Look what just arrived on my doorstep yesterday! I am so excited to finally see my prints in canvas… what an exuberant feeling!

To give you some perspective, Brewer – in red – is 30×20 inches large. Buddy, licking his tongue, is 16×24 inches, and shelter-pup Heinz is 14×21 inches.

Care of SimplyCanvas.com

Lawson is a dog we met when we picked up Brewer from the P.E.T.S. LLC animal transport in the spring.

Turns out Lawson now lives right around the corner from us, in Sandwich, MA! Those Sinatra-blue eyes are turning heads everywhere.

Lawson was found among his litter mates under a porch in Tennessee. With just a little tug, he’s in a much better place now!

One of the best ideas ever was one that I picked up when I lived on an 850-acre farm in Vermont. Did you ever think to put a framed collage of your dog’s friends just above his or her dog dish (at dog’s eye-level)?

This is Bromley’s friend Atlas who now lives in Arlington, VA. I grabbed this shot of him on the beach during his first trip to Cape Cod.

Miss you, Atlas!

Just thought I’d highlight another dog I photographed from American Lab Rescue! This is Bo. He stayed at Roaring Brook Kennels in Canton, CT before being adopted.

If anything, bringing our own Brewer – a lab/hound mix – home last spring has been a major advertisement for how gorgeous a shelter dog can be. If you really want a pure breed, there’s most certainly a rescue site out there for you!

Just look at this face!

So we’re half way through Brewer’s R&R period, following heartworm treatment before Christmas. I’m happy to say that he’s doing really well. We thought he’d be a little insane in the house, given the lack of exercise, but the little (big) Tennessee angel surprises us yet again. He’s so extremely mellow, no sedatives needed.

Don’t think he didn’t have any holiday fun, though…

We postponed Brewer’s heartworm treatment so that he could experience his first New England snow storm! I’m happy to report that he had a blast with his buddies!

Kevin and Guinness on our snowshoe hike – she loves catching snowballs!

And then there is Matti, almost-but-not-quite invisible against the snowy background.

Here’s wishing you and your loved ones a very happy holiday season!!

We’ve been giving our dogs heartworm preventative every month for as long as I’ve been alive. In our world, dogs don’t get heartworm, and if they ever did, they’d die. After all, it’s a WORM! In a HEART!

Well, we adopted Brewer from Tennessee this past spring. In the south, as well as in rescue situations in general, you never know that the animal has been cared for in the same way you would care for him. Brewer tested negative for worms when he arrived, but it takes about six months for new cases to show up in tests. Unfortunately, he tested positive this month.

It turns out, dogs don’t just die, and that’s a huge PHEW! But it does involve some pretty harsh treatment, and once we go ahead with it next week, Brewer will need 24/7 care and probably sedation over the following 4+ weeks. As the worms die, they can potentially cause clots in some pretty dangerous areas. So we have to keep our little rambunctious toddler at peace while Santa’s jumpin’ down chimneys over the next month.

Anyway, we’re lucky to have our vet friends a mile away and a few weeks to be home from work. Let’s just hope Brewer’s first snow comes sometime in the next few days!

Do you have a dozen different names for your pet? Do you use them so frequently that your pet actually responds to many names?

Since Bromley first came home and sat with his regal paws crossed, we’ve given him the name “Sir Bromley”. He also immediately took on the Karate Kid moniker “Bromyalsan”. Most recently, “Bromallama” and the shortened “Llama” have even led to the name of our favorite trail as the “Llama Loop”.

Brewer gets “Brew”, “Brewski” and “Brewdoggity” most often. For his unending bladder capacity, and because he’s from Tennessee, we sometimes call him “Two-Gallon Jed”. And due to the dramatic improvement in his now-chocolate-brown coat over the six months since his rescue, we’ve been known to call him “Shiny Tim”. Last but not least, Brewer’s ability to slip out of his collar in a millisecond has inspired the name “Brewdini”.

After filling up your bellies, I hope you all made it out for your Thanksgiving walk!

Our guests have all left and there’s still a weekend ahead. We’re looking forward to spoiling our boys with attention for two more days at home!

Happy Holidays!