Making The Move | GBGV

It is time for me to be serious. Mom has been talking about moving my blog from WordPress.com to a self hosted site since last fall but has been afraid to do it and has been putting it off. Blogpaws somehow kicked her in the behind and she has decided that we are tired of the limitations and it is time to move to a self hosted site. Now if you know mom you would understand that when she decides to do something it is NOW.  This means that in the coming days we will be switching to a self hosted site. I am the dog in charge of the actual move which is scary in itself! WordPress.com is great but as you can see from the moving boxes, a self hosted site gives us a lot more GBGV wiggle butt room 🙂

When I started my blog it was just for fun and kind of a test to see what all goes on with blogs and social media but it did not take long to discover that I really liked blogging and everything else that goes along with it. I have a WordPress.com site because it is free and easy and if I decided to quit, nothing was lost. Now that I have found out how much I enjoy my blog and all my readers, it is time to move on up to the self hosted site that will give me more options many of which mom figured out (without me, still a bit angry about that) at Blogpaws. Some of the most fun things I want to do right away is to add some badges and linky lists…I could not do that with WordPress.com. The more comfortable I get with the self hosted unlimited options the more brave I will get…I sure hope anyway!

No need to worry…I am doing the worrying for everyone…believe me I am nervous about the move but I am sure things will be fine! I am not revamping my site, so many of you may not even notice the change, but over time I may start changing things up a bit. The site may be down for a brief time this week, but never fear, it will be back! If you subscribe to my blog your subscription is automatically transferred so you will continue to get my posts just comment reply notifications may not transfer. My url will remain the same as well http://MyGBGVLife.com  I may not post again until the end of the week when I hopefully have everything moved to my new self hosted site. Cross your paws that my big paws don’t hit the wrong key, but I will do my doggy best to get things switched and running as soon as possible!

Thank you to all my readers and followers for stopping by my site and I look forward to barking and growling with you again in a day or two or three!

Memorial Day Weekend | GBGV | Mischief Monday

Happy Memorial Day!

Buddy is here for the long weekend, so we are celebrating together and getting into some good mischief as well.  I think this holiday is more for the humans but we do our best to enjoy it in a doggy way!

We took a really great 2 ½ hour adventure walk on Saturday morning. Lucky for us the rain held off so we did not get soaked. Since there was no water from above and I was thirsty, I did take a bit of a dip in a pond and got a nice drink as well.  The water is still icy cold but that does not bother me in the least!

Once again mom forced us to break the rules! I don’t know if she can’t read or what but we found ourselves on the wrong side of the trail closed sign again. It was a fun trail, but I am sure glad we did not get in any trouble as I can’t see myself in the real slammer! You can’t see Buddy in the photo because he is too small to see between the boards but too tall to see below. Trust me, he is there right next to me!

We stopped for a pose and a break at one of the trail signs. It was ideal temperatures for walking, nice and cool, but we were still starting to get a bit warm and tired.

We were pretty wiped out from our hiking adventure in the morning, so the afternoon nap was a must!

As Buddy and I were settling into our beds for the night I found out he had never read my friend Snoopy’s Mischief book, Mischief Master Class! I decided I better read him some of my favorite chapters to give him some good ideas for Mischief.  He really enjoyed what I read and wished he had his own copy of the book!

I guess Buddy took the mischief lessons I read to him seriously as he was the definite mischief winner of the weekend. He is a soccer freak, so if you haven’t seen him in action, check out this 10 second video from last summer. He never changes, so no need for a new video!

Problem was that mom mowed the lawn as Buddy was playing and when she finished and we came inside, Buddy was green! Oh boy! We are hoping the green disappears before his family picks him up on Monday night as he just was at the groomer before he came to our house…mom could be in a bit of a pickle if Buddy is still green!

Last but not least I would like to remind all my friends to be on serious tick alert! Ticks are out in full force and almost every time I come inside mom finds one crawling on me. Ticks find me irresistible since I am low to the ground and I have a wonderful beard to live in. Yes, I have my tick repellant on but that only helps once they try to set up camp in my skin. It is best to have your parents check you over when you come in and get rid of any hitchhikers before they try to live on you and let the tick treatment be the second line of defense. Mom runs a thin comb through my fur to hopefully comb out any unwanted tickers. Remember too, that you don’t need to be in the woods to get a tick – that is a common misconception! Wood ticks hang out in grass all over the place, not just in the woods and will jump on you when you pass by!

Welcome to Monday Mischief – The pet blog hop that wraps up the weekend! This Blog Hop is brought to you by Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, My Brown Newfies and Luna, A Dog’s Life

Snoozin’ | GBGV | Black and White Sunday

Mom loves photos of me sleeping and also of my paws so she loves this one of my face and paws!

