Embrace Pet Insurance Blog

Pet loss - recent happenings

My blogging friend, Yvonne DiVita, told me the sad news that her dog and companion Carmel passed away last week. Yvonne guest blogged about Carmel amongst her other pets as part of my Me, My Pet, and I series.

Carmel came down with bloat, also known as gastric tortion, that was just too far gone to recover from.Yvonne blogged about Carmie's death here - it's a very touching read.

From all of us here at Embrace, we send Yvonne and her family many hugs and heartfelt thoughts and prayers through this difficult time.

[Tomorrow, I'll continue on the theme of pet loss and how you can support your friends and family who have lost a dear one]

Guest Blogger: Yvonne Divita "Carmel and Wabby and the Fun of Having Pets"

While I was preparing to go away for a couple of weeks, I put a plea out on Facebook to see if any of my friends would be interested in guest posting and a wonderful moment happened - one of them said yes! Yvonne Divita, who writes so many blogs I can hardly keep up, offered to pitch in and here is her post. Enjoy!

I am the lucky owner of a dog and a cat. That’s all, just one dog and one cat. We had two cats once upon a time…but we’re down to one dog and one cat.

Here’s the thing – this dog, Carmel, and this cat, Wabby Wibby (that’s short for baby kitty, in case you wanted to know)…grew up together and sometimes they forget which species they are. Carmel often thinks she must be a cat. And Wabby…well, Wabby never forgets she’s a cat but she tolerates Carmel better than the other cat we had.

Carmel’s “space” in the house is with me. Wherever I go, she goes. If I go downstairs (we have a raised ranch) to see Tom, who works in the lower level…and if I say to her, “I’ll be right back, you don’t have to follow me,” … she follows me anyway. You see, she’s going on 14 which is old for a Shepard-Lab mix. She doesn’t hear well and her joints are definitely bothering her – it’s hard for her to get up off of a bare floor. If she’s not on a rug or her bed (as seen in this picture), she struggles mightily, until one of us helps her. And, then she acts very embarrassed.

The cat, on the other hand, who is a mere six months younger, gets around just fine. She doesn’t jump up on the bed as much as she used to – it’s several inches higher than the couch, where she claims territory, so I guess she’s not as spry as she’d like us to believe, either. Still, I have not had to take her to the vet in quite awhile, while Carmel is due for yet another visit tomorrow. (rear end problems… let’s not talk about it)

Occasionally I see the two of these furry creatures nose to nose and I am positive they are communicating. There were times when I was sure they were plotting something, but… that’s just my overactive imagination. Mostly, I think they’re just checking to see if one of them has been fed yet. That’s their main purpose in life – to be fed. Wabby gets fed around 5 o’clock, and starts bellowing for her dinner around 3 o’clock. Yep…two hours of hearing her whine and cry and circle my chair, wondering why I’m not jumping up to feed her. I’ve told her repeatedly that if I were her, why… I’d run away! She just looks at me blankly…because she’s not allowed outdoors.

Carmel isn’t so insistent…until OUR dinnertime arrives. THEN she thinks, “Oh, goody, people food!” I guess it’s our own fault. One of us has a soft heart (guess which one) and always saves a piece of food for her. The crust of pizza is her favorite. Licking the yogurt bowl is another. She’s not like other dogs, she won’t eat just anything… but, she will lick the bowl of a Wendy’s salad…and eat any leftover lettuce. And, sometimes… when we have fish, both pets will be at my feet just watching…just staring…as I put hand to mouth with food in it… being patient because…they know they’re going to get a smidgen.

Dr. Larry, over at the petblog, says that’s not a good idea, feeding pets from the table…but, I don’t have to listen to him cause we don’t eat at the table. We eat in bed.

Love it!

Guest Blogger: Celeste Lindell, Average Jane blog

A continuation of the guest blogger series, Me, My Pet, and I, where I ask bloggers to reveal their pet-loving side... This entry is from Celeste Lindell behind the Average Jane blog.

I met Celeste at th Blogher conference just as I was leaving and remembered afterwards that Yvonne, over at Scratchings and Sniffings and recent guest blogger, had suggested I get in touch with Celeste. So I got in touch and here we are, guest blog entry in hand.

