You might want to take a blanket or towel to the toy puppy breeder’s home several days before bringing your puppy home. The goal here is to pick up the scent of the puppy, as well as his mother, littermates and breeder. When the toy puppy arrives in is new home he will have something soft to cuddle up with that smells just like his original home. This can be very comforting. It can be used in his bedding so the toy puppy has something he’s accustomed to smelling and sleeping on. One excellent choice in blankets for bedding is the soft hand made crochet blankets.

Changes in food and water can upset any dog’s digestive system. The toy puppy may be a little bit more susceptible illness with changes in food and water. If your breeder has found a complete and balanced diet that his/her dogs do well on, then by all means use the same food, at least until the toy puppy has adjusted to its new home, family and surroundings. If you must change the food, please make the change gradually.

A new owner should have a toy puppy layette ready well in advance of the day when puppy comes home. Read a couple of books about the toy breed you have selected. It helps to know a particular breed’s characteristics ahead of time. The adjustment process is easier if you know what to expect before you bring your new toy puppy home.

Toys should be purchased with safety in mind, with no loose parts that puppies can chew off. Check for eyes and other small parts that could be easily removed and swallowed. Teething toy puppies need plenty of chew toys and hard bones to help soothe the pain of teething.

When putting together your toy puppy’s layette, have several soft towels ready for bath time. Add a brush, comb, nail clipper and tearless shampoo to your shopping list along with a soft collar and leash. Consider buying the same type of food and water dishes the breeder has been using so the toy puppy will find them familiar.

Keep in mind that toy breed puppies lose body temperature very quickly in cold weather. You will need to have a coat, sweaters and cozy soft fleece t-shirts for your new toy puppy layette.

Bringing your toy puppy home should be a very happy occasion, but try to keep the excitement down so as not to frighten or upset the new puppy. Talk to the toy puppy in the car during the trip. Make sure you give him an opportunity to relieve himself before taking him inside your home, preferably in a special place for elimination you have chosen.

Take him to the room where he will be spending most of his time and let him explore the room. Be sure you have puppy-proofed the areas your toy puppy will be in before you bring him home. Electrical cords should not be exposed (he will chew on them). There should be nothing he can get into that might harm him. Keep your vet’s phone number near your telephone. Confining your new toy puppy to one room until he is housebroken is only being wise. You can allow the puppy to explore other areas once he is housebroken. Give him a toy, play with him gently, let him relieve himself and be sure he knows where his bed or crate is for nap times.

Connie Limon is a Shih Tzu breeder. Buy hand made crochet dog blankets, dog coats, sweaters and fleece t-shirts made especially for the toy breed dogs at: http://www.littleguysdogclothesshop.com

Steel building kits are a comprehensive set of all the parts
required to assemble a steel building. They contain everything
right from pre-drilled holes to the bolts for joining the
individual components together. These components are designed
using advanced technologies, with astounding accuracy. As 70% of
steel buildings are constructed at the manufacturing site
itself, all that is required is the assembly of the various
parts in the kit through a step-by-step process. When the whole
steel building kit is from an authorized manufacturer, the
structural integrity of the components can be guaranteed. Steel
building kits are personalized as per the specific requirements
of the purchaser; hence all the options and codes need to be
considered for accurate building specification.

Steel building kits are designed to be so simple that even
customers themselves can erect the buildings. Most steel
buildings have common components, such as arched panels. These
are single sheet steel panels that can be raised to form the
roof as well as the two parallel walls of the building. The
length of the building can be extended, simply by adding more
arches. Base connectors are used to attach arches and end wall
panels to the concrete foundation using anchor bolts.

Steel building kits come with a manual that provides a list of
all of the components included and a step-by-step analysis of
assembling the structure, and with standard sized size bolts for
all connections, for easier construction. They also have
polyethylene washers for sealing the bolt connections.

Doors are generally pre-drilled to fit into the framed openings
on the end wall panels. They come in a wide range of sizes and
shapes. End wall panels are the walls that fit on either end of
the structure. They are designed to simply bolt onto the base
connector and the end arch panel. Steel-framed openings are
installed into the end walls for doors and windows.

Trim kits are used to cover any exposed edges and thus give a
clean finish to the wall. Vents are installed into the end walls
or roof for allowing the air in the building to circulate and
thus prevent excessive dampness due to air condensation.

Steel building kits offer many affordable and durable options,
and a degree of accuracy such that a do-it-yourself customer can
reasonably erect the building without professional help.

Deciding to build your first new home or that home of your
dreams requires funding for the building process. Luckily, for
you there are new home construction and stated income
construction loans out there that are ready to help you get
started to helping with the building costs of your brand new
home. Both of these types of construction
loans offer funding to you, but are different in how you go
about obtaining them.

To first obtain a new home construction loan, the lender that
you choose must know anything and everything about the home
construction that you have planned. Construction loans are
available to you through national lenders like Wells Fargo or
Bank of America or they can be obtained through regional banks
or mortgage companies. The interest rate for a construction loan
is generally paid on for 12 months and then they typically are
replaced by a mortgage after the completion of your home. There
are two types of construction loans. One is the all in one loan,
which is automatically changed to a mortgage upon completion of
the home. The other type is the construction only loan, which is
due when the building is done, and then the loan must be paid
off or replaced by a mortgage. Lenders will pay funds for the
building of your home in several “draws”. This means that at
different times during the building process a plan is drawn up
that will state how much funding was used during that particular
stage. Then it is sent to the lender and the funding is paid.
Examples of the stages would be after pouring the foundation or
framing the house.

