A few weeks ago, before the pandemic really took off, we were dealing with some really stressful times. My computer stopped working. A delivery driver hit the side of our house. Both of our cars stopped working. It was the perfect storm, before this actual perfect storm. As soon as I replaced the starter in the CR-V and had it working again, we hooked up a U-Haul trailer and drove out to Thibodaux... to pick up a chicken coop… for chickens!
November is upon us and in many parts of the United States, temperatures are finally starting to drop a bit. Last night, it was in the 40s here in New Orleans, which led to a lot of trick-or-treaters staying indoors. We still had about forty kids come by and yes, despite being healthy, we don’t see a major problem with Halloween. It is one night.
A few months ago, I shot a commercial/promo for Best Friends Animal Society. My co-star Roxie, who is one of my all-time favorite rescues, sat with me for a long time as I recited lines to the camera. She was an angel. (She is currently in a home and so far, so good.) You don’t see a whole lot of her during the commercial, as the video features amazing footage of rescue animals. You will, however, hear my voice telling you about the partnership between Causely’s Sweat Angels and Best Friends.
FULL DISCLOSURE. That is what this experience was all about. A few months ago, a representative from CertaPet reached out to us to partner with the blog. We receive many requests like this every day, but ignore a lot of them for many reasons. They might be supporting something we don’t or it might not be related to our mission here, which is to help you all find a happy and healthy life. I was intrigued with this one because 1) you know we’re huge animal lovers and 2) my other career is in animal welfare. I talk about Emotional Support Animals (ESAs) every single day. People call me and ask where to get ESA letters, if their landlord can charge them pet rent, what an ESA is, etc. I figured it couldn’t hurt to see if this service was legitimate, since there are so many different ones out there.
On February 14th, 2014, we adopted Sarah (later to become Noke) from the Humane Society of Boulder Valley, in Boulder, Colorado. On January 7th, 2014, Sarah and her sister Sandra were turned in as strays, by a citizen, to the Gallup McKinley County Humane Society in Gallup, New Mexico. They estimated her birthday to be November 8th, 2013. She was transferred from Gallup to Boulder, in order to help her find a positive outcome. One January 25th, when they moved her to the clinic to be spayed, she was lethargic and has a 103.8 degree fever. She also had a hot spot lesion on her left side that she was chewing at. Her skin scrape was negative, but her parvo test was positive. Her shelter notes were sad… she chewed through her IV over night and spilled her food and water everywhere. She had alopecia on both inner thighs and her left shoulder… it was EXTREMELY itchy. Even though the deep skin scrape came back negative for mites, the vet started treating her for sarcoptic mange.
First and foremost, you’ve probably noticed a lack of content lately! You’d think that the lead up to the holiday season would be packed with important content, and that would be our intention, but we’ve been extremely busy and haven’t had the opportunity to write. Well, Fit has been writing two books, actually. She is going through her fourth revision of her first major novel, but also taking part in a November writing program (NaNoWriMo) where you write a novel within the month. Hungry is taking his fourth course in his program, on his way to his Masters degree. Both of us are working our full-time jobs as well, and taking care of the babies.
Speaking of which, Noke turned five years old on Thursday, November 8th. Originally adopted on Valentine’s Day in 2014, we’ve always celebrated her birthday based on the date of birth that the shelter estimated. We generally don’t invite a bunch of people over for a party, or bring her to play Laser Tag, but we do a little bit more than your average family. It doesn’t take much to get her excited, and you could certainly make a point that this is more about giving us a good time than her. Either way, she really enjoys it and has a major sensory overload when we celebrate.
Every month, Hungry and I have goals. Twenty-five to be exact. They are split into five categories: Alana, Chris, Hungry & Fit, Home, Fun. Each have five goals within them. One of our fun goals this month was to do a picnic and hike at Will Rogers with Noke.
Hungry & Fit started as a personal blog before it transformed into a food & fitness blog. We used it to document our cross-country trip to find a new life in a place we’d never been, but we’ve actually kept you in the dark about a lot of our own personal projects. Recently, Hungry started a new job, however, working for one of the most impactful animal welfare organizations in the world.
If you’ve been following him on Facebook or Instagram, you’ve probably noticed a whole lot of pictures of new dogs. These are shelter dogs from the adoption center where he works. Before, he was a manager for a feral kitten rescue, but now Hungry has the opportunity to work with both dogs and cats, of all ages, breeds and conditions. We’re talking about a lot of unique personalities here.
This is going to be a very bloggy blog… if that makes any sense. Sorry for the few days off; it has been a crazier-than-normal past week or so.
As you can see from the picture below, last week, I was “forced” into action when we were taking Noke for her morning walk. A genius couple decided to “tie” their 120+ lb Great Pyrenees to a ~15lb garden table that wasn’t anchored to anything, while they went inside together to get their morning coffee. The dog must’ve planned on greeting Noke, even though we tried to avoid her, and everything went downhill quickly from there. When the table hit the ground, Daisy (the huge white cloud of fur) ran and, thinking that the table was chasing her, wouldn’t stop. The male owner ran outside the coffee shop, freaked out and started chasing her.
Please consider that this is happening on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood (Los Angeles, California) so the chance that Daisy ran into the street and got hit (by a car) was extremely high. They had a 3-5 second head start before Fit gave me that look and told me I had to help. With my torn calf and handful of other injuries (I’ve only been doing PT and rehab exercises the past three months) I chased after Daisy and the table she was pulling down the sidewalk. It took about two seconds to pass her owner and caught up to her a few seconds after she turned onto a side street that leads up to the Hollywood Hills… phew! Unfortunately, the table provided a barrier between us and when I reached to grab her, I fell THROUGH THE TABLE and onto the concrete.
Whole lotta cuteness
