Meet Grant.

Grant is a 10-year-old AKC AmStaf/UKC APBT formally known as Hartagold Flagrant Foul CD CGC HIC TDI.

Grant has a very special job. He works at the Milford Memorial Library, where he is known as Grant the Library Dog, helping kids with their reading! Children sign up to read to him after school.

During the school day, there are even some lucky kids that get to walk from the elementary with their teacher’s aides to come and see Grant! He encourages kids to love books and reading.
Even kids that aren’t assigned to read to Grant come in to visit him, and then check out books while they are here.

In addition to Grant’s job as a four legged tutor, Grant acts as a positive breed example in a Breed Specific Legislation ridden state.

More than 50 communities in Iowa, more than any other state, have some sort of BSL (Breed Specific Legislation).

We hope that Grant’s positive example will change some minds and perhaps discourage some towns from passing such laws, or
encourage others to reverse theirs.

So, what’s his tagline?  You decide.  Don’t just decide – compete!  Submit your taglines for Grant in the comments – if your tagline is chosen for Grant, you win a Fetching Tag.

Long ago, at the beginning of November, we introduced the Ride For Joy herd & asked You for your best tagline submissions for each horse.

With so many clever & sweet submissions, this was a tough contest to judge.

We chose finalists & sent them directly to the Ride For Joy team to select winners.

And the winners  (of  a Fetching Tag each) are:

for Brewster: Let’s Ride! Congratulations, Lisa!

for Shadow:  Wild At Heart Congratulations, Marnie!

for Cowboy:  Cowboy Up! Congratulations, Dawn!

for Buttons:  Little Hearts are the Best Congratulations, Winna!

for Stretch:  Reach for the Sky Congratulations, Angie!

Thanks so much to all who played, it has been wonderful to have your splendid help tagging these noble beasts!

You must remember Jasper Jules.

We’ve really knocked heads over this one, but a winning tagline has finally been selected. . .

Congratulations, Jillian, you win the tag.

Garden Tool is a most excellent tagline.

A few of you suggested Jasper the Friendly Goat, a close runner-up, but Brittany was 1st.

Also loved was Lisa L.’s   Fair- Wether Friend.

Thanks to you all for playing – don’t forget the horses that need your clever lines this month. . .

To kick off this season of giving, this month’s What’s My Tagline? contest is different.  We’re not tagging one little dog, or even a single goat.  We’re making tags for a whole herd of horses.  This means that after you submit your clever taglines, we’ll also have a herd of tag winners by month’s end.

These particular horses are each special in their own way, and together they are the heart of the Ride For Joy therapeutic riding program in Boise, Idaho.  Time to meet the herd. . .

Meet Shadow.

Shadow is a 14 H* Bureau of Land Management mustang mare.  She was first adopted from a herd of wild horses that came from the Goshutes of Sparks, Nevada.    Due to some unfortunate circumstances, in 2004 Shadow ended up back in the wild in the Owyhees.

Luckily for Ride for Joy, the BLM located Shadow and she was reunited with her original owner and ultimately found her way to the Ride for Joy program.  Shadow is our sweet and loving hippy girl.

Meet Buttons.

Buttons is a 14.1 H buckskin Quarter Horse mare.  Her previous career as a 4-H and parade horse made it easy for her to adjust to the life of a therapy horse.  Her size, at just 14.1 hands and 800 pounds, along with her very slow smooth gaits, makes her perfect for the little kids.

And her name is perfect because she really is “cute as a button”.

Meet Cowboy.

Cowboy is a 16 H red dun Quarter Horse gelding.   Prior to coming to Ride for Joy he had been trained and shown as a reining cow horse and spent most of his life showing and competing in the cow horse events with his owner.

Cowboy is a great horse for the independent riders and loves attention, especially kisses.

Meet Stretch.

Stretch is a 16.3 H black Appendix Quarter Horse gelding.  He was originally purchased by his former owner to be a barrel racing horse, but he didn’t think going fast was a very good idea.  He loves his job as a therapy horse.  And his very slow jog and smooth gaits are perfect for the kids.

Even at 16.3 hands tall, Stretch loves taking around even the smallest of kids and they really love riding way up in the sky.  You can just see by the look on Stretch’s face that he knows he is carrying around some very precious cargo.

Meet Brewster.

Brewster is a Dun QH gelding. After his initial training he spent most of his time in the pasture with his mother and sister and occasionally taking kids for rides.

He was looking for a real job and with the help of the RFJ staff he found one. Brew is now another great addition to the RFJ program and is looking forward to many years here.

What are their taglines?  You decide.  Don’t just decide – compete!  Submit your taglines for one or all horses in the comments – best tagline for each horse wins a Fetching Tag.

Just remember this:  Ride for Joy is a pediatric program and the tags will hang on the horses’ halters for all to read, so submissions should be kid-appropriate & fun to read/explain. The contest runs till end of November & you may enter as often as you like.

