meet sweet alice!!!

isn't she the sweetest thing you've ever seen? this little beauty is our newest rescue beagle!! i fell in love with her the second i saw this picture...but then i heard about her emergency dental surgery and loved her even more. this little lady had...are you ready...THIRTY FIVE teeth removed. she has 5 left. but now she's pain and infection free...and hey, she'll get to scarf down Merrick's amazing wet doggie food for the rest of her days!

i never get sick of helping rescue beagles...ever. and i never get tired of the stories we hear from foster parents who experience exactly what my family did when we fostered Albert. it's always amazing for me to hear the same things again and again "she/he is like a new dog", "they are the best pet we've ever had", "we can't believe how much she/he has changed".

if you've never thought about fostering, you should! it's a really amazing experience.

this is arthur at the park on saturday. he was really hot. check out that tongue!

also wanted to mention that i have added google ads to my blog. if you click on the ads all ad revenues will be donated to Big on Beagles!!!

howling beagles - explained!

a few people have written to ask me how i got the beagles to howl. i have to say, our 3 guys are usually really quite, and never howl unless encouraged by us.

my very first beagle sarah (back when i was about 15) would howl if she got really, really excited and only if i would howl at her first. it was a great party trick to get her going in a singsong of sweet beagle howls.

so when we got stella we tried to make her howl. she wouldn't...until one day we were on a canoe trip, and my husband and i jumped into the water to go swimming without her. she started baying and howling and we could tell it was out of sadness that we were in the water and she wasn't. so we took that theory and tried it out with other things...like asking her where auntie or uncle so and so were (our beagles know everyone based on their names. so, for example, if we say "where's auntie allee" they will run around the house looking for her, and when they don't see her they will start to howl).

if they don't particularly like someone, they won't howl. and that's how we got them going in the video i posted.

we always use "where's uncle matt" because they *love* their uncle matt and that makes them howl non-stop!

howling beagles

is there anything cuter than 3 howling beagles? didn't think so. featuring stella, albert and arthur:

the power of dog rescues

This is Rosie and she is the 65th beagle that Big on Beagles has rescued over the past five years. Rosie wasn't in very good shape when the shelter she found herself in called us. In fact, the shelter was pretty sure that she was a lost cause given her extreme skinniness, an obvious skin condition, and the lack of resources at the shelter to further investigate what could be the issue.

But we took one look at little Rosie's face and we saw a sad little girl who'd had a pretty shitty life...and we knew in our hearts that she deserved a second chance. So we made the arrangements to get her to Toronto, and our vet's spared no expense giving her the tests and surgery required to properly treat her.

Rosie had blood tests, exploratory surgery to take samples from her various organs, and a spay procedure. And, most importantly, we found her an amazingly loving foster home where she is receiving a high quality diet, love and affection galore, and companionship with another doggie.

I just about fell over when I saw the photos her foster mom sent us yesterday...because look at the difference in a few short weeks!!!!



Her skin is clearing up, she has a sparkle in her eye...and now she has her second chance at a great life!!!

It gives me nightmares when I think about all of the dogs that aren't as lucky as Rosie.

woofstock was amazing!

We had such a blast at Woofstock this weekend!! So many people stopped by the Big on Beagles booth on Saturday, and on Sunday we had the biggest group of dogs and their humans in front of our tent! More than any other breed! We're pretty sure the other dogs were super jealous that so many beagles made it out to walk in the K9 Rescue Me Walk...even if it was 32 degrees out at 11am!

A HUGE thank you to all of our supporters who came out and helped raise money for us. Our friends at K9 Rescue Me are still counting the donations, but we've heard that our supporters stepped up and that we've raised a good amount of money to help our howlers in need. And just in the nick of time too...we've drained the bank account over the past couple of months helping out so many dogs in need. Clark, Nicholas, Cooper, Hazel, Maggie P...the list goes on. And the calls don't stop. Thanks to our amazing supporters, we're in a position to continue saving beagle lives.

Being in the rescue village all weekend I had some time to think. I'm all about the beagles of course, but looking around at all of the other rescues it really hit home that there are thousands of dogs that need help. All of the breed specific rescues are doing exactly what we are doing...trying to save the lives of dogs that have been cast aside, abused, neglected, abandoned...

So a huge thank you to ALL of the rescue supporters that came out to help out their rescue of choice. Because of you so many dogs will be helped.

woofstock tomorrow!!

we're putting the final touches on the big on beagles booth for woofstock tomorrow! erica and i will be at the big on beagles tent all day, so stop by with your howler and say hi!

sunday is the k9 rescue me walk-a-thon where we'll all leash up our dogs in the name of raising money for a very worthy cause...our dog rescue of choice!

can't make the walk? you can make a tax deductible donation by clicking here (make sure that you designate big on beagles as the rescue so the funds are directed to us!).

i'll leave you with a picture of albert and his dad. they're awfully exhausted from all of the woofstock excitement!!!