Competition Numero Uno

Well its finally Sunday (In my part of the planet anyway!) so let the competitions commence.

Scattered around my blog there are five pawprints (not including the one below)
Find the five paw prints and email me the titles to the five posts they are displayed on. All correct entries will be put in a hat and the winner drawn out. You have until 7pm (GMT) Monday to send in your entry.

This is what you are looking for..



Winner and their prize will be announced sometime Monday evening.

Good Luck!

Ben xxxx

EDIT .. WELL IT SEEMS THAT MY IMAGE HOST IS SUFFERING SOME DOWNTIME.. GREAT TIMING HUH? SO SINCE THIS WILL MAKE FINDING THE PAWPRINTS IMPOSSIBLE THEN ANYONE WISHING TO ENTER WHILST THE IMAGES ARE DOWN MAY E-MAIL ME THE NAME OF THE CHARITY MY FAMILY ADOPTED ME FROM.. THAT WILL COUNT AS A VALID ENTRY.

Competition is open to all who have either donated to, pledged a donation to or displayed a button/link for Nowzad Dogs on their blogs/websites.

Boys and their Toys

In order for my sulking to cease I have now been issued with this...



so whilst I am not ready to forgive I am now no longer sulking.. it's way more fun ordering the peasants about

It seems I forgot to show you any photo's of my easter gifts (I know I'm a slacker!!) so to placate those who enquired...

Here I am with a couple of them.. namely the giant lobster and caterpillar..



Now onto more important issues, there is a cheese thief in this house and it is MY cheese that is being stolen.. so I decided to do a little investigating.. after questioning Mum, Dad and the beans I decided they were innocent and then...

I caught the thief in the act!!

HEY!! Thats MY cheese!!



I'll take that thank you very much!!



I think the safest place for this cheese is in my belly!!



Now take that you evil monkey!!



WARNING to other Cheese Stealing Monkey Dudes... Don't mess with MY cheese!!



That Monkey dude distracted me from my initial intentions.. so back to business.. Boys and their Toys..

here is Dad with his toys.. looks like a lot of fun and Me, Mum and the little beans are going along next time, although apparently I don't have the appropriate licence so I shall be a mere spectator... hmmm we will see about that!!









here is the bike Dad *killed* before anyone got any photo's of him riding it..



and look at the state of this one when he had finished!!





Peter went along with Dad and Cooper but just spectated from the safety of the Landrover, he is much better and can't wait to get back out on the bikes.
Mum thinks they are all totally INSANE but... being a girl... she just doesn't understand Boys and their Toys.

Oh and before I forget, Pippa has pencilled me in to star as Love Rival in his upcoming movie.. I've been practising looking handsome.. whaddya think?



Oh and I almost forget to tell you the exciting news, Abby agreed to be my girlfriend!! I have a girlfriend!!.. I will catch up with Pippa the stud muffin soon!!!

I'm feeling quite exhausted after all that typing... nap time I think!



Ben xxxx

Sucking Up... Part 1

The sucking up has begun.. Mum is desperatley trying to make it up to me for blatantly letting that cat get one over on me.

Yesterday she and the skin kids decided to make me some yummy treats so they made me some of Sherman's Super Stinky Salmon Cookies. YUMMY!! Ive been pleading with Mum to make some of these since Sherman's Mom posted the recipe (Thank you Sherman's Mom)



She got my little bean to do the hard work!!



Hurry up already!!!



Mmmmm stinky heaven!!




and I confirm that eating too many of these leads to the *stinky* part..all's fair in love and revenge though :)


Ben xxx

Upstaged by a CAT!!!

Ok I'm slightly humiliated.. actually VERY humiliated. I have been totally upstaged by.. of all things.. a CAT

a giant ginger furball!

Jasper belongs to my Grandma, now i kind of like him (in the sense I drool when i see him and lick my lips a lot) but ultimatley I KNOW that I am better than him.. this is fact. But the ginger furball has got one over on me!!

The local paper ran a competition called I LOVE MY PET. Owners submitted pictures of their pets and readers voted for their favourite. Categories were:
Best Dog
Best Cat
Best Other (any other animal/critter)
Best Overall Pet

and the ginger furball only went and won the Best Cat category!!

and worse still... Mum voted for him!

and even worse Mum didn't even enter me so I wasn't even able to show the ginger whinger that I would have blown his socks off in the best overall pet category!!.. my only consolation here is that he was beaten in that category by a Lizard!! Oh how i laughed!

Mum has some major sucking up to do.. and i MEAN major!

The feline furball is gloating like crazy GRRRRR

and now he gets to have a professional photo shoot.. and be treated like royalty! Mum will probably get one of the shots and hang it on the wall.. just to rub salt in my already VERY deep wounds!

Judge for yourself.. is this floof monster more handsome than me??

