Last year, on Mother's Day (May 8th), I was so lucky to adopt Indiana (with The Husband, of course). I was hoping to write my celebratory blog post on Indiana's correct Gotcha Day, which I had thought was May 9th. Oops! I guess this gives Indiana a pass for how much he has been choosing to chase the cat recently.
Happy Belated Gotcha Day, Indiana!
April was a particularly busy month, filled with fretting over and preparing for the Furry Scurry, a charity walk for one of the local shelters, The Dumb Friend's League (a pretty hilarious name, to be sure). I signed up for a vendor tent to promote my work.
Thankfully, The Husband was there to lend a hand and the extra muscle I was lacking. The day was very long, hot, and tiring, but it was great to see so many dogs! I wish I had taken more pictures of the whole event, but there was a lot of hustling to be done. I'll be doing a couple craft fairs and other pet events and am dreading looking forward to those too.
Indiana loves lying on the balcony during nice weather. He'll let himself bake for a while, then come inside and spread himself out on the floor to cool off, drink some water, then go back outside to work on his tan.
He especially likes the dirty blue tarp, since that corner catches the last of the afternoon sun.
Yesterday, Indiana came back from the dog park covered in dust and slobber more than usual. Dreading his presence on the sofa, I took it upon myself to give him the dreaded B-A-T-H.
Now, of course, I need to mention with the fact that Indiana hates baths. What a surprise! He's kind of like this guy-
Skip to 5:35 for the dreaded "shiba scream" which Indiana does a great imitation of during his baths.
During the days I worked at Daily Wag dog daycare, I had the free use of
their very nice dog washing tub, complete with a hand held shower nozzle. Our apartment has no such luxuries (the shower head is firmly attached to the wall), so we have to fill a variety of bowls and jars with water in preparation. We then pour these over Indiana in the bath to get him clean. This takes forever to set up, use, and clean up.
Getting ready for the bath.
So, I tried turning on the shower to rinse him off.
As you can tell by his face, Indiana was not amused and is still recovering. Peanut butter helped quite a bit to relieve his "pain" though.
The dog bath eventually lead to the decision to wash all of the dog bedding, which was a serious contributor to his built up stank. Of course, now my washer is covered in dog fur, which I've been slowly picking out. The interior of the washer also smelled quite a bit (not surprising given the amount of odor on the blankets) so I had to run a quick wash with no clothes to at least freshen it up.
What was recovered from the washer.
Any ideas on how to clean doggie blankets more efficiently?
This painting came a long way from where it was before!
I am currently waiting to hear back from Ralph's mom to see if she'd like any changes. Then, I'll let the painting dry for a few weeks, apply some varnish, more drying, and it will be shipped out so that Ralph can enjoy it around the end of April! (I'm sure his parents will enjoy it more than he will, but that's okay.)
20" x 16" oil on canvas
I also painted a custom Schnauzer silhouette for an order from Canada. I had to fill out a customs form and everything. I am now an international artist! (Hopefully the painting will make it there ok. It can take more than a month to go through customs and travel through the Canadian mail system. Yikes!)
Last week, I redid all of my listings for dog silhouette watercolors on my Etsy shop. My first idea was to do a painting of a lot of breeds and then I could sell archival quality prints from the paintings. It turns out, getting prints made is EXPENSIVE and FRUSTRATING!! It is much easier to paint a new silhouette for every order that comes in. I also like that this will make every piece original and unique for the person who buys it (just like their dog!)
On another note, my birthday was this weekend. I am now old enough to rent a car!
