Good Holiday Gift for shiba lovers!!

Hi everyone!

Seasons' Greeting! Are you being sure to stock up on lots of rawhide, snausage stuffers, begging strips, canned dog food and yummy people food for your special companion??? I sure hope so cuz otherwise i'll come and howl at your door. I can run fast and far enough to find my shiba buddies' homes. Remember Kaos? She's now living at the Jersey Seashore and is a very, very happy spoiled doggy :>

Her mom made these and you absolutely must buy one of the these or I'll do my patented shiba scream right into your ear:
The link to do so is here:

My Xmas Newsletter 2007

Arrrrooooo, it’s me, Scout – the better half of the Thorniley Dogs (never mind Max)! 2007 has been an exciting year for us! Mom and Dad have been so busy that I’m quite sure they have not fulfilled their quota of long walks, table scraps, keeping Max, away from me and most of all what every mighty shiba wants: attention!

Dad has been doing his standard construction around the house. This keeps me on edge from marauding drywall dust and screeching noises from the garage. They finished the most important room in the house for me and that was food central, a kitchen with a large island and some skylights for my tanning pleasure. My friends and I enjoy gathering in the kitchen and this includes my newest canine friend, Zoha. She belongs to our neighbors, Tom and Kasia, from Poland and she only understands polish. I don’t usually like other dogs but Max and Zoha are okay unlike those monsters in my neighborhood, the two St. Bernard’s, nothing saintly about them! They dared to attack me and Zoha, frightening her for a while but I was okay.

What’s that? Did mom and dad abandon us to go gallivant around the world? Why yes, of course… They went snowmobiling in our ‘great’ state of Michigan and for the first time, the trails were covered with snow, not mud! They had to go a long way to find snow, somewhere past a bridge called Mighty Mac in a place called Muninsing. And what did they get for the long journey? While snowmobiling they ran out of gas, not once but twice. The first time, dad had to siphon gas out of his friend’s machine using his mouth. And poor mom, she almost made it to a gas station. At least she didn’t crash into any icy lakes or snow drifts like past years! I keep them telling them Max & I are good luck charms and they need to take us along. Somehow, I don’t think the Holiday Inn agrees.

Next they went south to Mexico with those crazy friends of dad’s. They rode chicken buses with the locals late at night from Playa del Carmen and took a moped around Cozumel Island. While in Cozumel, Dad fulfilled his lifelong dream of snorkeling with the Miss Universe contestants there for a pageant. Mom beat him by getting to talk to them in the buff in the changing room. They 4-wheeled through sandy jungles and mom zip-lined backwards over a lake with alligators chomping at the air below her (the poor men who had to catch her when she crashed at the other side). Dad rappelled down a cliff while mom cried in fear until she was finally thrown off, on a rope of course. And did they bring us any Taco Bell Chihuahuas to eat, you ask? Nope….

Then they took an October trip to London & Paris with Grandpa including a chunnel train ride. They saw some ancient roman ruins in a town called Bath. Bath, boy am I ever glad I didn’t make that trip… In Paris, they went to some little man - Napoleon’s resting place, a WWII museum, the train station with impressionist paintings, the Versailles palace and the Eiffel tower that’s everywhere in our house on walls. I’m not sure why they want such an eye-full. Grandpa was happy to see Paris for the first time but he was awfully tired afterwards. Max & I were just happy to have them home again but did enjoy walks 3x a day with our favorite cousin, Lynn.

Dad finished the dining & laundry rooms this fall complete with a gas fireplace and old-time hanging oil lamp. We hosted a nice thanksgiving dinner in a room big enough to allow me and Max to hang out under the table and still be able to dive for falling turkey parts. We enjoyed our dog walks too by running after rabbits. Max got hit by skunk spray a few times when he went to scrap with them. We learned what coyotes, Canadian geese, deer and groundhogs are and why we are kept locked inside from them. I fell in the pool a few times too many and refuse to sun on the pool deck anymore. Time to go make Mom walk me now! Merry, Merry Christmas to you and yours! Ho, ho, ho arrrrroooo…. Yours Truly, Scout.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Thank God mom doesn't make us dress up!

Kaos in her new life

We wanted to post some pictures of Kaos with her new mom and dad, Rick and Colleen.... Erin couldn't keep Kaos for various reasons so she went to live at the New Jersey seashore with this wonderful couple. This girl has really been on one journey and hopefully this is her last, happiest home!

Kaos goes home!!

We have great news!!! Our buddy Kaos that we wrote about earlier has a new home in New Jersey with Erin... Yahoo! Kaos had been at the boarding kennel in Pennsylvania since early May 2007 and was getting worried that no one wanted her. We are so happy that Erin saw her online and applied to be her new mom.


What a cross-country adventure it's been for this traveling girl. She's been in NYC, Miami, Orlando, Pennsylvania and now New Jersey all in less than a year! Special thanks and kisses to all those who helped along the way, you know who you are. Here's some more pictures of her of her settling in.

