A Photo of YOU! (and Your Dog?) with Santa! -- FUN(d)raising!

Serendipitously, it seemed, O'Rio Grande and I happened into the FUN going on in the Chow Down Pet Supply 'warehouse' next to their store in Grand Junction (in the Redlands near the River, where Albertson's is -- they're on the very end of the shopping plaza right next to where the Riverfront Trail is).  While this event is over for this year, you might get to looking around for information in your area for something along these lines.  Here's my tail tail --- ........   It was Saturday, two weeks before Christmas. I had a very busy week and Saturday was no exception, and a priority item was thanking the owner of Grand Junction's Chow Down Pet Supply, with O'Rio Grande in hand.  I have a LOT of people to thank this year, it's been a team effort -- "it takes a village". 

I'd only gotten back to caring for him on Thursday, and the Thursday before had assisted the owner in bathing him and the dog she's fostering -- a young yellow lab I used to call The Blond Bombshell, but she's making such great progress due to improved diet and nurturing via the people working with her since summer, PLUS she's approaching being two years of age -- it's simply the physical aspect of the brain maturing and in people it's sometimes the mid twenties before that's 'set'. 

Naturally, I suggested Chow Down's Pet Supply's self serve dog wash, and we had a full hour workout with both dogs in the same raised shower.  Brush, wet coat all over (except face and ears, I do those separately), shampoo, rinse, condition, rinse again, dry with a towel, use the warm blowing air and then down the stairs -- O'Rio wasn't coordinated or strong enough to not go crashing into the door, and the little blond dog skampered down with no problem. 

So, I'd learned at that time that Chow Down Pet Supply was having a 20% off "shindig" coming up, and I've been to their events before and know it's worth the price of admission just to see all the consumers who are shopping at their store.  This time was no disappointment, they had representatives from Vita Essentials, who are in the raw and natural nutrition movement for animals. 

I'd heard the owner of the Grand Junction Chow Down Pet Supply was going to be making one of her rare in-person appearances (her family moved to where their newest store is located, Pagosa Springs, where I 'serendipitously' or 'synchronictically' ran into her in the office of the hot springs lodge after I'd driven that way to pick up the cremains of my feline "teacher", Amber the SpoildeyCat, in April 2013).

I wanted her to see how improved O'Rio Grande is, now that he's been on an improved diet, most of which has come from Chow Down Pet Supply.  On the Front Range, the owner's home is down the canyon from their first store, in Evergreen, but it's not been convenient to purchase the food there, so they found another similar type of pet supply store near their home.

It's, interestingly, the same chain that I purchased items from in the summer when in the Front Range to watch O'Rio while they were on some trips, but I found the employees at the pet supply store I went into near where I was staying simply not at the same level of knowledge compared to what I've gotten used to by using Chow Down Pet Supply for seven years now. I remember learning of them at their Earth Day booth, I'd taken the 'inspiration' former patient from 2007 as she was interested in such things and I was trying to get her with more resources locally.  She'd inspired the live education group in the Primary Care Partners building, where I was the OTR at the time, which lead to Lumigrate being pulled together in 2008 and launched in early 2009.  

So, if you know what you want to purchase, and you're really sure you're not needing assistance with expertise / education about items, using other vendors might be a good fit, but if you're needing assistance to fill in where your education is not yet what it will be, then I suggest using a vendor who can help with improving your knowledge.  Naturally, follow the money like with all purchases or donations, and is this going to a source at the end of the money chain that YOU want to support ?  Vote with your dollar, that is how the shift is happening!  

Mardy Ross, O'Rio Grande, Santa   

Compliments to and from the Grand Valley Kennel Club: www.grandvalleykennelclub.org/    (If you're a dog lover wanting to make a donation to a non-profit organization, please consider them!)

O'Rio and I were standing in eyesight of the counter so I could try to catch a good time to say hello, because they were handing so many people checking out that Kristi (owner gal) was behind the counter, hustling away with the rest of the team.  O'Rio's brain / neuro health (symptoms include: attention and focus, hyperactivity, obsessiveness, nervousness, etc., has normalized so much that he enjoys watching people at work now.  That can be me around the house or yard, at the computer, or in businesses such as Chow Down Pet Supply. 

