Growing up, my best friend and favorite playmate in the entire world was Brandy, my beloved golden retriever. From three years old until 17, we were inseparable. She was everything to me and almost eight years after she passed away I still miss her everyday. So when Ash and I were given the opportunity to review the book Pure Gold: Adventures with Six Rescued Golden Retrievers by Holli Pfau, I jumped at the chance. There’s something about the face of a golden, of the way their eyes reflect their deep souls, that makes you feel like everything in the world is good. And it is apparent from the very beginning that Holli Pfau feels the same way.

We are honored to be closing out Holli’s blog tour to celebrate and promote this beautiful book. The thing that initially pulled me into this book wasn’t the story – it wasn’t even the first chapter. What got me, what really made fall in love with this book, was Holli’s dedication. How could you not love a book with this at the very beginning:

The Goldens Behind the Story

For Holli, her journey started with one small golden ball of fluff named Nikki (an awesome name if I do say so myself). It was Nikki that was the catalyst that created a lifetime of learning, inspiring, and changing the lives of dogs and their human companions. The book is narrated from Holli’s perspective and she documents the lives of each of the golden retrievers that enter her life and how they subsequently change it for the better. Nikki, Bodie, Tucker, Sophie, Daisy, and Chatter – they all have a story and this book, these wonderfully written words penned by a talented author, give us a positive perspective on having an open heart and the power of a wet nose.

Both Ash and I highly recommend this story to any dog lover, any rescue or foster parent. It touches the heart and reminds us why we do what we do – for the dogs and for ourselves. This is a book that belongs on the shelves of anyone who has ever worked with animals. If you’re interested in purchasing a copy (and I really think you should), you can find it on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Do it. You won’t regret it.

Giveaway!

It’s your lucky day! You could win a copy of Pure Gold for your very own. Just leave a comment below and tell us a little about an inspirational animal in your life. Giveaway is open to U.S. and Canada residents only (sorry). Deadline to enter the giveaway is Wednesday, December 7. Good luck!

Filed under: Contests, Giveaways, Product Review on November 30th, 2011 | 1 Comment »

As some of you may know, for February we did a challenge with our dogs in honor of Pet Dental Health Month. The challenge consisted of feeding a Greenie to each of our 3 dogs every day. We made no other changes to their diet or behaviors. We took pictures before the challenge began and then at the end of each week to document the change. We also had our vet grade the boys’ oral health both before and after the challenge was over. I have to say that I am very impressed with the results!

You can see more on the vet’s ratings on our first week’s post here but for easy comparison, here are the results from both vet visits. To reduce bias, the vet was not reminded of the scores she gave before the challenge.

The Scores!

Video Time!

Check out this video documenting the change in our pup’s teeth over the course of the challenge!

(Here’s a link to the video as well!)

As you can see, using the Greenies for just one month had a tremendous impact on the oral health of our boys! Rufus, who started with the worst rating & most problems, had the most marked changes. It was so cool to see his teeth change as the days went on. You can see in the pictures how the plaque & calculus on both his and Spunky’s teeth broke off more and more as the month wore on. Even Snarf, who as a chewer had the best teeth to begin with, showed improvement. All the dogs had improved breath as well, which is one way we can most easily judge the condition of their mouth.

The only “problem” we encountered, which is just a learned lesson really, is that dogs, like people, tend to favor a side of their mouth. We noticed over the weeks that the dogs tended to chew mostly on one side and by the end we saw a definite difference between the two sides. I’m not sure if you can really convince a dog that it needs to chew evenly. Sometimes we tried holding it on the opposite side but they always tried to switch it back. Still, while Greenies may not be the end-all, be-all to oral health, it is a GREAT tool to improve it. And I guarantee your pups will never complain about it! Ours now beg us for them, the spoiled brats! ^_^

And the Winner Is…

Congratulations to Kelly Ann T. for winning our Pet Dental Health Month Challenge Giveaway! Because you participated in the challenge with us, you’ve won TWELVE boxes of Greenies of whatever size your dogs require! Make sure you email us your dogs’ weights as well as a shipping address which we’ll pass along to Greenies so they can get the prize to you.

We here at ILRA would like to give a huge thank you to Greenies for providing us with the product for this challenge as well as for providing the prize! But most of all, thank you for making such a great product that really, truly does what it is meant to. Our kids are healthier for it and you can’t put a price on that!

Filed under: Contests, Giveaways, Product Review, Videos on March 10th, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Hey everyone! Did you know that February is Pet Dental Heath Month? It might not be the first thing you think of when you think of your pet’s health, but your animal’s teeth are just as important to them as ours are to us! We think oral care for our furry kids is important and we want to help celebrate the importance of this month by doing something fun.

So how did we come up with this challenge? Back in November, Greenies told us about a Pet Oral Health Event they were having at Petco stores around the country. We gathered up our pups and headed over where we met a Nutro/Greenies representative. She did a quick visual exam and rated them on several different aspects such as plaque, calculus and gingival inflammation. They all had varying stages of plaque build-up and the smallest dog had calculus & gingival inflammation as well. The Greenies lady suggested that we try feeding our kids a Greenie a day for a month to really get their teeth back to where they should be. After that, we could cut back and just try to maintain the results. It sounded like a cool idea so we talked to our contact at Greenies and she thought it was a great idea & would fit perfectly for Pet Dental Health Month.

So here we are, one day before February 1st and the start of our challenge! We have five dogs lined up here that are going to participate. We have a great range of dogs in age, size, and oral health so this is going to be really interesting to see how much improvement we see in each of them over the next month. Greenies kindly donated all the Greenies samples we’re going to need for the next month. All five dogs are going to the vet today to have their overall oral health evaluated. They are going to be re-evaluated at the end of the month as well. Tomorrow we will post the results of their exams as well as pre-challenge pictures of their teeth. We’ll be taking new photos each week and will have a huge end results post at the end of February. For now, please meet the our cute participants!