Max goes shopping!

Hi, it's me Max. I wanted you all to know I'm good at finding my mom anywhere... Daddy hurt his fingers so he asked Mom to drive him to Lowe's tonight. We went along for the ride. Mom got tired of waiting for him to come out so she left me and Scout in the car and I guess she thought she rolled all the windows up (leaving them open a little to let air in of course). Nope, I jumped out that open window and ran to the Exit doors where she had entered. I waited for someone to come out so they would open back up and then I ran on past the cashiers and through the whole store looking for my Mom. I had a few people trying to chase me but I found Mom in the garden section and was I ever happy to see her! She was surprised...but why should she be? I did the same thing at Farmer Jack's grocery store. I found her in the produce section and the window had been left half open. Where there's a will, there's a way! Nope, Scout never tried - I think he's too chunky!

Kaos needs a home!

We want to write about a wonderful friend of ours named Kaos! Kaos is a 1 and 1/2 year old mutt that used to live with her homeless owner, Benedict, on the streets of NYC. When Benedict decided to move to Miami, our friend Jenna paid for all Kaos' shots and health certificate so she could fly down with him. Sadly, Kaos was left behind at a shelter in Miami and we don't know what happened to Benedict. Nobody has been able to find him.

So Jenna found Kaos a foster home in Florida and prevented her from being put to sleep. Then she thought we found a forever home for her with Ami in Pennsylvania. We found out Kaos does get along great with other dogs as you can see by this picture to the right. Dakota and Kaos became fast buddies after one little snarlfest when they met. Unfortunately, Kaos chases cats because she wants to play with them and a child in the home was afraid of her. So once again, she has to find a new home. Kaos is safe in a boarding shelter right now that is costing $13.50 a day.
If you want to help donate money towards her boarding, go to this paypal link:

You can read all about Kaos' adventures up to this point at this link: http://nycgadgetgirl.com/jg/dogs/tales_of_kaos/
Let's find Kaos a new forever home!!! Isn't the girl worth it?? Look at the smile on her face!

How to incriminate your brother...

Hey all, this is Max yapping at you for the first time! I got tired of Scout hogging all the limelight. I'm no rat dog by the way, I'm descended from tibetan royalty and i was the watchdog guarding the monasterys. The tibetan mastiffs were the attack dogs.

7 things you might be surprised to know about Scout:

1.) Scout jumped out of the car at taco bell and tried to run for the border when the nice cashier came on to ask if she could help....

2.) Scout loves sump pumps and tries to dig his way furiously to china when they kick on and gush water from the ground...

3.) Scout chewed mom's glove until it was giving her the finger and left it in front of the door for her to find after a long day at work...

4.) Scout chewed the other glove into the I love you sign a week later to show her forgiveness after she had been home for a 3 day weekend....

5.) Scout is a registered service dog and flew in an airplane cabin with mom all the way to california but he is lousy at alerting mom who's deaf to intruders. He thinks everyone is his friend....

6.) Scout lets me bite him all over and steal bones/toys/balls from him even though I am 1/4 his size.....

7.) Scout, as a typical shiba, used to run away all the time until he figured out he could be happy and get fat staying at home. Now he never ventures unleashed from the yard....

How to let us know where you are from!!

How to have fun with friends....

Last year, we had friends come stay with us... another shiba inu and a mutt! I thought of them because Yogi, the shiba inu, looked a little like the coyote pic, agree some? Could just be my fear talking..he was an intimidating dude at first.

Yogi didn't like our dad very much, he hid in his mom, Anne's guest room and snapped at dad if he tried to be friends. His mom and our mom went to a Tellington touch seminar to learn how to give us the awesome massages we deserve so much. Sadly, Yogi's sister passed away last year multiple multicentric malignant lymphoma- simply cancer of the
lymph nodes. Yogi's mom did everything to try to save her. JC was a cool buddy and played with us. She was a fun and loving girlfriend to have. We don't know where we'll find another one for a while... Here's JC's picture and we hope Yogi is doing okay now, not getting stuck anymore under the shed...

Post note: his mom said there are also different treatments for cancer- JC went throught the Wisconsin Protocol (that was developed by the University of Wisconsin/Madison). What it does is rotate 4 chemo drugs over a 22 week period. It usually lasts 6 months. IF the dog is in remission
at that time- then chemo stops. Each successive remission is only half the length of the original one. That being said- cancer moms and dads need to know that for all the medical expertise out there- vets still don't know everything- the stats they give are just stats. There are dogs who are still around 1 yr, 2 yr and more after the diagnosis.

A good place to start is www.caninecancerawareness.org. Cafepress ( www.cafepress.com ) sells calendars. One of them is a canine cancer one. JC appears in it- November and December. There is also a yahoo group called caninecancer which gives lots of good information and hope. Massage your dog and pet them everyday. This is how Yogi's mom found JC's cancer through massaging and finding the enlarged lymph nodes. Let's save other dogs out there~