Halloween Safety

It's finally here....Halloween, Halloween, Halloween!  

Basic Deer and Magical Unicorn

We've finished all of our costumes and we're ready for the festivities. I hope you are too. Gracie wanted to be sure I pointed out how magical she looks while her sister is well...basic. 

We wanted to share with you a few tips to keep you safe tonight. 

6 Pet Safety Tips:

1. Biggest on our list is to make sure your pets are wearing their ID tags in case something were to happen.
2. Keep pets in doors in their kennels or a behind closed doors. Halloween can be a scary time for pets. All kinds of cosutmes may easily startle your pet and cause them to react in ways you don’t anticipate. They may nip, or get lost. If you keep you pet with you to greet trick-or-treaters consider keeping them on a leash for their protection.
3. Watch for holiday decorations. These can be very tempting to your pet, especially if they smell good.
4. Be very carful of glow sticks and glow accessories. These can be dangerous to your pet. Take care to keep out of their reach.
5. Keep the candy away from fido. This can cause tummy upset and should not be ingested. Also, take extreme care to keep anything with xylitol away from your pets. This is a common sweetener commonly found in sugar free items.
6. Lastly, keep you pets inside, safely with you. Some mischief-makers have been known to harass, hurt, steal, and even kill pets on and around Halloween. This is despicable, but preventable by informed pet parents nonetheless.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N

What have we here?

Let’s just talk, for a second, about how much we LOVE Halloween! I mean, you get to be anything you want for a night. In Gracie’s case she has to be anything her girl human wants and she's never getting out of this holiday.

When choosing a costume we tend to play off of Gracie’s natural features. We find that this makes the costume much more adorable.

Since she’s white and fluffy we watch for ideas year round and gather inspiration to keep on hand in case a costume opportunity comes knocking at our door. We’ll be ready. We’re always ready. 
(In fact, we really wish costume opportunities would come around more often.) 

This year we decided on a Unicorn costume. It made sense to us because while other dogs have to dress in white clothing, we could just add some accessories and be on our way.  

To make this costume yourself click here.

 Proud Pony Pose 

Behold my horn

I have no idea why this keeps happening

Yeah, we found a castle

We’ve drawn inspiration from clouds, cotton candy, Beanie Baby’s, panda bears, and most other fluffy animals. These are just a few of the costumes we've created over the past couple of years: 

Later this week we’ll do a little reminder to all you pet parents about Halloween safety for your pups. See you then!

DIY Unicorn Costume

This costume turned out to be one of the easiest I’ve ever done! The goal here was to make it magical and part of making it magical, for me, meant I wanted to make the attachment of the costume as hidden as possible. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

DIY Unicorn Dog Costume

Supplies:

•  Hot glue gun
• Scissors
•  Small hole punch
•  Mesh witch hat
•  Pink foam sheet (I ended up using a sparkle purple instead)
•  White felt sheet
•  4-6 side combs
• Thin white elastic
• Gold ribbon (I used a more whimsical ribbon, and gold elastic)
•  4 fastening brads
•  Light pink yarn
•  Hot pink yarn
•  Purple yarn
•  Aqua yarn

I can't get over how great those hooves are! 

She has no idea how cute she looks!

She's a Proud Pony

1.     To make the unicorn horn, take the witch hat and cut the brim off and discard the brim portion.

2.     Wrap the white felt around the hat and hot glue in place. Tuck the excess felt inside of the cone.

3.     Wrap the gold ribbon from top to bottom of horn. Secure with hot glue.

4.     Measure with the elastic, the circumference of your pets head from the top of the head, around the chin keeping elastic behind the ears.

5.     Cut elastic, leaving two extra inches. Hot glue each end inside horn like a party hat.

6.     Hot glue a side comb inside the horn for added security. I made mine removable by hot gluing elastic loops for the comb to attach to.

7.     For the mane, I cut 6-8 inch sections of the 4colors of yarn. You’ll want to adjust for the size of your pet. Tie the 6-8 inch sections in a knot at the center to a long piece of yarn, Creating a long “stack” of tied yarn. Knot each end of the long piece of yarn to ensure the shorter sections don’t slide off.

