Need Your Help!

Hi guys. I don't typically get my blogs mixed together - waymarking is for waymarking and the dog blog is, well, for the dogs. But I could use a little help.

Many of you out there know that I am really active in dog rescue. I am the grant coordinator and a foster parent for New Rattitude, a national rat terrier rescue non-profit. With the hit that the economy has taken, it is meaning a big increase in the number of dogs that are being surrendered to shelters. On top of that, many puppymills are being shut down (a great thing). Just a couple weeks ago, two operations that shut down created close to 300 rat terriers that needed immediate rescue or they would be put to sleep - that takes a lot of money and a huge volunteer force. On top of all this, charitable foundations have had big losses in the stock market this year which means less grant monies being made available to animal welfare groups.

Here's the easy way to help (unless you have some spare cash lying around that you could flip into the New Rattitude Paypal account. :) Two animal welfare Websites are holding contests right now and the winning group gets a $25,000 grant in one contest and a $10,000 in the other. In the first contest at the Animal Rescue Site, they are also giving the top vote getter in each state $1,000. In this contest people vote daily for their favorite animal shelter/rescue group. Voting continues through December 14th. All you have to do is save the link in your favorites and go to the site at least once a day. Some folks say you can vote on every computer in your house, a few times a day (you know, so everyone in the family has a chance to vote), but you didn't hear this from me. Right now New Rattitude is 1st in the state of Georgia (where we are incorporated) and 28th nationally. This is down from the 17th place position we held for quite awhile, so we can use more voters.

Just type New Rattitude in the "shelter name" line and choose GA for the state (no city is necessary.) This will bring up the shelter's name and a vote button. Vote daily! Please!!

The second Website with the $10,000 grant is Care 2. They are also randomly drawing shelter names weekly for a $1,000 prize. This one is even easier, because you only have to vote once.

So there's my waymarking pitch for the dogs. If you want to learn more about Team Hikenutty's crazy fostering adventures, be sure to check out our dog blog. Heck, one waymarker has even adopted one of our foster dogs so who says waymarking and fostering can't mix!

Dog-Marking

No, not that kind of marking!! Waymarking with dogs, silly. My two blogging worlds are colliding today and an online waymarking friend, Team Mindawg, is flying out to Seattle to pick up one of our rescue dogs that she is adopting. They have been waiting patiently for Suki to heal up from her mange so she can be spayed and after 5 months of treatment, Suki is now spayed and ready to head to Denver to join Team Mindawg on their waymarking and geocaching adventures.

Team Mindawg will be staying with us for a couple days of waymarking and geocaching in the Seattle-Tacoma area before flying back to the Rockies on Sunday. And after months of gray skies we will be having our first warm weekend with temperatures reaching the mid 80's. Yahooo!! I can just feel my waymarking backlog growing as I type.

Anyhow, the photo is of little Suki, the newest Team Mindawg member, who will have many happy years of waymarking and caching ahead of her. When she was first flown to us she was such a sick little girl covered with mange and fighting an intestinal infection, but now she's a typical, spunky little terrier. She was going to be put to sleep because she had mange and wasn't considered adoptable! Can you imagine that! Now when people at the off-leash park find out that she is a foster dog they are ready to take her home and I have to let them know that, nope, she's already got a family waiting.

Holiday Interference

The holidays and my new stint as a rescue dog foster parent is definitely cutting into my waymarking time lately. It seems like I just get ready to sit down and post a waymark when the puppy needs to go out, or the dogs start to fight over a toy, or I remember that I still have shopping to do. It took me two full weeks to post the waymarks from my day and a half in Vancouver and typically I would have had those done pronto. Oh well. I'm having fun with our foster puppy, even if that means I won't be posting into some of those new categories anytime soon.

Have a happy holiday season everyone. It's been a wonderful year getting to know all of you waymarkers out there.

You know your obsessed with waymarking when...

...You drive out to waymark a Nike missile site even though you have a raging sinus/ear infection. I couldn't stand it. Everyweek I try to find a waymark in at least 2-3 new categories that I haven't waymarked in before, but this week was coming to an end and my regular Saturday waymarking outing was cut because I was too sick. By the afternoon though, it was killing me. Sinus infection or not, I was going to waymark that damn missile site. So I talked my husband into driving (I was too "medicated") and in addition to my typical waymarking accoutrements, I armed myself with a box of kleenex, cough drops and a puke bowl.

