As my dog’s 10th birthday was rolling near, I reflected on his life and our time together.  I have had him for 9.5 years, officially my longest relationship.  We have had a lot of amazing adventures together and have lived in three states.  But as I thought about things, I realized there is something Monty has not done that I was sure he would love.  So, to celebrate Monty’s 10th birthday, we headed west so he could see the ocean for the first time ever.

So this past Friday morning at 5am, we headed out on our great adventure.  3026 Miles.  That’s the exact distance of the road trip I took over six days and we traveled through Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming.

It was an amazing trip that involved exploring some really cool places like Boise, Craters of the Moon, Twin Falls, Crater Lake, Diamond Lake, Pacific City, Cannon Beach, Bend, Portland, and Salt Lake City. 

My puppers got to swim in the ocean and we camped on the beach for good measure.  I had a great time, and after Monty figured out the ocean was not drinkable, he had a great time too.  It was a wonderful adventure!!

Some things I learned:

• Boise is a pretty cool little city
• Idaho in general is a lot cooler and prettier than I thought
• Oregon gets really cold at night
• Monty WILL cuddle all night… when it’s under 40 degrees and you’re in a summer tent
• The ocean is and always will be a beautiful, magical place
• Cannon Beach is a hidden gem on the Oregon coast – loved it there!
• Portland traffic is rough
• California drivers are hands down the worst on the roads
• Crater Lake and Diamond Lake are stunning
• Oregon is very, very green.  So. Many. Pine trees.
• Monty can’t figure out that salt water is not drinkable
• Nevada doesn’t have enough gas stations
• In that same vein, my car gets amazing mileage – go Matrix!
• The stretch of road between the Nevada/Utah boarder and Salt Lake City is terrifying to drive at night.  Absolutely terrifying.
• Mormons have a lot of money
• Salt Lake City is weird
• There is no place like home ❤

Driving over 3000 miles by myself, camping alone, traveling alone in general… it felt exceptionally good to realize just how much I am capable of.  It was also very emotional seeing Monty run ecstatically down the beach and into the ocean waves.  This pup has been through so much with me, and I am beyond happy that we were able to take this trip together.

Happy Birthday, Montague.

So I’ve decided to let you all in on my (not very shocking) secret in how I achieve everything I am able to, while still having time for my pets, social life, and travels.

So, here’s the secret:

Time is a finite thing – we all get 24 hours a day.  No matter what you do, you will not be able to change or control that fact.  What you do have control over is your energy and your personal drive.

Taking care of yourself both mentally and physically prepares you for being the most effective and efficient you.  It may seem counterproductive, but taking time to re-charge is vital in getting the most done with the time you do have.  Working 12+ hour days is simply not a productive way to get the most done – your brain and body cannot work/concentrate that long each day.  Instead, taking care of you yourself will result in being able to achieve more during 8 hours than the average person does, and much more than you would during the 12+ hour day.

It always annoyed me when I would see supervisors praising employees for their work weeks being well over 40 hours, as if that was a sign of accomplishment.  It is not.  Truly.  It is only a sign of inefficiency and the fast track for burnout.

To manage your time, you need to make sure you are eating well, working out, spending time with your loved ones, and getting a decent amount of sleep.  Because I take time to read, eat well, exercise every day, and make sure to sleep at least 6 hours a night, I am able to get my job successfully done at work in under 50 hours a week.  I am also able to be an active member of Kiwanis, volunteer for the Fort Collins Cat Rescue, be on the board for Animal House, sing with Larimer Chorale, and still have time for quality time with my pets and my friends.

So that’s it!  That’s the “secret”.  Take care of yourself and you won’t need to work more hours, you’ll just work better. 🙂

“The most solid comfort one can fall back upon is the thought that the business of one’s life is to help in some small way to reduce the sum of ignorance, degradation, and misery on the face of this beautiful earth.”

~George Eliot

Handsome Monty approves this message!