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From the time I was a small child, I have absolutely adored cats. I grew up in a semi-rural area with dogs, barn cats, horses, chickens, peacocks and other miscellaneous pets, but I always loved the cats the most.

After college when I moved out on my own, I had a 6-month-old cat named Kato and quickly added 6-week-old Friday to my household. They lived to be 17 and 16 years old, respectively, and were my companions through many residences, boyfriends, jobs and other milestones in life. Both of them died early this year, and my husband and I still miss them.

Our current crop of felines includes 15-year-old Velcro, a pastel calico who originally belonged to my late mother. When Velcro was a kitten, she was found tied into a pillowcase in a Salvation Army donation bin. Velcro was prone to nipping when she was younger, but she's mellowed considerably with age. She had a mastectomy due to breast cancer earlier this year (it's been a bad year for cats at our house), but she seems to have recovered nicely.

Our youngest cat is 11-month-old Xena. She has sleek, shiny black fur and crazy yellow eyes to match her kittenish disposition. Her hobbies include ferret-like stealing of anything she can carry in her mouth (she's particularly fond of my makeup brushes), knocking breakables to the ground, and snuggling up adorably when scolded. She has my husband wrapped around her little dewclaw.

The most recent addition to our household was Velvet, an adult cat from a nearby animal shelter. We got her as a bridge cat between grumpy old Velcro and exuberant Xena and she's fulfilling that role well. Velvet's original owners got a dog and decided they didn't want a cat anymore. Eventually they moved away and just left her behind. She roamed around trying to get into people's houses until a kind-hearted neighbor brought her to the shelter. It's difficult to believe that someone would so mistreat such a sweet-tempered cat.

Three is my personal cat limit, so we're stopping there. We had four for a while and discovered that it's one too many for our small house. My husband always says I'll turn into a crazy cat lady when he dies, but really we both agree that this is the perfect number.

The cats add so much joy to my life, I can't imagine living without them.

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Bio: Celeste Lindell blogs at Average Jane and divides the rest of her free time between singing with her band, Dark Crucible, and volunteering with Soroptimist International and various animal charities. In real life she's a senior copywriter for the interactive division of an advertising agency.

Guest Blogger: Brad Feld, Feld Thoughts

I'm delighted to have Brad Feld guest blogging for my blogging series Me, My Pet, and I.

I've been reading Brad's blog now for well over 2 years and find his perspective on VC investing, angel investing, running marathons, and being happily married a very interesting combination. Whenever I have questions about investing or running a board or just keeping my feet on the ground, Brad's blog is usually the first place I go.

Here's his post.

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When I was a kid, I tolerated the dogs we had.  As a teenager, we had a large airdale named Addison that I always found annoying.  In retrospect, I think it was channeling my mom (it was her dog after all) and I was having a normal teenage reaction to it.

After my wife Amy and I moved to Boulder 12 years ago, we decided to get a dog.  Our neighbor at the time had two beautiful golden retrievers so we decided to get one from his breeder.  Our first dog – Denali – was a life changer.  He was a kind, fun, playful, smart dog that we immediately fell in love with.  We grew with him, and by the time his was six, we decided to get a second golden to keep him company.  This resulted in Kenai, who also was extremely smart and playful, but a little more mischievous than Denali.

Amy and I don’t have kids so our dogs are a central part of our life.  We were out of town last year at Christmas when Denali suddenly got sick.  24 hours later he was in surgery – it turned out that he had a large liver tumor.  We decided not to wake him up and were devastated.  We knew that his last memories were happy prior to the surgery, so that gave us some peace, but it was incredibly difficult to lose our first dog.

A few months later we started talking about getting a new puppy.  Three weeks ago we got Brooks.  He’s amazingly cute, very smart, and much more stubborn than either Denali or Kenai.  Kenai is happy to have a new friend and we are being kept busy by the new fluffball in our life.

Dogs rock.

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I am a managing director at Foundry Group and Mobius Venture Capital. I live in Boulder, Colorado, Keystone, Colorado and Homer, Alaska.