I am joining in the Black and White Sunday blog hop sponsored by YouDidWhatWithYourWeiner, My Life in Blog Years, and Dachshund Nola

Blogpaws Adventures With Flat Emma | GBGV

As you know by now my mom had the nerve to leave me home while she headed off to Blogpaws last weekend.  If you are not familiar with Blogpaws, there were about 550 people and 80 pets that attended so it is not a small event. Pets were not limited to dogs, there were cats, wabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, chick and I am sure even more varieties of pets that mom missed. Not only was I home, but she took a flat Emma with her, how crazy of an idea was that? Flat Emma (an 18×12 mounted photo of me with the expression of a dog left behind) went everywhere with mom except on the last night for the Nose to Nose awards. Mom said she got tired of carrying flat Emma around so she left her in the room. I thought it would be fun to share flat Emma’s Blogpaws experience with my readers. She also held firm on my no people in photos policy with one or two unavoidable exceptions.

Poor flat Emma was at the boarding gate in Minneapolis right after sunrise but she sat patiently waiting for her section to be called for boarding. Once on board mom had flat Emma go over the safety instructions, an old habit from her days as a flight attendant I guess, and it looks like flat Emma even got a window seat, that lucky dog!

Former Flight Attendant mom made flat Emma go over the Safety Card.

Once they arrived at the Sheraton in Tyson’s Corner, flat Emma made her way right over to the Blogpaws check in area as the sign made mention of treats. Flat Emma takes after me, the real Emma, it is all about treats! She followed the paw prints on the floor to the check in area and waited for mom to check in.

You may remember that our house policy is NO dogs on the furniture and that includes mom’s bed. I am a bit angry about this shot of flat Emma in mom’s nice big fluffy bed…why does flat Emma get to go on the furniture?

Just like any dog, flat Emma could not wait to check out the dog park area outside the hotel. She found it a bit small but not bad for the city. Her biggest fear was that some strange dog might pee on her while mom was taking the photo but the dog sitters kept the real dogs away so no harm was done to flat Emma.

Then we have the incident at the hotel restaurant. It is Blogpaws, a pet conference where pets are allowed but what does this naughty sign in the restaurant say? Flat Emma managed to get a shot on the “wrong” side of the barrier right before the host came and asked her to leave…whew…close call!

Flat Emma attended all the classes with mom, this photo was taken in the lower level theater room. Flat Emma said they were the best chairs, nice and cushy!

One of the highlights of the trip was meeting up with all the bloggers we know on line and especially my friend Sugar’s mom. Flat Emma posed for a photo with Sugar’s mom…yes, Sugar, aka Golden Woofs, has the same people photo policy as I do! My mom and Sugar’s mom hung out a lot together and had some good fun!

The last few photos are of flat Emma and some of her friends that she met at the conference.  That Fresh Pet Food must have some miracle grow in it or something, note that GIANT kitty cat…flat Emma was very brave posing for that photo!

That wraps up the Blogpaws Adventure 2013 for flat Emma. If I go myself next time, I can take photos of me with my real dog friends! I am not going to attempt to name all the great people mom met up with since I was not there myself, I would feel terrible if I left anyone out. I am working on the cards and will visit all your blogs as soon as my paws allow…they are a bit clumsy on the keyboard and I still don’t have any bark recognition software…hint…birthday coming up in the fall 🙂

Flat Emma is also entering the Blogpaws 2013 Blog Hop! Stop by for more information and photos from Blogpaws 2013!

Today this post is a follow up Friday blog hop participant hosted by Heart Like A Dog and cohost I Still Want More Puppies.

We also are joining Fitdog Friday’s blog hop sponsored by Slim Doggy, Peggy Frezon and To Dog With Love.  Why is this a fitness post? Because just as important as it is to work out it is also important to take a break once and a while and let your body rest. We are always worn out so when mom was away we just took it easy and stored up some fresh energy. Even mom did not run or walk at Blogpaws. Believe me, on Monday morning we were all energized and ready to get back to the usual walking routine!

Contemplation | GBGV | Wordless Wednesday

If anyone is interested, I have this photo as a mouse pad in my store.  Do you like this photo? Do you think I should make it into a greeting card?  Let me know what you think as I want to know what my friends and fans like.

Join in the fun at the Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop sponsored by Blog Paws! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Left Behind | GBGV | Mischief Monday

BlogPaws was this past weekend in Tyson’s Corner, VA…it would be an understatement to say that I am quite disappointed in my mom’s behavior! This blog is my blog, all about me, Emma the GBGV and all the social media pages are mine too but what did mom do? She went to BlogPaws ALONE and left ME, the star of the show at home! What nerve…I was not happy about that at all, I had plans to meet my online friends in dog/person and to help mom learn more about this whole internet presence thing but NO, she went alone!