Animal House is moving!  And we need your help – there is an online fund raising campaign for this new facility happening right now and  the donation page is here!  Please take a moment and give what you can to this amazing cause and support the dogs of Northern Colorado (and beyond).  Below is more information about Animal House and the New Home.  Check it out and make a donation today.  Thank you!

Since 2007, Animal House Rescue & Grooming has operated out of a 2,382 square foot building on Vine Drive.  This space has allowed us to:

• Provide more than 5,000 second chances to homeless animals and united them with their forever families
• Collaborate with more than 125 animal welfare organizations to reduce the euthanasia of adoptable dogs
• Provide more than $50,000 worth of food and pet supplies to organizations that serve pet owners in need
• Deliver educational programming and animal-assisted therapy to local schools, senior citizens and community groups
• Welcome more than 23,300 dogs, cats and small mammals have visited our grooming salon generating revenue to provide second chances
• Build a robust behavior and enrichment program for our shelter animals

After nine years of renting our current facility, and welcoming thousands of dogs through our doors on Vine Drive, our facility is now outdated and declining. That, combined with space constraints and limited options for improvement, has made daily operations both challenging and inefficient.

The Impact of a New Facility 
At our new facility, we expect to see a 20-percent increase in adoptions within the first two years. With more space in our facility, we’ll improve operational efficiency and serve more animals by providing:

• Increased adoption space
• NEW indoor adoption counseling area
• NEW outdoor play yards for canine enrichment activities
• NEW veterinary service building with dedicated quarantine and isolation housing
• Larger grooming salon (more support for second chances)
• Increased space for outreach & education activities
• Imagine how many more second chances we can provide with more space!
• NEW cat adoption space

Won’t you help give those who need us most a brighter future?

For more information on the campaign, including naming and sponsorship opportunites visit:  http://www.animalhousehelp.org/campaign-info.php

Monty is jumping for joy for your support!!

In May, we had a large celebration in the Riedi household to celebrate our little goofball, Calliope.

To quote the American Humane Association, “We can’t predict the life expectancy of an infected cat, but unfortunately, most will succumb to a feline leukemia-related disease within two or three years after becoming infected.”  Other studies I had read in preparation for adopting Calliope told me the vast majority of cats born with FeLV do not make it past two years old.  So image my surprise and excitement when bunny-cat, Calliope, reached her second birthday!

So a celebration was in order.

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We are now two months past her birthday, and each day is just another celebration of having this little furball alive and well in my life.  I know that any day could be the day when things turn, so we focus on enjoying these amazing days that we do have.  Here’s to many more days, weeks, months, and maybe even years with Calliope!

It’s one of the tragic downsides to making movies that feature a specific type of animal.  After 101 Dalmatians, the demand for dalmatian puppies when through the roof.  And never mind that they are not necessarily the best family pet due to their energy levels, kids wanted them and parents got them.  So naturally, shelters saw a huge increase in dalmatians in their kennels as families realized their new pet was not a great fit.  After Finding Nemo, fish stores saw a demand that was difficult to meet for the clownfish, as every kid wanted their own Nemo and all those parents were happy to oblige.  This not only led to hundreds of thousands of dead clownfish, but also some severe damage to the reefs around the world.

So this time around, help stop the mass demand for “Dory’s” as this will only result in massive damage to the reefs, and threaten the Blue Tang population.  Let us all enjoy the film, but teach our youth that taking home a living representation of the movie is not necessary or acceptable.

This 4th of July weekend, make sure to keep your pets safe during the festivities.  Have a happy, healthy, and safe holiday weekend!

It is affectionately called “Foster Fail” when a foster home winds up adopting the animal in their temporary care.  It’s a fun celebration to have among the animal welfare crew when we hear a friend, volunteer, and/or coworker becomes a “Foster Fail”.  And it’s not hard to realize why it is such a common thing to keep your foster.  They are in your home and life for a period of time, and you quickly fall in love.

