1) Consider your motivation: What is the main reason for acquiring a pet? Some people have recently lost a pet and are missing the place their pet held in their heart or in their family life. Are you trying to refill that empty space? This is an understandable motivation and on the surface it seems like a good idea. However I would strongly recommend that you give yourself adequate time to grieve your last pet before getting a new one. You risk comparing the two with the new one falling short. How can a brand new member of the family compete with your idealized notion of your newly deceased dogs? Dearly departed Lassie could wipe his own paws! The new one can’t even indicate that he needs to go outside. The old one laid around 10 hours a day and needed a 15 min walk twice a week. The new one is tearing around the living room for hours on end. Be very careful that you are ready for everything a new dog entails – training, exercise and expense.

Other people haven’t lost a pet, they just get an idea in their head that getting one is a good idea. Maybe a friend got a new dog and is encouraging them. Maybe they are lonely, or scared at home alone. Maybe they saw something on TV about how many dogs are euthanized each day and wanted to do something to help. Maybe they have always wanted a dog and, well “why not?!” None of these are necessarily “bad” reasons for getting a dog, just make sure that the thinking about it doesn’t stop there. Really try on the reality of dog ownership before impulsively going to an “adoption event” at your local pet super store. Impulse buys of dogs usually end in a dog getting returned.

2) Consider your timing: Why do you want a pet now? Why now rather than after the holidays? Most people have this romantic notion of what a new baby dog or cat will be like, popping out of a gift box on Christmas morning. Oh how the kids will love it! Oh how the girlfriend will swoon!! And that is true, usually people ARE really excited by a new little ball of warm fur and sweet big eyes. But that excitement rapidly wanes, especially after the puppy or kitten pees on something (or someone), eats or tears up something else precious, or has to be let out in the frigid cold to potty. Really, do you really want the extra stress and effort of bringing a pet into your life at this busy time? Let yourself explore this as deeply as possible because I can tell you that getting a pet before the holidays SOUNDS like a good idea but rarely is.

3) Consider your schedule: Do you have time to spare for a new pet? Puppies especially require intensive work in their first year of life. I always tell people that if you put in the hard long hours of training on the front end, you’ll reap the benefits as they grow older. You should plan on spending a good hour on training each day, spaced throughout the day of course! Little minds have short attention spans. You should also plan on spending an additional three to five hours a day on playing and exercising the new pup. That is a minimum of four to six hours a day every day of the week in one on one time interacting with the pup. And puppies don’t sleep in on weekends. They will need potty breaks, some of the young ones in the middle of the night. And no puppy under a year should spend more than 4 hours in a crate during the day. Ever. This is just a reality of dog ownership – if you take on a baby dog, you need to be able to care for it well for that first year of life.

4) Consider the expense: Dogs cost money. The expense of dog food, basic care supplies, bedding and training can run you into the thousands of dollars. And routine vet care is expensive too. An annual wellness check can run anywhere from $20 to $60, and that is not including the cost of the vaccinations. Adding that expense usually brings the cost to over $200 a visit. Do yourself a favor and do your research. Find out what your local vets charge, how much training in your area costs and what sorts of supplies you’ll need. Many people highly under estimate the cost of owning a dog.

5) Consider the source: There are many places to acquire a dog – some reputable and many others not. Do not get a dog from Craig’s List. Do not get a dog from a puppy mill. Getting a dog from either of these sources will end badly for you. If you feel a need to “save” a dog from a situation such as this where there is obvious abuse going on, contact your local authorities ( the police) and let them know what you have seen and where the animal is located and let them do the saving. Many people choose a pet store to purchase their dogs. Please do your research well because many of these dogs and puppies are also sourced from puppy mills. Reputable rescue organizations are wonderful places to get a dog or puppy as their staff and volunteers are usually well trained and knowledgeable and the animals are well cared for. Additionally, you can acquire a dog at low cost. However, the background of the dogs is never fully known and there is no way to insure the dog’s temperament or even size as they develop. When you need or want to be as certain as possible about a dog’s heritage or temperament, buying from a reputable, long standing breeder is your best bet.