The Puppy Participants!

Spunky

Husky mix – 7 years old – 55 pounds

Snarf

Briard mix – 2 years old – 40 pounds

Rufus

Maltipoo – 4 years old – 12 pounds

Baby

Pit Bull – 10 years – 55 pounds

Chance

Golden/Lab mix – 5 years – 80 pounds

Come Join the Challenge!

Now here comes the fun part! We want YOU to join us in our challenge! Pick a pup, give them a Greenie a day and document the changes as the month progresses. Why do you want to do this? Why, so your best furry friend will have better oral health, of course! That and Greenies has kindly offered a prize to be given to one random participant! At the end of the month, we will do a random drawing of participants and one lucky duck will win 12 packs of Greenies suited to the size of their dog. You read that right – TWELVE! Depending on the size of your dog, that could be a YEAR’S SUPPLY! How cool is that? The winner will be chosen by a random drawing – join soon because for every week you take the challenge with us, you’ll get an extra entry into the drawing! So come on and join us! This will be a great way for all of us to celebrate Pet Dental Health Month together! We will improve our pets’ overall health by ensuring they have better oral health.

Filed under: Contests, Giveaways on January 31st, 2011 | 20 Comments »

You are reading the sixth chapter of O’Malley’s story.
Read the First Chapter
Read the Second Chapter
Read the Third Chapter
Read the Fourth Chapter
Read the Fifth Chapter
To Be Continued…

Hey everyone! I hope you’ve all enjoyed the holiday season! We’ve been spreading the cheer around here, taking the pups to the dog park, feeding the ferals wet food for Christmas, etc. I can’t believe 2011 is just around the corner! We’re super excited to launch our 365 Days of Animal Advocacy on the first! I really hope we can make it really take off – it’s going to take a lot of work, organization, advertising and, of course, shirts! If you haven’t heard of it yet, please check out its page. Do you have a favorite animal rescue or organization? Let them know about it! Think your friends, family, or followers would find it a cool project? Spread the word! Together, we can make it happen!

As we head into next year we are also hoping that we can finally raise the rest of the money for O’Malley’s recovery. O’Malley is the miracle cat that I found on the side of the road, hit by a car and left to die, covered in ants. He had a broken pelvis & dislocated hip. He has undergone surgery to fix his hip that involved cutting the head off of his femur and has recovered amazingly. He even survived the dreaded water treadmill as he underwent physical therapy to help him rebuild his muscles. He has been neutered and received all of his vaccines. Altogether his cost came to about $700 and as you can tell by his ChipIn donation page, we’ve raised a little bit of the money to cover his vet bills. 16 wonderful people have stepped in so far to help us help this amazing cat and we are so grateful. We realize that money is tight for everyone. Trust us, it’s been difficult for us as well. On top of O’Malley’s bills, we also recently had another foster require an emergency vet visit and after care at our regular vet which resulted in just over $500 in bills. That’s $1200 spent on our fosters over only a couple of months. It’s been rough but they are all recovered and doing amazing and that’s what’s really important!

You Could Win A Pet Portrait!

We are so happy to announce we have another incentive for all of our O’Malley supporters! Adriana Willsie, a fantastic pet portrait artist, has come forward with a great idea to help O’Malley in her own way. Adriana is offering a chance to win a gorgeous 4″x4″ bite-size portrait, normally worth $40, to anyone who donates $10 or more towards this cause. Once we have raised enough to meet our goal, we’ll do a random drawing of eligible donors and announce the winner.

But wait! There’s more!

Adriana is taking her support one step further by offering a 50% off coupon towards one of her 6″x6″ pet portraits for anyone who donates $20 or more! That’s a savings of $75! The only stipulation is that you use your coupon by the end of 2011. We’re really hopeful that this will help us raise the rest of the donations. It’s a very worthy cause and now you could have the chance at receiving something in return. You know, besides the warm, fuzzy feelings. ^_^ This of course applies to anyone who donated before this post. Also, if you have donated previously but would like to donate more to reach one of these levels, all you have to do is donate the difference. We really appreciate that you donated even without incentives.

Thank you so much to all of you who are willing to help this boy gain a new life! We all appreciate it! I know times are tough, but if a lot of you can make a small donation, it can make a HUGE difference to us! Happy holidays and I hope 2011 is your best year yet!

Filed under: Be The Change, Donations, Giveaways, O'Malley on December 27th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Hey all. It’s been way too long since we’ve done a product review! This time around we are reviewing Ewww Pawsitively Clean by Bissell, one of their newest cleaning products. It’s enzyme-based for use on organic stains and odors such as urine and feces. We were excited to try it out when DogTime Media asked for bloggers to do reviews. We received our bottle through them in exchange for doing the review for Bissell. We tried it out on a few different problems: a carpet stained by dog pee and a dog bed and dog kennel that had lingering cat pee smell. The product worked amazingly and I encourage you to watch our video.

Product Review!

Giveaway!

After we had signed up for this promotion, we went to BlogPaws West, where Bissell was one of the sponsors and vendors. There we received a smaller bottle as a sample and we’d like to pass the awesome cleaning power on to you. So we’re offering a giveaway of an 8 ounce bottle of Ewww so you can try it out in your own home. Trust me, if your home is anything like ours, you’ll be glad to have it! This stuff may allow us some of our pet deposit back yet! The rules of the contest are simple. Just comment below telling us why you would like to win this product. This contest will run until November 30th when a winner will be selected at random. Good luck!

Filed under: Giveaways, Product Review, Videos on November 16th, 2010 | 1 Comment »