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THE FREEDOM TO MAKE A WEEKEND LAST 4 DAYS -- THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS INDEPENDENCE

We're stretching our July 4 edition through the weekend and designating it as our long-running feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap.
One reason is readlarrypowell.com is taking the long weekend. Why? Felt like the thing to do.
One "thing to do" is to show the flipside of my personal dog, Porche Noel.  These first two photos show her flipsides on her office bed.
She came into our collection of critters at Christmas in 2009. Very active and puzzled dog. She was snarly. In fact. as a poorly treated, starving dog, she wanted everybody else's meal. Thing were tough until we convinced her that she was
actually going to get fed. 
The other dogs cut her some slack and so did the cats.
Porche Noel adjusted. She couldn't bark -- she could only rasp -- her collar or her rope had been too tight around her starvation neck. She had a little trouble walking because her back hips and legs had been abused and were weakened -- we don't know if she was a "breeding" dog by accident or on purpose or if at all. Somehow she escaped the awfulness of that life and wound up on our street in the City of Dallas.
It was clear she was in trouble when we got her.

How did we get her?

Here's how it went: We kept a twice-daily feral cat free-food buffet on our front porch inside the burglar bars and matching burglar-bar gate symbolic of the area.
The cats and their kittens loved it. We'd make friends and work to get them spayed and neutered. And it took us nearly two decades but by the time we sold the house, the neighborhood ferals had been spayed or neutered. Many were adopted. 
We like to think that there were no replacement ferals after we left but, of course, that was in an area on the south side of Dallas that has long been famous for unfixed strays and subsequent large litters of puppies and kittens. (We adopted some of each and found homes or shelter for the rest.)
One day my funspouse Martha, returning from an errand, walks in the house and asks, "What's with the dog on the front porch?" 

And I asked, "What dog?"

Sure enough, there was a dog on the porch. This dog had squeezed through the burglar bars, then eaten all the dishes of cat food in the buffet. At that point, this rasping, limping, frightened dog had become too wide to squeeze through the bars and escape the porch. 
I opened the front door of our house, looked at her and said, "Come on in" and she did.
Porche Noel has been sleeping on our bed almost ever since -- she took over the spot when my Cocker Spaniel Inky (right) left us for Higher Quarters in 2015. I believe Porche realized there was an opening and jumped onto the bed. She can't jump that high at this stage of her life, but she has a human who will lift her up and off  the bed or couch or floor or chair, etc., when needed. 
That's her (upper right) on her first trip to a vet (that we know of). 

And I've included a photo of Porche Noel slumbering on the couch with her pal, Martha's Personal Dog, Wendy Louise Wagstaff Arden.
Wendy bunks with the humans, too. Ever had one of those dogs who
firmly believes that beds were invented for dogs and humans can just move over? It's like that Hank Williams Sr. song from 1947 -- Move It On Over. I could swear I've heard Wendy, under her dog-breath, singing, "Move over little dog cause a big dog's movin' in."
Our other dog, the very handsome Border Collie/Chocolate Lab mix Dudley the Angel, prefers his bed on the floor -- from that spot he can

rise easily and patrol the house. Why? He likes to bark to remind the cats to behave themselves. You wouldn't think a cat could mew, "Oh, sheesh, Dudley, go back to bed."
But I swear I think I heard that one night...Could have just been my sleep-deprived brain misinterpreting a chain of Porche's snores.

[CINEMA ASIDE: DUDLEY AND HIS CO-STAR WILLIAM POWELL appear with the permission of Money-maker Movies, producer of their latest film, No Horse In The Picture.]

 DEAR READERS: Enjoy your Fourth of July weekend and celebrate the great nation of the United States.
Send pictures of your patriotic dogs and cats slumbering to [email protected].
Tell us why you love them and the nation and we'll feature them in Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap.]

FOR THIS EDITION, A WONDERFUL PHOTO FROM A COOL SITE IN JERSEY; A CHALLENGE WITH THE ONLINE HOOKUP IN A HOTTER STATE

EDITION OF JULY 3-4, 2024 [PetPowellPress] Our dogs and cats and their humans (me ’n’ my mustbecoolspouse Martha) adore air-conditioning. 
Here we are with an edition that’ll cover two days — and our Contemplations will be a beaut!

