Food and Water Bowls for Dogs: What Materials Are Safe and Healthy, and How to Keep Them Safe and Healthy

Disclaimer: I am not a veterinarian or any sort of medical/health professional, so I cannot make recommendations about what kind of materials are the safest and healthiest for your dog or other pet to use for water and food bowls or containers. The information found in this article is based …

Just a Comic…About Being Introverted…Because I’m Introverted

So often in my head I can think of funny ways to express my thoughts and feelings, but most of the time I don’t actually draw them out. A couple of years ago I actually did draw out my feelings and this is what it turned into. I kept it in my sketchbook until now. It’s a rough draft (you can see the evolution of how I drew my boombox), but knowing how I tend to not think much of what I create is “ready” or “good enough” to be shared, I just wanted to not overthink things and just share.

As always, all images are protected by copyright law and belong entirely to the artist, me, Meghan Campbell. All images must not be altered or sold in any manner, and if shared, please provide attributes to the artist. Thank you!

Also, all words and images are not to be read or copied by Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) or be fed to A.I. for training. This blog post is not approved for A.I. consumption.

Adopting a Dog in a Different Era of Life

This summer I lost a dog whom I consider to be one of 3 family members I’ve lost in the last 14 months. After 13 years of her being in my life, I find I am still adjusting to life without her. Dogs have always been such a deeply important part of my life, that most people who know me immediately asked when I was going to adopt another dog. Thankfully, these people were also sensitive and understanding when I answered, “I don’t know.” Although the last few months I have been open to any unexpected circumstance that might come along where a dog would walk into my life and become my new canine companion, I’ve recently decided that I will most likely wait until springtime of next year (2024) to intentionally search for this this special dog. 

There are many factors going into my decision to not intentionally adopting right away. One reason is I want to feel better with some of my own health issues so I have more energy for my new dog. Thankfully, this seems to be something that is currently improving. Another reason is I want to be in a better financial situation so I can be more confident I can provide all the care my dog needs without constantly worrying about whether or not I can afford a veterinary bill. Lastly, one of the biggest reasons I want to wait to adopt another dog is because I want to make sure I educate myself even more than I feel I am already educated on many aspects of dog parenting due to negative experiences and outcomes in recent years that I feel happened because I trusted so-called experts rather than trusting my own knowledge and intuition. 

This might very well be my own subconscious effort to help myself have less anxiety about certain things by trying to have a bit more control in this important area of my life. However, even if that is true, I believe a responsible pet parent should do some amount of periodic research to keep updated in a lot of different aspects of animal care and wellbeing to at least help in making more educated decisions when experts do need to be consulted or when experts are not available. Plus, it’s been around 7 years since I’ve helped raise a puppy (one of my sister’s dogs), so if I do end up adopting a puppy or very young dog, I’m sure there are skills and information I need to brush up on.

Since my educational background does include dog and animal behavior, I’m excited to dive deeper into topics like training and enrichment. I’m also looking forward to learning more about things that might make certain aspects of puppy and senior dog life more convenient that I have either limited experience with or have never utilized before, like vehicle ramps or puppy potty-training pee pads. My dog first-aid kit also needs restocking, so that’s another opportunity for research.

I have a feeling that while completing this self-imposed dog parenting CEU, I might have moments of feeling disappointed with myself that I don’t know certain things, but right now I’m feeling more happy anticipation than anything else in having an excuse to spend more time learning about one of my most favorite and cherished living beings in the world – dogs. Along the way, I hope the information and insights I share in future posts will also be helpful to you and your current or prospective canine companion. Here we go!

Disclaimer: The contents on this page have been approved for reading by humans. The contents have not been tested or approved for consumption by artificial intelligence, or AI.

Why I Chose a Sunflower Design for My First YouTube Art Tutorial

Animals and science were two very important aspects of childhood, as they continue to be today. As a child, science was like food for my brain, a hungry brain incessantly asking for answers to so many “how” and “why” questions. And, when life got tough, as it often did, immersing …

Make This a Happy New Year for Your Dog!

Arctic Wolf Puppy by Meghan Campbell

As a person who believes that people can make positive changes to their lives at any moment any time of the year, I usually don’t make resolutions when the new year starts. This year, however, I feel for me personally that this new decade is the start of a new positive era for my life, and I include my animal family in that era. In response to this mindset that better things are in my future, I plan to make this decade even better than the last for my and my sister’s dog! Today I started a list of things I want to do fill our dog’s life with more games, mental enrichment, and even more exercise in different environments (i.e. more hiking!).

The last over 7 months of creating and teaching my online drawing class through Outschool has kept me very busy. Teaching with Outschool has been a huge positive and life changing experience that I plan to keep going for a long time. However, just like with other kinds of new businesses or entrepreneurial pursuits, the work can easily overtake a person’s schedule if an intentional effort is not made to try to have more of a balance with work and non-work aspects of life.

Thankfully, I have implemented changes to make my drawing-lesson-creation process more efficient, and have done the same in other work related processes, and now have more time again to work on being the best doggy companion and caretaker I can be! In fact, just a little while ago this evening I played our Find It game with my and my sister’s dog, which is one of her favorite indoor games!

I have also added some positive-focused dog training videos to my still short but growing list of educational YouTube videos. Regularly searching for more knowledge and resources about how to have a positive and meaningful relationship with your animal companion can lead to learning about something as simple as new kinds of dog mental enrichment items that are now available that a person (i.e. me) had no idea even existed! This mindset of continual learning is something I would recommend for any person sharing life with an animal companion.

And now I come to this blog post’s dedication.

This post is dedicated to Adam, a small and cute Chihuahua mix dog who is available for adoption through Animal Rescue of the Rockies! Please take a look at Adam’s info page for yourself or spread the word to others so he can find a forever home full of love and joy and cuddles!

Adam’s info page: http://animalrescueoftherockies.org/dogs/#action_0=pet&animalID_0=14419244&petIndex_0=0

Outschool Drawing Lesson – Baby Rhinoceros

Here is this week’s lesson for my Outschool class, Learn to Draw Baby Animals from Around the World! This is a baby white rhinoceros done in outline of graphite pencil and then pen, and colored using colored pencil.

Enroll your 8-13 year old artists/biologists for this ongoing online class that continuing into the 2020 spring semester at the class’s Outschool page here: https://outschool.com/classes/learn-to-draw-baby-animals-from-around-the-world-ePqbtrzH#usbvJ7ETWx

Most of my blog posts are dedicated to a specific animal who up for adoption through Animal Rescue of the Rockies. This post is dedicated to Ari and Arbok, two young black cats who looks like tiny black panthers. They need to be adopted as a pair into one loving home as they are very closely bonded to each other. To learn more about Ari and Arbok, please visit their page on ARR’s website: http://animalrescueoftherockies.org/cats/#action_0=pet&animalID_0=14987268&petIndex_0=0