wall), and its the kind for people with bad hands. She can use it now, but she mumbles when she uses it, something about “freakin not old, don’t need to be using an old people can opener”... I don’t know, this from the woman that rants about the availability of malomars and smacks herself in the head with the bug zapper.

Ok Doodles, I need clarification... there’s no thunder EVER in Kali4na or just no thunder right this second?

Meeshka
(inquiring minds need to know if there’s a thunder-free zone)

Congratulations Khyra!

Khyra knew the answer to which foster dog saved the day, it was Oliver!

Your stylish red husky shirt will be winging its way to you after I wake up.

Oliver is one of those shy to stranger eskies, but since he’s been in his foster home, he’s really opened up and is simply having a ball playing with the other dogs and humans. He’s had the opportunity to go be introduced at a baseball game, and other fun adventures, but he really loves standing on the stairs and leaping straight on Dante, his foster brother. Dante loves it when Oliver leaps on him, and even purposefully walks by the stairs knowing that he’s going to be pounced on.

Although I’m sorry to report that none of the eskies got adopted tonight, it wasn’t that nobody wanted them, there were some issues with the prospective home and sometimes that happens.

Um... what was that noise?

Was that thunder?

Did anyone hear thunder?

Meeshka
(get the shirt away from me)

Where's my Puppachino?

A little while ago the human man ran down the stairs, pronounced that he had to go run out and get something and left. Well, that’s interesting, since:

1.) He actually stopped playing World of Warcraft and the house wasn’t on fire
2.) It was 8:30 at night and typically neither of the humans leave the house after dark unless its to drag one of us to the ER vet.

I made a head count and yep, there’s one gimpy suck up mutatoe and one spineless bionic hip puppy, and I was there... that’s very odd.

About a half hour later he came back... with Starbucks for him and the human woman! Um, HELLO? Where’s my puppachino? Don’t I get anything? I’m doing all of the work ever since the unfortunate accident with the bug zapper (her hair stopped smoldering finally).

I swear, I’m going to start my own little coffee house for just dogs. I was going to call is Starbarks, but I’m sure Starbucks would sue me, and its such a great idea that I’m sure others have come up with it (and were subsequently sued by Starbucks). It’ll be a cozy little place to hang out on comfy dog beds and listen to music... or birds or something, and we can pee where we want, which will make Sammy happy, since he likes peeing on everything.

Speaking of peeing (ah, I bet you thought I was going to come up with another contest... wrong), somehow Sammy managed to get into the back room where all of the laundry is and he peed on a clothes basket. I have no idea why he likes peeing on the clothes baskets, but he does. The human woman curses when she finds it, and she curses even louder when he does it on a basket that happens to be full of freshly washed clothes. I think he got that habit from the old guy-guy Nova because he use to love peeing on clothes baskets too.

Ok, speaking of peeing (yes, this is a contest alert), which of the HTH foster dogs was recently a hero and saved his foster family when a pan started smoking? The first registered sponsor who answers that question will get.... a really cool Red Husky t-shirt!

Meeshka
(I pee, you pee, we all pee... wish I had some ice cream)

The Art of Horka

I’m glad Turbo asked about the Art of Horka because its very important for all dogs to understand that horka is indeed an art form, and has some rules.

For those humans that don’t know what horka means, I’ll put it in more human terms:
vomit
throw up
drive the porcelain bus
heave
spew
blow chunks

Must I go on?

The rules of horka are very simple as well:

1.) If you have a choice between horkaing on something easy to clean or something impossible to clean, switch positions so you hit the impossible to clean area. I, myself, have walked several feet in order to avoid horkaing on linoleum just to get to the carpet.

2.) if the humans put something under you to catch the horka, at the last minute turn your head and horka on their antique persian rug.

3.) If nobody is watching, horka in a shoe or other human clothing item. They appreciate the surprise later on when they find it.

4.) Horka in the middle of the night, do it right on the bed. That gets everyone up and moving.

5.) If possible, horka up something they never expected, like a sock or pair of underwear. If you horka up a pair of underwear, make sure you do it in front of company.

Last but not least:

6.) Wait until they clean up the horka... then horka again in a different spot.

The art of horka depends on your preference. Sasha tells me that she’s a hunched over standing horka type. She’s also mobile, which spreads the horka out farther and wider, more to clean up.

I prefer the standing straight as possible ear bob horka, as demonstrated below:

ears forward on the hork, ears back on the A, and ending with a very loud yiiiiiiack for emphasis.

So, what’s your favorite or most interesting place to horka, and do you have a style of your own?

Meeshka

Congratulations Chris D!

yes, Chris D got it right, there are Zero lost dogs on the HTH site, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean there aren’t any lost dogs at all.

Chris, if you can let me know what name you sponsored me under so I can keep track of the gifts and know how to get ahold of you, I would appreciate it. You can e-mail me privately at: meeshkaworld@gmail.com.

One of the important things you have to tell your humans is that we need to be microchipped. Northern Breeds are infamous for our escape talents, and we tend to keep running once we’re free. We could easily end up very very far away when we escape and maybe the humans wouldn’t think to look for us that far, so its very important that we have some form of identification on us.

We can slip out of our collars, or even chew through our collars to avoid identification in our covert activities, so microchipping is probably one of the best ways to get us identified and returned. Plus, if there’s ever any question of who we are and who we belong to, a microchip will prove ownership.

There are several microchip makers out there, and all but one (Banfield) is the same frequency and can be read with a universal scanner. Just make sure that you choose a chip that can be read with a universal scanner, and that they don’t charge you an annual fee to maintain your records in their database and you’ll be good to go.