First she started packing. As you can see from the photo, her luggage is large enough to house an elephant, so I figured I would just hop in and she would never know. Wrong, busted, caught with my paws in the suitcase! She said there was no room because if I was in there she could only put in 10 lbs of her stuff because of weight regulations (limit is 50 lbs and I am almost 40) and she said she needed the space for all the stuff she would bring back for me. Sure mom, sounds like a real “factual story” to me, not!

On to plan B. I decided maybe if I pack up all my stuff in my bag then she would take me along since I was ready to go. NO, once again it all backfired. She simply thanked me for helping, asked me to add Katie’s stuff to my bag and they we would be ready to go to cousin Laura’s for the weekend. Really, I packed my own bag for nothing!

We ended up staying at cousin Laura’s house most of the time while mom was gone. We like cousin Laura and her mini-humans and we enjoy ourselves but I really wanted to go to BlogPaws and I know that deep down mom wanted me with her too. Of course, mom took our new laptop with her, so I was stuck with an old one, but it still works and I decided to try skyping with mom while she was away. I missed her even though I was kind of mad.  I got it all set up, dug out the old headset thing and tried many times to get her, but do you think she answered?  Once again, NO. I couldn’t believe it, she not only left me but did not even want to talk to me, says she was too busy.

When mom finally got back home on Sunday, I was really happy to see her and she did not lie to me after all, she had a ton of stuff for me that she got at BlogPaws. There was some talk about sharing with Katie and the kitties but I am not sure how that will work yet. She also told me about all the great stuff she learned and all the people and dogs that she met. Smelling through her clothes in the suitcase was really fascinating, she was around so many people and pets! I almost had a case of hound nose overload! Next year it will be in Las Vegas…will there be the story of Emma does Vegas or will mom leave me in the dust again? Stay tuned in May 2014 for the answer!

PS:  Evidently mom traded cards with a ton of other great bloggers. She has given me the stack of cards to go through, but please be patient. I still have my full time job of handling the neighborhood watch as well as squirrel and wabbit patrol, so it may take some time for me to get to everyone’s blog! I put my own card on top of the stack so I wouldn’t unfairly advertise anyone in the photo. If you met my mom, I will be paw-padding by to sniff around your blog as soon as I can!

Welcome to Monday Mischief – The pet blog hop that wraps up the weekend! This Blog Hop is brought to you by Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, My Brown Newfies and Luna, A Dog’s Life

Park Day 2.0 | GBGV | FitDog Friday

Today I am joining Gizmo and Finn for Park Day 2.0 Bingo!  Yes, friends, me, Emma the GBGV howled out loud and clear, BINGO!  There were 9 different bingo cards and I selected card 7 (7 is a lucky number you know). To play I had to take photos of me doing the tasks I X’ed out and blog about it. I completed my bingo card on our 2 hour morning adventure walk last Saturday.  We took one of my favorite routes over the Bunny Trail (in a wooded area), through the Spirit development and then home through some other less important areas. For me walk area importance is completely based on the number of wabbits and squirrels I usually see. We call the one place the Bunny Trail because there are so many wabbits it is just almost too much! This time of year they are hopping all over the place and I am beside myself. There are lots of squirrels there too but the wabbits are so great!  I have to apologize for the photo quality, but mom did not want to carry her good camera with us, so we just had the old point and shoot. Sometimes mom can be so lazy!

I am also joining in the FitDog Friday blog hop hosted by hosted by SlimDoggy,  Peggy’s Pet Place and To Dog With Love as walking is great fitness and this Bingo was a result of my long walk with mom and my sister Katie. I was counting how many parks we were in or passed on our adventure and I ran out of paw pads on one paw and had to use a second paw…7 was the total (note, once again that very lucky number 7)!

Here it is, my precious BINGO card, and below are the photos to go along with the X’s.

Here I was at 6:30 am at the park down the street right around sunrise time. I do look a bit tired still, but mom likes to be up and at it early every day. I usually get up before her but just lounge in my window bed for an hour or two before going out. This morning I had to start paw padding down the road earlier than usual to try to catch the sunrise thing.  As always, click on a photo for a larger version.

Next in line was to have fun in a park on a slide or swing. I’m simply too big for a swing, so I got up on the pretty red slide. Ready set…oops, I was supposed to go down the slide but I was sidetracked by a wonderful scent blowing by in the air.  MMM…do I smell cows???

The middle X was a free space but I decided to get a park bench photo anyway. It feels good to rest your little behind for a moment on a long walk but these benches aren’t really designed for dog comfort.

