Loving Dog Family Video

Here is a video of my loving dog family who I cherish more than anything. They mean the world to me and I would do anything for them.

Book Report - Facebook 101

Typically, my blog is about dogS, the loves of my life, but I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about another topic, Facebook. The book I read was :

Sams Teach Yourself Facebook in 10 minutes, Third Edition 
By: Sherry Kinkoph Gunter
Publish Date: March 26, 2012

I accessed it from the CSN’s online library while searching Web 2.0 applications. Facebook is a social networking website where you can connect with friends, family or people who share your same interests, as well as connect with businesses in the community. According to the book, Facebook is the number one social networking website on the internet today and provides a free way to connect. 

This book is great for anyone is interested in learning about Facebook and how it started as well as learn how to use it, if you are a first time user.  Even if you have a Facebook, there are so many aspects that most users don’t even know all of the capabilities available. For example, groups, events, and pages can be new to anyone who may have been on Facebook for years if they didn’t know they existed. 

The book is broken up into pieces so you can choose a section and then break it down from there or read the entire book from start to finish to learn everything there is to know.

Signing up is a piece of cake. You click on Sign Up and complete the accurate detailed information to identify yourself and bam, you have an account. There are really only two items that must be legitimate in order to receive your account and they are your real name and email address. The idea of Facebook was built around having authenticate users, not allowing nicknames or aliases which can be odd-looking and flag you as a member and potentially be deleted. If you have an odd name you may have to contact them if it seems fake and get it approved. However, from prior experience, I’ve created my account for my fiance and I as just our first names, but it sounds like a real name since his first name is sometimes a last name. So it worked out. But that is not my name or his and it was approved. Also, you must supply a real email address to be validated as you are asked to confirm your email after you signup by clicking the link in an email they send you. Once you sign up you can edit your profile, and they give you the capability to say as much or as little as you please. You have full control over what others can see and cannot see to protect your own privacy, which is a great feature. Facebook is a very personal place to share thoughts,events and pictures with friends, but it can be scary if you are not careful about what you are posting and how you are protecting yourself from predators. .

After creating a Facebook is it very important to learn more about the privacy and how to protect yourself. All content that is uploaded still resides somewhere on the servers, including content shared with others, even if you delete it or remove your Facebook account.  So it is important to keep in mind to only post content you would want anyone to see, at anytime of your life. 

As I spoke about earlier one of my favorite aspects is groups. Finding groups was a great section for me because I feel that it allows me to find new people. It allows you to search for interests and connect with others with the same common interests and you get notified about that group, if you choose to. I personally join all of the animal groups so I can be aware of what is going on and see if there is an opportunity for me to help in any way I can. Groups are simple. You search for an interest and click “Ask to Join”. Once you are approved as a group member, then you can start interacting and meeting new people you may not have ever known. 

Facebook is not just about Personal though, they’ve created a Pages section which allows you to not have friends, but likes. Likes are used for businesses and famous people so that anyone can like them but it does not work the same as a personal page. The biggest difference is that you will receive posts this their timeline, however they will receive yours, where friending someone is the complete opposite; both parties receive notifications. 

Events is another one of my favorite features. It allows for you to post events and send e-vites to friends without ever sending out an invitation in the mail. Since so many of our friends are on Facebook, it makes it easy to create an event and send the e-vite to them. It takes one click on “Create Event” and filling in the details and then selecting the friends you want to invite. Then as the recipient, you have three options to choose from once you receive the e-vite. You can choose Yes, I’m attending, No, I’m not attending, or Maybe. This gives the host an idea of who will be coming. You can also leave comments on the event to share why or why not you are going. The only downside is that you can only invite 100 people at a time, so if you are planning on having a massive party, you will need to click on the Invite Friends link on the event’s profile page and send the invite until you’ve reached all the intended recipients. 

In conclusion, Facebook is a great tool for anyone, whether is be for business or personal because it has so much to offer. I would recommend this book to anyone who is just getting started or wants to learn a little more about what Facebook has to offer. 

Dog Heaven

Dogs are definitely the center of my world and always have been. I can't imagine my life without dogs and not just one, but a pack! If I could I would adopt all the homeless dogs and provide them with a loving home where they can enjoy life and be loved. But that's in a perfect world. For now, I have three little monsters that I adore and constantly take cute photos of, like they are my children. View the cutest dogs ever and see what a great life they have. My dogs pretty much take over my entire house and do whatever they want. Of course, I feel like they should be trained to listen, but on the other hand, I feel like that should live the life they want to live. If they want to sleep in the bed or the couch or chew things (nothing important of course, this is where listening comes in) or run around, they should be be able. Although, they can drive me nuts sometimes, I enjoy every minute I am with my dogs and I know they do to. They definitely live the life of luxury.

Life After Losing A Dog..

On December 20, 2012 I lost a very precious dog and there has been no sign of her since. I never thought in a million years I would lose a dog, nor would I think I wouldn't get them back. I've spent thousands of dollars and countless hours searching for my beloved Kahlua and still no sign of her. An entire community has come together to help me find her and I know realize there are still great people in this world. I even hired search dogs to try and track her sent, that just shows what I will do to try and get back. 

After three months now, I refuse to give up on finding her, but I find it to be continuously hard to live life without her. She is the best dog and just wants to know she has your love. As you may have read in my previous blog, Kahlua was an abandoned dog, left to die, by her past owners and would have either died of starvation or taken to a shelter where she would have been put down. Being a 6 year old pit bull at the time and not very fond of men or other dogs, there's no way she would have past a behavioral test. I even struggled with her for about the first 6 months, but never viscous towards me and she listened very well. 

