Closed for Christmas

Happy Holidays lovelies!! We will now be shut shop until the New Year! You can still order via our eBay store or the online shop here, but all items will be processed and then posted out from January 2nd 2012. We hope everyone has a fantastic festive period!! x x

Dog Fancy Dress Wins $6000!

There have been some really very upsetting dog stories in the news just lately .... so here is a nice change for you Puppy Lovers! Meet 18 month old Rufio...

Doesn't he look pawesome all dressed up for Howl-o-ween last month?! And we're not the only ones to think so! Rufio, a Plainfield Neopolitan Mastiff, has won $6000 in the PetSmart Monster Cute Photo Contest in the USA. And that's not all....he's won at least 25 other competitions! And, what makes it even more pawesome...his owner Kathryn Dunlap is using his winnings to help rescue dogs!! She has already bought an animal shelter food with her $500 giftcard. Infact, Rufio and Kathryn are on the look out for an agent to reperesent him and Kathryn says “My goal for him is to be a spokesperson for other dogs, especially those in shelters and rescues” and being such a rare breed and so utterly gorgeous, we are thinking he will be great at raising awareness of the importance of rescue centres and the plight of homeless dogs... you know, the only Plainfield Neopolitan Mastiff we'd seen before was 'Fang' in Harry Potter. Bigger dogs are often found in rescues due to becoming too much for their owners to manage as they grow...it breaks our heart! Hopefully star-pups like Rufio wil help raise awareness of these loving gentle giants. For more information about Rufio and his new line of greetings cards, visit www.rufiosrumblings.com or find the Rufio Ricardo Fan Club on Facebook x x

New Bandana designs! Twilight inspired ...*swoon*

OMG Puppy Lovers... it is now less than 2 weeks until Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part One is out at the cinema! Very excited indeed here at Puppy Love HQ! Next Friday we shall be staging our very own Twiathlon with our gorgeous friend Nicola and watching all 4 films in succession... I know, i know...lickle bit nerdy but it's only like the boys watching successive football matches on a Sunday afternoon right?! Lols. In honour of the Sparkly One and (not quite so much but still) the Furry One, we have a new addition to our bandana collection.... Twilight inspired Team Edward & Team Jacob designs!! 

Made with 100% cotton, and fastened with Velcro, each one is handmade and embroidered using our lovely embroidery machine with really nice, slightly sheeny Mettler embroidery threads. They are available now in our eBay store from £6.99 and as always come in all sizes. As an extra treat for you...scroll down after the jump for the Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part One movie trailer!! *SQUEAL!* x x

The best Friday Funny ever? Meet the Salsa Dancing Chihuahua ...

This week's Friday Funny really is just too p-awesome for words! One of our all-time faves! Prepare to squeal with delight.... Enjoy! x x

Spooktacular Halloween dog bandanas & this week's Friday Funny!

Wow...Friday again already! Is someone spinning the earth faster or something?! This week has flown by here at Puppy Love HQ where we have been busy making lots of spooooky skull and blood curdling bat bandanas for Halloween...which is only a couple of weeks away now! We still have a limited amount of fabric left, so if you'd like one get to our online eBay shop vampire-speed fast by clicking here. Prices start from £3.99 with free P&P and as always, come in all sizes from XS to XL.

Halloween is one of our favourite holidays and we will certainly be getting into the spooky spirit with a pumpkin, sweeties & a scary film on the 31st! What do you have planned? 

Dressing up is a must and if a spooktacular bandana just isn't flamboyant enough for you, check out this week's Friday Funny for some crazy costume ideas! 

Strictly Come Dancing & this week's Friday Funny

Happy Friday Puppy Lovers! We hope you've had a fab week in the sunshine? It's been absolutely wonderful! As the weather starts to cool down again from today, we are already getting ourselves ready for the winter hibernation... 

Tea, Coffee, Hot choccy - check

Munchies - check
Bunny slippers & Snuggie- check
Fab reality/competition TV - check!