It was nice to get out, but it wasn't the most interesting spot to be waymarking in. The missile site was turned into an off-leash dog park and was a big treeless area with not much to see other than a few remaining foundations and lots of cute dogs. After walking around the 37 acre site I had used up all of my waymarking gusto so we cut the trip short and headed home. I fell asleep on the drive back, clutching my kleenex box and camera and woke only once to talk my husband into stopping to get the car washed. I still needed to waymark a coin-operated car wash. :)

The Canine Waymarker: An In Depth Interview

Here at Team Hikenutty headquarters we have one team member who is of the canine persuasion. Since this is going to be a slow weekend for me, as far as waymarking goes, I decided to take some time to interview Frodo the Waydog and get his take on this fascinating new family hobby of ours. In the following interview "H" will be my portion of the interview and "F" will be his.

H: So Frodo, I'd like to do an interview to get a dog's perspective on waymarking. Do you think you have the time?
F: I'll pencil you in between the 11:30 licking of my butt and my 5 hour mid day siesta.
H: I'll give you a chicken strip afterwards.
F: Well, why didn't you say so! Let's go.

H: So Frodo, tell me a little about yourself.
F: Hmm.. Well, I am a member of the rat terrier breed of dogs. For the uninformed out there, that's "rat" because I'm a ferocious terrifying rat hunter, not because I look like one. I strike fear in the hearts of rats, possums, squirr--
H: You pee yourself when the doorbell rings.
F: You're not going to print that are you!! That pee is to ward off intruders. Urine can be a great deterrent to some, you know.
H: Tell me about it. [Pause] Anyhow, let's get back to the interview. Do you have a favorite food?
F: Oh, food, now that's a great topic! I would say my favorite food would be those dried chicken strips you get, but I'm also quite fond of the occasional snot filled tissue. Oh, and pine cones, those are tasty. Oh, and I also like snacking on twigs, good roughage, you know. Umm... q-tips are good, especially if they've been used, and... well, I pretty much eat anything. But chicken and paper products would have to be on the top of my list. (BTW, Quilted Charmin is soft AND tasty.)

H: Do you have a favorite activity?
F: Humping my blanket. DEFINITELY, humping my blanket.
H: What about waymarking? Do you enjoy our waymarking adventures?
F: Can I be honest with you? [H: yes, go ahead] Other than a few categories, I'm not so fond of it.
H: What?!!! I thought you loved it? I thought you were enjoying our family adventures.
F: Well, first of all, do I have the option to not participate? NO. Honestly, it completely stresses me out. There are always a bunch of people around, cars, squirrels that you won't let me chase... How could that be fun for a dog? I get so anxious that I crap all over the sidewalk and then you get all pissy about it. Like I can help myself?!! Why don't we geocache anymore? I really miss that. Out in the woods, crashing throught the underbrush, hunting squirrel-errr, I mean hunting down a metal box. Those were the days.
H: Well, you said that there were a few categories you enjoyed. Which categories are those?
F: Without a doubt, Off leash Dog Parks. That is the best category to ever hit that website. No one will EVER outdo that category. Also, I think you should really consider trying to find some Dog-friendly restaurants to waymark. Oh, by the way, I'm still angry about you putting me in the car while we waymarked that pet cemetery. I tried to tell you that peeing on a headstone is a form of honoring a dearly departed dog. It's not like I pooped on it. I only poop on the cat graves. But would you listen? Noooooooo.
H: Any other comments on waymarking with team Hikenutty?
F: I really think you should stop dissing the fast food categories. I mean, some of those places give out dog biscuits in their drive-thrus. That's attention to detail. Only a FINE culinary establishment would hand out dog biscuits. Plus, Hikenutty, Jr. drops me a french fry on occasion. So, are we done yet? I need to go lick my balls. Oh, wait? That's right. Someone had them cut off! Hmm. Who could that be? A psychopath? A teste-munching zombie? Oh that's right. It was you.
H: Frodo, get out of here. You're such a whiner.
F: Wait, you promised chicken! And do you think you could throw in a chunk of those liver treats?