Now, I feel like I've lost a piece of heart and member of my family and I have thought of, what happens if i never see her again? Could I really live the rest of my life without her and never knowing what happened to her? I think the hardest part for me is that someone else caused this to happen by being irresponsible and I haven't been able to get past that. In their mind, it's not a huge deal but to me it's like losing a child. Do you ever really get over this? I know my other dog, Castro, still missing snuggle time!

I would like to hear from you and know if you've ever lost an animal and how you coped. 

Blu Blu

Blu is our 5 month old Australian Shepard, who is beautiful, wonderful puppy! Blu came into our family one night, when my fiancé just had enough of Gizmo (this was before the doggy daycare days) and said, at 6:30 pm, let's go get another puppy! And me being the dog lover I am, was all on board! But we only had 30 mins to get to the shelter, so we are racing to get there. We arrived at 6:48pm, just enough time to look around and find our new puppy! Well, that wasn't the case at all. The adoptions stop adopting at 7 pm, and mind you, it was
6:48pm when we walked in, and they had the entire place shut down and the workers were walking out. So I let them know we were there to adopt a dog and we are within the working hours. Well they informed me and this other couple, who also came to adopt a dog, that they stop adopting at 6:40 pm. I was fuming! So, I walked into the bigger building and said I just went to adopt a dog and they turned us away! The people in there were also fuming. So they immediately called their supervisor and said that is not the policy and the people who left early and refused to adopt us a dog would be
getting in trouble for that, but that did not solve our problem. So as we left, my fiancé said let's just go over to PetLand and see what they have. Apparently,  we weren't going home without a puppy. So, we went in there to take a peek, I mean there was no way we were affording a dog from there and I really wanted to adopt one, but it turns out we fell in love. I've always wanted an Australian Shepard and there was a 3 month old puppy that was the cutest, sweetest thing I've ever seen, but also feisty, which is exactly what we needed for our Gizmo. So, we played with her for a minute and she was perfect, just as insane as Gizmo and almost his exact size (he's a pretty small dog). So we bargained and got a great deal on her that we could actually afford and brought home the little bundle of joy! The second I saw her, I just knew her name needed to be Blu! And it turns out that after I chose her name, they told me that her dad's name and grandma's name were both show dogs named Blu. I then knew it was meant to be.

She's a perfect playmate for Gizmo, yet also a sweetheart that does not terrorize you.
If only she could just the potty training down and she'd be the perfect puppy! Oh and she
loves to snuggle with just about anything!

Gizmo The Crazy!

Gizmo is an 8 month old Beabull (Beagle/Bulldog) who came into our lives about 6 months ago when we were out buying creamer at Vons. We were just on a market run when there was a Petland right next door that we had visited a month prior, just to see what the deal was. We have always adopted our dogs and I never believed in buying a dog, but I figure ever dog needs a home, regardless of how they come to be. So we went into Petland that day and saw this same we had seen the prior month, marked down from $1500 dollars to $200 dollars and I asked them why he was on sale. They told me that he was way to high tempered and that a lot of families want a more calm dog. I could see how hyper he was because he was running in circles in his cage and I felt so bad for him. I don't know where they come from but the lady said he would be shipped back because he had been there too long and I was heart broken. I turned to my fiancé and said  let's take him home. So we played with him for a minute and he was pure evil, biting us every chance he got and going insane and I could not leave him there. He was clearly going crazy being in a cage all day. So we signed the paperwork and took him home and he's been terrorizing us ever since. I understood why no one wanted him but I couldn't stand the fact of him being put to sleep or going to the wrong family because at $200, anyone could afford him at this point. Gizmo now enjoys his days at doggy daycare while we work and he's so tuckered out by the time he comes that he doesn't have the energy to torment us. But we love him just the same and he is an amazingly smart dog who can open doors and figure pretty much anything out.

The Story of Kahlua

Kahlua is my 13 year old brindle pit bull mix, who I fell in love with from the start. Her story was an interesting one. I had an old roommate who just moved into a new house. Next to him was a group of 5 guys who rented a home and had two dogs, who fought all the time in the backyard. They were definitely neglected and seemed vicious. One day, the five men abandoned their rental home and left behind these two dogs. After they left, my friend would just hear constant barking and fighting coming from the yard. After more than two weeks of this chaos, he decided to investigate and realized the owners had left the dogs there. Being the dog person that he is, he jumped over there and brought the dogs over to his house and gave them food and water. However, the dogs did not like each other and the one male dog would just attack Kahlua every second. So, immediately got a phone call from him asking if I would take Kahlua. At the time, I was living with a roommate and he did not want any other dogs, so I asked if I could just help out and take her in until I found her a new home. Mind you, Kahlua was a 6 year old pitbull at the time and came from a neglectful situation, so I was not too sure how she would get along with Castro or people, so I was taking a huge risk, but I didn't want to see her go to a kill shelter. Well, I fell in love with her almost immediately. So, my roommate went out of town and told me I had two weeks to find her a home. That didn't happen and when he returned she was still there and he was not happy. But he saw what an amazing dog she was and decided to let me keep her, which made me so happy. I trained her to be an indoor dog and trust people again. Until recently she lived the life of luxury, but due to an irresponsible sibling of mine, she got out and has been missing for two month. I miss her like crazy and hope one day she will return home safely and continue living her great life.

If anyone wants to share her story with others and help bring her home, I've created her a FaceBook page, which can be liked and shared.

http://www.facebook.com/BringKahluaHome