The Boston Terrier Take Over... AKA: We Found a Boston Terrier Club!

I had considered starting up one of my own, but through Facebook I learned that someone else had the same idea of starting up a local Boston Terrier Club! How excited was I! The first meet-up was Saturday 2/8 at a free dog park. I think maybe 20 Bostons showed up, and it was really fun to see all those little black and white snorters in one place. There was even a 12 week old puppy! The Bostons were in all shapes and sizes.

One of the funniest things was watching normal patrons of the park arrive and be completely in shock by the Boston Terrier Take Over.

"Is it Boston Terrier day? Was this planned?" They all asked. Yes, yes it was.

The next meet-up is March 1 and Olivia will definitely be there!

In the photos, Olivia is the one with the black mesh harness.

This little girl's name is Chloe,
and she loved playing ball

Another Fun Day

Yesterday I spent my morning like I bet most people are these last few days leading up to Christmas. I was shopping. For my mom. My mom has accumulated a lot of knick knacks over the 30-40 years and I'm sure a lot of them are gifts I picked for her. This year I wanted to give her something she would actually use and enjoy and was having a hard time. I ended up getting her software for her one sewing machine (she loves to sew). But after witnessing some truly spectacular grid-lock and the best *cough* sarcasm *cough* driving I've ever seen, I was ready to unwind. That morning I'd promised to take Olivia to the park and I planned to make good on that promise.

I went home to get her and headed back out to town. I'm not sure our walk was relaxing... Olivia was trotting along cheerfully which forced me to power walk, but we had fun together. She found a stick (she loves sticks) and really enjoyed sniffing out all the smells. I had a good time watching her enjoy the park so much. This all caused me to come up with an early New Year's Resolution:

To take Olivia out for walks at the park, etc. more often.

It's not something I really think of because Olivia and Fern get so much exercise running around our farm. Unlike a lot of dog owners, I can just open the back door and let them run free instead of having to walk them every time they have to go potty. But it's not about exercise. It's about spending time with my little Olivia, putting the phone away (except to take photos), and enjoying being outside playing together.

After the park we headed to Petsmart to make up the first two classes of the Advanced class that we missed. Olivia's trainer was so excited to see her, and Olivia was excited to see Debra as well! We worked on sitting when meeting a friendly stranger, loose leash walking going into heel, waving, and touch. We go back on Friday for week three and Olivia FINALLY will get to meet her classmates.

happy to be back in class

Last night after we got home and took care of the horses my parents, Olivia, and I (Brian's in NJ for work) went to the local five star hotel for the Christmas caroling party (they allow well behaved dogs in the hotel bar/lobby/lounge). Olivia wore her Christmas dress and got to have her photo taken (again) with Santa. Everyone fawned over her and everyone wanted to tell me how their sister's boyfriend's great aunt's nephew's uncle has/had/is getting a Boston. It's so funny to me that it seems every where I go with Olivia some stranger(s) comes up to me to tell me about their experience with Bostons (or sometimes with Frenchies). We had a great time, although my arms did hurt a bit from holding Olivia all night. There were a lot of people and I didn't want to risk her getting stepped on but she was also tired. Olivia weighs a whopping 15.8 lbs now!

Olivia Goes to See Christmas Lights

Last night Brian and I took Olivia to see Christmas lights at this place we have here in town called Hopeland Gardens. They boasted 100,000 lights over 1.5 miles of trail.

We had to park the car at a park and take a shuttle over. I didn't know this in advance and was a little worried they wouldn't let Olivia on board. Good planning on the town/whoever was in charge of this event because they actually had one dog friendly bus! We were the only ones on board it. Olivia thought it was great fun and really enjoyed trotting around the park. I'm not sure she loved having to pose every two steps with various light displays but oh well, and I'm sure Brian (who was holding her leash) must have gotten tired of hearing "pose her with [fill in the blank], yes, right here, no not there, here". With other people around and distractions I couldn't always convince Olivia to look at the camera... oh well.

Here's the photos:

The Amazing Pet Expo: Atlanta

So I've been taking a blog-cation. But here it ends.

Brian (my fiancee), Olivia, and I went to the Amazing Pet Expo: Atlanta on Saturday. We drove 3 hours to get there and we were there when it opened at 10 am. We brought the stroller but Brian insisted on carrying Olivia around.

The East TN Boston Terrier Rescue was there and they loved Olivia. I made a $25 donation for their calendar, which is really well done! The photos are all based on movies and it's so cute :) Especially if you like Boston Terriers BOL.

There was a pet photographer who was taking the photos for free and emailing them to you later on. If you wanted to buy the photos you could once you saw them. Of course, we had Olivia's photo taken.

There were free dog cookies every where you turned, free handouts, flyers, all sorts of free-bees. We got many frisbees and tennis balls, travels bowls, and chap stick, even.