Yay...we admit it... we are addicted to the Saturday & Sunday night goodness that is Strictly Come Dancing & the X Factor *blush*
All the beautiful dresses on Strictly send me into a tizwoz - esp as the seamstress in me stands up and coos over the hours of work and skilled quality put into each outfit and wonders about it's construction. Hosted by the legendary Bruce Forsyth (whose dad did the wedding cars for my Nana's wedding would you believe?!) and beautiful Tess Daly, this years line up includes footballer Robbie Savage, Neighbours & now Fosters ad star Holly Valance, Lulu, Russell Grant & McFly star Harry Judd. Now last week, they were all very good....especially Mr Jason Donovan! But we think if the judges got a look at this little chap, he would be stiff competition for even the professional dancers!! Check out this week's Friday Funny, featuring one very nifty little mover doing 'the Kibble'... Enjoy!! x  x

Dog Does Funny Dance For Kibble - Watch MoreFunny Videos

Petscorner.co.uk Dog Toys Review

Our Buzzy is one very happy dog at the moment... he was lucky enough to be chosen to do a review of 3 (yes, not 1...3!!)  fab new dog toys for one of t'interweb's best online pet shops... www.PetsCorner.co.uk!! We already knew that Pets Corner online pet shop have so many fab items in stock so we were v excited when the parcel arrived.... here's what Buzz got to try out:

1) Great&Small Rubber Toy "Extra Bouncy...bring it on!"

2) Great&Small Rope Toy "Boring toy... pull the other one!"

3) Great&Small Squeak Toy "For dogs that live LOUD!"

First off we tried out the Rubber Toy which is a soft but sturdy rubber ring that you can throw, play tug with, or doggie can chew... Buzz has never had a dog toy like this before so was a little puzzled at first until I threw it, then  he bought it back to me with this face which I think pretty much sums it all up... H.A.P.P.Y!!! 

He also had a little chew on it later, holding it easily between his paws and we also played toss with it inside the house and as you can see here in our little video, it definitely has the paws up from Buzz:

I'm also very impressed at the quality...here is the toy after a whole afternoon of Buzzy's knasher abuse (usually his toys struggle to make it past a couple of hours entact! lols) and it still looks great. I think that it will certainly become one of his faves and last a loooong time too! Pawesome!


Next up was the rope toy tugger!! Now, Buzz always has a penchant for tuggers and I knew he was going to go crazy for this one... I wasn't wrong... Check out those canines!!



I did make a video of this too but he was just soooooo noisy that I've opted for pics instead. (I also fell over from the force when I let go of the other end which was slightly embarrassing and did not make for great footage! *blush*) The colours are lovely and vibrant and it also didn't get too mucky after being thrown and pawed around the garden which was a nice surprise :) It's soft but tough and Buzz also thinks it makes a nice nose warmer from the looks of it, and again it withstood lots of tugging and nibbling. He is a bit of a shredder after all, but I was pleased to see only little tufts had come free! 

Lastly we played with the Squeaky Ball which I was the most concerned about in terms of it's longeviety - tennis balls tend to have a max 1 hour lifespan once Buzz gets his paws on them as do any rubber/plasticy toys with air inside. However, as yet, he has not punctured it! The squeak is not very loud really which although dogs would probably enjoy it better if it was louder, I think owners will be very satisfied with indeed. It has a nice little squeak which is not at all irritating after long periods of play. Buzz very much likes the ball - infact out of the 3 I think it could be his favourite as he kept returning to it over the other two. He has always been very good at playing by himself and balls are great for that where they roll... here he is (looking somewhat cat-like actually! lols!) playing ball:

As you can see he really has been trying to chew on it with his sharp teeth and strong jaw but without making a hole yet :)

So...all in all... 3 wonderful, fun, and good quality dog toys from those fab people at PetsCorner.co.uk!! From Mr Buzz and myself, thankyou so much lovelies! On the PetsCorner website it states that they are a family run business with a 'commitment to the environment & animal welfare' and 'with providing their customers with the best value' and I really do think that not only do they do that, but that this comes across clearly in all their products and price points - from cosy cat beds & Buzz-proof dog  toys to the more exotic reptile feeding equipment! Go check them out now!! ;) 

M & B x x

P.S. To see our furriend Teagan's review of her selection of toys from PetsCorner, head on over to her blog at www.teagantimes.wordpress.com by clicking here!

Great Greyhound Gathering & this week's Friday Funny

Happy Friday Puppy Love-rs! What do you have planned for the weekend? We are going to the Great Greyhound Gathering in Nottingham tomorrow and rather excited indeed! So many of our fab twitter & facebook pals will be there, including gorgeous Lisa Rees with her Dog O'Nine Tails stall and Soxi, Dino, Karen & Neil....we can't wait to see Karen and hear her news...she has been training as a Galen Myotherapist  - dog massage - and will very soon be qualified! So any achy pups out there, get in touch!! 