You perhaps recognize my darling personal dog Porche Noel in her “office pose” as she naps while I type. Good dog, cool baby. That's the red blossom that now decorates her collar -- she loves posing with it.
LARRY FYI: You may think of this day, July 3, as a regular summer day around here. But here is a different thought thanks to The Rundown, the news tip publication from ol’ DFW TV newshound Jeff Crilley. President/CEO of Real News Public Relations.
One of the many tips in The Rundown that caught me this morning was the reminder that July 3 is National Air Conditioning Appreciation Day. [‘AMEN!’ shouted your typer, larry!] 
July 3, explains The Rundown, celebrates the “father of air-conditioning Willis Haviland Carrier,” the engineer credited with inventing a working a/c.
I did some extra research and found that he’d been married 3 times and had no children but he kidded that was because he was “not heir-conditioned.”
AN EXPLANATION
FOR THIS EDITION
Normally we’d have a handful of dog and cat photos — adoptable animals being cared for in a city shelter or the home of a rescuer. But this morning something odd happened. My e-mail froze and I couldn’t fetch overnight and earlier emails.
So, we’ll just declare that Dallas, Fort Worth, Mesquite, Garland, Grand Prairie Irving, Arlington and the Euless Animal Shelter tended by the Trinity Girls Awareness Club Rescue. Go to trinitygaprescue.org to see more adorable able photos. These three happened to be among the many the


GAP Rescue youngsters are working to place.
Don’t forget the Everman Shelter, the 4-Legged Helpers Rescue in small towns on the south of Dallas, the SPCA of Texas, the Humane Society of North Texas, the East Lake Pet Orphanage (on Northwest Highway in Dallas — oh, I could go on and on but you probably already know about all these folks and the other angelic individuals who team up to populates the region’s list of Do-Right-For-Animals people.
[LARRY NOTE: In the meantime, my funanddearspouse Martha has been working on helping me recover 74,000 emails that vanished. Well, maybe not that many, but there’s almost one for every cat in the county. ONE MORE NOTE: Our plan was to run some update photos of Kimberly Jones’ wonderful dogs that received such public support, the little Frenchy boy Mooney and the big ol’ dawg Apache, the little guy’s running buddy. We’ll recover them and do that ASAP. ... A THIRD NOTE: I've got to quit eating chocolate sundaes over my keyboard and mouse — I’m kidding. But I’m sure all this is neither the computer’s nor the online provider's fault. Could be the heat.]
CONTEMPLATIONS
FROM THE EAST, A COOL PHOTO
Longtime readers of our website know that the veteran print and broadcast newsman Andrew Fisher holds the exalted position of Executive Editor of our Eastern Seaboard Bureau in Denville, N.J. His wife Annie, the noted pickleball star, is Chief Executive Officer. And the Executive Office Cat/Calming Influence is Chloe, the rescued street kitten who, in this Photo by Andy, demonstrates that she knows how to turn furniture into a place to celebrate slumber.
We segue, thus, from Andy’s photo of his favorite cat, to another photo of nature on Indian Lake in Denville where the Eastern Seaboard Bureau is located.
This photo, which looks as if it could be on a best-selling book's cover or popular postcard, was taken by Andy this week. [LARRY NOTE: As I am typing this, the early afternoon temp in our neighborhood is in the “Elevating 90s” headed toward the “Sweatbath 100s.” Denville? As I type this, the temps there are in the low 80s.]
Isn’t this a beautiful photo of early morning nature?

About this wonderful photo, Andy writes, “It was about 70 when I shot the dawn from the northeast corner of the property. A little more humid today than it was yesterday or Monday, but still enjoyable.” [LARRY ASIDE: Yes, people in New Jersey celebrate Air Conditioning Appreciation Day — just not for as long in the summertime. Chloe is dedicated to reasonable temperatures.]

---Send photo appreciations, a/c appreciatons or photos of cats and dogs to [email protected] and put "CELEBRATING COOL" in the subject line. ---