I bought Pet Cakes microwave dog treats, a JackSack poop bag holders, and some misc. other Boston Terrier and doggy items. Olivia also got her nails trimmed for free!

We got to see lots of demos, frisbee, obedience, and agility. It was funny how interested in it Olivia was. We saw Shorty Rossi (Pit Boss) and Hercules. And the biggest celebrity we met was the blogosphere's very own Preston!

Preston is very cute (he was wearing a nice polo) and because we follow his blog we got a PrestonSpeaks frisbee! We chatted with Preston's parents and then later heard Preston's mom talk about how to save money buying stuff for your pets, with an emphasis on traveling. It was really interesting!

We had to stick around until 5 pm for the costume contest and some people took it overboard, check out the photos below to see what I mean!

Olivia exhausted at the end of the day

our swag

shorty and hercules

preston and olivia and their daddies

with the petco dog

toy dogs and tiaras (spoof on
toddlers in tiaras)

toy chihuahua

olivia watching frisbee

min pins dancing for snacks

"georgia peach"

olivia and her preston
speaks frisbee

Halloween Outing

My dad is part of a car club here in town and two of the couples' church has a little trick-or-treating thing for kids. The car club along with other townies park their cars at the church and the kids went from car to car collecting candy. I brought Olivia dressed as a bat and the kids loved it! (I'm saving my favorite picture for Wordless Wednesday).

Olivia and I posing on the parked hay ride wagon

Olivia sized pumpkins!

Lots to Share and Tell!

So yesterday my mom and I accompanied my dad to a car show. We met up with two other couples and a few other men who are all friends. There was also a craft show going on so that was where the women spent most of out time there, Olivia included. I wore a purple plastic Halloween wig and a Halloween bow, just because I could. I've always liked Halloween and even though it's a little ways off, I felt like getting in the spirit. The town of Edgefield, SC where we were has painted Turkeys, like Chicago once had the painted cows (do they still? I don't even know...). I took Olivia's photo with two of the Turkeys. There were also people dressed in period costumes and doing civil war reenactments, Olivia and I posed with two such women.

Olivia next to me dad's antique
corvette

kisses!

Olivia and a Turkey

Another Turkey

She felt so important going around in her stroller with all these strangers coming up and complimenting her. Im always amazed how good she is with kids considering we don't have any at our house. We went to a little sub shop with out door seating for lunch and Olivia sat right at the table with us. Our family friend Sandy had fun feeding Olivia kettle potato chips. Olivia liked them so much she was quivering (literally) for more. It was pretty funny.

"I'll take one of everything"

looking pretty

Last week I was perusing bringfido.com when I came across an interesting listing. It was for Cirque Italia, an Italian circus that's making its way across America. What really caught my attention was that they are supposedly an animal cruelty free circus and they had a Matador routine using Boston Terriers as the bulls. Today they performed in Charlotte and my parents and I went. We had a blast! The Bostons did such a wonderful job and had the whole audience laughing. And the show we talked to the Circus performer who owns them. She was super sweet and told me to find her on instagram because she loves looking at other people's Bostons. For me the highlight was having my photo taken with a squirrel-sized monkey named Romeo. They put a towel on your shoulder for the monkey to sit on. As the monkey handler put him on my shoulder he told me, "Don't be afraid but you have a lot of earrings and he may want to play". Great, I though. But the monkey didn't touch the six earrings in that ear. He did sneeze in my face though, lol.

Romeo and 1 (they charged $10 for the polaroid, a bit
pricey but oh well)

The Boston Terrier Matador Routine Broken into 5 Clips:

Field Trip!

So I was inspired by my fellow pet bloggers in the Blog Paws community to take Olivia on a field trip to our local park. All the other pet bloggers seem to take their dogs on outings and hikes and Olivia stays home and plays in the yard or goes to puppy class at Petsmart. So I planned yesterday to take her for a walk this morning before it got too hot (you know how those smushy faces get HOT).

here we are!

We actually saw one of the pet parents from Olivia's class (without her dog, a beautiful female Standard Poodle named Onyx) so that was fun to see a familiar face. I was really impressed with the park (I'd never been before), it was clean, there were poop bag dispensers and notices to clean up after your dogs, and even the water fountains had a dog height waterer (not that Olivia used it, I brought along her Popware for Pets collapsible bowl).

poop bags! get your poop bags!

dog height water fountain

We ended up walking two miles, good practice for the one mile SPCA fundraiser walk we're doing in about a week and a half. Olivia had so much fun smelling the new smells and seeing new sights. It was also really good real life experience for practicing her "Leave it!" and "Drop it!" commands. Also, I was proud of her for not mauling (with puppy kisses and toe nails) the little boy and his mom who asked if they could pet her. I swear, Olivia has never met a stranger! lol

Olivia took a break on a bench

i love her shadow, it's so cute :)