Last July, I attended the American Veterinary Medical Association conference in Seattle and attended a seminar about the use of disinfectants and an overview of new delivery systems.  After searching and considering numerous systems we decided on the Cintas System.  This system dispenses pre-measured, diluted hospital grade, 100% environmentally friendly product directly into the mop bucket or spray bottle.  No more measuring and no more plastic jugs of bleach and pine sol to throw into the landfill !

Along with this system we signed up for their weekly mop exchange!  Each week they take our old mop head and give us a new one, the old mop heads are laundered and recycled.  Previously we bought new mop heads each month and threw our old ones away.

We also added the weekly towel service, I must admit I have a serious paper towel dependency.  I love paper towels and we were using about a case of papertowels a month in the kennel ;(

The smaller stack of towels on the right are simple linen towels, which are meant to use for cleaning glass, wiping counters and replacing many of the things we do with paper towels.  The towel service includes weekly pick up and replacement of all towels, which are laundered by Cintas and re-used.

We took down all our standard, save one in the restroom, paper towel racks which was alittle scary to me, and installed 3 commercial bio degradeable paper towel dispensers.  We went from 6 paper towel racks to 3 !

I am proud of us for making this switch, we will now avoid throwing away at least a dozen plastic jugs a month, 2 mop heads a month and decrease our paper towel use by hopefully 80% !

Besides decreasing our contribution to the landfill, most importantly this system of disinfection is more effective, safer for the animals then the old fashioned bleach and pine sol.

Saw this over at DogTipper, too freakin cute !!!!

The 18-month-old dog, Yangtze No. 2 with Wang Photo: AFP

How much is that doggie ?  Well, if your one of only 100 of the oldest bloodline of Tibetian Mastiffs…..how’s half a million ?

Holy Bat Man!  That is a lot of money, now some bloggers and reporters are trashing the purchase, well the purchase amount anyways.  But, as a pure bred dog lover I can understand it.

Preservation of a race, preservation of the breed.  Those of us who love our breed, who are dedicated to..yes sometimes a slightly neurotic dedication will do such things as buy a dog for half a million dollars.

Obviously the love of the breed for this new owner goes beyond breeding, surely she could of found another suitable male but in her quest to preserve, enrich and maintain a bloodline she ventured into the remote region of Tibet and found one of the last remaining to bring back and ultimately if all goes well… perpetuate.

Good Luck to the new owner and hopefully her efforts of preservation will be rewarded!

Biscuit’s family has used Friendly Grove Dog Boarding for a few years now with their other dogs and we were lucky enough to spend some time with their newest addition!

Biscuit had a blast playing with both the little dogs in the morning then out to the big dog play yard in the afternoon (after the big dogs were tired and under supervision!).  Biscuit is a beautiful puppy with a very sweet disposition!

We are just thrilled to have her become part of the Grove Family !!!

Steamboat holds a Breeder’s Clinic twice yearly providing Dog Breeders a valuable opportunity to health screen their dogs at a  much reduced cost and the convenience of all the testing on one day, in one place.

Sunday morning brought an unexpected 4 inches of freezing snow down upon Olympia !  The clinic was scheduled to open at 8 am, I had originally planned to be there at 7:30am but with this crazy weather I figured few breeders would show up…I couldn’t of been more wrong !  I arrived at 8:30 to find the parking lot jammed pack and the line out the door !

The clinic was open and the staff where ready with hot coffee and were already passing out numbers !  The Eye clinic was already at number 110 by 9am !

It was a great turn out and well organized and staffed by the crew at Steamboat!  I was so happy to see so many breeders serious about health screening their dogs !

Good Job Steamboat and I look forward to the next Breeder’s Day in October !!!

Considered one of the oldest Irish breeds, The Irish Terrier !  Pictured here is Dylan, a lovely, rambunctious Irish Terrier who is a regular visitor here at the Grove !

Read more about Dylan whom we featured back in September.

Other Irish Breeds Include:

Glen of Imaal Terrier

Irish Setter

Irish Water Spaniel

Irish Wolfhound

Kerry Blue Terrier

Soft coated Wheaten Terrier

Visit Show Dogs in Ireland for the latest news about all things dog on the Emerald Isle !

Hope your Cabbage and Brisket are good tonite !

Lexie’s winter coat was beyond repair so Mom and I just decided that it was time to start over!

Fresh starts are nice sometimes and the good thing about hair is most times it just grows back !

Lexie got a brand new red coat and she doesn’t seem to mind her recent shave!

So, if at times the task is too much…Just Start Over ..It’s all good

It only took a few moments out running around with the Grove Crew of dogs for my initial disgust of snow to melt away.  Hope you all are warm and safe!

This is what happens when an engineer owns a dog !

One of our guests sent us this video !  What a brillant idea

I would like to order two !

This little dog is having a blast !

Have a Great Weekend !