This has been your microchip information minute.

Hey Turbo, I think I provided the horka details while infiltrating sibernet, so check their archives, but in case you can’t find it, I’ll cartoon it for you next few blog entries.

HEY only 12 more hours to go!

Meeshka
(hork A)

An Interesting Color

I just received word from Sasha that she’s been found out. She tried to pass the blame of eating the strawberry gum on Isis, the big fluffy lug that constantly steals her bed and drives her insane, but the jig was up when Sasha hurled a bright pink/red wad of gum up in front of her humans.

Yep, there’s nothing that’ll give you away like horkaing up your ill gotten booty. Its best if you try something devious that you try not to urp up the evidence, and as always, if your humans are like my humans, they’ll even go so far as the go out and sort through your poo with rubber gloves on looking for evidence. The human woman calls it PSI = Poop Scene Investigator. Yes, she then laughs at her own joke and thinks she’s clever, and I just claw her.

Yeah, so even though Sasha got caught with the evidence (I guess you can say she got caught red-tongued... ok, shut up I’m getting tired and the human woman is sitting here still smoldering and the smell is slightly nauseating), she still managed to freak them out because it came out all pinkish/red and at first they thought she was throwing up blood. I’m sure that’ll leave a nice stain too.

Note to self: strawberry ice breaker gum is right out.

Speaking of lost dogs (ok, I wasn’t speaking of them, but I couldn’t come up with a good intro to the contest), the first one to tell me in a blog comment how many lost dogs are listed on the HTH site will get their very own “My Dog Walks All Over Me” t-shirt. Yes, its totally breed non-specific and perfect for everydog, and comes in a zillion sizes, so get out there and win one for the ... whatever.

Meeshka
(I think I just saw a chipmunk wearing a vest run by)

New HULA Member: Bama, Chili, Mikki, Cracker

This is my application for our entire pack to be accepted as members of the HULA Hoop.

1.) Demonstrating disruptive behaviour:
Cracker's was probably the best, he figured out that he could jump the 6 foot privacy fence around the backyard, and 1 week before last Christmas, he ran over a mile to the Walgreens to pick out his own presents. I'll have to tell you the whole story sometime, but mom & dad searched frantically all day, and finally found him late that evening. Now none of us are allowed out without human supervision constantly, and if we get out of sight for one second they are frantically calling and searching for us.
My favorite is to bite mom or dad's nose at 5:30 AM to tell them I want OUT, and to attack mom's feet and ankles when she's wearing her fuzzy flip flop things on her feet.
Mikki's favorite is to pretend she doesn't hear them when they tell her it's time to come in the house, even if it's 100 degrees with 100% humidity, she'll sit in the yard staring at the sky and acting like she's deaf as a stone, rather than come into the nice cool house, just to prove she doesn't have to listen to them if she doesn't feel like it. She also stole a whole turkey breast off the counter a couple of weeks ago, but I'm glad mom caught her before she ate it all, that was all of our dinner cooling!
Chili's really good at blocking the humans for us, while we get into trouble, his fluffiness can really fill a space, and he's great at pretending he doesn't know what they want when they tell him to "move" so they can get to the rest of us.

2.)Cause Humans to Freak out for no real reason:
I guess Mikki is best at this, one of the neighbors put out rat poison a while back, and Mikki is great at catching sick rats. The first one was on a weekend, so mom called the emergency vet and they told her to give her a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide for each 10 lbs of body weight, then continue giving her 1/2 doses every 15 minutes until she sicked it up. That worked, and they got rid of the rat, but about a week later she caught another one. Since she knew they wouldn't let her have it, she made them chase her all around the yard, then she swallowed it whole before she would agree to come in the house. Out came the peroxide, but she is one stubborn husky, she refused to puke it back up. Finally after an hour & 5 doses, dad packed her off to the vet and they gave her something that forced her to give up her tasty rat.
Mom has a windchime thingy in our bedroom to drown out street noise, it's made out of capice shells, and last weekend I grabbed one of the shells off the bottom and crunched it up good before mom got it away from me, that freaked her out good, but it wasn't much fun having her stick her fingers halfway down my throat to make sure she got all the little pieces before I swallowed any. Chili managed to get into our grandboy's bedroom after Valentines day, and destroy the heart box full of chocolates, but he didn't get to taste any of the tasty candy before mom caught him.
Cracker doesn't usually freak them out, except when he takes it into his head to try to jump the fence, then it's total scramble to catch him and bring him back before he can get too far.

3.) Destroy something:
In my short time here, I've managed to destuff every one of mom's "decorative" pillows in the living room, chew the swan head off her hand carved chaise lounge at the foot of our bed, and by covert shopping trips into moms closet I've managed to destroy 1 of each of 4 pairs of shoes! Mikki also likes shoes, but what girl doesn't, whoohoo? Chili destroyed a comfy sheepskin rug when he was a puppy, as well as 2 of mom's Kachina dolls, and both he and Cracker should be very well educated from all the books they've devoured.

4.)Human behaviour modification:
where to start? After the petfood scare, Chili got a case of the poop soups, he was really miserable for about a day, before they took him to the doc. Mom had checked and knew that none of our food was on the list, but the doc put him on egg, rice and chicken dinners until it cleared up, and that gave mom & dad the idea that if they cooked every meal themselves they wouldn't have to worry about what we were getting. They used to cook for us once or twice a week, but now we get a homemade dinner mixed with our kibbles every night. Our recipe includes a veggie, an egg, some cheese, rice, and either chicken or turkey. We also insist on scrambled eggs & bacon for Sunday breakfast after the humans have theirs. I'm not sure we can take credit for this, but on the other paw, if we weren't so cute and loveable they might have just switched brands or something...Our favorite though is a pack effort. One of us will ask to go out, and of course we all go out together, but only the one who asked will potty while we're out. About 15 minutes after we all come back in, (only if we're bribed with tasty treats), the next one will ask to go out, and off we all go again. We can keep this up for a couple of hours until mom finally says "no, you've been out enough". Then I, being the youngest and having the smallest bladder, will start sniffing, or act like I'm going to squat, and she rushes me out, the others follow, and the whole thing starts again. We're aiming for 100 trips outside in one day, so far we've only gotten it up to about 30 or so though.

