Entry to WolfSleddder's Photography Contest

You can enter here. And here is my entry:

Kusy is a 2 year old beagle we rescued from our local animal shelter on June 26th, 2010. 'Kusy' means small in Polish, but it is more commonly used as a name than as an adjective. It took two years to convince my mother to adopt a dog, but it was worth it! Kusy may be small but he (and his super-sniffer nose) is mighty!

Kusy is adopted, and he has a few problems. First, he gets a little overexcited and often pulls on the leash. We're working on this, and he is getting better. He also is shy and fearful of men, and has growled at a few men and snapped at one (granted, the one he snapped at was fingering and touching his snout and head- a threat to a dog- while Kusy was growling a warning to back off). We are working on this problem too, though. All it takes is some treats and Kusy is licking the very hand he growled at! (Really!) Kusy is also a little shy of other dogs at first. Once he gets to know them, he is extremely exuberant and loves to play! His favorite friend is a fat little dachshund named Pikus who even 'hugged' Kusy once!

True to his beagle roots, Kusy goes absolutely insane when he sees or smells a rabbit. He immediately dashes off, pulling whoever is holding on the leash after the fleeing creature, baying all the while. If you haven't heard a beagle bay yet, you absolutely must- it is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. His tail wags like a machine, his nose glued to the ground, vacuuming the grass for any sign, or scent, of the bunny. Of course, the rabbit always manages to get away, since Kusy is on his leash. I often wonder whether he would catch a rabbit if he just ran after it with no restraints. Of course we'd never see him again if he darted off like that.

New Camera (!!!)

I have been meaning to post for days, but I couldn't think of anything to write about. But, now that I've got an idea, here we go....

I'm suuuper duper excited!!!! I'm going to be ordering my D-SLR camera today, and I'll get it in 2-4 days!!!!

I found another website where the same camera- refurbished Nikon D300 costs 45 bucks less than on Amazon- adorama.com

The whole kit on Adorama costs only 460 bucks- if I bought everything new from Best Buy, it would cost 697 dollars- without tax. (And be assured that where I live, tax would make the sum a couple tens of dollars more.)

Of course, here are some pictures (I have started watermarking my photos too- I've got no real idea why, it just seems more professional):

In the M&M photo, that is exactly how the candies fell out of the bag- I didn't rig it or anything.

And, please check out my Triond articles- the little widget is on the sidebar.

V.I.P. (very important post)

I have several things I need to cover in the post:

-About the blog title: I have come up with another idea: Blissful Thinking. If I had to choose between the current ideas I have, I would be tied 40 percent to 40 percent Blissful Thinking and Pursuit of Writing, 10 percent Unsensical Pursuits of Sensible Things, and 10 percent another title. So if I made a circle graph of which choices I like most, those would be the percentages. So what do you guys think of the new idea for a blog title? I'm still not thrilled with it, but it's a start. I'm hoping to have a new title by my blogoversary (see below). (edit: I am now not so sure about Blissful Thinking. I Googled it and about 5 website came up that were called Blissful Thinking. I'd like something more original, and "Pursuit of Writing" doesn't thrill me the way a good title should. So back to the drawing board for me.)

-Coming up in approximately 26 days is my One Year Blogoversary! Do you have any ideas for how to celebrate? I'm thinking of doing a contest, maybe a tag, and a post to sum up the year.

-In other news.... I saw a beautiful American Goldfinch in my garden today. First it was up on my Indian Berry (Amalanchier) tree, then is flittered down branch by branch, then onto the fence, then onto the sunflower. It stayed there for maybe 20 minutes, then went on my black eyes susans- probably my favorite flower. At least my mom told me so, since I had to go for a walk with my crazy dog after seeing the little guy go on the sunflower.

-About my crazy dog: He can now do a 'down!' Of course not on a verbal cue (just like the word 'sit' means nothing to him, so does 'down.'), but before I had to pull his legs a little then push his shoulders down while holding a treat in the other hand. Now all I do is have him sit, then put the treat down in front of him and he's lying down! Jackpot! Also, he had another one of his 'panic' attacks today. He went upstairs with my brother and when he came back down... he went insane. He jumped over the baby gate, ran all over the house, and started chewing on my undies.

My dog can FETCH!!!!

