My Fire Hydrant

For as long as I’ve worked for Iams/Eukanuba, we’ve been able to bring our dogs into the office with us when we feel like it. Bailey and I are very lucky because we are usually able to work from home—but this past Friday was TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY, so we just had to spend the day at Iams/Eukanuba headquarters to enjoy the celebration!

I took so many photos on Friday! It took me all weekend to sift through and narrow them down to a few representational shots. Also over the weekend I happened to read a post from Jaime, over at Thoughts Fur Paws that gave me some inspiration. I hope you like this photo essay of Take Your Dog to Work Day, Iams/Eukanuba-style!

This was the premier of Bailey’s new stroller! OK, go ahead and laugh at me for buying my dog a stroller. In my defense, my old girl has arthritis which causes her discomfort if she has to walk too far; her cataracts are interfering with her ability to see; her hearing is starting to fail; and she’s just not getting out of the way of people’s feet fast enough anymore. So I felt a new stroller was a good investment if I want to continue to share this kind of event with my pooch. And I think she likes it better this way too.

The first thing we did on Friday was to take a tour of the building to check out the four-footed fur buddies celebrating the day! (Normally we practice a little common sense—we don’t all bring our dogs at the same time—but on Friday, there were more dogs than usual!).

Allison and Lil’ Roo (Shih-tzu, “a bouncing 3-year-old baby boy!” Allison’s words, not mine!)

Roo says, “Hello Bailey!”

Annie and Champ (Yellow Labrador Retriever, 2-years old).

“Uh, no, I’m not doing any work today unless there’s a biscuit involved.”

Bunker, a 6.5 year old Golden Retriever.

Chelsea (Miniature Schnauzer, 5 years old) takes a meeting with mom, Chris (facing camera), Connie (left) and Valerie (right).

Meanwhile, back on Chris’ desk, Gladys the floor cat (she lives on the 4th floor of the building) is tremendously annoyed that today is about dogs. She refuses to participate and plans on spending the day in her box lid.

Tony (a Rat Terrier, who was 5 years old this month), is totally psyched that this is TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY, and cannot be persuaded to take a nap before the pawty (that’s his office bed, underneath the desk).

“That’s OK Tony,” mom Deanna says. “You can nap this afternoon.”

Atlas (2 years old, Doberman), who is a regular at the office, waits patiently for mom Christine to return from the copy machine.

In the next cube over Flash (Goldendoodle, 6.5 years old) is wishing mom would let him out so he could play with Atlas (more about that later).

Flash and Alison.

Julie is babysitting little Diva while Jason (Diva’s dad) attends a meeting.

Jason and Diva (10 weeks old, Afghan puppy). Jason breeds Afghans.

What a cute future champion (and I don’t mean Jason!).

Diva has her own special space in Jason’s office.

(Humans, left to right) Kim, Mario, Malisa and Pam talk about the Hope, the Poodle mix that Kim just adopted from Luv4k9s, and the shelter cats that live with Mario.

This is Jack (Affenpinscher, 9-years old), who shares his life with Malisa.

Bailey and Cricket (also an oldster, she’s a 14.5-years old Yorkiepoo adopted from SICSA) say hello.

Cricket and mom Pam (check out Pam’s interview).

Mere and Beaglegeuse (pronounced Beagle-juice), an 11-year old Beagle.

Mitch and Kuddles (10-year old Maltese)

That’s Carmella peeking round the post!

Carmella (7 month old puppy Mixed Breed) lives with Rebecca.

Bailey and I looked in on one meeting that seemed to be going to the dogs! (Flash, Atlas, and Champ figured since it was TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY, why not have a ruff-and-tumble meeting?)

Finally, cooler heads had to intervene or no work would have gotten done. Its rest time for playful pooches!

Scott and Bailey (11-year old Chocolate Labrador with a great name!) on their way to the pawty in the courtyard!

Teddi and Rachel from the Humane Society of Greater Dayton brought puppies (!) that were looking for forever homes.

Adoption discussion?

Our friends from SICSA (Travis, Sea, and Michael) had Kroger gift cards available. This is a great program—you get the Kroger gift card from SICSA, load it with money at Kroger, and then each time you use it Kroger gives 4% of your purchase back to SICSA.

Mick, Minnie, and Elizabeth were on hand from the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center–there’s a wonderful video of Mick on YouTube (see below).

Richard, Melody, and Deborah from the Miami Valley Pet Therapy Association also joined our celebration. They do incredible work in our local hospitals, libraries, schools and medical centers, with children, seniors, veterans, and others who need a furry shoulder to lean on.