5.) Humans dress you up:
Never! No WAY! What could be more beautiful than our natural fur coats, are you kidding? Actually Chili trained them very early not to even try, he's such a nudist, he wont even wear a collar unless we're going for a ride or walk, and refuses to let any of the rest of us wear one either. He is Houdini when it comes to destroying a collar or harness, and can chew through it in about 2 minutes, without ever making the little tags thingies jingle. As soon as he is in all his naked glory, he starts stripping the rest of us. Mom has yet to find one that he can't chew through, except a choke chain, and she says she won't take the chance that we might get caught on something and hurt ourselves, so we get to run around naked almost all the time, although we did all have to have a little microchip shot under our skin in case we ever get loose.

6.) Love of Kleenex:
AND paper towels, AND toilet paper, AND the rolls they come on, AND books, AND magazines, AND any other paper we can find. All of us, every chance we get.

Congratulations little Bama, welcome to you and your whole crew to the HULA Hoop. That’s quite a lot you’ve accomplished in your young years.

Meeshka

Pool of Ice

The husky hill gang sent me this really cool picture of a pool of ice!

Wow, that would be so cool (hehehe, sorry for the pun), to have a whole pool of ice to our very own. I'm sure it wouldn't last long, as both Spineless bionic hip puppy Sam, and suck up gimpy mutatoe think that they have to pee on everything, so it would be yellow ice in no time.

I like eating ice, I also like running and jumping on a big thing of ice and then using it to slide my front feet across the kitchen floor and running into the human woman. Ice is very tasty and I like to eat it.

The humans bought a new fridge (ok, years ago, its not that new really) and it has a very handy ice dispenser on the door, easy for us to help ourselves to ice and water whenever we feel the need for ice and water... except it also comes with a lock so we can't help ourselves to ice and water whenever we want. It seems pretty silly to me to lock up ice and water.

While the ice pool does look really cool (there I go again with the pun), I don't think it would help spineless bionic hip puppy Sam with his exercises. He needs to be able to swim in his little circles to strengthen up his puny little back legs and back, so I guess we won't be getting one of these any time soon.

Meeshka
(I like my ice with fur)

Congratulations Gaels88 and Peppersmommy!

OOOH that was a very VERY close contest right there. Gaels88 actually beat out Peppersmommy by 8 seconds, but in the spirit of blogathon, I’ve just been given the official okey dokey by the rescue president to send both of you a cute husky puppy shirt.

Yep, there are three foster puppies from North Carolina that are currently driving their foster home humans totally insane (and quickly gaining points to join the HULA Hoop). In case you haven’t seen the video of them playing with the resident dogs, just click here to visit the HTH foster dog blog.

I would also like to point out that the black/white dog in that video is none other than my half sister Tashi, yes, that Tashi! You can clearly see that she’s trying to corrupt these puppies, and I’m sure she’s already cheated them at cards and gotten all of their money for lotto tickets and generic smokes. Sigh. Tashi has a great career in modeling if she can only keep from doing silly things.

She hangs around Polar, who isn’t the best of role models. Sure, Polar came from HTH and was adopted by Tashi’s humans, but they intended for him to keep her out of trouble, instead it turns out the Polar has a past that involves the police and the smuggling of cat nip across the border. He’s always getting her to take modeling jobs and asking her to “hold” things for him, so its only a matter of time before she gets caught. She does it because she thinks that I’m more successful than she is, even though her beautiful face is plastered on the best dog modeling magazines: Dogue, NewsDog, Harper’s Bizarro, Dogmopolitan.

Its only a matter of time before I get that sad phone call from the shelter telling me she’s been picked up for shoplifting or loitering.

Meeshka
(family, what can you do)

Another Not Very Exciting Dinner

It took some doing to get the slightly singed human woman up the stairs, and she seemed incapable of opening up the canned food without sending sparks everywhere. We finally did get fed, but once again, no dollop of sour cream, no sprinkles, nothing outstanding.

She’s upstairs sizzling still. I think she has her head under the sink trying to get her hair to stop smoldering. Of course, the human man is totally oblivious to all of that, and yelled from the other room that the ogres were stealing his pants or something. I live in crazyville.

Ok, so while the humans are chasing pants stealing ogres and putting fires out on their heads, I guess I’ll give away another prize.

To get this cool husky puppy t-shirt, all you have to do is tell me how many North Carolina pups are currently driving a foster home insane.

Meeshka
(ogres in my pants, ogres in my pants!)

Presidential Debates

There was an article on CNN (the network of the obvious) that said a poll found that 50% of the humans (I’m guessing they meant only the US humans, as I’m sure humans in other parts of the earth could care less even more) thought that Presidential debates were worthless.

Wow, there’s a newsflash! I bet they get an award for that reporting. I’m also guessing that the other 50% they called were out having lives rather than watching that bunch of dribble on tv. Who wants to watch a whole bunch of incredibly rich people on a stage answering stupid questions. I liken presidential debates to the Miss America Pageant (hey, at least on the Miss America Pageant there’s always a chance one of those human women will take a tumble down the stairs in those ridiculous shoes, and WHO WEARS HIGH HEELS WITH A BATHING SUIT???)