The fourth task was to visit the nearest body of water. Well, here in Minnesota there is water everywhere, so I stopped at all the different water places on our route that morning.  Katie also posed with me a couple times as I didn’t want her to feel left out of the game. She thinks I am crazy with my blog and social media stuff. She feels that I am way to ridiculous but then if I don’t include her now and then she gets all upset, so I let her pose in some non-humorous photos.

The creek along the Bunny Trail

The pond at the end of the Bunny Trail.

The man made lake in the Spirit development.

The last task was super simple Simon because mom and I had already pawed Gizmo’s facebook like button a while back so that was done 🙂

BINGO!!!

Seriously | GBGV | Wordless Wednesday

Seriously? I’m all wet and you want a photo?

Join in the fun at the Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop sponsored by Blog Paws! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hanging Out In Uptown | GBGV | Mischief Monday

Katie, mom and I were hanging out in Uptown the other day. When we first moved to Minnesota, the first lake mom took us to was Lake Calhoun. We drove there to walk once a week for several months and we really liked it.  We haven’t been back in like 4 years because the lake is in Uptown which means we have to drive through lots of city to get there and it is usually super crowded. Uptown is the “in” area, so I think I should be here all the time but mom is not big on being in the city, so we rarely go there.  Mom had a showing just a few blocks from the lake, the weather was perfect, so she took us along.

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes and there are actually more than that. We have water all over the place plus puddles to get all messy in! Lake Calhoun is one of three good sized lakes pretty much right in the city. On one side of Lake Calhoun is Lake Harriet and on the other side is Lake of the Isles, the three lakes are in a row so you can just cross a street and be at the next lake. We like lake Calhoun the best so we walked around that one. Some of you may know the Mary Tyler Moore show from waayyyy back in time, mom knows it, but she is super old. On the show Mary lived in a house about a block off of Lake of the Isles and there are often scenes of that lake in the show but of the three, that is our least favorite.  It is neat to be on the water with parks all over the place and you can see the Minneapolis skyline.

Emma the GBGV Water Rescue Hound

Some of you may be shocked to see me as a GBGV water rescue dog! I bet you figured you would find a Newfoundland in a lifeguard boat and not me?  Well, I figure if the boat fits, ride in it. I can swim with the best of them, I love water, so why not try to be a water rescue hound…think outside of the rescue boat…that is the trendy way to be.

The Calhoun Beach Club is behind me in the distance.

Lake Calhoun is 3.1 miles around on the walking path. It was a super sunny day but it was only around 60 degrees, nevertheless, with a fur coat it was a bit warm.  Mom took us out on one of the fishing piers for a short break.  I was posing next to Katie and then I could smell something as she was panting…I wanted to get a better sniff…did she eat something nasty or did she forget to brush her teeth…geez, that is some smelly dog breath there, Katie! Yes, I admit it, I am the rotten little sister sometimes but Katie loves me! She was totally enjoying the walk, though…look at her photo, she looks like a 2 year old, not a girl that is almost 11!

Man Katie! You have some Bad Dog Breath!

Katie is one happy Kuvasz!

There are several beaches around the lake.  As we were about 2/3 of the way around and were getting really warm, mom finally caved in to our cute little faces and let us take the first swim of the year. Remember, we just had ice out a week ago, so it was icy cold water, but boy did it feel good. Even Katie waded in up to her tummy. She never goes farther than that but she was really enjoying the water.  I was also swimming but I got in all the way up to me neck and then I climbed into another lifeguard boat. If you look closely you can see my wet fur.

My sister’s idea of swimming, I call it wading!

Come on, get this GBGV Water Rescue Boat moving!

It was a lot of fun! We had a good hour walk before breakfast and then this walk was about 1:15, so when we got home, Katie and I crashed. No worries, mom has 2 of all our beds but Katie often prefers to sleep on the floor, don’t think I am being a bed hog, she has one too but chose the floor!

Tired dogs are good dogs! zzzzzzzzzz

Welcome to Monday Mischief – The pet blog hop that wraps up the weekend! This Blog Hop is brought to you by Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, My Brown Newfies and Luna, A Dog’s Life

Mom and the Girls | GBGV | Black and White Sunday

Happy Mother’s Day to all pet moms and especially my mom!

Rule number one – no photos of humans on my blog or social media stuff, just me and animals because I like it that way. Wait, rules were meant to be broken and today is MOTHER’S DAY!  I am going to break my rule this one time to show you Katie and I with most of our mom taken by Karin Newstrom Photography  We love mom so much, she gives us everything we need and spoils us rotten! Lots of extra wet beard kisses and hugs for my mom today and Happy Mother’s Day to all pet moms!

I am joining in the Black and White Sunday blog hop sponsored by YouDidWhatWithYourWeiner, My Life in Blog Years, and Dachshund Nola