June 12, 2011
If a girl is from the Bahamas, she deserves having a beach to call her own.
Thanks to her daddy, Enzi got just that yesterday.
Her very own sandbox beach.
A fabulous place for her to dig to her heart’s content.
Enzi loves to dig.
Almost as much as she loves shrimp.
Enzi: Thank you, daddy.
♥ ♥ ♥
May 13, 2011
April 24, 2011
Something caught my eye as Don and I were walking through Washington Dulles International Airport the other day.
A very interesting sign.
The sign marked the location of one of the airport’s service animal relief areas. While most of the Dulles locations are outside the Main Terminal, two are inside the midfield concourses for the convenience of ticketed connecting passengers.
The typical layout of each pet relief area at Dulles includes a mockup of a fire hydrant placed on artificial “K-9 grass” in a fenced-in area. The grass was developed to be paw-friendly and easy to maintain.
The indoor locations have unique ventilation and flushing/drainage systems. The areas also include supplies for disposal of pet waste.
What a wonderful thing.
April 18, 2011
Having my mom; aka Memaw, here for a visit is always a blessing because she helps us with so many things. On Saturday, she helped me give the girls and Whisky a bath.
Kassie’s favorite part of getting a bath is being dried off.
She loves being rubbed dry.
Giving Whisky a bath is a dream. He loves water, so he walks right into the tub when he’s asked… and stands quietly and calmly while he’s being washed.
Enzi and Suni share the same philosophy about baths. They do everything they can to convince themselves that, “This isn’t happening to me,” while they’re being bathed, but they love the end results.
Both Enzi and Suni always have an extra spring in their step after a nice bath.
And Kike. Sweet girl just loves to be loved, no matter where she is.
Even in the bathtub. ♥
April 16, 2011
It was time again yesterday for one of the best parties of the year.
Some of the coolest cats dogs in Albuquerque were there to celebrate.
We were all there to recognize the work of some of the top therapists in town.
All of these dogs are volunteers with the pet therapy program at one of our local hospitals.
They provide the best therapy and the most important medicine possible… L-O-V-E. ♥
April 11, 2011
April 1, 2011
Despite that she’s named after a cheetah in Kenya, Kike’s middle name is Kyote.
She’s very skittish around strangers and is often on alert.
She’s beautiful and we love her.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
February 25, 2011
February 22, 2011
A while back, Cathy asked if I would share some of the story about how Kike and Suni came to America. When I came across this newsletter over the weekend, it reminded me that she had asked.
You can click on the newsletter to embiggen if you’d like.
It’s really hard for me to believe that the African Queens have now been here for almost seven years.
I was in Nairobi, Kenya when I met Kike and Suni. My business partner was the Chairperson for the Kenya SPCA, and so each time I visited, a trip to the KSPCA was in order.
It was love at first sight when I saw Kike. She was the spitting image of Enzi, who I rescued while on a business trip to the Bahamas in 2001.
When they told me that Kike had a sister, I knew that I couldn’t take Kike and leave Suni behind… exactly as was the case when I knew Fergus had picked us… I knew we couldn’t take Fergus and leave Nigel behind.
The requirements to bring a dog through U.S. Customs are: 1) a valid rabies vaccination; given at least 30 days earlier, and 2) a certificate of good health completed by a doctor of veterinary medicine. (There is no quarantine period once they arrive in America.) Because Kike and Suni had only just been vaccinated for rabies, they were not able to fly home with me from Nairobi to Washington. (I lived in Maryland at the time.) Instead, we had to wait three weeks before they could fly.
While I was very unhappy that they wouldn’t be able to fly home with me right away, the time lag actually ended up being a blessing. The wait allowed the KSPCA staff to get Kike and Suni accustomed to being in crates, which was necessary for their long flights.
The KSPCA staff was wonderful in helping with all the necessary paperwork, helping to book flights for the girls, teaching them the names that I had picked for them, working with them to get them ready for their big journey, taking them to the airport, and so on. I’ll always be grateful to those wonderful and caring people.
Interestingly, we had the option of having Kike and Suni fly either with KLM through Amsterdam or British Airways through London. It was an easy decision to make based on the fact that had they flown with British Airways through London, they would have been in their crates for the entire 24-hour door-to-door journey. With KLM, the girls were taken out of their crates in Amsterdam, taken for a walk, and fed and watered, which I’m sure made all the difference for them.
I think I arrived at Dulles International Airport at least two hours before their flight arrived. As I watched each plane land, my anticipation grew. I couldn’t wait to see the girls in America! Naturally, those last moments felt like forever. When I finally saw them, it was a powerfully emotional moment. I was definitely in a hurry to get them out of their crates, but for safety reasons, I wasn’t allowed to take them out while we were still in customs. Who really wants a dog running down an airport runway?
Once I finished the required paperwork, I drove a short distance to one of the airport hotel parking lots. I remember feeling so happy taking them out of their crates and watching them ecstatically explore their new surroundings together. New smells! New sights! New sounds! To me, it was as if they had just been born. It was a beautiful June day and they were home.
If you’d like to learn more about the KSPCA, you can visit their website here. Interestingly, they do a tremendous amount of work with donkeys in Kenya. I vaguely remember donkeys at the KSPCA, but unfortunately the last time I was there was BD (before donkeys at Morning Bray Farm), so I didn’t give the donkeys there a second glance. You can bet that the next time I’m there, I’ll notice the donkeys. ♥
December 31, 2010
Morning Bray Farm 