8.     Take 3 side combs; secure one to the top, middle and near the end by hooking sections of the comb through the yarn knots.

9.     For the tail, you can hot glue yarn to the side combs. I took a hair elastic and tied a knot, at the center of 12-14inch yarn sections, all the way around the elastic. I packed it tightly for a full dramatic look.

10.  Pinch the elastic in half. Secure one side comb through the yarn knots on the top section and another side comb through the knots at the bottom.

11.  To make hooves, cut out 4 half moon shapes. Fit to your dog’s feet, adjust moon shape if necessary. Hole punch (as small as possible) where the foam needs to meet, and secure with fastening brad.

If you dog’s hair doesn’t allow for side comb fastening, use elastic in place of combs.

Saying Goodbye

(I hate to start this post with a spoiler, but I wanted to make sure this doesn’t get lost in the post.)

Sweet Tucker did not survive the trial he was fighting. There was an outpouring of love and overwhelming concern for Tucker’s family during this time. Those who knew Tucker grieved his loss. Our sweet Handsome Pants. We hope this post has shed some light on the reality of Canine cancer. So many of our friends have dealt with trials such as this, we feel fortunate to have a community of friends to turn to when we encounter the unexpected and scary.

The following message was written by Tucker’s mother Diane: 

I feel very fortunate and lucky we were able to get Tucker his surgery and Chemotherapy treatments.   He was diagnosed in February 2014 and passed away in August 2015. He had a very aggressive cancer, which was unusual that it showed up on a limb.

Collage by Diane

 Hemangiosarcoma is a rapidly growing, highly invasive variety of cancer, and usually attacks internal organs like the spleen, liver or the right heart base.   It is a sarcoma that attacks the lining of the blood vessels; that is, blood-filled channels and spaces are commonly observed microscopically. A frequent cause of death is the rupturing of this tumor, causing the patient to rapidly bleed to death.

Tucker’s medical expenses - $13,758.90  

I want to express my sincere thanks to all my Instagram friends who prayed, sent cards and gifts.  All your support meant more to me than I can put into words.  I have all your cards in an album so that I can look back on these precious memories with a tear and a smile.

The remainder of Tucker’s veterinary visits and expenses:

4/14/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
RX Rimadyl  - $35.40
 5/11/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
RX Rimadyl  -  $35.40
 5/26/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
Exam and bloodwork  - $80.75
 5/26/15 – RX (60 Caps) Chlorambucil- $111.24  Wow the price went up!
 6/11/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
RX Rimadyl - $35.40
 6/24/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
Exam and bloodwork up.  - $101.65
 6/24/15 – RX (60 Caps) Chlorambucil  -  $111.24
 7/17/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
Medical exam, fluids, vitamin injection.  Tucker is not doing well.
Office visit - $150.47
 7/24/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
Tucker has been admitted to the Hospital for 4 days.  Complete work up, x-rays, bloodwork, ultrasound.  I visited with him every day and all he wanted was to be held.
Office visit - $916.68
 7/30/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
Exam and blood work.
Office visit - $103.42
 8/5/15 – Visit to Mid-Atlantic Veterinary Hospital
Exam, bloodwork, fluids, abdominal scan.  Tucker has been admitted to the Hospital.
Office visit - $743.82
 8/6/15 - Tucker is not doing well.  He has started with seizures and I know it time to make that heart breaking decision.  Tucker passed away in my arms this afternoon and I cried myself to sleep tonight.   I could not stop thinking what if I went with the amputation and radiation treatment?   Is this why I feel so guilty?
 8/17/15 – I ordered a glass bead made with Tucker’s ashes and I wear it every day.  Invoice - $143.10

We want to thank Tucker’s humans for the time and energy they spent supplying us with this information. We know it couldn’t have been easy.

Upcoming: Look forward to an update of how they’re doing and what’s changed in their family.

Questions: If you’d like to get in contact with Tucker’s family, or have any questions please send us an email, 

Facebook message us, 

or DM us on our instagram @Gracie_the_bichon