Dear Dog: The HSSV Pooches Answer Your Questions About Love, Work and Life

Dear Dog,

Several months ago an attractive young woman moved into the apartment next door. We often exchange hellos and she seems friendly, gainfully employed and devoid of legal problems. I drive a Prius, she drives a Prius, I like Starbucks, she's often carrying a coffee cup - I feel this could be a real match. I think she likes me in that she doesn't run screaming when I engage her in small talk. Do you think she feels the same way?

Dude, she's just not that into you.

Krypto takes this one:

Bad news? Probably not. Just because she's not screaming 'stranger danger' when you greet her doesn't mean it's a love connection. Good news? Pets help attract mates. Adopting an adorable shelter dog - particularly one with an intelligent, pointy face and an athletic build - can spark the sorts of conversation that will lead to a long term, meaningful relationship. Plus helping homeless animals makes you look like a stand-up guy. And if it doesn't work out with her, you'd have me. You could drink your Starbucks at the dog park, where there are bound to be other attractive women who share your appreciation for environmentally responsible transportation. And again, you'd have me. I'm just sayin'.

You might not have a girlfriend but I have a tennis ball. So that's something...

Dear Dog,

I recently started a dream position at a top ranked tech company in the Valley and things haven't been going as I hoped. My dream position has turned into a nightmare of socially inept coworkers, unreasonable deadlines and a weird boss who communicates exclusively in jargon. Don't get me wrong, the free food is great but I'm losing my mind and I still have no idea what 'assertively reinvent compelling portals' means. Please advise.

Sierra's got you:

This is my 'corporate genius' smile.

Yup, you're screwed. Wait - did you say 'free food'? I love free food! Let me tell you a little secret about a lot of the tech companies: they're pet friendly. If your current job is a pet friendly workplace, nothing smooths rough work waters like an a-stinkin'-dorable spotty pooch with a fetching smile. Like myself, for instance. If your workplaces isn't pet friendly, that's the universe telling you it's time to pack your bags and move on to one that is. I promise to charm your socially inept coworkers, assist with free-food clean up and commiserate with you on the jargon thing. I don't understand "assertively reinvent compelling portals" either. Then again, I am a dog so I have a hard time with much beyond 'sit', 'cookie' and 'walk'. But we can figure it out together. 

This would be a great 'I quit' face. Just in case you need it...

Dear Dog, It seems all of my family and friends have become involved with athletic pursuits. Crossfit, Yoga, Zumba - all sorts of things that I have zero interest in. I've been grooving on the excellent offerings that Netflix has been putting out and resenting my recent lack of companionship. Obviously I need new friends that don't make me feel like I should be out getting sweaty. Is there some sort of friend-matching service for people who feel like Lululemon should be the name of a cocktail instead of athletic gear?

Princess and Charlie take this one:

Princess: Yes, dear lazy friend. There is a great place to meet the couch potato companion of your dreams. It's called Humane Society Silicon Valley. 

Charlie: Zumba? Crossfit? Oh forget that. Have you seen the latest season of Orange Is The New Black?

Princess: Yoga, no-ga. We should hang. Amazon Prime has great stuff now, too. We could get down on that. I love some sofa time. We could go for a walk around the block once a day just to say we did something and then catch their new detective show.

Sweating? Yeah....no.

Charlie: I even use a dog door. Do you know HBO Go has Game of Thrones. You, me, Tyrion Lannister - it could be a thing. We should talk.
   
Princess: The moral of this story is that you have options. And with so many awesome pooches and so much on-demand television, the world is your oyster. Let the sweaty people sweat. You can slip me your pizza crusts and I'll lick your tears if you get all teary eyed over Dancing With The Stars. I won't even tell anyone you did...

The best advice we can give you? Adopt a dog. Have we mentioned we have the absolute best ones?

So I Can't Carry My Cat Out?

The answer for us here is negative, captain. We want you to not only adopt a cat from us, but also keep it! No quick escapes from your arms will be happening on our watch. 

Okay, now can we take a minute and talk about cat carriers? There's a lot out there.

Soft plushy carriers...

Round carriers:

Flowery carriers

Cardboard carriers

Backpacks

and hard plastic carriers

There's quite a bit of contention out there. People feel strongly about their carrier. Some people are die hard soft carrier folks. They like the gentle texture of it and want the nicest things for their precious.