We also were visited by Jessalyn and Jennifer who represented 4 Paws for Ability. This group is devoted to raising and training service dogs for children and adults who have developmental disabilities. This includes autism-assistance dogs, seizure response dogs, mobility-assistance dogs, hearing-ear dogs, in-home companions, and street companion dogs.

Bailey was having a great time at the pawty!!

At the end of our celebration, we took a group photo.

Bailey was exhausted! Good thing she could snooze the rest of the day away in her new stroller!

What a fabulous TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY!!

[7/18/09 Note: I have re-formatted this post because the formatting did not survive when it was imported from Blogspot to WordPress. Formating changes only, NO text changes.]

Happy Take Your Dog to Work Day! We celebrated at the home office of Iams/Eukanuba, and I am working through the hundreds of photos I took to put together a photo essay for Monday.

For today, I would like to introduce you to Deb, who has worked in Iams Marketing for 5 years.

1. What pets share your life?Topaz (AKA Topie-dope, AKA Topie Stank) is a 6 year old Neapolitan Mastiff. 

2. What is your pet’s most endearing habit?
Topaz thinks she is a human! She will walk up to the couch, scoot backwards and sitdown. She also loves all of her toys and treats them like her babies – she never wants to leave them.

3. What’s your favorite story about pets in the office?
The dogs on my floor know that I have treats in my office and often wander in to say hello and get a tasty reward!

4. How does your job at Pet Care make a difference?
I truly believe that I am making a difference by educating consumers on the benefits of Iams premium nutrition. We are a brand that dedicates ourselves to the enhancing the lives of pets all around the world.

Recos = Recommendations

One site to recommend this week.

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this here: I LOVE MY iPHONE!!!!!

My cell phone died when I was in NYC back in early May, and I let the sales guy talk me into an iPhone. Within an hour of getting that sweet piece of Apple ingenuity into my hands, I was totally addicted.

If you’ve seen the ads and commercials, you’ll know that the iPhone has “apps” which are actually applications created by Apple and other companies that allow you to do neat things on your iPhone. I’ve downloaded some apps that are “pet-oriented.” One of them is called “Off Leash” and is an app that uses GPS to tell you where the nearest dog park is. Bailey and I don’t go to dog parks so much anymore, but I liked the idea of being able to find the nearest dog park.

I also downloaded it because I knew that the app had been up for sale, and that Eukanuba had just purchased it

Monday, the new “Eukanuba-ized” version of “Off Leash” because available for download. (Download it here)

IMPROVEMENTS:

• I can now search by zip code, in addition to GPS. So when I’m talking to my buddy up in Madison, Wisconsin I can use my “Off Leash” app to help him find his closest dog park.
• When I search by zip code, it remembers my previous searches.
• I now have the option of emailing the dog park location to a friend.
• I can now add the dog park’s address to my list of contacts with one click.
• In addition to being able to look at a Google map for the route (“Show Route”) I would need to take to get to the dog park (this existed in the old version), I can now also click to see the dog park pin-pointed on a Google Map (“Show On Map”).
• This remains a free app—Eukanuba will be spending the money to make sure it gets updated so you won’t have to.
• I don’t know what it was like with the old version, but we (Eukanuba) plan on refreshing the list of dog parks every 2 to 3 weeks.
• Eukanuba TV: OK, some folks are gonna be turned off by Eukanuba overdose, but the puppy training series is really good (and useful!), and I never get tired of watching the beautiful dogs on the “Champions & Heroes” or “Eukanuba Legacy” (especially the commercial by Margery Good and Ch. Charmin) videos.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT:

• There are some folks out there who probably won’t like the Eukanuba “skin” that the app now has. OK, so “Off Leash” has been branded—chances are that if we had not purchased the app some other company would have (and branded it) or the app would have simply died never to have been updated again (remember, it was for sale).
• When you click “Show Route” or “Show on Map” it takes you out of the app and into Google Maps. You have to re-open the “Off Leash” app, and re-load your dog park search if you need further details about the park or you want to look at another park. This is a bug I’ve noticed on other iPhone apps, and I heard is something that Apple (or their app suppliers) is working to correct.
• The old, out-dated version of “Off Leash” is still on my iPhone—sitting along side of the new version. Seems to me, the new version should have totally replaced the old version. I guess I can manually delete the old version…….
• I wish I could move through the app the same way I move through other stuff on my iPhone—with a sweep of my finger. Instead, I have to hit the paw print at the bottom which returns me to the starting point, not the page I was looking at previously.

All things considered, I think I’m gonna like this new app.

