Living Large In Our Little House

On this day that we are sup­pos­edly giv­ing thanks for all of our bless­ings (and not mak­ing it about fam­ily squab­bles, the size of the meal, shop­ping, or who won the foot­ball game), I’m, of course, tak­ing this oppor­tu­nity to blog about gratitude.

On most days, I have an “atti­tude of grat­i­tude,” I find it within myself to be thank­ful for at least one thing in my life that is good. Oftentimes, when I am writ­ing in my vision jour­nal, I try to find as many things as I can, not lim­it­ing myself by find­ing “at least five,” or “at least ten.”

Sometimes I come up with a whole page of things I am thank­ful for.

I think for some peo­ple, it isn’t so easy. They will always find their glass half empty, or wish­ing for more than what they have. They see grat­i­tude as a fine line of accept­ing what they have as “defeat” or that they may not ever have more money, that big­ger house, the newest tech­no­log­i­cal device or the lat­est car.

They fail to see that we all must be truly grate­ful for every­thing in our lives in order to attract more.

On the days I find many things to be thank­ful for, it cre­ates a pos­i­tive energy that allows me to accom­plish more in my per­sonal and my work life.

That’s how grat­i­tude plays into the Law of Attraction.

I hope all of our Living Large com­mu­nity, whether you reside in the U.S. or some­place else, will find time to count your bless­ings today.

It will make you feel bet­ter and just might help attract more of what you want into your life.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dakota

I apol­o­gize for my unex­pected absence from the blog on Tuesday. It has been the “Week of the Dog” around here.

Dakota, our Doxie/Beagle mix is hav­ing ter­ri­ble prob­lems with her aller­gies again. This past spring, she dug her eyes so badly that she actu­ally cre­ated what the vet called a “divot” on her cornea. It took us sev­eral weeks for us to get that to heal so she wouldn’t lose her eyesight.

This past week­end, she began dig­ging every­where (except her eyes, which now required two med­ica­tions, twice daily). By Monday, she had scratched her­self raw and by the time the vet could see her on Monday after­noon, she was bleed­ing from her ears, her neck….you get the idea. She was mis­er­able, we were mis­er­able and it was a mess.

Fast for­ward to this morn­ing and she seems to be heal­ing, the allergy meds and antibi­otics to clear the bac­te­r­ial infec­tion from scratch­ing are start­ing to take effect and she is act­ing more herself.

The vet has no idea what sud­denly caused this out­break, but sus­pects it was a diet change more than a month ago. We switched from one high qual­ity food to one I felt was even bet­ter. While they all seem to enjoy the new food, Dakota’s sen­si­tive allergy sys­tem didn’t, so back to the old food for her.

Now, Abbi has severely cut her paw and she will not allow me to put any­thing on it (she imme­di­ately licks it off), so I fore­see another trip to the vet in our future.

We hate it when our dogs are ill or in pain and can­not tell us what is wrong.

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One of my favorite hol­i­days to dec­o­rate for has always been Halloween.

It goes back to my child­hood, as I knew then that Christmas and my birth­day were just a cou­ple short months away.

We always had such cool dec­o­ra­tions, too. Little wax fig­ures and pump­kins. They cost .10 cents then at the Dime Store, but are worth a for­tune to col­lec­tors now.

Since we’ve moved from the city, we don’t have trick or treaters and we don’t have any lit­tle kids, but I still enjoy get­ting out my Halloween décor.

Continue Reading »

Animals have been a cen­tral theme this week at Living Large, so I thought I would con­tinue that on with the Tip of the Week: Recycle a Pet.

Over 5 mil­lion healthy dogs and cats are killed in shel­ters each year in the United States. Millions more strug­gle to sur­vive on their own on the streets and in the countryside.

If you put all of the ani­mals killed in shel­ters each year together, it is more than the human pop­u­la­tion of Los Angeles and they would equal the pop­u­la­tions of Chicago and Houston combined.

That’s a lot of animals.

We tax­pay­ers also foot the $2 bil­lion bill to cap­ture, house and ulti­mately kill these animals.

Homeless, feral cats also have a pro­found effect on the envi­ron­ment and eco-system, greatly reduc­ing the num­ber of birds in some areas. I couldn’t find any sta­tis­tics with regards to how much of an envi­ron­men­tal foot­print shel­ters leave on our planet, but it must be astounding.

So, why is it nec­es­sary to con­tinue to breed pets or buy “new” pets from breed­ers or pet stores? It isn’t. It’s American con­sumerism, the need to have the “best,” the “pret­ti­est,” the “fastest” the “biggest,” the “small­est…” what­ever descrip­tor. It is because we see ani­mals as an exten­sion of our lifestyles, instead of liv­ing beings with feel­ings and emotion.

Some may also feel that shel­ter or res­cue pets are “bro­ken,” or have behav­ioral issues that can­not be fixed.

That is sim­ply not true. We’ve had a total of 7 res­cue cats and 9 res­cue dogs (includ­ing a fos­ter) in our mar­ried lives, none of which required any­more train­ing and social­iz­ing than I would have put into a “new” puppy. Of these, 3 of them were pure­breds, which also proves you can find pure­breds, if you so choose, in res­cues and shelters.

There’s a say­ing in ani­mal res­cue: “Shelter ani­mals are not bro­ken, they’ve sim­ply expe­ri­ence more life,” and we’ve found that to be true. Our res­cues have all also been the most loyal of pets. Emma, our German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix even saved me once from a charg­ing horse.

Dale brought home a new stray last week. He's a younger Beagle mix. He is very needy and clingy, he needs lots of atten­tion and love. He also doesn't seem to have been house trained. But I know when he set­tles in and he knows we won't leave him or dump him, he'll be a great dog.

We're call­ing him Dexter, because he has "killer" eyes that will melt your heart.

If you can­not adopt a home­less pet, there are other ways you can help the effort:

• First and fore­most, please make sure to spay and neuter those pets in your care. Two unal­tered cats and all their descen­dants can the­o­ret­i­cally num­ber 420,000 in just seven years. Two unal­tered dogs and all their descen­dants can the­o­ret­i­cally num­ber 67,000 in just six years.
• Volunteer your time and any unneeded pet toys, beds, blan­kets, tow­els, linens and other items your shel­ter may need. Food and of course, mon­e­tary dona­tions, are always wel­come too. Many shel­ter and res­cues have spon­sor­ship pro­grams, which are great gifts for the peo­ple in your life that have every­thing and need nothing.

Here at Our Little House, we believe the 3 R’s of Repurpose, Reuse and Recycle is not just lim­ited to “things;” but also to the beings that we, as a species, have domes­ti­cated, mak­ing all of us respon­si­ble for their humane care and the imprint we leave on the envi­ron­ment in doing so.

We would love to hear all about your recy­cled pets and how they found you.