The show tomorrow will include fun & more serious dog shows, stalls, etc, and takes place at the Nottingham Racecourse, Colwick Park, Nottingham NG2 4BE from 9am. We will also be meeting up with beautiful Bethan from Greyhound Rescue Shropshire & Borders and the rest of their fundraising team. We have launched a range of ECO shoppers made especially for GRSB, part of the Retired Greyhound Trust, and they will also be selling other Puppy Love items on their stall to raise much needed £££ for the Greyhounds in their care. 

You will be able to buy the shoppers directly from our eBay store from next week where a good percentage of the sale will go directly to GRSB! Here's a sneaky preview of one of the designs...

And of course, being Friday it can mean only one thing.... it's time for this week's Friday Funny! This one is just soooo cute.... meet MAY(yorkie) and LUNE (maltese) in a bonio speed eating contest! Enjoy! x x

9/11 Dogs Ten Years On

10 years ago today, the world changed. Big time. 

As George 'dubbleya' Bush said in a rare moment of sincerity & depth, at yesterday's memorial for Flight 93 in Pennsylvania ... 

“When the sun rose in the Pennsylvania sky 10 years ago, it was a peaceful September morning,” he said, “By the time it set, nearly 3,000 people had lost their lives." 

Even a decade on, whenever I look at the images from that day, my brain still struggles to process that what I'm seeing is not a movie still or some angry computer game. Today we want to honour the bravery of all involved in the rescue operation at Ground Zero, the Pentagon and those heroes of Flight 93 who really were the first to stand in the 'War on Terror' or whatever the politicians term it. To us, they just fought back and triumphed against pure evil. 

Of course, it wouldn't be Puppy Love if we didn't move on to the heroes of the furry variety... and we can't believe that somehow we missed this story over the last ten years! Maybe it has something to with the leaky eyes of grief and outrage but at last we have discovered the story of Michael Hingson and his guide dog Roselle who were working on the 78th floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit Tower Two. Together, beautiful yellow lab Roselle leading the way, they began the evacuation and ended up just 100 yards away when Tower Two collapsed. And her fellow guide dog Salty also did the same for his owner in another area. I never have words for the loyalty of dogs, just a big lump in my throat. Roselle, like so many of the rescue dogs who worked on 9/11, has now crossed the Rainbow Bridge but just like the thousands who lost their lives that day, and in the resulting conflicts and attacks around the world, they will never be forgotten. 

Over 350 dogs worked at Ground zero and Boston journalisist Laurel Sweet worked with vet Dr Cynthia Otto who was treating their injuries from searching through the debris ... "I think the dogs were the only thing that kept people going at Ground Zero," Sweet quotes Otto as saying. "You'd actually see their faces change when a dog walked by."

Dutch photogrpapher Charlotte Dumas has tracked down the 15 still living FEMA doggies and complied a beautiful book called 'Retrieved' which is available now... 

If you don't want the leaky eyes, and believe me they'll come big stylee, click away now, as here are some of those doggie-heroes :

From the NY Times: Bailey, age 14, Thompson Station, Tenn. She went to the Pentagon following the attacks of 9/11.

Bretagne from Cypress, Texas, arrived at the site in New York on September 17, remaining there for ten days 

Moxie, 13, from Winthrop, Massachusetts, arrived with her handler, Mark Aliberti, at the World Trade Center on the evening of September 11 and searched the site for eight days

Tara, 16, from Ipswich, Massachusetts who stayed for 8 days from Sept 11th

Kaiser, 12, pictured at home in Indianapolis, Indiana, was deployed to the World Trade Center on September 11 and searched tirelessly for people in the rubble

Guinness, 15, from Highland, California, started work at the site with Sheila McKee

Merlyn and his handler Matt Claussen were deployed to Ground Zero on September 24, working the night shift for five days

Red, 11, from Annapolis, Maryland, went  to the Pentagon

Abigail, left, was deployed on the evening of September 17

Tuff arrived in New York at 11:00 pm on the day of attack to start working early the next day

Hoke from Denver searched for 5 days

From the NY Times: Orion, age 13, Vacaville, Calif. He worked at the World Trade Center for five days after the attacks 
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033628/Surviving-9-11-rescue-dogs-scoured-Ground-Zero-bodies-commemorated-decade-difficult-mission.html#ixzz1Xdnr20gt

