The contest is officially over!! and if I can ever get this phat cat photo to cross over you'll see the phat lady sing! Thank you all for the warmth and humor you've shared - I really need it now that we're not going to see 10F for another week. (-30F windchills for the next 4 days - yes, sympathy please). SO! It's up to the judges now, the panel of 4 has their work cut out for them. We're picking 1 winner in the pond (aquarium) catagory, and 1 in the non-pond related catagory. Each winner will have $25 donated in their pet's name to HSDM. And as I've told the judges, every photo here is fair game, because while some photos are of the pet involved in their OCD behavior, other pix are of the pets and the stories are of their OCD behavior. And, yes, the owner's OCD! We're all family here and a picture of Aunt Mable snoozing in the Lazy Boy may bring up fond memories of that great Thanksgiving when she got a little tipsy and fell asleep before the pecan pie! There's often alittle history behind a photo. Winners will be announced SUPER BOWL Sunday! Thanks everybody!

It looks like I'm going to be the first one to own up to letting my pets ruin my financial future. I don't know why other people do it, but I do it because I love & adore my pets & I don't love money. I also choose to have monthly donations to "doctors without borders" & "greenpeace" deducted from my bank account, because I also love other people of all nationalities, & the planet, & I don't love money. I have a very reasonable annual income, but I drive a second hand car, wear mostly second hand or chain store clothing, & have mostly second hand furniture. I don't have organized holidays away from home, don't drink, gamble, smoke or go out to entertainment activites. Why? Because I love the things I can do with my money if I don't waste it on meaningless crap. My three teenagers DO love meaningless crap in the forms of surf label clothing, going out, i-pods, laptops, & mind blowing expensive sneakers. (o.k., I do use the macintosh laptop a fair bit) And I fund all this silliness because I love & adore my kids & it seems to give them a lot of meaningful pleasure. No, I'm not some dried up old lesbian or an old maid who wouldn't know how to have a good time if I won ten billion dollars. In my 20's I earned & spent a lot of money & lived the "champagne & caviar" materialistic lifestyle. Yes, it can be fun. But for me, it was hollow. I'm happily married to a man who also values the simple things in life. Canoeing on a remote river at sunset, throwing a stick on a lonely beach for our nine dogs, riding through the bush at sunrise, these are the things that make my life worthwhile. Things that don't cost money, because the more you consume, the less you live. Our nine dogs provide more than friendship & company for me. They are my THERAPY every single day. They're my mates, & I willingly undertake the challenge to love them as much as they love me. It's a big challenge, because they would die for me without a second thought. Am I serious? Yes. Am I mad? Probably. But you only get as much love as you give in this world, & I make a point of loving everything that I can. The dogs are by far the easiest & the reciprocity is a joy.

DIlly-Dally have you ever gone into court and gotten a judgment against someone? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to collect on a judgment? Remember the tenant has moved out. Before you can collect you have to find them. You have to either find a bank account or find out where they work. Then you have to file for garnishment. If it's a bank account you have to refile each time you go into the account to garnish funds. Most people just change banks leading the collector on a merry chase. If they have moved out of state you can just forget the whole thing. You may have "won" in the courtroom but all you've actually done is paid a lot of filing fees and spent a bit of time for the "paper". It's not like on Judge Judy. LOL Yes there are statutes as to how much deposit a landlord can require for a pet. Actually in California their is no "pet deposit" In California under civil code section 1950.5 "pet deposits" are considered as part of the security deposit. The landlord can only collect a security deposit with the following maximums: Unfurnished rental unit: The total amount that the landlord requires as security cannot be more than the amount of two months' rent. If you have a waterbed, the total amount allowed as security can be up to two and-a-half times the monthly rent. Furnished rental unit: The total amount that the landlord requires as security cannot be more than the amount of three months' rent. If you have a waterbed, the total amount allowed as security can be up to three-and-a-half times the monthly rent. Let me tell you. It can eat up a lot more than two months rent to repair the damage one peeing cat can do. Plus the landlord is out of the rental income during the extra time it takes to get the property ready for the next tenant.

Our two Bichons, plus one who crossed the bridge...all are rescues, and we keep their hair short. :O) My happy faced little boy, who will celebrate his 16th birthday in April. Our littlest, who loves to roll in the dirt (when she does that, she's Dirty Pearl, Pirate Girl): Our darling little pretty pretty princess, Bijou, gone too too soon...