Others are on the polar opposite, preaching for the security and greatness of hard carriers. I'm not going to lie, as a person that daily puts cats in carriers, I'll be in the hard carrier corner. I often find soft carriers require two people. One person to wrangle the cat and the other to wrangle the zippers and velcro. Can it be done alone? Absolutely! Have I? Yes. Was it pleasant? No. Do you want me to stop asking myself questions? Naturally. Okay, let's move along...

If you are going in the hard carrier direction, do we have some excellent educational demonstrations for you! Our very own world famous cat wrangler, Kara, gladly offered to show us our top three tricks for getting cats into that pesky carrier.

#1 Gently coax the kitty into the carrier. You stroke them with love, then deftly and swiftly, place them into the carrier before they can say "cat-napped".

#2 Lure the kitty in with a trail of treats. Who wouldn't like some tasty snacks leading somewhere, and then "Oh, I'm in a carrier? Okay".

#3 Trick the kitty with fun! Use a laser pointer to masterfully guide them into a carrier. I can personally attest to the success of this strategy. 

Besides the actual texture of the carrier, there's another huge aspect. Sometimes, it's small. SIZE!
Too often we are so deliriously excited with the prospect of adopting a cat, we forget the cat's actual dimensions. It sounds crazy. The medical term for this heightened state of joy and forgetfulness of your new prospective pet's size is called, Transizabeemnosis. If you suffer from transizabeemnosis, fear not.  I'll put this in way a we can all understand.

All you need do is look at these human specimen trapped in situations where, darn it, they don't fit!

When you're shopping for a pet carrier, go American, bigger is better. Super size your carrier people. Your cat will love you for it. There's nothing worse than feeling trapped and squished!

Repeat after me, "I pledge allegiance to all cats in the United States of Purrmerica"

If you're looking for a cat to fill a carrier, look no further. Check out our adoptable cats:
HSSV cats for adoption

*Special thanks and shout out to our amazing shelter staff, Miss Kara, for showing us the ways of the cat carrier. 

**Also thank you Fluffy, the stuffed white cat in the video, for tolerating our ridiculous antics. 

Get The Ball Yourself: An Ode To Canine Sarcasm.

We've all seen that dog at the dog park - the flawlessly clean pooch who drops everything to come when it's called. The one who looks up at it's owner adoringly regardless of squirrels or cats in the vicinity. The one who could hold a sit through an atom bomb being dropped. The dog that always brings back the tennis ball (devoid of excessive slobber, of course) and politely deposits it at it's owners feet. 

You say 'down', I say 'DANCE PARTY!'.

Yes, we know that dog. And we don't own it. And sometimes we even think unkind things about that dog like 'what a suck-up' when our own dog is doing zoomies through the house with a pair of underwear in it's mouth in front of the houseguests. 

But that just brings us to our point: sarcastic dogs are awesome. We're not talking about bad dogs or awful dogs or mean dogs. We're talking about sarcastic dogs. The dogs who know what you're looking for, usually will do it but sometimes give you that face. What face? 

Well maybe Timmy should have stayed away from that well in the first place..

That face.

So what makes the sarcastic dog so amazing? Funny you should ask - we have three great reasons to appreciate canine sarcasm and make you feel better about that underwear dance your dog pulled in front of the in-laws. 

#1) Most people's dogs are sarcastic. 

If you wanted the ball you shouldn't have thrown it.

Dogs notoriously have great senses of humor. Ever see a dog chase it's tail? Do you really think that the dog doesn't know it's attached to them? Dog are natural clowns that love to see us smile. Even awesome dogs that have been through our fantastic obedience classes with great teachers like Cecilia (who also has a great sense of humor) still enjoy getting a little punchy sometimes. Pity people with somber pooches who follow the letter of the law. We'll take a dog that makes us laugh (even at ourselves) any day of the week. 

#2) Sometimes we're being ridiculous and we have it coming. 

Hey, Chicadee - sit.

Busy. Very busy. Not even pointed at you and busy.

Chicadee, please sit. Why aren't you listening? 

Do you see this toy? I am busy with this toy. Hellllooo?

Really, Chicadee - I need you to listen...

I am WAVING the TOY OF PREOCCUPATION at you. Do you not see?

Chicadee? Chicadee? Are you okay? 

I am dead. Your cluelessness has killed me. Good grief. 

