With this heat Sunny and Katie are in the pool many times a day. It's hard on the filters, but the dogs love it. Bailey stopped going in the pool a few years ago. If we're in the pool so are the dogs. We had a shelf built in the pool where you can place chairs in the water and sit under an umbrella. This is where the dogs stand until we get out.

Found a baby picture of Cuddles:


Hard to believe he was ever that small...

Those are some huge paws that Cuddles had to grow into! Wow.

I used to have a cat who would catch and eat wasps and such if they got in the house. She would jump, and bounce off the wall and catch the wasp in the air with her mouth and then eat it. I always wondered how she did it without ever having any stings making her mouth swell up. Obviously they had no affect on her as she lived for 19.5 years.

That's a very long life for a cat, Leslie! Mine all seem to exit around 16 years.

I had my "B" movie cats, Conan and Sonia. Conan lived for twenty years and Sonia, the wasp eater, for the 19.5. They got along like a dream. My next two kitties, Sawyer and Shortstop both lived about 6 years, Sawyer having diabetes complications and Shorty had lymphoma. That was quite a shock after the other two old timers.

Leslie ~ Sorry to learn of the short lives of Shortstop and Sawyer!

Me too.

It was quite unexpected. Hope it doesn't start a trend..... My kitty Scully has a malformed kidney and is missing the enzymes to process protein. She is on a special diet and seems to be doing much much better. Hopefully she will enjoy a long life. My other kitty, Felina, will probably live forever. She is like Sonia was, never anything wrong with her.

I have a couple of gardening buddies - two males that we were told were brothers, but I question that as they are so very different in every way. We're not very creative with names - this is Fiesty (who is NOT)

And this is Tex



Tex is my main helper, but he's a bully. Fiesty would like to help more, but Tex won't let him. Fiesty does his part though - you see the fountain grass that I planted a few weeks ago has these long catlike tails that wave in the breeze. Fiesty attacks those with a vengeance to rid the garden of those evil grass-monsters! I need to get a photo of that. It's so funny to watch him on the attack!

Barbara - They're all so beautiful! Thank you for sharing! Wren is definitely not a water girl. She's been in a few times, but not sure she likes it much. That last pic of Bailey reminds me of Wren's daddy. Pic below, the day we picked her up. (He is a patient daddy.)

Lilli - Cuddles is adorable! And all legs and paws when he was a puppy. How big is he now?

Laura - "evil grass-monsters"... Too funny! You definitely need a pic!

Leslie - Sorry to hear about Scully. (Is she your profile pic?) Hopefully the special diet will work. Cats are resilient and amazing!

Thank you Casey. Wren's dad sure does look patient. He's a beautiful dog, as is Wren too. Now I need to find a picture of Kitty. Laura, talk about a creative name.…

Well here's my ninja cat, Ace. He's a total sweetie, but likes to ambush when least expected!

Those eyes look like emeralds! So pretty!

Thanks Casey/ I tell him every day how beautiful he is - usually when I'm brushing stick-a-burrs out of his very fluffy tail!

iciris said:With this heat Sunny and Katie are in the pool many times a day. It's hard on the filters, but the dogs love it. Bailey stopped going in the pool a few years ago. If we're in the pool so are the dogs. We had a shelf built in the pool where you can place chairs in the water and sit under an umbrella. This is where the dogs stand until we get out.

What a great idea! Good for the dogs and for you in your horrible heat!

Warp is actually afraid of pools, at least to the extent that he won't go in one (though he does love to chase the pool vac around). Dirty muddy creeks don't phase him (until/unless the water gets too high and rushing), but he will NOT go in our pool, or our pet sitter's pool. (HER pool is full of Labs and other hunting dog types splashing around after balls, and she's tried to get him to go in, but he won't have it. He just circles around the pool, on "lifeguard duty" as she puts it. )

(I sometimes have to wonder if the original/previous owner tried training him as a bird dog, and thought throwing him into a pool was a good idea. )

The best pool dog we ever had was a Dalmatian mix (and she was the dog of my heart ). The vet couldn't believe it (because of her breed), but whenever we were in the pool, she had to be in. (Once, when we had company, DH locked her inside the house. She saw him floating face down in the pool, and broke out the screen door so she could get to him and "rescue" him.)

At the same time, we had a Black Lab/German Shepherd Mix. He was a smart dog (too smart for his own good), but he didn't like pools (or water, period) either. (The pool I could understand... he once tried running across the pool when the pool cover was on, something that I figured out when I came home from work and found him locked into the gated pool area, soaking wet, with the pool cover all rucked up (yes, he had figured out how to open the gate, and I think he must have been chasing a cat). And yes, we were very lucky.) What I could never get, though, was that he didn't even like lawn sprinklers. The other two dogs would chase balls through the lawn sprinkler, but not him.

I had a yellow lab that hated water. She would take drinks, play in the mud puddles, etc. She hated taking bathes after rolling around the mud. After a few years of having her, i was at work, we had bad lightening storm and my house got hit with lightening 2 times. After that, she hated the rain.

The support team in various poses most notable Harry on Plover watch protecting my back.

Casey, Cuddles was 70 cm (27 in) at the shoulder and 45 kg (100 lbs) when he died. When he was on his hind legs, he was taller than me - no way to avoid those kisses!





Thank you all for the cute cat pictures.

I would like to get a cat, but DH is very allergic, so not going to happen...

Lilli, I'm in the same situation - DH allergic, so no kitties.