The Week's BEST Photos!

Happy Friday everybody! To celebrate Friday, I'm sharing with you my favorite photos from this week.

The Perfect Pillow for Stomach-Sleepers

(Siblings Serveta and Zosia)
Photo by Tim Kondas 
Owlcore on Instagram

Keeping an eye on things in the kitchen

(Me)
Photo by Garth's momma
TWAGR Facebook Fan Page

I can hear the sound of the ocean

(Me and Frankie's butt)
Photo by Frankie's momma AKA Emily Wallace

I'm in LIFE + DOG Magazine!!!

I'm in LIFE+DOG !
(see page 22, Pet Photo Challenge,
July/August edition)

Mom bought all the copies she could find!
(Just kidding. The nice people at
LIFE+DOG sent us four copies.)

In case you don't get LIFE+DOG, this is the photo that was in the Pet Photo Challenge.  The Pet Photo Challenge is a weekly photo contest sponsored by LIFE+DOG and GoPetFriendly.com.  Fans submit photos and participants try to guess where the photos were taken.  Can you guess?  (Hint: it's our favorite place in the world.)

Explain to me what all this BlogPaws is about?

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, the weekend before last you were subjected to entertained by my numerous tweets about BlogPaws.  In response to these tweets, a friend posted on my Facebook page, "Explain to me what all this BlogPaws is about?"

Okay, I will try.

BlogPaws is a conference for pet bloggers and people in the pet industry interested in using social media.  But it's really so much more.  Imagine 500 pet-crazy people and about 100 dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs, flat pets, stuffed pets, and balloon pets at a Sheraton in Tysons Corner for a weekend of educational seminars, fun activities, and social events.  Sound crazy?  Oh, it was.  But we loved every minute of it.

I can't even begin to describe how wonderful it was to be around so many awesome people and pets, so I'll just hit on some of the highlights.  

One of the best parts of BlogPaws was that we got to meet some of our blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pals in the furs.  Mom and dad really enjoyed getting a chance to talk to them, and I enjoyed all the petting and belly rubs.

So what did I do at BlogPaws?

Met some very impressive doggies

Attended seminars

Sniffed other doggies

Played with other doggies

Got belly rubs

Tried my paw at being a videographer

Found a greenway and walked each morning

Took a walk on the greenway with Rocco the Havanese

Accumulated swag

Hung out with beautiful girls 

Had fun . . . 

perhaps a little too much fun

Overall, we had a fabulous time.  I was very sad when it was over.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Designed by Ann "Paws" Staub of Pawsitively Pets

I'm One of the Coolest?!?

Guess who made the list of the 

The 10 Coolest Pets with Blogs in 2012? 

ME!  

And I was included in this snazzy infographic:

Infographic created by and reproduced with
permission of Ann Paws of Pawsitively Pets Blog 

A huge Thank You to Ann!  This really made my day.  And it was a great way to start the new year!  

Wordless Wednesday

Team Garth Raised Over $1,000 for Fetch-A-Cure! A HUGE Thank You to Our Supporters!

Back in October, we decided to participate in the Mutt Strutt to honor the memory of my brother Jake.  (I posted about it in Fighting Canine Cancer in Memory of Jake.)

We wanted to participate and raise money for Fetch-A-Cure because we strongly support their mission to educate humans about pet cancer and its treatment, detection, and prevention.  Fetch-A-Cure is a Richmond, Virginia-based non-profit, and we've been very impressed by what they do and how they do it.  Fetch-A-Cure does great things.

Team Garth started with a modest goal of raising $200.  We weren't very optimistic because, frankly, we really hate to ask people for money -- even for the best of causes.  But we were amazed by the support we got from our friends!  Some made donations, and many others voiced their support of what we were doing.  It made us feel so good!  

Our friend Brenda joined the team, and she helped a HUGE amount.  A number of her friends also sponsored the team.  We quickly reached $200, so we raised the goal from $200 to $400, and then to $600, and when we were over $600, we raised the goal to $1000.  The first team to reach $1000 in donations received an additional $500 from an anonymous donor, and we tried very hard to get to $1000 first.  Another team beat us to $1000, but soon after that we received a very generous donation from my long-time veterinarian, Allied Animal Hospital, and we reached our $1000 goal!

We had a beautiful day for the Mutt Strutt today, and I enjoyed seeing my friends and getting lots of treats and belly rubs.  The nice lady from Wag-in-the-Box even gave me some Bowser Beer (which is quite yummy) and momma got me a 3-month subscription to Wag-in-the-Box!  And to top it all off, Team Garth came in THIRD PLACE in the fundraising, so we won awesome Fetch-A-Cure sweatshirts for all the human team members.

Raising over $1000 for Fetch-A-Cure was beyond our wildest dreams, but we did it, thanks to our very generous supporters.

A HUGE thank you from Team Garth to all of our supporters!  Thank you from the bottom of my big puppy heart!  You guys are AWESOME!

I'm so happy we were able to raise
so much money for Fetch-A-Cure!

