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Toronto area dog owners Woofstock is this weekend

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Are you going to Woofstock?

Woofstock is the largest festival for dogs in North America and it’s this weekend!

It’s been held here in Toronto on Saturday June 7th and Sunday June 8th between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day. The festival is taking place at the St. Lawrence Market Neighborhood.

I have to admit that I’d never heard of Woofstock until a month or so ago. Of course I never owned a dog until last November so perhaps that’s how such a big festival in the city I live in escaped me.

The festival has been going on since 2003 and last year it was so big that CNN beamed the event around the world for the whole weekend.

Chris and I are definitely going to go downtown and check out Woofstock tomorrow and perhaps on Sunday as well. Midnight loves meeting other dogs and she loves people too so this will blow her mind.

There are all kinds of events and contests planned for each day. Perhaps we’ll enter Midnight in one of the contests. She’s cute and she’s smart it might be worth a try.

Check out the Woofstock website for a complete list of events, sponsors, booths and learn how to enter your dog in one of the contests if you’re interested.





Zootoo – a social network for pet owners

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zootoologo.jpg I just signed up with a social network for pet owners. It’s called Zootoo.com and it’s a place where pet owners can create a journal to discuss their pets, connect with other pet lovers, discuss pet news or even launch pet groups or announce pet related events.

I’ve joined a few pet and or dog related forums and groups since we got Midnight last November and I’ve enjoyed connecting with other pet owners.

One thing that I like about Zootoo is that there are lots of groups specific to type or breed of pet as well as groups that have been created for pet lovers in specific areas. I joined a couple of the dog and Labrador Retriever groups right away.

Sometime over the weekend I’ll add to my personal page by posting photos of Midnight as well as pictures of my two box turtles. Then I might go around and look for other members that own Labs or box turtles and connect with them.

The only, minor, problem that I had with the site was registering. I’m in Canada and registration requires that you list a zip code. I’m fairly sure after reading the terms of service that membership is open to most people with the exception of a few countries so it would be nice if they fixed this requirement. As a result of having to put down the only US zip code that I know by heart (90210) it looks like I’m from Beverly Hills California so group suggestions etc don’t work well for me.

If you have pets and want to start a page about your pets and connect with other pet lovers check out Zootoo.com.

My dog is so hyper!

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Our Lab puppy is now 9 months old and she’s growing like a weed!

I was just telling the folks over at my other blog that she’s now 60 lb and it’s becoming harder and harder to take her for a walk because she tugs on the leash so hard that she’s almost pulling us off our feet. In other words she’s a real drag – or we are! We use a comfort wrap harness when we walk her and it helps to some degree, but she’s so strong!

Normally in the evenings she calms down and while she still plays a lot she also takes naps, especially as the evening drags on. Last night though … she just wouldn’t calm down. It was like she was on a pep pill or something.

She was running back and forth from room to room, jumping up on the couch beside my husband dropping her toy bones on him to get him to play and so on.

At one point she came racing into the room and jumped on our leather recycling chair and almost tipped it over backwards! If I hadn’t caught it both she and the chair would have crashed to the ground. She did manage to whack the home theater speaker while she was running around and just about knocked it off it’s speaker mount too.

We’ve talked to other Lab owners and most say their pups were pretty hyper too, but we get the feeling when we talk to them that our Midnight is a lot more hyper than their’s were … or maybe time has faded the memory of that hectic time now that their dogs have calmed down.

I just hope that Midnight starts to calm down a bit soon – at least while we’re out walking with her. Someone told us the other day that she’ll calm a bit when we get her spayed. We haven’t done that yet but plan to sometime in the next month or two. Does anyone know if it’s true that she’ll calm when she’s spayed?

If anyone has any tips as to how to get her to be a bit more co-operative when we take her out for walks I’d appreciate some advice. Thanks!

Losing weight

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I just thought I’d give you an update on my continuing weight loss. As regular readers know I’ve been off work on medical leave for more than two years due to Crohn’s Disease.

Over the past two years I’ve managed to gain a few pounds due mainly to inactivity thanks to my abdominal pain. Last November we got a Lab puppy to keep me company and as a way to motivate me to get more active. Dogs need to get outside, even if you don’t feel like taking them out, right?

Well, between Midnight keeping me busy and now Spring gardening tasks etc I’ve noticed that I’ve started to lose some weight. I hadn’t gained a lot of weight, but enough that I wasn’t looking forward to summer shorts and skimpier clothes if you know what I mean!

So I’m happy to say that the weight seems to be dropping off without the help of a strict diet or dieting aids like Slimquick. I’ve just become more active.

Of course I do watch what I eat. I have to since I have Crohns as I have trouble digesting quite a few foods. However I do try to eat low fat foods, lean proteins and limit the sweets.

Have you been trying to lose weight? What have you done and have you been successful?

Pansies everywhere!

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Earlier this year I noticed that my oval raised garden bed that breaks the patio area from the main backyard lawn area up was full of plants that I didn’t recognize at first. They were everywhere, choking off the roses, astilbe and other plants in that bed.

It didn’t take me too long to realize that I’d had a pansy explosion!

Now, back when I first started my garden in 2002 I planted some pansy and viola seeds and seedlings. The plants came up for a few years due to reseeding, but seemed to have died out by 2006 or so.

I didn’t really mind that the plants had disappeared as Pansies are only decent around here in the Spring and then the plants get leggy and floppy during our hot humid summers. So fine … I had better plants that could use that space.

Well .. I don’t know what happened this year. Maybe the seeds lying dormant in the earth really enjoyed the deep snow cover and extra spring moisture or perhaps, since this flower bed is very close to our two bird feeders – maybe some of the bird seeds we used had pansy seeds in it. I don’t know what happened … but suddenly I had a bed full of pansies.

Last weekend I pulled out most of the pansies. They were so thick I couldn’t even see my strawberry plants or the Phlox that was struggling to grow within the mass of pansy plants.

I have a few other plants that have come up this year that were missing in the last two or three years as well. Some Lily of the Valley that I’d planted at the back of the driveway that had never come up suddenly started to grow this year, and some daylilies that I had right near my front porch, that I thought had died out due to the dryness of the area a few years ago seem to have made an appearance this year. It had to be all that snow cover.

I know, you think I live in the North and we’ve probably got snow all winter long. However, here in Toronto that’s rarely the case. It will snow and then the snow melts away within a few days. This is hard on the plants because it’s fairly cold most winters, and without that protective layer of snow the plants are subject to wind and freezing temperature damage. Thats one reason why I often buy plants that are hardy to a zone or two lower than our supposedly USDA zone 5b rating.

Did you have any surprise plants pop up in your garden beds this year?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!

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