Tagged

Maggie and Mitch tagged me for the middle name meme, it was some time ago.. oops!! Sorry guys I was away when you tagged me and then in the midst of catching up I kinda forgot!



Here are the rules:


1. You have to post the rules before you give your answers.


2. You must list one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. (If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name or your mother's maiden name).


3. At the end of your blog post, you need to tag one person (or blogger of another species) for each letter of your middle name. (Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged.)


My name is Benjamin Samuel

S - Soulful Eyes (according to Mum anyway)
A - Acrobatic.. when i can be bothered i'm one flexible pupster
M - Mad as a hatter - sanity is overated
U - Uber Gorgeous (If I say it enough the girl doggies may start believing it!!)
E - Egotistical - It's all about ME
L - Lazy - What can I say.. who doesn't love to nap!

So ummm.. who to tag..

I tag Lizzie, Cara The Collie, Abby and umm anyone else who hasn't done this already.. hey i'm a rebel.. I was never any good with rules!!

Ben xx

Doghair Despair

Mum is a little sad today. Houdini (one of her Australian RedClaw Crayfish) has passed away. Mum was so upset that Dad had to get her out of the tank as Mum couldn't bear it. Mum has had them since they were tiny babies and so she is really gutted. Dad immediatley started eyeing the tank up for his fish and so Mum got real mad at him. It does make sense to shift Little H into the smaller tank now she is on her own but Mum was in no mood to discuss it. Swim free at the bridge Houdini, your antics will be sorley missed :(

Dad picked Peter up for a visit on Sunday evening. His stitches are all out from his face and it is healing nicely, he has lots of staples in his knee and a wierd splint kind of contraption on his leg but he says it is feeling much better and he can hobble about now at least.
I was soooo happy to see him, I missed him as he is usually a very regular visitor, so Mum and Dad had to keep reminding me not to jump on his bad knee.. when he is better i am jumping on his knee for a cuddle and not getting off for a week!! He managed to play tug with me for a while though so I was happy.

Mum decided to make a pasta bake last night and look what happened when she opened the peppers...



Rasta Peppers!! Red, Gold and Green in one single pepper.. this prompted mum to start singing Bob Marley tunes at the top of her voice (and trust me.. this isn't a good thing!!) Me and the kids ran for cover with our paws/hands over our ears. She then insisted on speaking in a Jamaican accent for the entire time we had dinner!! Seriously.. anyone know a good therapist?

Mum is despairing at the moment about my hair (would she rather I was bald??) She says she has never known a dog shed so much (which i'm sure is an over dramatisation of the situation) As fast as she sweeps the hair up it is all over the floor again. She *claims* that brushing me yields enough hair to produce sweaters for the entire civilised world... hmm likes to embelish facts a little i think!!
Well newsflash Mum.. I'M A DOG - SHEDDING MY COAT IS WHAT I DO... GET OVER IT!

now I think it may be nap time, I think Mum thought she was competing in an olympic dash on our walk this morning and so I am bushed.


Ben xxx

Pawz Doggies and Kind Hearts

Hi all, just a quickie post to ask you all to pop along and take a peek at a couple of great blogs.

Life and Times of Lizzie is a great blog from another doggy rescued by Pawz For Thought who has found her loving furever home.Lizzie is just adorable.


Kind Hearts is the blog of Bobby and his foster carer John. Bobby s still looking for his furever home but he has many stories of the dogs who did find love and some still looking. This blog is just full of humour and warmth.

So please pop along and say hi.. tell them the handsome Rott sent you ;)


Ben xxx

PS.. another Pawz doggie is now blogging.. so feel free to pop along and say hi to very gorgeous Cara The Collie

Happy St Patricks Day

The skinkid gets Arty.. and some great news....

I've noticed some of you getting all arts and crafty on your blogs, well my paws are far too big and clumsy.. but.. look what Mollie made for the school Easter Egg decorating competition.. not bad for a 9 year old huh?



Great news from yesterday...

A little 9 year old girl.. Shannon Matthews... has been missing here in the UK since the 19th February, well yesterday when me and Mum were out on a walk Mum got a phone call telling her to watch the news..
Shannon has been found alive!! Mum was so happy that she cried!!

She was found hidden in the base of a divan bed in a flat less than a mile from where she disappeared. A 39 year old man has been arrested.

It's not often that stories like this have a happy ending, so little Shannon.. Welcome Home Poppet.

Ben xxxx

friends, critters, gifts and napping...

Finally nudged Mum into doing her job and uploading some photo's to show you all..

In my last post I told you about some furry friends that Mum and Dad look after from time to time.. so I thought I would introduce them to you.