6) Consider the age of the dog: Sure puppies are cute but puppies are a LOT of work. They chew things, dig things, play bite children’s hands, have a lot of energy and need nearly constant supervision. They also will need to be house trained and will usually cry a lot at night for the first few nights. Mature dogs are more predictable, tend to need less training, are more used to living with a family. Senior dogs require less exercise (usually) and are usually the best trained of all the ages but they are, well, old and often set in their ways. Think about what age works best for your lifestyle and your family.

Bella and Hermes, 2012

Our foster, Buddy was renamed Pupidaly by our son. We had Pup for about 4 months before it became clear that he and Lollie were going to be vying for the number one (alpha) dog position. This created too much stress in the house so Kristin’s parents agreed to give Pupidaly a try. They are now all deeply in love and have been living together for a year! Yay for a happy ending.

Lollie is still with Kristin and she is still learning every day how to manage such a strong willed and slightly off kilter dog. So far no more stitches have been required to fix any scuffles and most nights there is peace among the three dogs, Hermes, Bella and Lollie.

Lollie, 2012

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/puppy-bowl/

Of course our puppy videos are entertaining as well – without the football theme:

Visit our Puppy Videos on You Tube

Indy, enjoying Door County, WI

Hi Kristin,

I check your website from time to time to keep up with the puppy updates, although our dogs are no longer puppies. Indy is doing Great!! We had another funfilled summer in Door County, WI. Indy loves to roam free and go swimming. He actually seems a little depressed when we return home or maybe just “wiped out”.

Hope the rest of Chloe‘s Clan is doing well.

K-

Overall: 5 stars
Lyrics: 5 stars
Music: 5 stars

“Ladies and gentle man the superhorse powerstar rock team called Of NICELBACK have just came back for a reminding of how classic rock can sound if they have a guy at the front who make a grunting kind of situation into a heavy dose of rock song—best EVER for putting the petal to the metal and flying through Smokey and THE BANDIT country. Just forget about thining you might maybe not have a good time, cause you wont it Will BE GREAT its THAT GOOD.”

Pros: Maybe someplaced a lady broked his heart so got about nine kinds of great songs about it—sorry he had misery, but now we get to have some of it too.
Cons: Finally we get to hear what it sounds like when a world champion cage fighter sounds like making music for everyone to hear about it.

OKAY so you know the story by now that these guys have rode down from CANADA in a cramped up jalopy to escape all the coldness and the easy way of lifestyle up their where no body have to pay for anything except blankets because of the cold and walrus fat blubber juice to drink to provide safety to small children without freezing because of coldness. They were like ENOUGH, let’s Move to FLORIDA USA where the peopole all live who know whats going on and they will probably immediately like are music if we grunt it loudly and slowly so we don’t confuse anybody. Like two week later, all of AMERICA (still number one for five years in a ROW)is singingalong with NICKELBACK. It was like a punishment to not listen to them because one time that you do you are hooked like a blind dolphibn in a spiked net—and twice as delicious. So LISTEN—they drive all around AMERICA through the dusty praries, through the marble coastline and up through the native areas where the radio sounds like a jumble, driving all the time, grunting theyre song out to anybody who borrowed them a soda pop bottle with the kind you could of get five cent back for a deposit, so BOOMN theyre came the name NICKJELBACK and they were Like;whata great name for a band, lets choose it for us. It was not long after that that AMERCIA was LIKE welcome to the US boys, you have made some great music and we have just finally got around to liking you because there was not many other choices we had, so you got your turn now, thanks for make such a pleasant grunting racket where the one guy at the beginning of the group just make everything sound serious—that how we like it here in US off A especially in FLORIAD where the good times come up to eat you like a crockagator,. One of natures most fiercest animals ever. And LOOK thjey are still making this music today and the main guy barelyu even sound like he have got a sore throat for all that grunting he loves to do always. Listen to this silver coated grandma blanket of hits and songs: SHE DOTH SPORT A TIDY DOWRY, EAT THE DRAGON, A BLOG ALL ABOUT FARTS, JUMPCAKES, I DARE YOU TO STOP PUNCHING ME, MAN THAT WAS ONE BOOZY LADY, WAYLAND FLOWERS AND MADAM TO BLOCK, DREAMFINGER, FRESH PANTS ON AN INFECTED HOBO, COOKING WITH PEPPER SPRAY and the song they played for the guys in the moon rocket to remind them how fun it was to travel so far away, PELTED AT THE FESTIVAL. Foilks you just cant find anything else like this goodtime jam session so buy a copy and get ready to have a face that is like you just glued a SMILE on it FOREVER.

