Pooches: On Meeting People in Real Life

While we originally started writing and sharing our stories online to show our families we weren't crazy for adopting pit bull-type dogs,  we didn't realize that anyone else would be interested in reading about our pups. Since then, we've been so excited to become a part of such a great, supportive on-line community and meet so many great people online.
The next thing we never expected, was that our online community would become real as we've been lucky enough to meet people in real life who recognize the pups from online.

Miss M is known to climb right into your lap!

Our first in-person sighting was here. When we were walking back after the parade, we heard someone yelling out "Mr. B! Mr. B!". We had to laugh along with him as he said meeting the pups in real life was like being in New York and meeting celebrities as you walk down the street.

Posing for the Paparazzi

Now we're realizing maybe Chicago isn't such a big city after all. During the summer the pups were able to meet people who read about them at many of the parades, festivals, Farmer's Markets, daily walks and even outdoor movies . We have had people yell out "Miss M and Mr B"! as driving by in cars (Hello!). Miss M and Mr. B LOVE meeting people, and it's fun for us to see our pups so loved! The funny part, is that everyone knows so many details about our pups, but we also don't share much information about ourselves. We are just kind of the people holding the leashes, and we always wonder if we fit what people expected about us.

At the same time, we think it is so great when people come over and say hello, because I know I would be a bit shy about introducing myself if I met someone from a blog I read.
Thank you so much everyone for saying hi, and showing us Chicago might just be a small town after all!

Also:
Paparazzi!
Paparazzi from a Dog's Eye View
Downtown Sightings

Things To Do in Chicago with Dogs: Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade & Dog Paparazzi

Our pooches love meeting people, so we always take advantage of any opportunity to get them out there. Especially if it involves wearing costumes. So living in Chicago, where it's an annual tradition to dye the Chicago River green for St Patrick's Day, we knew this unseasonably warm March was the perfect chance to head downtown to meet a lot of people. A lot of people.

 Much like when the pooches attended the Pride Parade, they were surrounded by 'paparazzi' eager to take photos and meet them.

 Miss M is always eager to pose for photos, striking her signature Zoolander look.
We were always curious how this all looked from the pooches point-of-view, so Mr B decided to bring along his camera and take a video showing what it feels like to be a celebrity surrounded by paparazzi.

We weren't able to get far. See what the pooches see in this video from their perspective. (Mr B even has a kissing scene!)

You can see from the video how happy they are to have the attention, but at the same time we're always aware of their needs and watching whether they may need to rest away from the crowds.

Things to do in Chicago with Dogs: St. Patrick's Day Parade

Since so many of us spend our winters hibernating, we take any chance we can to get our pups out there to meet people. Luckily for us, St. Patrick's is a HUGE event in Chicago. The city even dyes the Chicago River green:

 The downtown parade attracts huge crowds. Fueled by green beer, the city was alive with locals, visitors, and even so many people from other countries decked out in green and enjoying the festivities in the sub 30 degree temperatures.
We even met so many people who were curious about our pit bull-type dogs and eager to meet our pups. Some people had never met a pitbull before!

Decked out like a Dapper Leprechaun and a Fairy Leprechaun, the pooches became their own attraction. They brought joy to the people, and in turn they were swarmed by the paparazzi:

Mr. B wore his video camera just show what it's really like to be swarmed by paparazzi, and how excited people were to see pit bull-leprechauns. That's Mr. B behind the green hat:

Did any other pups make it out for St. Patrick's Day?

PS. Isn't it unbelievable this was at the same time a year ago?

And can you believe people love meeting pit bull-type dogs this much?

Things to Do with Dogs in Chicago: Chicago's Annual Gay Pride Parade 2012

Each year, one of our highlights has been to take the pooches to Chicago's Annual Gay Pride Parade. It's amazing to really see the community band together in support of equality and gay rights. Among the thumping music, boas, beads and rainbow flags, it is inspiring to see all the religious groups, businesses, and politicians out supporting issues of equality and tolerance. And of course the pooches found it particularly befitting to show their support in Pride-appropriate costumes:

The parade also has a couple of local 'celebrities'. It is led by Mayor Emanuel (always in white pants?) and we always love seeing Bozo the clown and Hamburger Mary. Miss M was also starstruck to have met Obama..impersonator. (If you missed it...it was on our Facebook, here!)