Firstly Jasper (or Ginger Furball as I prefer to call him)

The Ginger Furball is Grandma's Persian Cat. He makes Dad sneeze and itch, claws Mums hands to ribbons when she grooms in and thinks he is a scarf (he likes draping himself round Mum's neck and going to sleep) but despite all this Mum, Dad and the little beans love him to pieces (and Mum claims she is not a cat person!!.. the secrets out now Mum!!)





kinda cute if you go for the ginger furry look!


Secondly Max

Max stayed with Mum & Dad when his Dad was away serving in Iraq and Afghanistan (and on various other occasions when Mum just *demanded* his presence!!)
Mum calls Max her surrogate son (so i guess that makes him my surrogate brother!). I can understand why she loves him, he is pretty handsome and a fairly cool dude.









Handsome isn't he??


Now onto the critters I am forced to live with on a permanent basis...


Little H:




Houdini:



Various mouth flapping critters:




Now onto photos of Moi (what post would be complete without my mug shot??!!)


Especially for Pippa.. because he asked.. here is me with my duck (one of the gifts from Michaela)




and here is me celebrating National Nap Day (slightly late.. but better late than never) and that one is for you Lady Kaos :)





Ben xxxxx

My beautiful bridge brother...

I have been wondering why Mum spends so much time over at Sherman's Place coo-ing over him... but suddenly all has become clear..

Take a look at this handsome boy..



see a resemblance to anyone??

This is Ben (yes.. another Ben!!)

Ben was Mum & Dad's furry friend but sadly he went to the bridge on the 14th January 2006 when he was almost 16 years old.
Ben was a rescue doggy just like me and he was 8 months old when Mum brought him home.
He was Rottweiler X GSD and Mum says he was the most loving, faithful boy ever (Hey Mum... I'm getting there!!)
Mum and Dad were so sad when Ben had to leave that they decided they didn't want another dog. They started to look after other peoples pets instead.

They looked after Max (Another Rottie) while his Dad was away serving in Iraq/Afghanistan and they looked after Jasper (A Red Persian Cat) while grandma went away on holidays.

Then in the New Year they were surfing the web looking for a memorial page they had set up for Ben and they clicked on a link to a forum where details of me and my sad story had been posted. This lead Mum to the Pawz For Thought site where she found out more about me. Dad says that Mum kept going back to the site and after a few days she decided to make contact with the charity and find out more. They sent Mum a questionaire and initially Mum tried to ignore it, but after a few days Mum filled it in and sent it off, a little while later a lady from the charity called Mum and they spoke about me for a while. The more Mum heard the more her heart tugged and eventually she and Dad decided that they would do everything they could to give me a home.

the rest is history as they say .. but

Mum has this notion that fate (and Ben) led her to me that day, If the charity hadn't named me Ben then Mum would never have stumbled across my details, If Mum's laptop had been plugged in that Day she wouldn't have been googling to find Ben's site as it is in her favourites on her laptop... and so on.
Apparently I share many little quirks with my bridge brother and namesake and Mum says that in many ways I heal her heart.

Mum told me today that only a VERY VERY VERY special dog could have made her change her mind about having another dog for keeps.

so that makes me.... VERY VERY VERY special!!


Ben xxxxxxx

Painful Past

My original owner was homeless, I have no doubt that he loved me but life was no picnic. Then we moved to his girlfriends house, for a while it seemed life was getting rosier, but in fact life was about to get very much worse.On New Years Eve 2007 they got into a terrible argument, in the midst of their fight she unmuzzled her dog and set it upon me. I sustained terrible injuries to my head, neck and back.My owner found himself sitting outside the PDSA, once again homeless, no money, no proof of benefits and seemingly no way to help me.An angel from the charity Pawz For Thought arrived. She got me the veterinary treatment I so desperatley needed, found me somewhere warm and safe to recover in and vowed to find me a real home. Now clearly this lady has a name, but to me she was just an angel and i was soon to discover that she wasn't alone, another angel from Pawz put some pictures of me, along with my story on their internet site http://www.pawzforthought.org/ in the hope that someone would offer me a permanent and loving home, another angel volunteered to walk me daily and assess me so the *right* home could be found. There are far too many angels to mention, but the important thing that you all need to know is that all of these angels do what they do out of a genuine love and concern for animals. They do not get paid a penny. Every phone call they make, every drop of petrol they use is paid for out of their own pockets. I found out that many of them do this in addition to working full time, caring for their own pets plus many "foster" animals and of course their own families. Now maybe you understand why I refer to them as "Angels".
So as you can see, my life had not been an easy one, my story is a sad one, but it has a happy ending. On Saturday 26th January I travelled to my forever home. I have a brand new family who have opened their hearts and their home to me. I have love, affection, security and all the luxury a dog could wish for. It's early days and my journey is only just beginning but through this blog my story can continue and I can share my adventures... from rescue to love.
Ben x