I'd say we did very well today!

Smiley Sunday

I know exactly what I want for Christmas!!!

Photo by Tim Kondas
Thanks to Scoot Richmond for letting
me sit in the sidecar of this beautiful Stella

A Virtual Awards Ceremony: Silly Photo Contest Winners Enjoying Their Prizes - Part 1

Mom and I have really enjoyed reading the posts and seeing the photos of the winners of Garth Riley's FIRST EVER Silly Photo Contest enjoying their prize packages.  We thought my readers may enjoy them too!

Zosia is enjoying her squirrel from Kygen

Serveta appears perplexed by her trophy

Zosia is not letting the squirrel out of her sight

You should definitely check out the post in which Arabella shows off her prizes -- mom and I were cracking up while reading it.  That girl can balance ANYTHING on her head and snout.

Reuben especially liked the Kygen Fling 'n Floss.  I get the feeling he will be growling at anyone who comes near his Fling 'n Floss.

Casey received two prize packages in one day -- one from my contest and one from the Legacy Boxer Rescue Summer Athletic Competition.  He is one lucky dude!

Zoey enjoyed playing with her prizes too, one of which matched her bedspread -- you can see her post here.

Princeton also enjoyed his prize package, especially the treats.  Check out his post about it here.  He said "Garth, you really know what kittehz like!"  This made me feel especially good, because I have to admit I was somewhat at a loss when putting together the prize packages for kitties.  I don't have any kitty brothers or sisters and I don't really know many kitties.  So I asked myself, "what do kitties like?"  

Then I found these:

How cool is that?  I included kitty tennis balls in many of the kitty prize packages because I think the idea is simply brilliant.  Why should dogs have all the fun playing with tennis balls?  (I've heard they even make tennis balls for humans these days.)

When I was out shopping for the kitty prize packages, I also found some kittie party mix!  I didn't even know kitties liked to party.  But they obviously do, judging from the photo on the front of the package.

So I was quite pleased with myself when the kitties told me they enjoyed their prize packages.  (Aren't kitties notoriously difficult to please?)

Speaking of kitties, Mayzie's brother Smudge won the Grand Prize.  He particularly enjoyed the tissue paper and bubble wrap that mom put in the package to keep everything from breaking.  Check out his post here.  I enjoy playing with and eating boxes, so I understand completely, but the bubble wrap?  That stuff scares me.

Roo found a new use for his Kygen moose toy prize -- as a shiatsu face massager.  He also wrote a very nice post about his winnings.

If you have written a post about your prizes and I haven't seen it, please let me know so I can include a link to your post in Part 2 of the Awards Ceremony.  I think I follow everyone who entered the contest, but I've been having some difficulty keeping up lately.  Also if you write a post in the future about your prizes, let me know and I will include it in Part 2.  

Mom mailed out some prizes last week, but she still has one prize to complete and one prize package to deliver.  She had some technical difficulties with the last one (besides the whole broken arm-surgery-installation of 8 screws and a titanium plate into her arm thing) and will be unable to work on it for a couple weeks, but hopes to have all prizes completed and delivered by the end of October.


Due to the overwhelming success of Garth Riley's FIRST EVER Silly Photo Contest, I am making tentative plans for next year's contest, and am considering making this an annual event.  I'm also trying to convince mom to help me out with another contest soon, because I had so much fun with this one.  I'm thinking of a small contest with only one or a few winners and perhaps a random drawing as at least part of the contest.  I'll tell you more about it when mom agrees to do it.  She said the Silly Photo Contest was very taxing on her mentals trying to keep track of who won what and make sure she sent the right prizes to the right creatures.

I've also got several pieces of big, exciting news, which I will tell you about in an upcoming post.  (Hint: one of these pieces of news involves a giveaway of one of my favorite things to some of my readers!) 

Fabulous Frosty Paws Friday: a VERY Special Delivery

(I'm a little blurry 'cause
I was SO excited)

Yesterday, a guy in a big brown truck delivered a big box to our house.  It was addressed to ME!

Mom usually lets me help open packages, but she said this one had  something called dry ice in it, and she didn't want me getting into the dry ice.  So she opened it for me.  LOOK what was inside!

The very very very nice people at Nestle Dreyer's sent me a big package filled with boxes of Frosty Paws!  I guess they must have liked my blog post about my big win at the Frosty Paws Eating Contest.  

I really wasn't expecting any type of compensation for the right to reprint my blog post in the Full Scoop (I was actually quite honored when they asked), but when they offered to send me as many packages of Frosty Paws as could fit in my freezer, I said SURE, twist my paw!

Just look at all these Frosty Paws!

(My tail was waggin' SO HARD)

My cousin Sadie is in town this weekend, so I shared my Frosty Paws with her.

Mom had to help out Sadie
by holding the cup for her.

I didn't need any help

Nom nom nom
Peanut butter Frosty Paws is the best stuff EVER

I may have to have some friends over for a Frosty Paws party!

Thank you thank you thank you Nestle Dreyer's!