Category Archives: Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – Puppy Yoga

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Once every six months or so our gym has a special class, “Puppy Yoga” in the courtyard where a non-profit dog shelter brings a bunch of puppies in for a special yoga class, “Puppy Yoga.” The members pay an extra $10 to take the class with the money going to the non-profit.

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There is the only other guy in the class. People called me a good sport for some reason. I love puppies, especially other people’s puppies.

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The dogs were little beggars. The volunteers were handing out treats to the attendees and we were shook down by the dogs and as soon as we gave them all away then they had nothing to do with us, the little beggars.

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Smiles all around everywhere.

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The instructor had 26 animal themed yoga poses for us. I don’t remember them all but you know, up dog, down dog, cat, cow, pigeon, crow (for the more adept students, and so on. She made it a lot of fun.

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Sometimes if you could grab a puppy you just did the hold puppy pose. This is my wife doing just that.

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And then my turn.

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Everybody had a lot of fun. The dogs were exhausted at the end. I’ll be back the next time they have it.

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Toward the end, a wasp crashed the party and stung me pretty good. Before the night was over my foot swelled up and turned red. My wife rescued me with some antihistamines. I went home and further treated it with a couple of my favorite beers.

I am linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – The Chickens on Turkey Mountain

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I went on a bike ride on Tulsa’s River Parks trails and everything was going great in my slow plodding kind of way when I saw some chickens on the trail where it passes the base of Turkey Mountain. So I had to stop and check them out. There were only two of them and the lighting is kind of dim. I had read facebook posts the past few weeks where people had discussed seeing chickens and there was lots of speculation on where they come from and what is to become of them.

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They remind me of the chickens that you see everywhere in the rural parts of Hawaii. I guess they can thrive there I don’t know about chickens on their own in Oklahoma. We have lots of coyotes and I wonder what they will do when the weather gets cold. I’ll be interested in how they do.

I’m linking with Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – Cows, Horses, and Ducks

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This newborn calf is walking around the same day as it was born. On a ranch in western Oklahoma owned by my wife’s family.

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And this is son Logan with kitten Lizzy. Lizzy is affectionate, but she doesn’t like to be held, unless I am holding her, and even then I get about 30 seconds before her “I’ve had enough” signals to let her go.

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I went on a bike ride last week on a suburban freeway trail and saw this horse.

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We got a duck pair hanging out in the afternoon in our front yard. Heather fed them once and and now they come back every day, and if we don’t feed them, they head to the garage. Ducks are such moochers. We have another pair of male ducks that also show up. We call them the gay ducks, (no offense, seriously) and they get demanding about getting fed also.

I’m linking with Eileen’s “Saturday Critters“

Weekend Critters – Our New Cat Lizzie

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We have a new kitty in the family. Her name is Lizzie.

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She is a rescue cat that we got from our vet.

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She is so curious about everything that is going on in the house.

The story was that she was thrown out of a car window in a Hobby Lobby parking lot here in Tulsa. That makes me really mad and really sad at the same time. How could somebody do that to such a small defenseless animal?

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So she is our s now, or maybe we are hers, or maybe both I don’t know. She has really made herself at home.

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Our big old diabetic cat LJ has even adjusted to her. Lizzie likes to play with LJ’s tail and LJ doesn’t seem to mind at all.

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There is nothing like having a new little critter in the house.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters.

Taking Care of the Kitties

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One of the things we do as a family is a couple times a month we go the Broken Arrow Petsmart and take care of the rescue cats. This is through an organization called Partnering for Pets. We started  on it because son, Logan, needs volunteer hours as part his college requirements but it turns out we really like doing it.

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It only takes a couple of hours to tidy up their crates, clean out the litter boxes and give them fresh food and water plus spend some time with each of them.

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The cats of are such hoots. We love our dogs but we like cats also. Cats have such different personalities and temperments and of course they take everything we do for them as their due. That is part of the reason we love it so much.

I’m linking with Eileen’s Saturday;s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – Horses

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We visited some friends last week and I took some pics of their horses. This one was at the fence and then backed off when I approached. He is not used to me.

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I stayed and talked to him and didn’t anything wild and he eventually came back.  Horses are such curious creatures. I love them and I’ll freely admit that I know next to nothing about them.

How about you? Do you like horses?

Linking with Saturday’s Critters

New Years Critters

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Here is LJ the Cat. This time of year if he is not sleeping in front of the fire he is striking poses next to the Christmas tree. Although the tree came down the other day so he is back at the fire place.

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And Ginger our rescue dachsund mix (all of our pets are mutts). She freezes all winter. Winter to her here in Oklahoma is from September through May.

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Andy Abby our fun loving dog. She is up for anything, scarves, hats, walks, adventure, she loves it all.

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And this is Rascal. We didn’t adopt him, he showed up one day and adopted us. We tried really hard for about three hours to find his owner. He is kind of our baby, he is alert, watches everyone and everything,  and is in tune with us all the time and is probably the smartest dog we have ever had.

So those are our New Year’s Critters.

Linking with Eileen’s Saturday’s Critters

Saturday’s Critters – Urban Horses

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I love horses and the people that work with  them. Thy are so graceful, even the nags are graceful to me. Although from an engineering point of view, it seems to me that their bodies are way too big for their slender legs. I also enjoy watching people ride horses. There is kind of a mutual feedback between the horse and the rider and subtle changes in a rider’s posture and how they hold the reins and how they respond with their bodies to the horse’s movement affects the movement of the horse. We have put Logan’s therapeutic horseback riding lessons on hold for a couple months because he has a lot going on at school including some Saturday rehearsals at the same time that his riding lessons were. I am already missing the long drive to Pioneer Woman country to take his lessons and occasional talks and walks with the director Bob.

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Bob had a way of simplifying everything and when I asked him why riding was such a great therapy for people with autism he said basically that when you get on a horse and it starts moving that you need to adjust yourself so that horse doesn’t move out from underneath you. It is this responsiveness to an outside force and feedback that is so important to people who don’t have that response instinctively.

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So Logan had those lessons for a few years and I took literally hundreds, if not thousands of photos of him riding the horses and I think the lessons “worked.” Just what they did, I don’t know exactly but I could tell that Logan loved riding the horses. People ask what the horses “do” exactly. I say, they make him better. How, I don’t know.

Well, I’ve kind of digressed a little bit. Now I have to feed my horse jones via the horses in the top photo. They are in a pasture next to Logan’s school and after I drop him off and the horses are close to the fence and there are no cars behind me I’ll stop and take a quick photo of them. It is a good way to start out the day, looking at horses I mean.

How do you feel about horses?

Linking with Saturday’s Critters

Saturday Critters – Essence of Bear

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This is a resident bear at Yellowstone Bear World in Rexburg, Idaho. I call the post “Essence of Bear” because I blended a drawing rendition of the original photograph with the photograph (at about a 20% drawing/80% original ratio) to bring out some of the features of the animal because the original photograph was like a silhouette of the bear with his muzzle.

Linking with Saturday Critters

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Saturday Critters – Logan and Cisco

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This is Logan riding Cisco. Often Logan rides outside but it was raining today so Logan rode in the arena at All-star Therapy Group in Ramona, Oklahoma. Logan has been doing Therapeutic Horseback Riding there for some time. The folks that run the center really have a heart for their clients.

I ran this photo through Topaz Impressions with their “Cezanne I” filter and then faded it a little bit so it is about 75% filter and 25% original photo.

Linking with Saturday Critters.