Following is my standard bio:
Brad Feld is a Managing Director at Foundry Group and Mobius Venture Capital. Prior to Mobius, Brad founded Feld Technologies, which was sold to AmeriData Technologies in 1993, where he became Chief Technology Officer.

Brad currently serves on the boards of a number of private companies, including ePartners, Gold Systems, Judy's Book, NewsGator, Rally Software, and StillSecure. In addition, he is on the board of The National Center for Women & Information Technology, The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County, and The Colorado Conservation Trust.

Brad has previously been a member of the board of directors of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization and founded the Boston and Colorado chapters. He holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I love to read, am an avid marathoner, believe computers are my friend, am happily married to an amazing person, have one gigantic golden retriever named Kenai, (and now Brooks) and try to enjoy myself every day as I subscribe to the “you only get one chance” view of life.

Guest Blogger: Yvonne Divita, Lipsticking, Scratchings and Sniffings blogs, among others

A continuation of the guest blogger series, Me, My Pet, and I, where I ask bloggers to reveal their pet-loving side... This entry is from Yvonne Divita.

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I've been a pet lover since I was a child. I think most pet lovers start at an early age. But, I adopted pets (at least in my imagination, my Mom wasn't really into a whole house full of pets, just one cat and dog at a time, thank you) because I was lonely. We moved a lot when I was very young, and I always felt a bit out of place whenever we ended up someplace new. It seemed that the cat and dog were the only ones who cared.

As time went on, I received a dog of my very own, as opposed to being the 'family' pet, when I was 12. For 10 years she went everywhere with me. I do mean everywhere (except school). People knew that if they invited me over, I'd have the dog with me.

Today, I have a delightful Tabby cat named Wabby Wibby (that's short for baby kitty), and a warm, hugable German Shepard mix, named Carmel. They are my constant companions - around the house, anyway. I have to admit that the cat is an indoor cat. She does not go outside at all (though she pokes her nose out the back when we leave the screen open to call Carmel in). And Carmel only goes out with us on a leash. Which is daily, or twice a day. I cannot allow her to go with me 'everywhere' as I did the dog of my youth. Since starting my own business, I am out quite a bit - and Carmel would not like the office buildings, coffee shops, and such that I do business in.

Or, maybe she would! I guess I won't know, as I seldom take her in the car. She gets car sick!!!

Both Wabby and Carmel are 'elderly' now. They have their aches and pains (like I do!) and I give them vitamins and attention and special food. I expect them to be around for many more years, as long as I care for them just as I would care for my kids. Except, my kids are all gone and on their own, now. The dog and cat (and my sweet hubby-to-be, Tom) are all I have left. My son has asked me, "What will you do when... they're gone?" As if he thinks it could happen any day now.

Well, I don't like to go there. I don't have a clue... cause I don't imagine them gone, ever. They've been with me for over 12 years, both of them. They're fixtures in our household. They're more than companions - they're little parts of me. I cannot imagine losing them. So, I don't. They also provide a lot of fodder for my newest venture, a petblog I write for Purina, over at www.scratchingsandsniffings.com. But, of course!

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Small business and marketing expert Yvonne DiVita is the author of Dickless Marketing: Smart Marketing to Women Online (AuthorHouse, 2004), as well as president and founder of WMEBooks.com, an author services company that helps authors write, produce, print and market books using print-on-demand technology. She maintains a company blog, a blog focusing on marketing to women, and pet lovers blog . She is the president of the Rochester Professional Consultants Network, vice president of sponsorship at RAMA (the Rochester chapter of the American Marketing Association), and is a member of NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners), NAFE (National Association of Female Executives) and RWN (Rochester Women's Network). A frequent public speaker, Yvonne has been interviewed on WS.radio.com (a division of Entrepreneur.com), ABC, and on business blogs and Web sites. She is a strong advocate for women, entrepreneurs, and network-building via the Web.

Guest Blogger: Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends

Working Cats Clock In

After years working long days in the corporate world, I now have the luxury of running my own business from home.  My husband also runs his business from home.