I just got this email:

“We are pleased to report that our Aurora employees have made remarkable progress in a very short amount of time in getting the entire site back in business. Power was restored yesterday late morning and Aurora resumed shipments in the afternoon and re-started production yesterday evening – an incredible effort less than 24 hours after the tornado impact.”

WOO HOO! WAY TO GO AURORA!!!

A little housekeeping first: In the past couple of months I’ve been posting “4 Questions” on Fridays. Part of that has included interviews with people that I work with at P&G Pet Care. Moving forward, I’m going to title those interviews “The People Behind the Paw,” because that’s what they’re about. I’ve gone back and tweaked the blog post titles on the three previous interview posts.

1. What pets share your life?
Cricket is my “little girl in a fur coat.” She was adopted from SICSA 14 years ago and is a beautiful Yorkie-Poo (body of Poo, mouth of Yorkie). She was estimated to be approximately 16 weeks old when we adopted her. Actually, Cricket (then known as Julie) was not our first choice. SICSA had some Chihuahua’s waiting to be adopted and we were going to take of them. The director called me and asked that I “just come down and look at Julie.” I said and I, but still wanted to wait. When Julie tried to jump on my lap (she was only about 6 pounds), that was all it took! We went and picked Julie up the next day. Julie very quickly became Cricket and has been the love of my life ever since then.

2. What is your pet’s most unusual habit?
Cricket has learned to crawl, so she is now going through her second childhood and crawls everywhere around the house. We believe that she does it to scratch her belly! We have to be very careful because she will rub her belly raw right after she is groomed. We keep a t-shirt on her for a week or so after her grooming just so she doesn’t rub her belly raw.

3. What’s your favorite story about pets in the office?
One of the funniest stories was when Cricket was a puppy and I would bring her in the office with me. For some reason, she did not take to real tall men and every time she would see my boss, she would start barking. I felt like it was a reflection on me, but I really had a wonderful boss!

4. What is your favorite Pet Care story of all time?
Oh my gosh. There would be so many pet stories I could not cover them all on this site. Everyone would get tired of reading. I do know that having a pet has made a difference in how I relate to my job. I love seeing the beautiful coat and knowing that the nutrition inside is wonderful. The nice part as well is cleaning up the yard after her. I do know that I enjoy every minute of having Cricket around. One lasting story in my mind was the last time she went to NC with us when my Dad was suffering with cancer — Cricket would get right up beside him as if she was taking care of Dad. She knew that “Grandpa” was not feeling good and she wanted to comfort him. How could you not love a dog for being so sensitive!

OMIGOSH! I was buried in a meeting all day yesterday and totally missed this!

At around 9:00 p.m. Central Time, on Wednesday evening, our plant in Aurora, Nebraska sustained minor damage when a tornado touched down. The damage was to the outside of the warehouse. From the photos I’ve looked at, I think it was mostly parts of the roof and one wall.

All of our employees and their families are safe and accounted for–no damage to their homes. But some folks there lost everything! I HATE tornadoes! I can remember times when I was a kid and we had to “seek shelter” in the basement. In fact (I’m gonna get gross here), I can remember one time I was so scared I threw up in the laundry sink!

The house we live in now doesn’t have a basement. Somehow the big closet in the center of the house (which is supposed to be our safest place during a tornado) does not seem quite adequate. I wonder how much it would cost to build a bomb shelter in my backyard…..

It will take them a couple of days to get power restored and the plant up and running. Of course, we have other plants in other parts of the U.S., so I doubt there will be any problems meeting demand for our food.

My heart goes out to the people who lost their homes!

If you want to read more about it, I found these news sources on the Internet:

KHAS-TV Channel 5 News (video of our plant)

KETV Channel 7 News (video of the tornado) The video on this site makes me feel sick–the “storm chaser” actually gets waaaaaaaaaay too close to that tornado.

I HATE TORNADOES!!!!

Recos = Recommendations

In the past month, I’ve had a terrible time trying to keep up with my Google Reader and all the incredible pet stuff that continues to surface on my journeys through the Internet. To give me more incentive to make the time to do the reading I’ve decided I’m going to start a regular Wednesday feature on my blog. Each Wednesday, I’m going to bring you snippets and links to the stuff I’ve looked at over the week that has resonated with me in some way. They probably won’t all speak to you the way they do to me. But maybe you’ll find one or two things that are useful or entertaining or educational. Skip what you don’t like, or click the link offered to read more. Enjoy!