Jubilee - Autumn 2011

Everyone here is great. D is 20 months already and just loves animals. She loves the dogs and is always calling out their names followed by “Where are you?” Its really funny. D and Jubilee have really started to bond…….the table food might have something to do with it. Jubilee brings her toys now so she can throw them for her. Jubilee has done an amazing job knowing the difference between her toys & D’s. Even when they are offered to her from D she will not take them. We need to start working with D on stranger dogs. She is too comfortable with dogs at this point and loves to give hugs and kisses. It’s cute and sweet with our dogs because we know how good they are but unfortunately that’s not the case with all dogs.

Jubilee has been great and healthy, she loves her walks and if for some reason we can’t go on one you can always tell she is bummed. Shena “The old Lab” is hagging in there. She will be 16 in a few weeks (Crazy!) but she still seems extremely happy by wagging her tail all the time and still loves to eat. She too loves D but once again I know it’s food driven.

Overall: 5 stars
Lyrics: 5 stars
Music: 5 stars

“MAN OH MAN this is like a one big overdeflated beach ball of SUNSHINE sprinkling down in a bucket of good times to Be enjoy by ANYONE who like good times—can you imagine a hug that last all day long? Given by a pleasant expert name Randy? Then say hello to your ears and warn them that GREAT time are ahead for them due to this MAGIC experence!”

Pros:  ITS like two teams that a fierce deicded. Okay let not have a game against each other with only one can win, lets make this up together for a bunch of noise and get everybody let to win!
Cons:  One you put it on inside your Compac Disc playing machine, you well have a open mouth of not being able to believe yourself! ITS THAT GOOD!

