I saw this medication warning while scrolling through FB this week, and I wanted to be sure you saw it too. It's called 5-fluorouracil is deadly for dogs and cats. It is often used for human dermatology cases, including certain forms of skin cancer. 

Yeah. In the midst of everything else, we took on a long-term foster puppy for our local shelter. The new executive director there is a long-time friend and former coworker, and she specifically asked me to get involved. I've been wanting to do some fostering now that we have dogs who like other dogs enough to allow a canine visitor, so it isn't like it happened crazy out of the blue. This little guy needed us, so here we are many months later. Don't miss the shelter's video about his case and a little photo montage I made for his first birthday, which the shelter designated as June 1 (based on estimates on his age when rescued).

If you follow Champion of My Heart on Facebook, you know that we spent the better part of July helping a family spot and rescue their border collie. She went missing in the huge wildland park near us on July 4. The headline? The family rescued sweet Nellie July 24, and she is recovering from her ordeal really well. I want to talk, though, about storytelling -- especially in public / social media / online settings. Whose place is it to tell stories like this? In this case, not mine. The story is not my story. Here's why.

While Clover and Tori may or may not ever compete in various dog sports, we are working on earning some Trick Dog titles. In 2017, when I considered Clover's debut into agility competitions, I did the paperwork for her PAL listing through the AKC. Tori didn't have an official dog name yet, so I just did hers recently so that we could apply for their Novice Trick Dog Titles. Alas, we hit a snag on choosing Tori's "registered" name. Somebody bought some of the words I wanted to use in Tori's official dog name so that no one else can use them for like 5 years. Really. So weird. Usually kennel names are more original than that. 

As we started testing the theory that Tori could, in fact, now ride in the car without getting sick, we took her to her first-ever agility class in early July 2018. After years of only doing agility at home with the equipment we have here and what I can teach her on my own (after years and years of classes, even though I've never competed), Tori walked out and nailed it. It was the sweetest, funniest thing to see. Don't miss this short video.