Because we are at home most of the day, our two fuzzy little pet children, Sparky and Sheba – are closer to us than any of our pets before.  Sparky and are siblings.  Sparky is a red cream Himalayan and Sheba is a blue Himalayan.  Himalayans have gentle and loving personalities and become very attached to their human parents.

Sparky and are “working” cats.  My husband has a large desk and they spend most of the day hanging out on a corner of the desk while he works.  We even have a term for it – we say that they have “clocked in” for work. 

During the winter the two of them huddle next to our network router, because it is warm.  We call it fine-tuning the network.

Throughout the day I occasionally go back and peek in to see the three of them at work.  OK, I do more than peek in – sometimes I hang out with them for a while, too.  It makes work more fun and less stressful.

Sometimes they need to take a short break from their duties, too.  That’s when they go hang out in the foyer for a while.  These pictures show them on their “coffee break.”

After all this time with the four of us “working” at home, I doubt that I could ever go back to regularly leaving the house for 10 hours each day to go work someplace else again. 

Anita Campbell
CEO Small Business Trends

New series: Me, My Pet, and I

There are a number of upstanding and respected bloggers and business people who we know through their captivating articulation of their subject matter expertise - whether that be marketing, entrepreneurship, venture capital, or politics. Whatever your interest, it's out there.

But, behind the scenes when they go home, they are pet parents through and through, rolling around on the floor with their dogs licking their faces or write their blog articles with their cats purring on their laps (or shoulders as the case may be). They are besotted with their pets and that's something we don't get to see all that often.

So, I thought it would be interesting to let these human beings show their pet loving sides in the safe confines of the Embrace blog in this series.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for people you want to hear from - we love friends of friends. Send me an email or add a comment.

Video of Punch and Sparkle, the Embrace office hamsters

We don't just embrace cats and dogs around here. The office hamsters have been mentioned in this blog before, but we finally got around to getting some real footage for all of our readers who've been so patiently waiting for the hamster cam.

Punch is a Black Eyed Argente Campbells Russian Dwarf:

His brother Sparkle is an Opal Pearl Campbells Russian Dwarf:

Yes, they are very cute.  The brothers were adopted from a litter of 9 from the Cleveland Animal Protective League in spring of 2005.

Thanks to Hamsterific for the info on hamster markings and thanks to Lea for putting together the video and letting us adopt her hamsters :). 

A change in pace: pets and marketing

Over at the Church of the Customer, Jackie summarizes some marketing ideas on "how to set your brand apart by tapping into people's deep love for their pets." from Andrea Learned's Lisa Johnson who has written an new book, Mind Your X's and Y's.

[I must have Andrea on my mind from a recent email conversation, for that's who I put the first time around as the author of this book. Thanks to Jackie for pointing out it was Lisa who really wrote it. I knew that!]

I won't reprint it here, go check it out here. But in the meantime, here is the gratuitous picture of Kitten, the cutest Yorkie you ever did see, to connect with all you pet parents reading this :)

And if you dispute the cutest label, please send me pictorial evidence of cuter Yorkies.

New pet blog

Here's a promising new pet blog - scratchings and sniffings. Yvonne Divita, who writes lipsticking (marketing to women online) and a couple of other blogs (plus a book or two) has now turned her attention to pets.

Yvone is a besotted pet parent - her one line bio: Just a pet lover hoping to share stories with other pet lovers.

From her About Page:

This is a pet blog. It's written by Yvonne DiVita. You will see sponsors noted - but understand that everything on this blog is my original writing. I may occasionally allow sponsors to suggest content - I may announce new products, or services. The operative word is "may" because this is my blog - mostly about my pets.

I will try to post relevant pet news - from the world of dogs and cats, and any other animals you want to hear about. Just to qualify things a bit: I used to be a veterinarian's assistant - a looonnng time ago. It was fun. Until I got bit! More than once! Irate and/or scared dogs and cats at the vet's office can be very hard to manage!

She kindly mentioned me and the Embrace Pet Insurance blog as an inspiration for her blog on pets but I think Yvonne would have written her scratchings and sniffings blog anyway - she just can't help herself.

Anyway, I'm delighted we've been able to inspire at least one excellent blog on pets. We definitely need more!