Hey, Hey, Bogart

We're here! We made it all the way to Portland, Oregon. First we were on a plane, then we got a car (you'd be proud of dad - he makes a decent co-pilot - not as good as you, of course, but decent).

Everytime I'm in the car I keep looking back to see your head in the rear-view mirror. It's so weird to be here without you!!! We realized that we actually don't walk ANYWHERE without you, so this has been kind of tough for us. Nobody looks at me adoringly on the street, and the smiles are definitely more muted than when we are with you, oh fuzzy man.

But you'd LOVE it here - lots of other doggies and lots of doggie-businesses. I could easily see nice, long walks with you all over town and then sitting outside at a cafe drinking tea and soaking up the Airedmiration.

I couldn't sleep last night because I MISSED YOU BUDDY - I woke up at around 2am and quickly realized that you weren't at my feet and Kafka (the orange tabby) wasn't asleep on my butt. IT WAS WEIRD. I also realized that this was literally the only day I've ever been away from you in your entire life!!!

But I hear that you're having a fantastic time with the Dales and with Mareike - she gave me an update that you're eating like a champ and that you're being a good boy so far - so I'm not worried about ya. We'll be home on Sunday in the early afternoon, and the very first thing we'll do when we arrive is come over to get you!

I LOVE YOU BIG BOY, thanks for making me a proud mama!!!!

Love,

Lulu

PS - DAD MISSES YOU BUNCHES!!!

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine

Gone Baby Gone

I just knew that something was up.

Starting yesterday I saw suitcases coming out of closets. And clothes getting put into them. And large bowls of cat food appearing. The humans were up to something.

And indeed I was right. This morning they dropped me off at Mareike's house with the 3 Dales and then LEFT. I've since heard that they flew off to Portland Oregon for a few days. At first I was confused, but since they basically left me at Doggie Disneyland I'm sure I can forgive 'em. And mom promised to blog for me from Portland to let me know what she's up to so I can sit back, put my paws up, and READ my blog for a change.

Sooooooo mama... I'm w-a-i-t-i-n-g...

Love,

Bogart

To Aire is Divine

Teeth Grinding?

I get lots of mail. And I love it. So whenever an envelope arrives with my name on it, I'm quick to get it open and get to whatever is inside. However, I wasn't prepared for this...

See, it's addressed to me, but once I got it open all I could think of was HUH?

Up until now I didn't think I had a problem, and certainly not a problem with grinding my teeth at night. But hey, what do I know, maybe the fine folks at Sleep Right Select Night Guards know something that I don't.

Mom says that I don't snore so it's probably not something that I need, and wonders at exactly how I got on their mailing list. The label is clearly addressed to Bogart Handsome Devil.

Excellent marketing work on someone's part, eh?

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine

Kermit Kalls the Kops

Ok this didn't happen to me but it made me and mama giggle so hard this morning I just HAD to share...


This is Kermit. He's one of the 3 Airedales that belong to mom & dad's friend Mareike (about whom I talk ALL THE TIME because it's my FAVORITEST PLACE IN THE WHOLE WORLD... but I digress). Today he managed to cause some fuss (well, according to the humans).

It was morning and Mareike was at home by herself, watching TV and eating trail mix. Now my buddies the Dales are particularly good at helping themselves to snacks so Mareike has gotten very good at hiding them so they cannot be reached. Everybody was relaxing except for Kermit who wanted some of that tasty trail mix. Mareike placed it up high where he couldn't reach it and he TRIED TO and, well, that's when the fun started.

There was banging at the front door. It was the POLICE! Someone had called 911 and then didn't say anything so they thought there might be an emergency! All the operator heard was the TV and dogs barking in the background... Oh someone DID call 911 and it was Kermit! In his quest to get to the trail mix he'd not only knocked down the phone but also pressed the red cross button to get a direct line to 911. I have to assume that he was trying to tell the operator about his lack of access to the trail mix. And that's what started all of the fun...

So... doggies we should all take this as a lesson. Never waste the time of the 911 operators when they could be doing more important things like saving lives. Just wait until the humans leave for that "work" thing they do every day and work on ways to get to the treats that you want while they're gone. The police won't help with treats, anyway.

The more you know...

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart
To Aire is Divine

Pawda and Vera Wag

Check out my new high-fashion stuffies...

Mom's friend David (that is his painting on the card!) sent me some FABULOUS new stuffies... a Pawda purse and a Vera Wag shoe! I'm comfortable enough in my masculinity to chew on these fine toys...

They're actually quite small which is nice - I don't have many small stuffies - and I'm not a big swallower. I just gnaw, then carry them around with me. I suddenly feel very high-class...

THANKS DAVID!

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine

Photographic Phrustrations

Yup you guessed it. Those pesky camera batteries have been acting up again. When mom can't take pictures she gets uninspired about updating my blog. And it's actually been an interesting week - we've gone on a long walkie in Pasadena (in new places that I haven't peed on before), I've seen my Dale buddies, I've done the ride-along to the supermarket, and I continue my important work on improving my jerky.

So I'm gonna have to do an intervention.

