Kristin Sample » pets

Goodhousekeeping Pet Costume Contest

Kristin Sample — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:31:33 +0000

I entered Thatcher in the Good Housekeeping Halloween Costume Contest. You can vote for her here. However, the contest is set up as random battles. I spent like an hour on Monday night voting and looking for the pug with no luck. She’s won over 850 battles though. If she wins the whole contest, Thatcher will be in the magazine and C.K. and I get a trip to Colorado.

The Prime Minister

Kristin Sample — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:30:28 +0000

This is the perfect “prime minister” picture of Thatcher. She looks very aristocratic. She looks like she could run a country, definitely a small country like England (teehee). She might even be able to run Westchester. (The pug looks a little fat in this picture though. She’s really not fat. She’s just lumpy like that when she sits down.)
C.K. even did a drawing of the picture with PhotoShop.

Pug Hut

Kristin Sample — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:14:45 +0000

We bought Thatcher a nice dog bed when we got back to New York. Usually I buy the dog several cheaper beds over the course of a year. This time we opted for a nicer, more expensive one. Thatcher has a penchant for ripping up her beds and flinging them around the apartment so it never made sense to buy her something nice. However, now that she’s two years old, I figure it’s time to entrust her with a “big girl bed.”

So we got this great igloo bed. She can climb inside, curl up and take a nap. We showed her how to use it. And for the first few nights she slept inside with no problems. But now, things have changed. I guess she doesn’t like the confinement of the igloo bed because I find her taking the time to squash the roof down and lay on the top of the igloo. Oh well. I think it’s because she puts off so much body heat so it gets too warm in there. Thatcher was a space heater in her previous life.

In the picture above, I made her go inside the bed just for the photo (hence the look of bewilderment on her face).

Escape from L.A.

Kristin Sample — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:01:18 +0000

It’s our last day in L.A.

Our flight is early: 7:15 am on Virgin America. I like to fly early when going from LA to NY because of the time change. You lose five hours of the day flying and when you go from west to east, you lose even more time, three more hours to be exact. We’ll get in at 3:50 p.m., just in time to wash up and have dinner at Gino’s, a mom-and-pop Italian restaurant in my hometown. They have THE BEST food. What they lack in sophisticated service and atmosphere, they make up for ten-fold with their yummy pastas.

I can’t wait to get home. We’ve been here a year and a day. I’m ready to start a new chapter of our life. I’ll be directing a musical this year, working with Preston’s administration, finishing my book and securing an agent (fingers crossed on those), and probably starting back at Fordham. I have five classes of my second Master’s completed so I want to finish. Hopefully, all of those credits are still good. My first Master’s, also from Fordham, is in English. Now this one will be in Adolescent Education. I believe it’s an MST (Master’s of Science in Teaching). Didn’t think teaching was a science though. I’d say it’s more of an art form. But whatever.

It’s no coincidence that I titled this post “Escape from L.A.” Kurt Russell is one of my favorite actors. Overboard. Captain Ron. Backdraft. Big Trouble in Little China. He’s been in some classics. I know Kurt Russell would want us to escape from Los Angeles. He seems like a a good egg.

Eclectus Parrot Harness

Kristin Sample — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:44:21 +0000

We bought Sonja, one of our eclectus parrots, a harness/diaper with an attachable leash. She really likes to walk around on the floor (I personally think she’s jealous of the pug) and sit at the door to the apartment. She even makes a mock-barking sound as she peers out of the screen door.

Sonja also enjoys playing with the pug’s toys. The pug doesn’t dare try to take it away from her. Sonja is clearly the alpha-female.

The little harness wraps around her wings and has a little pouch to catch her poops. She has yet to poop in it and spends most of her time trying to get it off. *fingers crossed* Hopefully, she’ll get used to it.

(If you are interested in learning about these birds, this site is very informative.)

I’ve got some pictures…

My pug looks like King Kong

Kristin Sample — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 23:36:46 +0000

Well, a little bit. We were watching King Kong today. Actually, we were watching Big Brother After Dark and it came on afterwards. We joked how when the pug is angry, she looks just like King Kong. That got me thinking about what other characters she looks like.

Below are a few pictures…

King Kong

Rodney Dangerfield

Timon from The Lion King

Rocky

Yoda

Golem

Jabba the Hut

Dog Park

Kristin Sample — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:35:49 +0000

I wish my dog knew how to play fetch. Thatcher just runs after the ball then brings it back and hoards it. The dog park we go to is full of tennis balls because of the adjacent courts. So, I throw a ball, she tears after it, then trots back and lays in the shade. She kind of misses the point. I even show her when there are labs at the park–see, that’s what you do. you get it and then I throw it again.

“A Pug’s Life”

Santa Monica WTF moment

Kristin Sample — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:12:56 +0000

I have a lot of WTF moments in Santa Monica. Oprah has “A-ha” moments. I have WTF moments. More proof that I’m not Oprah.

As I walked the dog today, she was about to poop when she got distracted by a homeless guy in purple hot pants (shorty-shorts) who sang “Livin’ on a Prayer.” At first I was pissed that he distracted my dog who is so fickle about where she does her “bizness.” But I couldn’t stay mad at someone who wanted to share Bon Jovi with the world.

My dog owes me $130

Kristin Sample — Tue, 06 May 2008 04:15:07 +0000

Because $130 is what it cost to bring her to the emergency room late this afternoon. I took her to the dog park and she was playing and running around just fine. Then another dog (Willow, a bulldog) came and Thatcher started acting weird. She wouldn’t chase her ball and she just sat down and wouldn’t play. Then she started shaking and her tail was between her legs. I walked her home and the behavior continued. Lots of shaking and looking weepy and tired. I got scared so I called the vet. She had collided with two dogs today and I thought she threw something out of whack. But then I thought, this dog plays with much bigger dogs and has sustained many collisions. So I thought she might be sick. The behavior was just so unlike her. I picked up C.K. from work and we took the dog to the ER in West LA.

Turns out she sustained some soft tissue damage (probably). Maybe it was during the collision today or maybe it was one of the many times she’s jumped off the coach. But, it’s nothing some pain killers and anti-inflamatories (sp?) can’t cure.

So I say that she owes me the money because after all that acting up, she’s totally back to her stoooopid self. She’s barking like crazy. Jumping off the couch and bumrushing the door when she hears someone. AND…she didn’t even finish her ice cream with the meds in it.

I’m a crazy doggie mommy.

Don’t we all feel this way at times?

Kristin Sample — Mon, 05 May 2008 04:23:33 +0000