Archive for the ‘Fun Stuff’ Category

It seems NPR posted the results of this survey because they were surprised so many people would choose their pet over their mate. We are sharing it with you because to the contrary, we are disappointed that so many people would choose the person who delivered such an ultimatum over the unconditional love of a dog!:

If Forced To Choose, Some Would Stick With Pets Before Spouses

If confronted with an “it’s me or the dog” ultimatum, it looks like about 1 in 7 Americans would go with Fido.
At least that’s what a national survey done for the Associated Press and Petside.com indicates.

When asked “just hypothetically, if you had to choose between a spouse or significant other, and your pet, which do you think you would choose?” of the 1,000 people surveyed:

— 84 percent said they would stick with their spouse or significant other.
— 14 percent chose the pet.
— 1 percent said they didn’t know.
— 1 percent wouldn’t answer (perhaps someone was listening?).

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We can hope some of those 84% said what they did because their s.o. (significant other) was within earshot!

Wow, another New Year… sorry we’ve been a little out of touch, we always need a little time to recover after the holiday hecticness around here. But now lets start 2011 with something awesome, our favorite… Animal Rescue Stories! Just click the headlines below to read the entire stories, which all have happy endings..

Firefighters save deer floating out to sea on ice

 

A terrified deer has been rescued by firefighters in Poland after drifting out to sea on a chunk of ice.
The deer is thought to have became stranded on a floe when it ran onto ice near the village of Ustronie Morskie after being scared by dogs.
Luckily passersby spotted it drifting around 200 meters from the shore in the Baltic Sea and called fire services who launched a successful rescue mission.

Firefighters rescue dog from frigid Charles River

Boston firefighters saved a black Labrador retriever known as Trooper from drowning in the Charles River Tuesday night, Fire Department officials said.
Firefighters received a call about a dog in the river around 8 p.m. They rushed to the scene, and Lieutenant Vincent Dimino of Ladder 11, wearing a survival suit that was tethered to the shore by a rope, swam out about 45 feet to the dog.

“The dog was going under repeatedly, so he put a bear hug around the dog and then the firefighters pulled him to shore.”

Dramatic FDNY Kitten Rescue Yesterday

..we’ve never actually seen a firetruck arrive on the scene to help a cat stuck in a tree, but staffers at Assemblyman Joe Lentol’s office stood by yesterday as firefighters helped a kitten out of a wall.

And in case you’re interested, the kitten is now at Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition (BARC), a no-kill animal shelter in North Williamsburg, waiting to be adopted.

Here’s hoping 2011 has a happy ending for all of you – and hoping fewer animals require rescuing!

According to this story from Bloomberg,Pop Art is obviously still very in demand!

Warhol Coke Bottle Goes for $35.4 Million at Sotheby’s Contemporary Sale

An almost 7-foot-tall Andy Warhol painting of a glass Coca-Cola bottle sold for $35.4 million tonight at Sotheby’s in New York.  The price fizzed past the projected $25 million high estimate but fell short of the $71.7 million paid for a Warhol green-hued painting of a car crash at Christie’s International in 2007.

The sale comes amid the buzz generated by yesterday’s action at rival auction house Phillips de Pury & Co., which sold a 1962 Warhol, with repeating grainy images of Elizabeth Taylor, for $63 million.  The Coke painting was also created in 1962. The seller, curator and artist Elizabeth Richebourg Rea, acquired the piece for $143,000 at Christie’s in 1983.

Warhol has been an art-market star for years, particularly since contemporary works peaked in the first half of 2008.

“Warhol has been the driver of the postwar- and contemporary-art market since the decline,” said art adviser Mary Hoeveler before the sale. “The appetite at the very top seems insatiable. You can name your price.”

Tonight’s painting, titled “Coca-Cola [4][Large Coca- Cola],” takes its plebeian subject matter and composition from a soft-drink advertisement Warhol found in Pittsburgh’s Byzantine Catholic World newspaper for the Quaker State Coca- Cola Bottling Company. Warhol made four paintings of Coke bottles, one of which belongs to the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the artist’s hometown.

The Warhol was offered early in tonight’s contemporary-art auction, projected to tally as much as $214.5 million. A yellow 1955 Mark Rothko painting is projected to sell for as much as $30 million. The work belongs to Boston-based architect Graham Gund, according to dealers.

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We can attest that our Pop Art Style custom pet portraits are still the most Pop-ular among our clients, although we don’t do many that are 7-feet tall!

If you’re dreading the start of another work week, especially one where its going to be dark when you’re driving home, please click below.