Anyhoo, I digress once again.

So, Miss Arizona, how would you solve the world hunger problem? “um, well I’d make a really big sandwich!” Great answer Miss Arizona.

So, candidate for President, how would you solve the world hunger problem? “um, well, I’d make a giant lasagna!” Great answer next commander and chief.

Humans... eesh.

So I think that Turbo has the right idea... American Gladiator! I think there would be a lot more interest in the whole voting thing if instead of standing behind podiums and making all sorts of promises that everyone knows they aren’t going to keep, they should battle it out on the Gladiator ring!

Not only would it be very exciting to watch these rich people slugging it out with lethal weapons, but at least the last one standing would have actually EARNED the position of authority. Plus other countries would be less likely to screw the US after they watch the winner lop the heads off of the losers. Come on, that’s much better than the intimidation tactics of the first President Bush... who is afraid of being leaned on and puked on? Ok, I wouldn’t like it, but its not very awe inspiring, not like hacking off the limb of your contenders.

Another benefit would be the pay per view take. No more taxes because people would just shell their hard earned money over to the pay per view to watch that. See, I’ve solved most of the world problems right there, just by modifying the presidential debates.

Meeshka
(where’s my agent, get my agent on the phone before Fox steals my idea!)

This is what I have to put up with

Everyone had good points in their comments, it is getting close to dinner time and I certainly don’t want to miss that. Fortunately the human man is here, but he’s currently playing World of Warcat and when he’s doing that... there’s no moving him from that chair. We could very well have starved before he got done doing one of his quest things or whatever they’re called.

I’m with the human woman on that game, I don’t understand it either. He sits there with his friends talking to them (so we never know if he’s telling us to attack the flying two headed beast or his friends), and the quests seem a bit silly, like: go kill a turtle, skin it and make a backpack. Um, don’t they have stores to buy those things at? Frankly, who would want a smelly turtle backpack. I don’t get it.

I wish they would make a game for dogs where we got to roll in dead things, rip up a roll of toilet paper, scoot our butts on brand new carpet... you know, fun stuff.

Since human man is all wrapped up in his game, I went outside to drag the human woman inside, and sure enough:

Good doG, will she never learn anything.

Meeshka
(singed hair is not attractive at all)

New HULA Member: Sasha

I realized that I never joined HULA, when my entire life is geared around it.

1. Demonstrating Disruptive Behavior
Every day. This morning, for example, I wanted water at 3 am. There was some DOWNSTAIRS, but I didn't feel like going down, so I rattled the bowl in the human bedroom till human dad got up and took care of it. I sleep around the toilet bowl (I sent you a picture of that before) so I am in the way.
Whenever a human gets up from the sofa, I jump in their spot. I wake my humans up to let me out very early in the morning, but when they come down the steps, I'm asleep on the sofa. I've eaten fudge, chocolate covered espresso beans, motrin, you name it.

2. Cause Humans to freak out for no real reason
I've had a couple seizures, and I try to plan them for 2 am, so they have to get up and take me to the ER vet. By the time they get there, I'm fine.
I like to stop eating for a couple days, just so they think something is up.

3. Destroy Something
I've eaten a million hardback books, phone books, candles, cantaloupe...I've stolen cakes from the counter.

4. Human behavior modification:
Oh, easy. My humans give me liverwurst every night before bed. They always share their meals with me, and usually give me the last tasty bite of any snack. One human in my house is trained to go into the pantry and get treats every time he goes into the hallway where the pantry is. He'll also share crackers and mustard with me.

5. Humans dress you up
I also sent you the shirt picture. Sigh. I also was made to wear a bee and a ladybug costume once. I'll send pictures, if I didn't already shred them.

6. Love of Kleenex
OOH, I love eating boxes of Kleenex !!

I hope you find me worthy of HULA.

Regards, Sasha

Congratulations Sasha, and welcome to the HULA Hoop
By the way, Sasha, Isis, and Ray JUST ate some gum and their humans are freaking out and calling poison control, who I'm sure will say they're fine, but way to blow $75 human bucks you guys.

Meeshka

Congratulation Steve and Kat!!!

Steve and Kat have just won the autographed Iditarod booty worn by one of Karen Ramstead’s “Pretty Sled Dogs” in the 2007 Iditarod!

Way to go you two and I hope your humans aren’t doing stupid things with turkey sandwiches and bug zappers.

And now, the gratuitous plug for HTH! Remember, Karen Ramstead will be speaking at Penn’s Peak in Jim Thorpe, PA on 5 August 2007 and tickets are still available at the discounted price on the HTH main page!

This is a once in a lifetime chance to meet a true Iditarod musher and hear her inspirational talk about shucking the human life and spending all of her time pampering and playing with her purebred siberian huskies and running that race once a year. Ok, it’ll be a lot more exciting than that so you better go buy your tickets right this very second or I’ll stomp my tiny little delicate fluffy feet and pout... you don’t want me doing that!

In case you were wondering, I haven’t bothered to go check on the human woman yet... its awfully hot out there, so I’m sure she’s fine laying under the deck with all of the mosquitos and stuff.

Remember, there are two more booties that will be given away sometime between now and 9am sunday, so stay tuned for those, and other really cool stuff.

Meeshka
(enjoy the frito feet smell Steve and Kat)

The Bug Zapper

Oh gosh, as if the turkey sandwich wasn’t enough, this next thing doesn’t bode well for the human woman’s ability to continue. I may very well be all alone here in a while.