Dutch Dogs, Sailing & Sewing

It's that time of year again already... Back to School. How times flies! But for us it has been Back to Sewing!! We had a fab time in Holland visiting Dad and learning to sail :) We even met this handsome chap who has years more experience sailing than we do... he has been sailing for 13 years!! Wowza! That sea-air must be good for you huh?! We met him in the harbour at Lelystad which was the first harbour we moored up in on our 3 day sailing trip. He had a fab bright orange doggie life jacket-coat which I must say was not only good to see for his safety but also looked very fetching & cosy. 

Infact, in general, the Dutch seem to be big animal lovers! We saw sooo many gorgeous dogs out running alongside their owners' bicycles, in little baskets on the front or in trailers behind... and of course just w-a-l-k-ing the usual way! And did you know...there is a tax on dogs in the Netherlands which is paid annually and calculated according to the number of dogs in the household. We are not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.... whilst promoting responsible dog ownership we fear it may also mean that the rescue rate is low and abandonment rates high. What do you think?

Being back at Puppy Love HQ means that the Puppy Love eBay shop is now back to business as usual, as is the Online Store here so if your little sea-pup is in need of  nautical dog bandana like Lubo is sporting below, you know where to go! ;) x x

Showbiz Saturday: X Factor 2011, it's New Judges & their dogs!

Tonight the X Factor starts again on ITV and it's all change this year with 3 new judges joining Louis Walsh on the judging panel... Take That's *cue girly scream* Gary Barlow, gorgeous international superstar Kelly Rowland & the beautiful Tuilisa Contostavlos from N-Dubz. It's cycle 8 so it's good to see some new input and a fresh panel... plus, just like Cheryl Cole and Sharon Osbourne before them , the girls are animal lovers! Check out Kelly's adorable Yorkshire Terrier and Tuilisa's gorgeous staffie girl:

Meanwhile, Louis' pets, Jedward, are currently taking part in Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 5! Lols!

Being Saturday, it's also time for the Saturday Pet Blog Hop!! Join in after the jump! x x >>

Dogs Trust Salisbury Fun Day

So last Sunday was the fabulous Dogs Trust Salisbury (@DT_Salisbury) Fun Day!! It was our first Dogs Trust event of the summer after we had to cancel Kenilworth last month due to that evil summer flu I generously passed around to everyone *oops!* The day was once again a roaring success with lots of lovely stalls for doggies and their bipeds...including a doggie bobbing for hotdogs stall, a timed doggie dash, bric-a-brac, pancakes, beer tent, fun dog shows, an attempt to break the world record for the biggest simulntaneous sit and MORE! *and breathe*...

Once again we had a fantastic time meeting all the gorgeous dogs and their wonderful owners. The total raised is an amazing £18,450.53!!! Wooooo!! A big paws up to gorgeous Leslie who organised the day and is a constant   supporter of Puppy Love *big hugs lovely lady!* 

World record attempt in Progress - Photo by Helen Smith

Unfortunately there just weren't quite enough doggies to break the record of 629 but an amazing 463 did take part! Wow!! And it was such a lovely sight to see - and sooo quiet! I think alot of doggies got ALOT of treats over those 3 minutes :) 

Photo by Helen Smith

Photo by Helen Smith

We also met up with our 'I'm Deaf' bandana muse & model, Jasper!! It was sooo lovely to see him & his family again and hear  how well he is getting along now. He also won a rosette in the show! GO Jasper! Kathleen, Becca & his fursis Poppy have done so well training him and making him feel happy & secure - you're stars! Again Kathleen and family have been great supporters of our products - thankyou so much lovelies! *hugs* 

Photo by Helen Smith

We also met Helen Smith of Reflectionz Photography who is an amazing photographer and took some wonderful shots of the whole day AND the Puppy Love stall! They are awesome - thankyou Helen! And not forgetting Artist Patricia Davies who is a brilliantly talented lady - see her fab pet portraits at www.patriciadavies.co.uk.

So all in all a wonderful day making new friends and catching up with old whilst spreading the Puppy Love... we can't wait for next year Leslie! Book us in! ;) And be sure to check out the latest additions to our customer gallery - some real beauties! x x

Photo by Helen Smith

More photos after the jump!! >>