Every bunch of times in a while you go MAN HOW DID I get to be lucky enough to understand and enjoy all this type of good time which is exploding all around me like someone gave a hungry Donkey a Hot Foot (old mean cartoon trick made out of matches to create a bad temper). Then along comes a unbelieveable creation that is one part wheelbarrow, the other part Funny CAR drag race car and the other part space powered submarine. The last part is just a guy sitting there.Lou REED famous for making grunting sounds with a band that made a big deal about saying how much they didn’t care that they didn’t eaven sound like they ever wanted to even ever bother about not even taking a single music lesson on a instruement, combine with the Metallica band famous for making SWEDISH blast furnace good times music for people holding a party in there car right over near the state line, Usuaully in darkeness on a Friday or staruday night. Forget about the COPS!And going Way FAST about it too –so they met up in a record Studio and they were all like OKAY WHO HAS the first IDEA? And LOU was like, count it off not to fast one two three, and he start singing the First song on LULU, called “There Is No Heaven Like A Bob Evans Breakfast” and the band METALAICA is clearly being excited to get there chance to just bang away like they just invented amplifiers and they half to hurray before the landlord sprays the dogs on them. You can almost hear the smiles. But then when you are listening and your all Like MAN THIS IS enough for ME I can be HAPPY just to here this thing once, they are like NO WAY SIT DOWN because we have about a TON TO TWO TONS of music left to melt on your FACE like a hydraulic decommissioned sanctifying redundancy clearance expert halitosis exlposslion.! The music JUST KEEP coming at you like nothing ever did before, until you almost half to want to ask the CD to hold on a Second while you let yourselve catch your breath inside your scared Heart. Listen to this one-drop gaucho stirrup handbasket of songs listed: GOOD GOLLY MISSACHUSETTES, TAKE A WALK ON THE SANDMAN, THE BOOGIE THAT HURTS PEOPLE, WAITING FOR MY MISTAKE, THROWING UP IN PUBLIC, DON’T PUNCH MY DREAMS IN THE FACE, BALLAD OF THE SOILED NECKBRACE, MUNGO JERRY STRIKES AGAIN, HASSLE STREET, MUMBLES VS. CLENCH THROAT, (TODAY IS) KING EDDIE ROESER’S BIRTHDAY, SOMETIMES I JUST EAT A WHOLE THING OF BUTTER, THE DAY THE SAXOPHONE CRIED ITSELF TO DEATH and the one song that make you get up and Dance like you owned a golden tomorrow from a pony named Forever, TAKE THAT LADY TO LUNCH! Just sit up for one second a Look Around—this Lifetime is a Great PLACE to be, and we have a Lot of Chance to be great about it., just thing about it for a change why dont you for once. This Compac Discs of song is like a flower that can talk like a human being and it says Here IS SOMETHING awesome for everyone, so get up close and take a Big SNIFF until youre face is all filled up with the Smell because you’ll will LOVE IT! WEELCOME BACK to music history Lou Red and METALLIC! Glad to be hurting with enjoyment thanks to YOU!

Willow in 2009

Greetings from Germany! I was cleaning out very old emails and I found your address. I thought I would update you on Willow. She is doing GREAT! She has become quite the international traveler. All my fears about her traveling were unfounded and she did great on our first trip to Germany (and our trip back to the US and back to Germany this summer). She absolutely loves it here since we walk everywhere and often take her. She also gets to routinely go on very long walks in the hills/forest in this beautiful place where we live! She still has the issues with being afraid of men, although she has improved a little. She is still nervous around my husband unless I am sitting right there next to him. She will only relax and let him pet her when we are laying in bed (we didn’t want the dog in bed but he really wanted the chance to pet her, so we sometimes let her come up there

Dogs here in Germany can go to nearly every public place, even restaurants. They really have well-trained dogs and love them to death! How are things going with you and all of your animals? Are you still taking in rescue dogs? Well, better go, as it is almost 10 PM here.

Take care,
Lisa & Willow

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Groupon and Wrigley Field invite guests to a night of picnicking, music, and movie magic. Three 30-foot screens along the infield lip frame Matthew Broderick’s inimitable truancy and flagrant fourth-wall-breaking asides as guests unfurl blankets (lawn-chair use is prohibited) in the outfield or recline among the bleachers. Although hard-sided coolers and thermoses are not permitted, visitors can fill picnic baskets with whatever delicacies and non-alcoholic potables they like, as moviegoers get to bring their own food into the park and dine atop the Cubs’ hallowed outfield. The Captain Morgan Club, meanwhile, bolsters the body for raucous laughter and full-body attacks of nostalgia with a pre-show party of VIP vittles and drinks that kicks off at 5 p.m. Wrigley Field’s concessions stands will likewise fuel chortles with snacks and beer discounted versus regular game-day prices.

Guests arriving before 7 p.m. can take part in a historic attempt to top the world record for Most People Singing in the Round. A stadium-wide rendition of “Danke Schoen” pits left and right field against each other in aural combat, with all participants counted toward the immortal record by officials cleverly disguised as counting Muppets.