We have a lot of oogie bugs in our back yard, and since the humans don’t like to use chemicals out there (for fear that our super powers will make us grow invincible... or the gimpies will get even more mutant) they don’t spray for bugs or anything. This means a lot of free range, organic bugs and animals for us to eat out there.

The only bad things are those pesky mosquitos that carry all sorts of nasty things like heartworm and west nile virus (remember, give your dogs their once a month heartworm medication... its good for them, and good for your human wallet as treating that is not only expensive, but dangerous to your dog... thank you for listening to your one second dog health blurb).

In a fit of genius (at least that’s what the human woman says) she ordered a bug zapper. I’m sure right off the bat when you look at that thing, the name itself implies that the human woman shouldn’t be wielding one of these things. Its only a matter of time before she zaps herself with it and then who will feed me.

Sure enough, I clawed and suggested that she get out of the chair and go outside and get some fresh air and wake up some more after those 5 cups of coffee, and she gets the bright idea to take the bug zapper with her. I haven’t heard back from her. Its getting close to posting time, so I’m going ahead and tapping this out with my claws (scratches on the power book be damned), and I can only suspect that when I go out there, I’ll find her singed and laying stunned under the deck.

So, since she’s not here to stop me, I’m going to give away one of the autographed dog booties that were actually worn by real athletic purebred Siberian Huskies during the 2007 Iditarod to the first person that can tell me the name of the human woman that autographed the bootie!

Meeshka
(Are those sleepy pants I smell burning?)

I've been Tagged

As if I didn’t have enough to do, what with now walking the sleepy human woman around the house like an overdose victim, Indy decided to tag me.

Ok, so here are the questions and answers. Due to my limited time constraints, I’ll tag others after I wake up when blogathon is over.

1.) Where is your favorite place to sleep? Oh, that’s easy, the most comfy spot of all is sleeping right on the human woman’s head. Although slightly bumpy, its actually very comfy.

2.) Is there a specific trick your humans make you do to get treats? Um... no, but I do make them fetch me a treat whenever I feel like having one. I also make them talk in high pitched squeeky voices asking me if I want the treat. Sometimes they get so used to talking like that, that I’ve heard them tell each other that they were at work and asked a co-worker if they’d like something in that high pitched squeeky voice.

3.) If you could spend an entire day doing anything at all with anyone, what would you do, and with whom? Hmmm, good question. I think that I’d really like to spend the entire day in the Kleenex factory with all of my good friends and make the human woman blow her nose and feed us kleenex. What? Is that too personal?

4.) What is your favorite toy? The suck up gimpy Mutatoe, of course. I love that squeaking sound he makes when I slam his head into the ground.

5.) If you could change one thing in your life, what would you change? I would be queen of the earth, humans would stay home with us and tend to our every whim, and buildings would be made out of livergreat. Ok, so that’s a few things that I would change... sue me.

Meeshka
(livergreat buildings... SO COOL!)

Oh, perfect, leave it to the human woman

So after the last blog entry, I wanted to get started on the next one so I would have enough time to go out and potty and maybe have a nice stretch, and there’s the human woman dozing off!

Holy poop, its only around 2:30pm and she’s already getting into nap mode, what’s up with that?

Wait a minute... she had a turkey sandwich for lunch. NOOO NOT TURKEY!!!!

I can’t believe she freakin ate a turkey sandwich, turkey contains tryptophan, which is a sleepy ingredient!

It took several clawings before she actually sat up straight and looked at me with bleary eyes. Oh this is horrible! This is worse than last year when she dozed off at 4 am and left me to slowly tap out my blog entries with my sharp claws and then yelled at me for scratching the stainless steel powerbook!

She’s got 600 pounds of candy, chocolate and ice creams and she eats a sleepy sandwich. Unbelievable! Now there’s no possible way that I can take a quick nap in between blogs because I have to make sure she stays awake! Its quite possible for us dogs to take very quick and restful naps, but those humans, once they close their eyes, its all over with, no amount of clawing, wooing, stomping and screaming will get them to wake up.

I’m going to claw her up the stairs and make her drink that whole pot of coffee, then eat some sugar, then run her around the yard for a while, maybe that will get her blood flowing again.

Meeshka

I happened to be reading the latest edition of Dogue when I was intrigued by an article that talked about scientists finding really, really (did I mention REALLY) old DNA that proves that Greenland (the perfect place for vacationing northern breeds because of its wonderful snow and ice) was actually... GREEN a few gazillion years ago.

Hmm, that’s actually very interesting, as some other scientists are using this claim to prove that humans are the very cause of global warming. While its true that humans take advantage of the vast resources of the earth and squander it (I still don’t get that whole driving a car in a circle really fast thing that they do), I’m a little confused as to how they could be responsible for turning Greenland from a lovely butterfly populated, quiet little brook, vast expanses of meadows and flowers to its now ice cube-like status... when humans weren’t even around with their gas guzzling Humvees, burning leaves, and lighted pools way back then. I don’t even think that bottled water (which we now find out comes from someone’s tap and not those arctic glaciers that are quickly melting and threatening to drown all of society) was invented back then, so its not like we can blame teeming plastic bottle laden land fills for Greenland’s change of climate.

So, in the interest of science, I set about looking for evidence of why Greenland is now not so green. Actually I don’t care that Greenland isn’t green, I like snow so as far as I’m concerned, whoever made it snowy and cold should get a medal and we should all learn from the responsible entity so that we can make the whole earth snowy and cold. Actually, once I’m the queen, I think I’ll make that a law: all places must be snowy and cold.