Today was an even MORE fulfilling day than yesterday! My dog went insane again (this means he runs maniac-ly around the house, up and down the stairs, on and off the couch, skidding to pick up his toy.) Mimi came over and we went on a walk with Kusy. Then we went to the park by the school to (attempt to) play fetch! Instead of yesterday's "I throw, dog runs tries to get ball falls over in circles gets ball runs like maniac lies down chews ball, I run after dog yelling name and trying to get ball back finally succeed I throw, dog runs tries to get ball falls over in circles gets ball runs like maniac lies down chews ball, I run after dog yelling name and trying to get ball back finally succeed, I throw...." routine, today went more like "I throw, dog runs after ball picks ball up runs back sees treat in my hand drops ball conviniently near me eats treat, I grab ball throw, dog runs after ball picks ball up runs back sees treat in my hand drops ball conviniently near me eats treat, I grab ball throw..." Which is VERY amazing in and of itself! But what is even MORE amazing is...
        wait for it.......
That Kusy was (semi) off leash! In an Un-fenced (or partially fenced with 2 openings only, one with a gate that was opened and one with no gate at all) area! His long, new red 20 foot leash was attached to his collar but not in anyone's hand or otherwise attached to anyone or anything! And he didn't madly follow nose to heaven knows where and run off! Except once, when he darted off with ball in mouth and started to sprint madly oblivious to Mimi and my shouts of utter panic, with his nose not glued to the ground but up in the air with a mad gleeful smile on his face. He veered from the field on to the sidewalk and kept running running running until he dropped the ball by some miracle. Then he turned around in semi-mid-air to grab the ball.... and then I POUNCED on the leash and he was back! We kept playing fetch after that, but with Mimi standing guard to make sure if he DID dart off again, he would be stopped. If such was his intention, it never happened. Mimi was armed with treats.
It was a great afternoon, and 2 out of 2 tennis balls returned safely and unharmed, without so much as a chewed off thread! Kusy was too busy fetching (or running away with) his one blue tennis ball to stop and chew. And, miracle of miracles..... the second ball was completely UN-NEEDED!!! As you may recall, yesterday we needed 2 balls to trick him into giving us one while he was lying down and chewing it. Today, all it took was a treat! Kusy knew he got a treat for dropping the ball by me, so when I threw it again, he ran for it, picked it up, and brought it back, leash dragging behind him. I showed him the treat, he dropped the ball, and I gave him the treat. Then I threw again! It was pure fetching bliss, and my absolute dream! Teaching Kusy to fetch was easier than expected. I was preparing to go out and buy a special ten dollar toy for him to fetch if need be! Turns out there was thankfully no need.
After we noticed Kusy getting a little tired from fetching- he stopped sprinting to and from me to get the ball, instead he mostly trotted- I clipped his blue 6 foot leash back on, rolled up the red 20 foot one (I think Kusy's favorite color is red for some reason) put the tennis balls away and we left happy and contented. Common sense may indicate that Kusy was tired and wouldn't pull madly every which way after a long 45 minutes of fetching and sprinting, but he sure did just that. With tongue hanging out of mouth, he sniffed crazily but a tad less energetically. On the short way home, he left a stinky, gooey brown mess on someone's front lawn. I tried to pick it up, I really did, but 2 bags only managed to pick up about half the mess, leaving the other half on the lawn. I couldn't do much else, and the rain tonight will likely clean it off a bit. I think it's probably because Kusy has started eating grass and throwing up- he's done it twice today. And after reading about why dogs eat grass (they don't know for sure, but some vets say its to induce vomiting or make themselves throw up because they have an upset tummy), I guess maybe the half box of Chinese food Kusy stole off the table last night didn't agree with him.
But back to today. We came back home from the park and then Mimi and I went on another walk, this time to the pet store a few blocks down, without Kusy. I promised Mimi she could pick out a toy for Kusy and I'd buy it. We had a hard time deciding, but settled on an AKC brand 'hare' (or rabbit) with a sqeaker and another 69 cent tennis ball to replace the one he chewed up yesterday. Well, Kusy just loves that rabbit. I don't have a 'before' picture, but look at it now:

My mom and I are going to sew it up and give the rabbit back to Kusy. If I hadn't taken the rabbit away when I did, it'd be in shreds by now. But Kusy absolutely loves it! Here are some pictures of Kusy playing with it:

num num num!

:)

Crazy dog!

Insane, actually :-P

I consider my point proved

Quite.

I just love Kusy so much!

Well, it is time to wrap this up, since my idiot brother Karol is (once again) complaining that I should, well I'll not repeat what he said. But he is blaming me for his stupid computer game lagging since I'm uploading pictures and whatnot. And I've just barely got on my laptop while he's rotted his whole day away in front of his computer. Ahh. Sorry for the rant. Until next time! Thanks for reading!