I'm not one to make many New Year's Resolutions, I prefer to live my life constantly working on personal growth and learning new things.
One thing that is important to do is to take a look at your past, learn from it, and move on. Don't cling to the things that hurt you. Dogs are a perfect example of moving on and living life to the fullest.
Tex-Anna found her forever home.
Ziva found her forever home with us.
In January we adopted Ziva, her gotcha day is coming up later this month!
She has turned out to be the perfect dog for our family, she's a challenge for sure but she's learning and growing just like us! Her fear reactivity is improving, and her threshold is getting slowly lower (we can now be closer to previous problem dogs). Her story HERE.
One of the first pictures I saw of little miss Ziva.
Ziva is my accident prone challenge puppy. We adopted her knowing she might potentially have joint issues, mystery the vets couldn't figure out. Best guess? Growing pains.
She managed to get a hold of a stick - it became lodged in her throat temporarily and stabbed her, thankfully it wasn't stuck but it did result in a painful vet visit and a sad puppy.
This last 2014 poor Ziva also contracted Giardia, a nasty parasite.
I fostered an abandoned kitten.
My neighbor found this cute little fluff ball and called me because among other crazy hobbies I used to do cat rescue.
This kitten was cold and dehydrated so I had to work quickly and boy was the hubby surprised when he came home! I promised him I wouldn't keep her.
She is so big now!
This was a huge challenge for Ziva - who has a high prey drive and wanted to eat the kitten at first. Ziva then grew to love the kitten and became my little nanny. Now this beautiful kitty has a forever home with a friend of mine!
We battled food allergies and picky eating with Dante.
Dante now eats like a champ and loves his Merrick food, hooray! But the picky eating was definitely a hard issue to deal with in the beginning. We had to find a balance of flavor he loved and ingredients he could eat. We discovered he's allergic to chicken, and then through switching we found out Ziva has a beef intolerance! Now both dogs are on a lamb formula.
I was bit by a loose dog.
And through this experience I learned, "How Not to Handle a Stray/Lost Dog."
We took both dogs on a vacation to Mt. Hood with my parents.
This trip was fun, we hiked Hunchback Trail which is located in ZigZag Oregon. As well as Mirror Lake - both beautiful trips if you ever come to Oregon!
Volunteered for helping out my mom's Cascade Lakes Relay Team.
This trip was fun because both dogs got to go with us! They were of course on their best behavior and everyone loved them. It was a great way for us to show off a positive image of "pit bull" dogs to a group of strangers (strangers to us), and our dogs made us proud be being really good. It was nice to see all of our hard work paying off. CLR 2014.
Dante helped us serve food to all the runners after their race!
The runners get all dressed up and crazy for this long relay race.
This turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought! I'm glad we didn't bring Ziva, I don't think she would have made the trip but she'll certainly be ready this upcoming summer!
I did this trip with my best girlfriend and Dante, the hubby couldn't make it so we stayed at a friend's home and made a weekend out of it.
The hike had us laughing, crying, and cursing. I exercise all the time so muscle endurance wasn't an issue but my boots were. Dante probably came out the best on this trip, minus being cut by his backpack. That journey HERE.
Hubby and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary!!
It is my last year of school and then i'm done, done, DONE! Graduating with a Bachelors in Business Admin in June 2015.
Ouch! My poor accident prone puppy!
Started Obedience & Shaping classes with Ziva.
Our ultimate goal is to get her into agility, these were precursor classes that we had to take before being allowed to do agility. We passed! Now onto agility this 2015! We're slowly getting a handle on her anxiety issues.
Need I say more? The dogs loved it! More fun pics HERE.
We love being outside and so we're trying to find places somewhat close to home that we can hike regularly. This turned out to be a great spot.
The pups helped me pass out candy to trick-or-treaters. This was Ziva's first Halloween with us.
Hubby took up CaniCross with the dogs - essentially trail running. More on this subject to come soon!
Visited Florida & We got to meet Rama's Mama!
The hubby and I went to Florida to visit my brother & sister-in-law. It was a ton of fun! We played on the beach, enjoyed the warm sunny days, and both our dogs got to stay home with my mom and be spoiled for the week we were gone. I don't think they even noticed our absence!
While we were in Florida we got to meet Shannon, Rama's Mama from - Walks with Rama. This is one of my favorite blogs by the way check it out if you haven't already.
The dogs helped us pick out a tree, we kept it small this year due to our busy schedule.
Don't they make cute reindeer?
You sure did have a great 2014. I'll bet 2015 will be even better.
Thanks! I can't wait to do agility!!
I really like that quote!! I think it's a good way to live. I don't make resolutions, either. It looks like you had a great year and I'm looking forward to reading about your adventures this year!! :D Happy New Year!
Thank you and happy new year to you guys as well!! We love your blog and are excited to see what new fun adventures our blogging buddies will be having this year!
What a beautiful, fulfilling year you had! Thank you for sharing all of your experiences with us. And most of all, thank you for all that you do. I look forward to reading more of your posts. Peace!