SECOND CHANCE GRAY HOUNDS
http://www.secondchancegreyhounds.org/
This is a really cool group that I found through Twitter (@2ndChanceGreys). They work to place retired racing Greyhounds into forever homes. The really wonderful thing about them is that they do much of their fostering through state prisons! Each dog is expected to pass the Canine Good Citizenship test–so the inmates must practice their patience and responsibility while they train and foster the dogs. The dog gets one-to-one fostering and training, the inmate gets the unconditional love that only a dog can bring to a relationship, which I have to believe makes the inmate involved a better person. What a fabulous deal!

BAD RAP BLOG: Lessons from the late, great Dirk
http://badrap-blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/lessons-from-late-great-dirk.html
If you have a place in your heart for Bully dogs, underdogs or just dogs in general, then you need to check out the Bad Rap Blog.

The post that touched my heart is about Dirk. Dirk was a shelter Pit Bull who started down the right path to a forever home. He was good-looking. He responded well to training. He played well with other dogs. But one day the life he was forced to lead as a shelter dog caused all the good work and progress he had made to come undone. There is no fault to assign here–shelters do the very best they can with the materials they have to work with. They are chronically understaffed and underfunded. Dirk was put to sleep.

Bad Rap has turned Dirk’s experience into a brilliant lesson. They’ve fine-turned their Ambassadog Program to create a home environment at the shelter where dogs can learn or re-learn how to be pets. It just makes all kinds of sense. Be sure you watch the video of this “oasis” in action.

TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK
http://www.takeyourdog.com/
It’s coming up fast! Did you know that June 26 is Take Your Dog To Work Day?? This is a global event created by Pet Sitters International in 1999–so this year is the 10th anniversary! Bailey has big plans to join me in the office next Friday. If you like to Tweet, maybe we could all use the hash-tag #tydtw? (Be sure you listen to the theme song posted in the upper right corner of their page.)

FRUGAL DOUGAL
http://www.frugaldougal.co.uk/#
I met Dougal on Twitter, at a pawpawty. If you’re clueless when it comes to pawpawtys, check out Dougal’s blog because he’s got all the details and I think his blog is very well put together.

SLEEPY CAT HOLLOW
http://sleepycathollow.wordpress.com/
I really like Sleepy Cat Hollow because I LOVE the photos that Michelle posts–especially the photos of her kitties. They’re beautiful! Michelle is an artisan and in addition to her photography, she quilts–which is something I have also enjoyed doing, though I never seem to have time to do it these days. Michelle also has an Etsy site (Etsy is like eBay for crafters).

I want to introduce you to Kim (that’s her dog, Dakota, to the right), a Veterinary Technician, and one of my teammates in Consumer Relations. She has been with P&G Pet Care for eleven years.

1. What pets share your life?
Harley – Domestic Short Hair cat, 17 years old. I rescued Harely when I worked at a veterinary clinic. Her previous owners brought her in as a kitten after she fell off a balcony. She had a fractured femor and was going to be euthanized due to cost of surgery. I decided to keep her and have her leg repaired. She has been a great cat and her nickname is “fat cat” since she is a little chubby!
Dakota – Doberman, 9 years. I adopted Dakota from the Iams Pet Health and Nutrition Center when she was a puppy. She is the first Doberman I have ever had and although she is a little high maintenance, she is a great dog. She is wonderful with my son and her personality is hilarious. She is definitely a momma’s girl – follows me everywhere!

2. What is your pet’s funniest habit?
There are so many I don’t know where to start. We usually get a pretty good laugh every evening when Dakota goes to lay in her bed in our family room. She’s not satisfied with just laying on it. She first must “fluff” it by grapping the corner with her mouth and shaking it a bit, then she will stand over it and fold it over with her front paws, then she puts her head under it and flips it around a couple of times. Eventually things are just right and she lays down with a loud, drawn out groan! It is so funny to watch. 3. What’s your favorite story about participating in a dog/cat event? My favorite event has been the Bark in the Park at the Cincinatti Reds game. It was so much fun to see all the different kinds of dogs there. So many owners dressed their dogs up with hats, shirts, and bandanas. It was great to see the relationships between the owners and the dogs.

4. What is your favorite part of working at Pet Care?
The best thing about working in Pet Care is knowing that our products really do make a difference. I have personally fed Iams and Eukanuba long before I ever worked for the company. All of my pets through the years that have had long, healthy lives eating our products. I absolutely believe that nutrition is a major reason why. I have had two dogs that lived to be 17 years, one cat that lived to be 18 years and my current cat is 17 years old. My Doberman is 9 years old, but still acts like a goofy adolescent and constantly gets compliments on her shiny black coat.

Is your pet on any kind of prescription drugs? Do you ever have trouble remembering to give your pet their meds on time?