The Good The Bad & The Ugly

Before I get started, just a reminder to please participate in my current guessing game if you haven't already. Winner of a little something (no, not dog biscuits) will be announced on Sunday or Monday. Read about it here.

Now, for today's topic. One of my all time favourite movies...The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly...a good old spaghetti western from 1964 starring Clint Eastwood.

I think maybe it's one of my favourites because the first time I saw it was the first time I was allowed to stay up past my bed time to watch it on tv on the late night show. I seem to have passed this love of GBU on to my son (poor guy), who also lists it as one of his favs. It's such a sickness that I even have the soundtrack on CD. You have to hear the soundtrack to know just how weird I am.

Anyway, today's theme is Good, Bad, & Ugly. We'll start with the GOOD:

A while ago, I was fortunate enough to have my business featured in the newsletter put out by The National Capital Coalition for People & Dogs (NCCPD). I was reluctant to post about it, being modest and all, but every now and then you just have to toot your own horn. So today it's my turn to toot. You can read the article called "Mrs. Harley, You Make Good Cookies...And You're a Good Woman Too" in the Spring 2007 issue of The Dog Guardian by clicking here.

And now the BAD:

There are some frustrating things about being in business for yourself, and supplying your product wholesale to other stores. One of those things is that stores sometimes go out of business. There seems to be an epidemic of this, because 5 of the stores I supply have gone out of business in the last few months. This is a bummer (well, probably more of a bummer for them but still). One of the stores that has closed it's doors was one of my biggest customers. Thankfully, only one of the five stores owes me money. Not a big amount ($150) but I would have liked those dollars in my pocket instead of theirs. They have declared bankruptcy, so it's not likely I'll see that money anytime in the future. Sigh.

And now the UGLY:

Living with dogs sometimes has drawbacks. This last week has been a time of carnage and devastation. It seems that my darling Mulligan (our 8 year old mixed breed) has decided she is in charge of keeping the yard free of rodents. Well, most people call them rodents but I call them cute. For years, I've been waiting to have wild life in our yard (when we moved here 9 years ago we had no trees). Finally, this year we have squirrels and chipmunks. They are the ground feeders under a bird feeder we have. Last week, Mulligan treed a squirrel. Keep in mind that the trees we planted are still only about 10 or 12 feet tall. I watched from the living room window as Mulligan stood up on her hind legs and shook the tree.
Me: "oh, isn't she smart! I can't believe she's doing that".
Mulligan ran around the tree, stood up on her hind legs again and shook the tree.
Me: "I really can't believe she's doing that".
Squirrel: "I better get outta here" and jumps from the tree onto the ground.
Me: (Screaming and running for the door) "Mulligan NO! OFF! OFF! OFF!"
(off is her command for not touching something or letting something go) In this case, it was for letting something go because she caught the squirrel. She did let go but it was...
Too late. I cried as I carried him (her?) away.

Flash forward to this week. Yesterday I was taking a shower and heard John yell at the top of his voice "MULLIGAN. NO! OFF!". Oh no. I won't go into gory details but this time a poor little chippy decided to try to outrun Mulligan and lost. The biggest surprise of this event was that John carried poor little chippy away. (usually, clean up of anything bigger than a fly is my job) Thank you John.

Now we check the feeder for rodent activity before we let Mulligan out. Here's hoping for no more ugliness. (let's leave that to Eli Wallace in GBU)

Let's go back to something good, shall we. Here are a couple of photos from my recent obsession with taking close up shots.

Have a wonderful weekend.