This video of a sleep talking puppy is sure to make you feel better about things, about life in general in fact…

Thanks, Purina Animal All-Stars for this overdose of adorable! If you’ve got some time to kill at the office, they’ve got lots of other super cute animal videos too (Or you can just peruse our custom pet portrait galleries for gift ideas!)

It’s the second day of summer.. Not feelin’ it yet? Not really into it? Well, stop watching CNN (that oil spill isn’t going anywhere), turn up the sound, and watch this!

…now get out there and enjoy it, ideally with your dog(s)!

Some would say the bible says no, the past Pope said yes, but what do you say?

Now a church in Massachusetts is giving pets and their parents the opportunity to cover their religious bases, according to an article in USA Today’s Paw Print Post:

Pets and heaven? This church helps pave the way

Do pets go to heaven? A church in Massachusetts and a Guideposts author are among the believers who would say yes.
Calvary Episcopal Church in Danvers, Mass., will offer later this month its first “Perfect Paws Pet Ministry” aimed at giving area pooches and their owners improved odds at getting canines into heaven. The church plans to hold the service on the third Sunday of every month, complete with communion for the humans and special blessings for pets. Dogs will get special treats. For now, it’s only for dogs, but special prayers can be offered for other kinds of pets. Rev. Thea Keith-Lucas tells The Salem News dogs will have a say during service because barking won’t be banned.

Ask any animal lover in Denver what’s the biggest event of the year and they’ll tell you, it’s the Denver Dumb Friends League’s Furry Scurry. And it’s tomorrow, Saturday May 1st!

For those of you who aren’t local or aren’t familiar, let’s see, how can we describe the Furry Scurry?… It’s complete bedlam on a leash!!

This huge fundraiser helps DDFL care for more than 25,000 homeless pets every year. The festivities include refreshments and demonstrations before, during and after the walk. A  “Flealess Market” for pet-friendly merchandise and services offered by more than 100 vendors.  That’s where we’ll be!

You can even enter the Pet/Person Look-alike, Best Pet Kisser, Best Tail Wagger and Best Trick contests beginning at 9:45 a.m. It all happens tomorrow at Washington Park – 1000 S. Downing St. in Denver. Registration begins at 7:00 and the walk commences at 9:00, Rain OR Shine!

We’ll be there for the first time in a few years and we’re pretty excited about it so we hope we’ll see you there – please stop by and say hello!

Better yet, order a custom pet portrait tomorrow and 20% of the proceeds will be donated to the Dumb Friends League to help rescue Denver’s homeless pets!

We were recently approached by Josh D’Alessio at Quio.me about incorporating our custom pet art in a very cool, clever eCard program. It’s not the typical, convoluted online eCard setup where you have to go online, register, log in, configure your card, enter the email, send it out and then your card’s recipient has to jump thorough similar hoops to pick up the card. With Quio (pronounced “Key-oh”) Digital eCards there’s a simple alternative to all this clicking and registering and logging in. Josh has created a program you just download directly onto your desktop so it’s just sitting there ready to go at any time like your own personal stationery. You can send eCards straight from you to your friends’ and family’s inbox with no middle man.

So when Josh asked if we would like to work with him we were flattered and of course and agreed. But then we asked if there was some way we could use the card program to help raise funds for animal cancer research. Many of you know we lost our beautiful Kylie to cancer and our very close friend lost her adorable boy, Trouble, to cancer around the same time. So we are always looking for ways to honor them. Josh was totally agreeable to the idea. We hope you’ll find it a worthy cause too!

Here’s how it works:

The program is super simple and FREE to download. Just click here: http://quio.me/download/papCards.exe

You get to check it all out and send two cards for FREE!

If you decide you love it, just click on the “buy it” option. Then for a very reasonable $20, 100% of our portion of the proceeds ($10) will go to Colorado State University’s Animal Cancer Center (ACC) to support their research and treatment center.

If for some reason you don’t love it, it’s just as easy to uninstall it so no worries there. But we hope in that case you’ll forward it to others who might really enjoy it. Oh, one limitation, the program is not Mac-friendly. But if you are Mac, you can still help out by passing this along to all your PC friends. And if you are PC you can now send a cute, colorful card to all the animal lovers in your life for any occasion!

Thank you so much for your help and support for this cause!

More info about ACC:
CSU’s Animal Cancer Center’s mission “is to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer in pet animals, translating our research and knowledge to also benefit people with cancer.” In their pursuit of this mission, every penny counts! Visit them at www.csuanimalcancercenter.org.