* H (hands) or hh (hands high) is a measure of horse size & refers to the height of horse at the withers (the hump of bone at base of neck).  1 hand =4 inches.  In some equine activities, a horse 14.2 H & under is considered to be a pony.  In therapeutic riding, with children of differing sizes/abilities & the necessity of “sidewalkers” (humans who walk on either side of the horse & rider for safety), horse height is a major consideration.

Want to know more about therapeutic riding?  Check out NARHA.

Meet Jasper.

Jasper Jules, or “JJ,” is not a dog, but he is doggedly determined, doggishly devoted, and doggone cute. Jasper is a two year-old, 190 pound American Saanen wether (neutered male) goat. He is a bit of a tool, and a bit of a goof, but above all a very nice guy. He’s at the bottom of the totem pole and he’s not the brightest bulb in the box, but we love him dearly. He was born here on Bent Barrow Farm in the Pacific Northwest, and he does great work pulling the kids around the neighborhood in his yellow cart. We sing to him and he dances: “Jasper Jules, he’s no fool, but he’d look silly in a swimming pool!” Or, to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody: “Jasper Jules! Jasper Jules! Watch him do the fandango!”

Jasper still lives with his mother, who is about eight inches shorter, seventy pounds lighter, and two times smarter than he is. JJ narrowly survived a life-threatening illness last week, and he’s home from the emergency clinic recovering from surgery. His mama is glad to have him back, as are we all.

Jasper Jules has a youtube video and a famous herdmate, Fenway Bartholomule but he is a simple goat. A Fetching Tag would jazz him up, and I know he’d be proud to wear one. It might make him feel special—and there’s a big difference between “short bus special” and “Fetching Tags special.”  He deserves the latter.

What’s his tagline?  You decide.  Don’t just decide – compete!  Submit your taglines for Jasper in the comments – best tagline wins a Fetching Tag.

This is going to be a good one!

Remember little Cooper?

The winning tagline has been selected. . .

Congratulations, Shannon!

Snuggle Bug is perfect.

Wanda, your entry that pointed out the obvious “you just said it….”yummy snuggle mush” was a close runner-up.

Thanks for playing!

Hi! This silly looking guy is Cooper, a Japanese Chin rescue.

When I saw him, my first reaction was “he’s so ugly he’s cute!” We just had to have him, he was so funny looking.   His name was  Joe, but we decided since we said NO to him alot the name just wouldn’t work.   “NO Joe” all day long was getting a bit crazy so after lots of deliberation we came up with Cooper.

Cooper doesn’t bark but howls and it’s hysterical. Oddly enough he loves carrots and fruit, and cleans himself by licking his paws and cleaning his face as if he were a cat. Cooper is big on humping his older brother (our other dog) and biting at his legs when he chases him (ouch) but he is also the most yummy, snuggle mush ever.

What’s his tagline?  You decide.  Don’t just decide – compete!  Submit your taglines for Cooper in the comments – best tagline wins a Fetching Tag.

Remember Pete?

This was a tough one.  Pete inspired an intense volley of tagline entries.  Ball & movie references were flying. . .

After several slow motion play reviews to determine the winner of the free Fetching Tag, it’s time to say,

Congratulations, Katie!  Your entries

The Fetch is strong with this one.

and

Luke, I am your Fetcher.

were nothing but net  (do they still say that?)

and your winning tagline,

Watch your balls.

is a home run!  Hole in one!  GOOOOOOOOOOAL!

Almost the best:

On the Ball, from Meghan

ComPETEtitor, from Tara

King of Fetch, from Shannon.

Thanks for playing!

Pete is a six year old 10 lb. Silky Terrier who has become a Jedi Master of Fetching.  He is commonly found in a meditative state in front of tennis balls doing everything that he can to get them to move on his own. If you listen closely when he is in this state, you can hear him lowly chanting his mantra, “Throwtheball, throwtheball, throwtheball.”

When the local animal shelter held it’s annual Fun in the Park fundraiser and announced they would be conducting a fetching competition, Pete informed us that he would be entering. Few people could keep a straight face and keep from laughing when his name was called and they saw this tiny dog come walking out onto the field.

Undeterred, Pete proceeded to run down the field to clear a ball that was left by the prior contestant, a golden retriever. All laughing turned to silence as this little guy brought the ball back to the judges table and left it there, since clearly this was not his ball. He then proceeded to school all Golden Retreivers, Labradors, Border Collies and Vislas present with an amazing display of focus and determination. Never once did Pete glance at the now cheering crowd. He had become the ball, accomplishing what few masters of their art ever accomplish…total transcendence! And do you know what happened then? No?

First Place Champion! He is frickin’ awesome and we love him.

Ok, Little B, we’ve got a tagline for you. . .

Congratulations, Tara!  Always B True is the winning tagline.  We had lots of entries that used “B” in a clever way, and yours is the winner.

Almost the best:  Fully Loaded from Meghan.