Sometimes we accidentally live in doggy-utopia. That magical wonderland where our dog, even though he seems preoccupied doing something else, is actually waiting with bated breath for us to utter a syllable so they can drop everything and jump to it. That place where dogs know every single command, even if they've never heard it before. In reality, Chicadee is ridiculously bright - she's been through our obedience classes and aced them. But telling a dog who is obviously involved in Wrestlemania with the best toy ever to drop it and listen to us is pretty pointless. Unless we have a hot dog, at which point negotiations are possible. 

#3) Because they're not little people in fur coats. 

Clergyman and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher once called dogs the gods of frolic. While it's important that a god of frolic know how to do listen and do this....

I sit...

It's also really important that they do this...

But I'm so much better at dancing...

And we love to see them do this.

Ears akimbo, check my flow..

And this...

As I'm not brandishing your underwear in front of company, you can say nothing. 

Sure, it's frustrating when we're trying to go to leave and they're getting their god-of-frolic on at the dog park while we chase them around but that's part of what dogs do*. And pretty much everyone at the dog park is silently empathizing with you. 

Another reason to love sarcastic dogs? Because we have so many awesome ones. Harley, Chicadee, Sierra and Twix are all hanging out at HSSV hoping you'll come by to meet them. They promise to make you laugh, love you and (if you take them to training) listen to you. At least most of the time. 

Ppppphhhttt.

* We would like to mention our awesome positive reinforcement, lots-of-fun obedience classes again.  Thank you.

It's The Teal-All Story! Our Cats Have Gone Teal-ibly Wrong!

What the teal is going on? Teal! Teal! Teal! It's everywhere. 

 I know I'm having a Jerry Seinfeld-esque, "Do you ever notice?" moment, but I must get this out.

The color teal is taking over. I'm tealing you! Okay, all teal puns are now being retired into the vault of my mind. Maybe even a storage house far far away, where "top men" are working on it.

Cough, Indian Jones reference, cough. Blurg.

No teal-y, okay, I'm done now.

But getting back to the point. I don't know who decided this, but the color teal has become ridiculously fashionable. And it's exploded onto furniture, rugs, dresses, pretty much anything you can think of, it's been teal-ed. Thus, I thought, maybe we here at HSSV could ride this teal wave, and get y'all to adopt one of our very fashionable cats...

The latest iPhone 6 cat cover accessory.

Kenickie

Become one with both your body and your cat...

Jerry Bear Fit Bit CT edition.

 Don't deny your cat soft teal-y rugs of comfort...

Jennie really knows how to tie a room together.

Bootska knows how to snuggle and somehow defy physics when burrowing into the couch.

Gaga always has to take it to the next level...

Cowboy and Logan spend much time reflecting on themselves.

As they do their little turn on the cat walk.

Marbles is a model, scratch that, supermodel!

The perfect fashion accessory...cat on shoulder. 

It may not be the ultimate driving machine, but it is the ultimate cat transportation vehicle...

Tyler 

Even my own water bottle has betrayed me with it's teal-iness. 

Go straight to teal, you trendy piece of plastic!

Teal is everywhere. And it's not going anywhere, anytime soon. Have I convinced you to adopt one of our cats with this teal seduction? Glorb, I hope so. Bring that new teal cat carrier you just bought and let's do this!

Katie Packs Her bags And Leaves For SPRING BREAK!!!

 This is a Katie blog, no, not a "kitty" blog, Katie. This is all about our big rumped girl, Katie.

Because you know it's all about that bass... 

Katie

She's doing her own thang and getting her spring break on!

Wooo, Katie's getting wild!!!

 Let's pump it up!!!

Meow!!!

Is that a fish toy helicopter? 

Why yes it is. That's how we roll on spring break!

More shenanigans...

 I am queen of the party! All hail Katie!

Okay, time to kick back by the pool for a bit...

Aww, who ordered me the Furry Mary, Purr-mosa, and salmon pate?

You guys are too good to me!

LIMBO CONTEST!!!

Outta the way! Let me show you how this is done!

Omgawrd, this sunset...

So beautiful!

Well this was the best vacation, but it's time to go back to HSSV.

Merr, where are my dried roasted fish?

Katie is back and available for adoption, here at HSSV. She can go wild and party too hard, but who doesn't lose control sometimes? If you think you can tame this crazy girl, please ask to meet her. I'm sure if you blast some Ke$ha and bring along a laser light show, she'll come to you like a moth to a flame.  Contrary to Katie's opinion, you will need to take this girl home in a cat carrier and not a limo. Although cat carrier in the limo is totally fine by us.