Anyhooo, I digress. So I did what most researchers do, and I googled “ancient global warming” (you have to use the quotes, or else you’ll get a bunch of stupid sites about some concert and some really big headed guy), and I easily found the very reason why Greenland was once green, but then turned into a vast snowy perfect vacation spot for northern breeds:



Meeshka
(thank you dinosaurs)

Congratulations Cyber-Sibes

Whether you meant to or not, you win the barking non-shedding husky!

Yes, northern breed fur can be spun and knitted into a bunch of things actually. If you happen to be in the Pennsylvania area on 1 September 2007, HTH, Delaware Valley, and MaPaw rescues are holding the first annual Hike N Howl where among hiking, prizes, vendors and cool demonstrations, they’ll have someone there that can show you how to spin and make pretty things out of northern breed hair.

I hear that you need to keep your fluff in a paper bag in order to keep it nice and fluffy. If you put it into a plastic bag... all sorts of bad things happen to it, but because the Cyber-Sibes won a non-shedding barking husky, I will be putting a bit of my own personal fluff into a little plastic baggy for them to spread out on their human’s furniture.

During our last break, the human woman went upstairs to make herself a sandwich, and amazingly enough your complaining forced her to feel guilty enough to break out the livergreat and she gave us some! I thought for sure that she was going to make herself a sandwich with our livergreat when she got it out of the fridge, and I was about to totally claw her into oblivion, but apparently she doesn’t like livergreat... good thing for her, because hoarding OUR livergreat is something that I won’t tolerate.

Just in case she meant to also give us part of her turkey sandwich, we’re laying right under her chair in case she accidently drops any, or decides that she can’t possible finish the whole sandwich. This means she’s trapped in the chair until we decide to let her up... or she hands over the sandwich.

Meeshka
(gee, that sandwich looks too big for you to handle, let me help you with that)

Northern Breeds Don't Shed

Tuft of hair 1.jpg
Originally uploaded by Shmoomeema

In the continuing educational series of Northern Breed Dogs, Professor Meeshka will now tell you humans the truth about shedding.

We don’t.

Nope, you can go right out and adopt hundreds of us and there won’t be one single piece of fur shed in your house ever.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!

Ok, I’m such a liar.

As an example of fur shedding, take a look at this picture. This is an actual fur clump that fell off of Indy when his human dad scared the fur right off him during a game of hide and seek.

Northern Breeds like Huskies and Malamutes will shed 365 days a week, but twice a year they literally fall apart with HUGE clumps of fur (such as depicted in the picture) when we “blow” our downy undercoats. In the spring we dump out the downy winter undercoat and don our summer fur, which is slightly less fluffy than our winter fur, and in the fall we dump out the downy summer undercoat to make room for our very fluffy winter coat. During the rest of the year, we dump out our guard hairs all over the place. The guard hairs are like spikey fur that protects us from the rain and snow. Its sorta like scotch-guarded hair. That keeps the wetness from soaking into our downy undercoat and protects us from getting too cold or too hot.

Some humans think that in the summer we’ll get too hot with all that fur, but we don’t. Its like insulation, call it a fluffy soda can coozy if you will, and we’re perfectly happy in the summer because we’re protected by our coats. The humans that don’t know better will sometimes shave us and that just makes things horrible bad for us. We can get sun-burned very easily without or protective coats, we’re also at the mercy of the biting stingy bugs that can get to our skin without our coats. Even worse is that sometimes our coats don’t grow back right!

Take Spinless Bionic Hip Sammy as the example. After his drastic reverse mohawk spine surgery shave, it took forever for his fur to grow back in and even still, after 7 months he still has one bald spot that hasn’t grown one tiny bit of fur. Luckily its a small spot and the humans comb some fur over it to hide it, but still, that could happen to a northern breed all over if they get shaved.

So, whatever you do, NEVER shave a Northern Breed dog. We’re fluffy for a reason!

Also, if you don’t want fur all over your furniture, carpet, clothes, hair, food, toilet paper, car, yard, and in your mouth... don’t get a northern breed dog. When northern breed owners jokingly say “fur is just another condiment”... they aren’t kidding, seriously. You can vacuum all you want, it’ll still be there in every nook and cranny, every little thing you own.

Now, for all of you that actually made it through that lesson, what kinds of things can be made from Northern Breed fur that are shown in the “We shed a lot” pictures for huskies? Whoever can tell me first in a comment post will win a non-shedding barking husky!

Meeshka
(We are northern breed... watch us shed.)

A Pool For Sammy

The human man just came downstairs and told me that since I’m stuck on the internet all day that in my copious spare time I should look around and find a pool for Sammy.

Um, hello, not only am I really busy right now, but why on earth would I look around for something for HIM? He then mentioned that it could also be good for me to help me lose weight. EXCUSE ME?

His grand plan is that we could get one of those new fangled blow up pools that are blue and bigger than the little kiddie pools that are out there, and that way Sam can do his swim stuff every day instead of just the weekends and they humans would save $20 bucks each weekend (which I’m sure they would spend on Starbucks or other cool electronic toys that we don’t get to play with).

First of all, I’m sure Spineless Bionic Hip Pup Sam would be THRILLED to be able to swim every day, since he really enjoys getting tossed in a pool every saturday (he’s skipping this week because of Blogathon and he’s already paid me my bribe money) and swimming in tiny little circles for a half hour. Plus he seems to think that the pool is just a chick magnet hang out for him, even though he’s been snubbed by every dog in the pool area who certainly are not impressed with studly Mr. Spineless Bionic Hip puppy and his bright red life vest.

Secondly: I’M NOT FAT I’M FLUFFY unless of course the blood test comes back and then I have a medical ailment that causes me to be larger than normal and can be controlled through medication so I don’t need exercise either way.

