{"id":11216,"date":"2016-05-02T10:04:56","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=11216"},"modified":"2016-05-02T13:31:35","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T20:31:35","slug":"new-dog-owner-shopping-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/02\/new-dog-owner-shopping-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Owning a Dog Means You Need More Pockets"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a title=\"Pam at the Irente Viewpoint\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/6192305162\/in\/album-72157627772537084\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6129\/6192305162_74523abd5a.jpg\" alt=\"Pam at the Irente Viewpoint\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Safari vest at use on actual safari.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><script src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>Some time back my mom embroidered the Nerd&#8217;s Eye View logo onto a pair of safari vests, one for me, one for the husband. A safari vest is damned useful when you&#8217;re on safari, you can keep your sunscreen and your wallet and your pocket camera and some Kleenex and a wad of local currency and lip balm and and and&#8230; Bonus, if you&#8217;re something of a paranoid traveler, a safari vest is handy for keeping your stealables close. I&#8217;m not particularly paranoid and don&#8217;t safari but once in a lifetime, it seems, so the safari vests have been hanging in the back of the closet.<\/p>\n<p>Until this weekend. The weather in Seattle has gone full on summer. It&#8217;s been in the 8os and that is not normal for spring, it&#8217;s just not. Now, here&#8217;s the problem. When you walk a dog, you carry all kinds of crap with you. Sometimes, that is literal crap. If you are a good dog owning citizen &#8212; and you are &#8212; you <em>know. <\/em>But there&#8217;s other stuff, treats and poop bags and keys and your phone because you need to continually take <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/pupseyeview\/\">cute dog photos.<\/a> When you are wearing a coat, you have pockets. But when you have gone to shorts and t-shirt weather&#8230; where did all your pockets go? The safari vests &#8212; and all their pockets &#8212; are out of the back of the closet and hanging on the banister where the coats used to be, pockets now full of dog things.<\/p>\n<p>Pre-Harley, I read a lot about bringing your dog home. Very little of it focused on the dog <em>owner<\/em>, it was about as dog-centric as can be. Harley the Dog came from the shelter in a shabby collar, he had a paper bag for his things &#8212; an actual paper bag containing a Ziploc bag of his food and a short leash with no hook on it. He was a cartoon orphan missing only a newsie cap. He&#8217;s since been spoiled rotten with beds and sweaters and treats and so many gifts, much of it stuff he really did need. He&#8217;s taken care of, thank you friends. You&#8217;re the best.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a title=\"I continue to have no feelings about this dog. Anybody want him?\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/nerdseyeview\/25033285690\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1515\/25033285690_6aa426cc22.jpg\" alt=\"I continue to have no feelings about this dog. Anybody want him?\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This guy. Moves in and thinks he can change <em>everything<\/em>. He&#8217;s right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But I was unprepared for his impact on my day to day existence, that my kitchen floor would need to be swept nine times more often, that my black sweater would have tiny white threads of Harley hair highlighting, that there would be kitchen prep work. None of the lists told me that I would need more pockets.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the missing list of the things I wish I&#8217;d known I was going to need when Harley decided my house was his new home. (There are Amazon affiliate links in here so I get a little something if you shop, but the prices are the same.) If you know a new dog owner and you want to get them a little gift (besides cute sweaters, man, we sure love all the cute sweaters Harley got, he wears them ALL and he wears them well), here are some ideas. Most of them are boring but they&#8217;ll be most appreciated. I promise.<\/p>\n<p>Dog owners &#8212; tell me what I&#8217;ve forgotten, please, I&#8217;m still very new that this.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1rNHSvT\">Ziplock bags<\/a>: Training a dog means always have treats in your pockets and treats in your pockets means Ziplock bags. I got the too small ones, don&#8217;t do that. Get them pocket sized &#8212; I mean sandwich sized &#8212;\u00a0 and use them as pocket liners.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1W2gLJu\">Lint rollers<\/a>: Love means always being covered with hair, I guess. I have one in the house and one in the car, Harley stresses on car rides and that means shedding. A person who has a brown and white dog might consider giving up their fondness for wearing black, but no.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1rr3pKg\">Hand-held vacuum<\/a>: I got a cordless one so I could use it in the car, too. You probably get more suction power with a corded gadget, but I like the free range version and it&#8217;s made vacuuming the couch easier. What, you think not letting the dog on the couch will keep the hair off? Aren&#8217;t you cute.<\/li>\n<li>Towels: You wanted new towels anyway, right? You need those old towels to keep by the back door for drying your pooch after bad weather walks. Keep one in the car, too, because who knows what your friend has decided to roll in when you&#8217;re out in the world. If you like your current towels just fine, go to a second hand store to stock up.<\/li>\n<li>Washable place mats: Why not <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1rNKBVW\">these map ones<\/a> so your dog can learn geography while he&#8217;s splashing water out of his dish or dropping kibble on the floor so he can pick out <em>only<\/em> the broccoli from his dish? Mine came from a friend and they have pictures of sushi on them so Harley knows how to order the stuff that&#8217;s not on the conveyor belt. He loves seafood.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/1W2ifDn\">Safari vest<\/a>: Mine is from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.magellans.com\/itemdy00.aspx?T1=MMV954B+BK+XS\">Magellan<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.exofficio.com\/products\/details\/womens-flyq-lite-vest-S15\">Ex Officio<\/a> makes a nice, one, there are a zillion of them out there. So much the better if you can get your mom to personalize it for you. As a person who is walking a dog all the dame time now, I can not overstate the usefulness of all those pockets. You can use them on safari, too, if you can stand to leave your dog behind, that is.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are lots of lists that tell new dog owners what they&#8217;ll need when they bring home that pup. They&#8217;re dog-centric. Human, you need stuff too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harley-the-dog","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11216"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11226,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216\/revisions\/11226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}