A stated income construction loan is a loan
that does not require verification of your income. An example of
a person who would be a great candidate for this type of loan is
an individual who is self-employed. A person who cannot verify
his or her income or someone who chooses not to share this
information will benefit when applying for a stated income
construction loan. The advantage of this type of loan is that
the approval time is generally faster than that of other
construction loans. The downside to a stated income construction
loan is that the down payment and the interest rates associated
with the loan can be a lot higher than that of other loans. This
loan can be applied for online or through the office of the
lender that you choose to obtain a loan from.

I sit here this morning seething as I am gathering my thoughts on the next J.R.’s Take. I am absolutely livid with the democratic presidential front runner, Sen. John F. Kerry, and so should you be. John F. Kerry has said that if elected, he will abandon the war on terror, begin a dialogue with terrorist regimes, and apologize for the mistakes of the Bush administration !

In a December foreign-policy address to the Council on Foreign Relations, Kerry called the war on terror, led by President Bush, “the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history.”

Kerry’s address was praised by the main stream media. “Kerry Vows to Repair Foreign relations,” headlined the Associated Press. The new focus on foreign policy “plays to Kerry’s strength” noted Knight Ridder News Service. “Kerry Vows to Change U.S. Foreign Policy; Senator Describes Steps he Would Take as President,” headlined the Washington Post. None of the major main stream media found Kerry’s address at all inappropriate.

Kerry promised that in the first 100 days of his administration that he would travel the world to denounce his predecessor, apologize for his “radically wrong” policy, and seek “cooperation and compromise” with friend and enemy. Kerry said he would go to the United Nations and travel to our allies and affirm that the United States has rejoined the community of nations.

Apologize ? Cooperation and Compromise ? Radically wrong policy ? What the hell is wrong with this guy ? He wants America to apologize for responding to a terrorist attack that killed 3,000 innocent, defenseless people, who were going about their business before they were rudely interrupted and killed or wounded. He wants us to apologize for a U.S. ship being attacked in a port in Yemen and 17 U.S. Sailors being killed and a ship being damaged. He wants us to apologize for two of our U.S. embassy’s being attacked and over 300 people being killed. He wants us to apologize for the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 that killed 6 innocent people and injured 1,000 more.

Apologize, Mr. Kerry ? Cooperate and compromise Mr. Kerry ? It’s a radically wrong policy to defend ourselves Mr. Kerry ? Let’s not forget that it was they (the terrorists) that attacked us. Let’s also not forget that with the exception of the 9/11 attacks, all the other terrorist attacks happened on the Clinton administrations watch. Yes Folks, can you believe it, the terrorists were attacking us even before Bush became president. I know some of you will find that to be a stunning revelation considering all you hear from the sniveling liberals is that we are hated by the terrorists because of Bush’s foreign policy. I guess the terrorists’ must have phoned Miss Cleo and got their reading and conducted pre-emptive terrorist strikes knowing that Bush would be President in the future.

It was the cooperate, compromise and apologize stratedgy that was radically wrong with the Clinton administration’s policies. Policies that gutted our military hardware, demoralized our military personnel, and invited our enemies to attack us, that led to the attacks of 9/11. The terrorists, making the mistake of listening to the ridiculous rhetoric of the whining liberals, believed that because President Bush narrowly won the 2000 election, that he had no mandate, that he would be a weak President. They, and the rest of the world, would soon find out otherwise.

The majority of the American People will never support apologizing or cooperating and compromising with our terrorist enemies, we have seen where that has gotten us, Mr. Kerry. The majority of Americans support the Presidents policies on the war on terror, even if they don’t agree with his other policies.

It appears, ladies and gentlemen that Kerry thinks this is still the ’70’s and just as he aided and abetted our enemies then, he is hell bent on doing the same thing again in 2005 if he is elected President.

Meet the new Kerry, same as the old Kerry !

I’m J.R. and that’s my take.

About the Author

Host of Talk Show America heard live Mon-Fri 4-6 PM on the IBC Radio Network. 24 year veteran police officer, former local politician and Director of Emergency Management in a Massachusetts town

Admit it. When the sun is out and you are at your favorite campsite or cottage on the lake the last thing you want to do is spend a lot of time cooking a meal. Often, when vacationing, the lure to purchase instant foods is strong. Unfortunately, these convenience foods often come over packaged usually including some type of plastic. As we can see when we come across trash in the wilderness, the plastics tend to linger the longest - other than maybe glass and metal. Nothing ruins the feel of a pristine, natural area more than a bunch of garbage. Numerous studies prove that tourists return to an area primarily for its cleanliness and greenery. In this era where the economy has come to rely more on tourism, cleaning up is truly a benefit for the community.

We soon realized that walking by these messes and complaining over such disrespect, we were behaving not much better than the polluters who left it. Now when we hike we pack a supply of plastic bags (grocery bags work well) to clean up as we go. Often we earn up to $10 in returnable bottles and cans in the process. When you take a bit of time to clean up some trash not only do you have a better trail or beach to come back to, you have helped to make it safer and nicer for the next user. This simple measure just might influence others to keep it clean, as well.

When on the water with the canoe we also clean as we go by diving for garbage below the surface using a mask and snorkel. It is amazing the finds we have from these excursions under water. One of the first times we did this, we found an expensive diving mask in about 30 feet of water - enough incentive to continue this practice! We have found antique bottles, jewelry, fishing lures and reels.

It feels very good to clear up a beach of shards of broken glass hiding just below the surface before an unwary swimmer splashes into it. It does not, however, feel as good to find a large fish hook by imbedding it in the bottom of your foot. Take heart in knowing you have done a good thing as your expletive echoes off the far mountainside. Imagine an innocent child stepping on that hook instead of you and decide if it is worth taking the time…

– Written by Dave and Lillian Brummet based on the concept of their new book Trash Talk. The book offers useful solutions for the individual to reduce waste and better manage resources. A guide for anyone concerned about his or her impact on the environment. (www.sunshinecable.com/~drumit)