The human woman isn’t too thrilled with this idea either, knowing the sharpness of the CLAW when it comes to blue blow up swimming pools, the fact that she would be in charge of keeping it clean, and knowing that she’s lazy too (well, she claims not be lazy, but we all know she is) that it may turn into a huge breeding ground for disease laden mosquitos and the end of the world as we all know it.

So, if I have time today, maybe I’ll go look up how much those things cost, and who knows... I’m sure its purchase will be a myriad of blog posts on the adventures of the blue blow up swimming pool.

Meeshka
(anyone want to take bets on how many hours that thing lasts in the yard?)

The Usual

Just as I figured... the usual lunch. At least we got some canned food mixed in with it, but nothing special. You would think this being a big day and all that I would get something to help keep my strength up, but no... the usual food slopped into a bowl and put on the floor. She didn't even cut it up into little pieces for us.

Loki actually ate too fast and gacked a few times, but she just told him not to eat so fast next time. Geesh, she's so hard to figure out. I'll have to scout out the kitchen and see if there's anything tasty within reach on the cabinet we're suppose to leave alone. I mean, come in, she didn't even include dessert or anything.

Meeshka
(you call this food?)

Puppy or Rescue Dog

A while back someone asked me what my opinion was for getting a new member of the pack, should they get a puppy, or a rescue dog. I'm sorry, but I can't remember who asked and as time is of the essence during blogathon, I'm not even bothering to look.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but the most important thing is making sure that the current dogs in the house have the final say on who gets to stay. After all, you wouldn't allow some stranger in your house that ate all of your food, left their crap laying all over the house, and drank out of the toilet, so why should your pups be stuck with a rude stranger if they didn't like them. Ok, the toilet drinking is ok with us dogs, but humans seem to have some strange phobia about drinking out of a perfectly good drinking bowl and instead using it for their potty things. Hey, it rinses itself out, its clean, go ahead and drink out of it!

Humans also have some strange misconception about rescue dogs or shelter dogs. They seem to think that rescue dogs have some sort of problem with them, after all, why would a perfectly good dog be in a shelter and not in a loving home? Well, humans are funny and they like the idea of having a dog, but then realize that caring for a living thing requires time, patience, and giving up some of their selfish needs in order to take care of the dog. Therefore, most of the time a dog is in a shelter mainly because humans "don't have time". They use other excuses to make it sound as though they're not selfish and lazy like "allergies", or "don't match the carpet", or "can't control". A dog in a rescue doesn't necessarily mean the dog has a problem, its most likely that their only problem was a human that couldn't give back the same unconditional love as the dog gave to them in the short time they were with that human.

Rescue dogs are generally kept in foster homes, so if you're a bit leery about getting a dog from a shelter, the next best place to look is a rescue. The foster homes get to know the dog, trains them to learn the house rules like: don't pee on the expensive furniture, don't shred the expensive furniture, and how to stretch out to your total length to steal all of the bed. Those foster homes will be able to tell you whether the dog they're fostering is right for your pack or home.

Puppies are cool too though, but typically if you haven't had a puppy in a long time or ever... be prepared for the nightmare that is having a puppy. Having been a puppy myself, I can tell you that the entire being of a puppy in a new home is to drive humans stark raving insane and deprive them of sleep. We will get into EVERYTHING no matter how prepared and "puppy-proofed" you think your home is, we will crawl under the bed and make you crawl under to come get us, we'll get into horrible things that you thought were put up and freak you out, we'll squeeze through the tiniest cracks in fences, we'll escape from collars that you thought were tight enough, and most of all... we'll pee and poo on your expensive rugs. Because WE ARE PUPPIES! We're cute for a reason: so humans will look at the nice steaming pile of poo on their brand new expensive rug and go "ooooh, you're so cute".

Another reason to get a puppy over a rescue dog (unless you can find a rescue puppy, but those go quick, quick like "Tickle me til I puke Elmo" at Christmas quick) is if you need a puppy to grow up with one of the furry little eatable critters you may already have in your house. Northern Breed dogs are especially prey driven, so maybe there isn't a rescue or shelter dog that has grown up and learned not to eat other members of the household, so getting a puppy when its young, you can typically teach it what is and isn't off limits as far as eatables in the home. Granted, and I want to add this disclaimer: no matter how well you train your puppy not to eat loved little furry non-northern breed family members, there is always the risk that something will happen, so all precautions need to be taken to make sure that all little furry non-northern breed family members are kept safe from curious and playful northern breeds.

Now, if you'll excuse me, its noon, and its time for lunch.

Meeshka
(I hope there's something special planned for lunch)

Congratulations Dakota!

Dakota correctly answered that HTHNBR currently has three American Eskimo dogs in foster care... but actually that may be changing, as all three are on their way out to a possible adoption, so everyone have good thoughts that Casey, Oliver, or Snowie (or maybe all three?) find a fur-ever home today.

Eskies are kinda hard to adopt out to someone that doesn’t know how they are. They really don’t like strangers at all, and it takes a little bit for them to consider someone their friend and no longer a stranger. Unlike huskies and Mals who usually walk into a potential adopter’s home and make themselves comfy and treat the potential adopter like a long lost friend, Eskies are a bit standoffish at first until they get to know someone, then they’re attached to that person’s lap like velcro.

So, if you happen to know someone that is interested in an Eskie, tell them not to judge their friendliness right off the bat, its not that the pup doesn’t like them... it just doesn’t know you well enough, but that will change quickly once they realize you are their friend.

And that’s your Eskie lesson of the day. I’ll let you know what happens on the adoption as soon as the human woman finds out.