It is never easy letting go of a foster.  The process is actually quite emotional.  You are happy they have found their forever home, but you are sad they are leaving you.  If you ever want to see me ugly cry, be there right after I hand off my foster to their new family.  It’s a very conflicting moment, but a happy one in the end.

Despite the emotions of letting a foster go, I strive to never adopt my fosters.  It isn’t always easy, and I’m sure one day I, too, will fail and will end up keeping one (and you can come back to this and tell me “told you so!”).  But I truly do not want to keep my fosters.  Why?  Because I know once I adopt one, I won’t have room to foster as much or anymore at all.  And that would be far more tragic to me than seeing my foster leave my home on their way to their forever  home.

Being a foster is tough, but not helping is tougher in my opinion.  When people ask how I do it, I typically respond with “how could I not”?  Fostering a shelter pet is one small way I know I can help.  That pup or cat is one less body in the shelter taking up room, one less chance for the shelter to decide they are “too full” to help another animal in need.  And that, to me, is more rewarding than adopting.

So please consider fostering for your local shelter.  This time of year, shelters are overflowing with amazing animals waiting for their forever home.  Offering to help with that overflow is an amazing way to give back and save lives.  And I promise no one will judge if you end up adopting your foster.  😉

Yes, it’s true (gasp!)… and of course, that means everybody needs a place to do that (and other things…). Which brings me to the topic at hand: Public Restrooms.

On their own, they are not the best of places being that lots of people are using it for less than pleasant reasons. But they are necessary thanks to blog title’s statement of fact. Lately, it’s become an even more unpleasant place thanks to fear and close-mindedness against those who are different than the hetero, Anglo-Saxon, white male.

There are several things I find interesting about the uproar for transgender folk using the restroom they identify with. First, the USA is OBSESSED with labels. In all my travels, I repeatedly noticed that most public restrooms didn’t have a gender label on them. They are for anyone who needs it. Heck, it was a funny moment when I was using the bathroom in Dar es Salaam and I realized the stall next to me was my boyfriend at the time. We laughed pretty hard at the sink.

And even here in the United States, I’ve used the men’s room several times throughout the years and am glad for it. Why? Well, have you SEEN the lines at the women’s door at concerts and festivals?! There have been a couple of instances where I really had to go, and I wasn’t going to last standing in that line. Each time this happened, I went to the men’s door, cracked it open and yelled in “is it okay for a lady to come in?”. Every single time, the men inside yelled back “Yeah, no problem!”. And every single time, I went in, peed, washed my hands, and left. It wasn’t weird, or bad, or strange, or scary. And let’s be real for a moment – I could have been trans and wanting to use the men’s room because that’s how I identified. But you know what is awesome? Not once did someone care enough to yell at me or judge. Everyone just saw another human being who needed to pee and let them. How very human…

Another interesting dichotomy that I’m noticing is that men folk are worried about bad things happening to their daughters in the restroom now that any gender is welcome. But with these non-sex bathrooms, Dads could go in the restroom with their daughters (or take them into the men’s room… or the family restroom…). But also, the bigger issue to me, is they aren’t saying anything about their sons. And obviously weren’t too worried about their sons before when these “horrible men” were using the same restroom already. And, how often have we heard about bathroom attacks anyways? It’s pretty rare to begin with because, SHOCKINGLY, the vast majority of sexual assaults happen by someone you know really well (like a family member, partner, etc) NOT some random stranger.

And let’s be real here. These people complaining about the bathroom situation don’t actually care about rape, or protect from it. Do you know how many rape kits are sitting untested in this country? Hundreds of thousands.  Do you know how little women know their rights, know where they can get help?  It’s not pretty.  So if you are upset by the unisex bathrooms due to rape possibility, start with harsher laws for rapists and demand rape kits be tested in a timely manner.  And maybe, just maybe stop blaming the current and past victims.  They were never asking for it, trust me.  That’s a MUCH better place to start.

In the end, it’s just a fear of people that are different. Which is so, so sad. Who cares which bathroom people use?  Everybody poops.  Let’s have the decency to let them do so in peace.