It can be a long parade (stretching several miles and over 3 hours long!) and Mr. B was prepared using his stuffed pig as a pillow. He was quite excited to see his doppelgangers: the dancing cowboys. Miss M was just excited to snack on doggie ice-cream.

We were also so excited to meet several people who knew the pooches from the blog; visitors braving the crazy crowds just to meet the pooches, and even visitors from St. Louis! Thanks everyone for saying hi!
Though these photos only show things from our perspective, tomorrow we will see things from the pooches' perspective as Mr. B shows from his video camera what it's like to be the adored object of the paparazzi.

In case you missed it:
Being the adored object of the paparazzi during Chicago's St. Patrick's day.
Mr. B's first venture out as a cowboy (which cowboy style do you prefer?)

Daily Walk in 10 Pictures 4.13.11

We are inching ever so closely to one of our favorite things, Chicago in the summer. The weather this Sunday was just amazing and everyone was out enjoying this short respite from the typical Chicago April weather. Mr. B was not only representing the Cubs, but

he was also wearing his camera and documenting the hoards of people everywhere.

We love his camera, but we are very disappointed with the battery life. After only a few months, the battery is pretty much on its last leg and we have to charge it right before we head out, so we have to plan when to use his camera. However, it still takes some great photos, like this one of the locked bike's shadow:

Since most people were hibernating during the fall and winter,

Ms. M has been itching to reunite with her adoring fans and Mr. B, the paparazzi, was hiding in the bushes taking pictures.

On the other hand, Mr. B has a paparazzi of his own, and she snapped a picture of him giving smooches to his bestest friend.

After hanging out in the park, we ventured off to find a watering hole and Mr. B captured this great photo of the different modes of Chicago transportation.

Due to all the attention, Ms. M became all diva-like and tried to climb the table and onto our friend, M's lap. 

Unlike our family pictures from last week, we were lucky to have M take some actual photos of all of us. 

Things to Do with Your Dog in the City: Holiday Traditions

With some time off over the holidays, we've started developing a couple of traditions with our little family (aka: the pooches). With everything closed on Christmas Eve, we thought this would be the perfect time to dress the pups in their best gear and head downtown for a family walk around the Loop.

Miss M thought this was the perfect occasion for her puffy hat, and her perfect 'Blue Steel' attracted many onlookers and paparazzi:

We walked by Chicago's Christkindlmarket which is normally so packed you can barely move. Being the holiday, it was fairly empty, but the pooches were able to meet a lot of people. Even better, a lot of the people we met were from out-of-town and they had never met pit bull-type dogs before. How flattering that our pups were their first!
We took the pups walking around The Loop checking out Daley Plaza, some of the theaters, and of course Miss M needed to get her photo taken in front of Garrett's Popcorn (yes! this popcorn really is that good!).

What types of holiday walks do other people take with their pups?

Also:
Speaking of paparazzi...
Miss M makes like a tourist
How to take a cab with your large dog

Pooches: The One Where Miss M Breaks Through the 4th Wall

It used to be that Miss M was just one of the "stars" of our blog. But since she started getting recognized out on the street, she has started trying to take more creative control of what we write and document.
It started quite slowly, much like Jim from The Office who is forever giving side-glances to the camera,   she was slyly breaking through that 4th wall to give her own creative input to our photos. Sometimes, instead of posing, she would blow kisses to the camera:

And behind-the-scenes she was always pressuring her co-star Mr. B to get camera ready:

Until she outright began giving us artistic photo direction:

Quick to show her anger when we didn't take her advice:

And even showing her extreme displeasure with some of our post ideas, in her own melodramatic way:

Were there any clues we should have caught that she had begun taking her "fame" too seriously?