Just a quick note: the gimpy suck up mutatoe is sleeping on the now incredibly nasty lime green shirt again. Earlier this morning the human woman let me and the mutatoe out, but Sam didn’t follow us. Apparently she came back into the room, and there Sam was, sitting and patiently waiting. She had rolled the chair onto the tip of his tail and he was trapped and couldn’t get up. She felt really bad (as she should) and apologized profusely to the spineless bionic hip pup, and he milked it for all it was worth. Now whenever she rolls the chair back he leaps up and freaks out... just to make her feel even more guilty.

Meeshka
(I would have screamed like a banshee had she done that to me, I like the drama)

This Is All We Need

Its bad enough that the human woman tells all of her human friends on various and sundry mail lists that I claw her all the time and won’t let her sleep in, and make her take me out, then in, then out, then in, then out (etc.) and give me a horrible reputation for being a pain in the butt, when actually I’m the sweetest, cutest, fluffiest thing there is. I’ve proven that by attending public events and being my normal self, all cute and fluffy, shaking paw when asked, the whole nine yards. This further goes to show what an exaggerator she is about me (take for instance, I’m actually not chewing on her elbow as she transcribes this blog entry).

So, its bad enough that we have a “reputation” based on stupid movies that show us playing poker, or ripping up an entire house (ok, that’s probably close to the truth), but we certainly wouldn’t viciously chase some guy out of the house unless he was strapped with raw meat, and then we’d only go after the raw meat and not attack the guy, we have our priorities you know.

So when I woke up this morning and checked out the latest news, I was horrified to see a review on the Simpsons movie with a picture of Homer being attacked by poorly drawn huskies. Great, now in cartoons we’re being depicted as savage human attacking beasts. Now, I haven’t seen the movie and the cartoon still could be taken out of context, and in actuality in the story they are merely attracted to the donut odor emitting from his body or something, but still.

I’m really offended by this whole stereotyping of northern breed dogs as something they aren’t. That’s like saying that all Hollywood actors and actresses are drunken drivers.... um... ok, how about that’s like saying that all sports figures do really stupid things.... um... crap. Ok, that’s like saying the CEOs of major companies... ok, nevermind.

The most important thing is that we need to have our humans really educate other humans about the different types of breeds that are out there, and their personalities, and to dispel any rumors or untruths about what we do and don’t do, what we do and don’t like.

Speaking of education, if you want a very cute Sammy/Eskie shirt that is pictured here then you’ll be the first to tell me in a blog comment how many American Eskimos are currently available in foster homes at HTHNBR.

Meeshka
(that’s like saying that all human women wear sleepy pants... CRAP, never mind)

Congratulations Sitka!

Sitka is the winner of our first prize of Blogathon!

Yes, Devo is now called Yukon and he’s very happy in his new fur-ever home!

Congratulations Sitka, now your humans will be able to lounge around in stupid sleepy pants just like my human woman. Get use to seeing them, I’m sure they’ll never take them off (and if you’re lucky, maybe they’ll even wash them once in a while).

For those of you that were interested in the very tasty rawhides that are filled with tasty things (I highly recommend them), they’re made by Redbarn and come in exciting flavors like: Steak and Egg, Ham and Cheese, and peanut butter and jelly!

The human woman loves to give us these because its chipped rawhide and not one big massive hunk of rawhide. She’s paranoid about the whole swallowing of a whole rawhide and either choking to death on it or getting it caught in our stomachs and intestines. Plus she freaks out if she gives us a chewie and it has a big knob on the end, she’s always afraid it’ll get stuck in our throats. I swear, she takes all the fun out of anything, just sucks the fun right out of the room.

I’m surprised she doesn’t cut our food up into tiny pieces and feeds it to us in a spoon. Hmm, wait a minute, I kinda like that idea now that I think about it. Maybe I’ll gack on some food at lunch and see if she breaks out the knife and spoon for me.

Meeshka
(Oh, that bite is too big, can you cut that up a bit more?)

Its All About The Sleepy Pants

I’m sure you are all trying to guess what the human woman is wearing today for Blogathon, and I’m sure it won’t come as any surprise that yes, it involves sleepy pants.

She spent a lot of time this morning going through her sleepy pants collection trying to find the perfect pair of sleepy pants that would go with the Blogathon shirt that Denali and Rubi sent her. I thought she was going to make us late for our first post because she kept holding up a pair and asking me if this one matched. Um, hello, I’m color blind you idiot, what do I know about matching human clothes?

She finally did find a pair that matched and so, of course, she’s in the sleepy pants and her new blogathon shirt. I’ll try to get a picture of the ensemble for later. Its only a matter of time before she spills food on the shirt.

Just to give everyone a head’s up (and cheat a little, cuz I don’t want to make the contests too hard because that would require effort on my part) since I’m blogging for Harnessed to Hope Northern Breed Rescue, most of the contests will be based on information on their site. I would also ask that if you win a prize, try to be nice and refrain from trying to win a whole bunch of prizes, give other huskies/dogs/girl-girl/humans a chance at winning something... unless you just simply can’t live without it. I’m going to put a 2 prize limit on everyhusky/dog/girl-girl/human unless we get toward the end of blogathon and we still have a lot of prizes, and then it’ll be a free for all.

Speaking of sleepy pants, I’m sure you recall the pair of sleepy pants I posted about here and although they are actually cute and have cute husky puppies on them and not the horrid ones the human woman wears, they will be given to the first person that can tell me in a blog comment what Devo’s new name is now that he found his fur-ever home.

Meeshka
(stylish, sleepy, they’re pants)