As soon as Wrigley’s gates open, guests can avail themselves of a host of aggressively punctual pleasures, snapping photos beneath the Wrigley marquee and taking pictures with life-size cutouts of Ferris Bueller cast members. Bands of Ferris, Sloan, and Cameron lookalikes will also roam the grounds, while an attendee lookalike contest tests costume quality and radiation-bestowed powers of shape-shifting. A DJ spins preshow beats, encouraging guests to shake it like a bipedal bottle of orange juice. Christy Lemire and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, co-hosts of Ebert Presents at the Movies, will introduce the film and highlight the reasons why AMC voted it the #1 John Hughes movie.

When you click Buy Tickets, you’ll be redirected to an outside URL to complete your transaction via Groupon. Choose from the following options:

• For $10, you get one ticket in the bleachers.
• For $25, you get one ticket in the outfield lawn.
• For $75, you get a VIP pre-show package that includes: •One ticket for the VIP section of the outfield lawn
• Two hours of food and drink at the Captain Morgan Club, starting at 5 p.m.

The post Movie Night at Wrigley Field appeared first on Clark-Addison Cubs Fan Blog.

Back in October of 2004 I wrote a Stat of the Week article called “Is quality start really a quality stat?” I pointed out how a pitcher who has a quality start (6 innings or more with 3 earned runs allowed or less) wins about two-thirds of the time and that shows the “quality” of the stat.  Recently, ESPN baseball commentator Bruce Levine, whom I highly respect, has been talking about how much he hates the stat pointing to the same argument that’s always made about it: “If a guy pitches exactly six innings and allows three runs, that’s a 4.50 ERA.  What’s quality about that?”   My argument has been that this is simply a mediocre tree in the big beautiful forest that makes up the quality start statistic.

Well, I now take exception to myself.

In preparing to refute Mr. Levine’s position on the stat, we decided to look at the situation that he and everyone else points out, exactly six innings and exactly three earned runs.  It seemed to me that a starting pitcher who did this was keeping his team in the game and that this would generally lead to good results.  Over the last 10 years, there have been 2,118 games where a starting pitcher has gone exactly six innings and allowed three earned runs.  Pretty big sample size.  It turns out that the winning percentage in those games for that pitcher’s team is a little below .500.  Maybe you can still say he’s keeping his team in the game, but it’s hardly quality.

And I might be able to live with that as the mediocre tree in the forest, but there’s more.

What about if the pitcher goes seven innings and allows three earned runs?  What about eight innings?  To my great amazement, it turns out that if a starting pitcher pitches anywhere between six and eight innings and allows three earned runs, his team wins less than 50% of the time (5,039 games, 2,491 wins, .494 winning percentage).  Even right at eight innings and three earned runs, it’s below .500 (356 games, 171 wins, .480 winning percentage).

Here’s the complete chart:

Another interesting part of this chart is this: when the pitcher records exactly 6, 7 or 8 innings, the winning percentage is below .500.  But when he extends into the next inning for at least one out, the percentage goes above .500.  I’ve been trying to figure out what this means.  I thought it might have to do with the difference between the leagues and pinch-hitting for the pitcher in the National League, but we didn’t see much when we looked at the data.  I am going to chalk it up to sample size issues (a lot less data where pitchers extend into the next inning) until I hear something better.   Suffice it to say, anytime a pitcher pitches eight innings or less and allows exactly three runs, the winning percentage is around .500. Maybe you can call it a “Kept-my-team-in-the-game Start”, but not a Quality Start.

In summary, while the quality start is still a useful statistic, it is seriously flawed.  A way to fix it would be to change it to six innings or more, two earned runs, or more than eight innings, and three earned runs.  That would be quality, but that’s also too complicated.  The better stat is a new one that Bill James invented called “Gems”.  More on that next week.

Side note: I want to give a big shout-out to my two excellent research assistants at Baseball Info Solutions, Ben Jedlovec and Rob Burckhard.  Without their fantastic research help, you’d see nothing but a lot of hot air and blank space in these articles.

Used with permission from John Dewan’s Stat of the Week™, http://www.statoftheweek.com/.

The post John Dewan’s Stat of the Week™ appeared first on Clark-Addison Cubs Fan Blog.