Also:
Paparazzi! Even in the winter.
Modeling.
Not really smiling.

Pooches: Miss M and Mr B Bring Happiness to the 2014 Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade

Before I adopted Miss M, I really didn't want a pit bull-type dog.  

But the truth is, I had such strong feelings when I had never even met a pit bull before. 

It was only after meeting my first pit bull-type dog at an adoption event--then my second, then my third-- that I realized they really are just like any other type of dog (though I now think even more amazing!).

Once in costume, Mr. B falls into character

Part of the fun of our adventures around the city is letting other people meet pit bull-type dog for the first time. This weekend we hit up Chicago's Downtown St. Patrick's Day Parade, which is such a huge event, the city even dyes the river green. The parade draws people from around the country, and even from other countries. A lot of people who met the pups wanted to know what kinds of dogs they were, and a couple of people even reveled in their own 'first time they met a pit bull' experience.

As one man from another country said "This is Pitbull? Pitbull is good!".

Mr. B brought along his camera to document the experience from his point-of-view. My favorite part is the paparazzi on the bridge.

Here are the pups bringing happiness to St. Patrick's Day revelers,with appropriate accompanying music.

Also:

Did you know it has been proven watching cute pet videos really does make people happier and increase productivity at work? Feel free to check out this one (the one on Vimeo), this one, and this one too.

Check our Facebook page for more photos, comments, and storylines beyond the blog.

Pooches: Pooches of San Francisco

We are always pointing out dogs we see on the street, especially bully breeds such as pit bulls. On our trip to San Francisco, we were basically paparazzi, running to take pictures of different dogs and their owners. For the picture above, we were running in full sprint down the street on the other side of the street just to get one decent picture. Our first pit bull sighting in San Francisco was on the MUNI heading to Haight-Ashbury. The dog was pulling her owner on a skateboard in the middle of the street and went right past us on the bus. Later while window shopping we ran into the dog and her owner at FTC Skateboarding.She loves skateboarding so much, that she even skates by herself in the store.Here are some photos of her skateboarding in the shop.The shop owner informed us that pit bulls are associated with street kids, especially in the Haight and Ashbury area.However, we did see quite a few non "street kids" with pit bulls.Though it seems dangerous to us, we saw several dogs being transported around in truck beds.We kept seeing this dog and his owner in different areas of San Francisco. They were begging for money and the dog would pose just like Ms. M when she's begging for food. We think this dog is Ms. M's doppelganger.

Dog Paparazzi

Sometimes when you see photos, you don't know what is going on behind the scenes. A remembers a picture of Britney Spears at the beach and when they zoomed out, there were all these paparazzis only a couple of feet away from her. We showed the pictures of Mr. B and Ms. M at the parade, and here are some behind-the-scenes pictures from our day at the Chicago Annual Pride Parade. While the parade was going on, people had to stop and take photos of the pooches, even parade marchers were stopping in the parade to get pictures of the pooches.

At several points, it felt like the pooches had their own paparazzis, but unlike Britney Spears, they soaked up the attention.

Ms. M knew that all of this attention would eventually lead to petting

and more petting.

At times, the pooches felt like Mickey and Donald at Disneyland with people posing with them.

Little did people know that Mr. B was taking pictures of them and the parade. We set up camp where we usually watch the parade, but before we knew it, there were throngs of people all around us. However, Ms. M was able to find a nice spot to take a little nap during the lull of screaming people, booming bass and dancing cowboys.

Mr. B found a companion to sit with during the parade and he saw his fill of legs and feet. This year, we brought dinner for the pooches and a camelback of water, so the pooches can have a picnic at the parade.

It is funny how we can see some of the action from a first person and third person point-of-view.

Mr. B was so excited to see our friend Kelsey from New Leash on Life.

Ms. M was so happy to have Kelsey join us at the parade.

Ms. M acted like a professional model posing with Alexis from The Anti-Cruelty Society. While A was taking this photo, hoards of people surrounded them to take photos of them as well. Ms. M was so happy to have her own personal photo shoot with Alexis.