I told mom that on Friday or Sunday (her next day off from that "work" place), we're going to go to Samy's Camera to find out what the very best batteries are for our camera. The ones that give the most bang for the buck, rechargeable if possible, that will allow for more reliable picture-taking of me. Rather than just buying whatever she saw, I'm going to take her to see the professionals so that she doesn't make any silly mistakes again and buys crappy batteries and chargers.

I'm charging the batteries that we do have as I speak. Hopefully they'll be charged by tomorrow.

In other and far more important news, my buddy Charlie the Lab is sick - please visit Opy's blog to read all about it and send him some AIRE ZEN (if you're an Airedale), and/or whatever kind of Zen you can (Lab Zen, Golden Zen, heck even Kitty Zen will help!) so that our pal gets better soon!!! Charlie is an important dude - his mom and dad run Dogs With Blogs - so send him your good thoughts!

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine

The Thinker

My buddy Noah and the girls just gave me this Thinking Blogger Award and I'm HONORED! I'm happy to hear that my thinking about treats has inspired others. Especially as I probably couldn't sneak any into Australia with their super-Beagle-meat-sniffing hounds.

Thanks Noah!

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine

Research & Development

Here at Bogart Enterprises, we are continuing our research & development to try to make the best treats we can...

Meet our crack R&D Team - Jupie, Robin, Kermit, & MEEE...

Jupie has a nose for these things - she looks like she'd give it to ya straight, doesn't she? If the treats were lousy, she'd tell me...

Chicks with beards rule!

Much testing has to happen to be sure that things are working... we're trying to work out some kinks in our production process, and our team is on the case...

Ah, hard work. So tiring. We needed a little lunch - so off to the Good Microbrew we strolled...

Lots of good dog-watching today (even tho mom didn't get any pix of other doggies...). Two french bulldogs, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, a Mini-Pini, and those were just the ones near me...

Dad gave this nice man one of my business cards - had used to have Airedales, now he has Welsh Terriers (mini-me's!). So he was cool in my book.

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine

Workin' for a Livin'

Bogart H. Devil... Quality Control Manager

I'm starting to hear back from some of my friends now who have received their jerky and so far EVERYONE LOVES IT!!!! I cannot begin to tell you all how happy that makes me, because it's my favorite stuff and to know that so many of you like it too warms my fuzzy heart.

Here I am checking out the latest batch of Bogart's Hearty Chew (the beef heart). Gotta taste-test and make sure that it meets my exacting specifications...

All of the jerky going out to my friends in the USA is now in the mail, and the jerky going abroad is going out tomorrow. So watch for the postman if you haven't received yours yet! And thanks again to all of my friends for volunteering to taste-test along with me, it means a LOT :)

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine

Worky on Your Jerky

Working hard at quality control and supervision of the greatest machine that ever lived...

Our industrial dehydrator. The bringer of jerky, the maker of happiness, the large stinky box of my dreams...

And meet the VPM - the industrial vacuum packing machine. This is truly what takes the jerky-making hobby into potential future business-land...

But as you know, nothing beats the canine touch - so I put on my quality-control hat and taste-test every single batch. Nothing but the best for my buddies!

Since I couldn't decide on which ones to send, I decided that every DWBer will get a sample of each! So Bogart's Hearty Chew (that's the beef heart) and Bogart's Chicken Chips (that's the chicken breast) will be on their way...

Hope you all LOVE 'em!!!

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine

I Have a Dream...

That one day soon, all dogs everywhere will have yummy jerky treats fresh out of the cooker just like I do.

I'm sure that I've mentioned that my dad has been making me fresh jerky every day - well, the time has come for all of my dog buddies to have some too. The dehydrator is running non-stop, we bought an industrial vacuum-sealing machine, and I even see some sausage-making equipment still in boxes. This can only mean one thing. Well, to me at least.

I mentioned to dad that while of course I love his jerky, that we might want to get some independent thinkers to be our taste-testing-team. And who better than dogs who blog, eh? So I had mom spend her entire Sunday visiting a zillion of my buddy's blogs (ok, maybe it was less than a zillion but from the looks of her bony fingers it was awfully close) and dropping the hint that a free sample of yummy jerky could be yours if you ask.

We're making two kinds, and each doggie will get a little packet of each: Bogart's Hearty Chew (which is beef heart), and Bogart's Chicken Chips (which is chicken breast). No junk here, this is human-quality meat freshly sliced and jerk-i-fied.

The first batch, ready to go!

I can't get enough of this stuff - even my kitties love it! We just break it up into tiny pieces for the felines and they go to town.

I hope someday soon to convince the humans that this should be more than just a tasty hobby and maybe become our "big idea" or they could fulfill their "special purpose" (mom is chuckling as she writes that). But for now, we just want to give some special treat-lovin' back to the lovely group of doggies that we've become friends with over the last few years and of course we hope you LOVE them!

We will ship them anywhere, but as one of our good doggie friends Noah told us, some countries have issues accepting packages with meat in them. These are sealed and packed in vacuum baggies, but we can't guarantee they'll get past those meat-sniffing Beagles (no offense to adorable Beagles everywhere).

I check all packages before they go out... mmm, quality control.

So if you want a packet just drop me an email with your address. My direct email address is bogarthandsomedevildog@yahoo.com. I answer all emails personally (with help from my opposable-thumb-equipped mama).

Love,

Bogart

Chez Bogart

To Aire is Divine