Along came a woman wearing a santa hat, and invited us to go next door for a photo with Santa, a public relations / marketing and, naturally, FUNdraising activity for the Grand Valley Kennel Club. She was also the one behind the camera when O'Rio and I went 'next door' to the warehouse / storefront area. 

Naturally, O'Rio charmed everyone who had the time and interest to connect, and I had the opportunity to give them the overview of his story, and, most importantly, his reversal of symptoms / rehabilitation of wellness.  And someone key in this FUN(d)raising activity was very interested because they're a medical assistant for a local non-mainstream type human health provider who ALSO works on dogs! 

So, this is a marvelous example of how to 'connect' with new resources who can potentially be the next step in your path to health and well-being, for YOU! (self) or anyone you're the advocate or guardian for.  

            O                                                     O'Rio Grande and Santa, December 2016

In asking for who to connect with to let them know of my inclusion of the Grand Valley Kennel Club on Lumigrate, I was givent he card of Noelle Blair, Pawsitive Directions K9 Academy -- training dogs, one human at a time.  (rottndog at aol.com or 970 area code, 986 (dash) 9629 (or there's what appears to be a phone via cable carrier of 314 dash 2853).  The website given is www dot pawsitivedirections dot weebly dot com) .  PLEASE CONSIDER CONTACTING HER IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE GRAND VALLEY KENNEL CLUB or, clearly, if you are a human wanting some assistance with a dog! 

When O'Rio and I went back to the store side of Chow Down Pet Supply, I had a wonderful conversation with a woman who's connected to a German Sheperd rescue group on The Front Range, looking for resources and products about dogs and attending as a NEW customer that day.  I like to talk to newcomers at Chow Down, particularly if O'Rio's with me, because they've truly been so instrumental in his rehabilitation so far, and truly contributed a great deal to where I am today.  

I see how much the PEOPLE WHO WORK WHERE YOU PURCHASE are one of the BIGGEST TOOLS for CONNECTIONS / EDUCATION. Whether that be for your foods, supplements, beverages or so many other products -- for human or otherwise.  Last time I was in the store, I saw the owner of the garage and fuel store / station where I've recently learned a few new tidbits about the fuel 'game', and who thankfully worked me in to get a new battery and oil change when I needed it this summer ASAP.     

Some History: The owner of Chow Down Pet Supply in Grand Junction was instrumental years ago when I was rehabilitating a cat that had come to me to be fostered, intially, on Thanksgiving, 2009 -- who had hyperactivity, oral / chewing obsessiveness, and sensory integration dysfunction / sensory processing problems, I realized almost immediately.  It hadn't occurred to me she was 'on the autism spectrum', which I would figure out after her euthanasia, and be more dedicated than EVER to putting in the resources to digging for THE TRUTH, and bringing it to Lumigrate's YOUsers.

The journey would take me to a new appreciation for intuitives, psychic, and their abilities to -- remotely -- essentially do what we think of as 'muscle testing' in the more physical / basic form.  Other providers teach it using a polarizing filter, as part of auricular medicine model's tools in that toolbox, so to speak. And I'd shift the content level at Lumigrate, accordingly.  Leaving the old 'less far outside the lines' information in place, just adding more information, because everyone's coming to the 'onion' to go from where they are to finding the underlying root and truth, starting at various places on the proverbial onion.  

Below is the Lumigrate onion model showing symptoms to root cause, but imagine the onion being for YOU and where you're starting with what type of medical model you're following and then the layers of the various types of providers, on down to the core / root ones. 

Later, as I'd revisit the Internet for anything NEW on the topic of feline autism, I'd find professionals in the veterinary world now joining Lumigrate in offering information about successes treating cats with autism-like symptoms as they knew similar human providers treated children / people with autism.  I've covered this at Lumigrate (and there's a search bar).

Because Kristi, Chow Down Pet Supply owner of Grand Junction, Montrose, and Pagosa stores, is on the same page I am about health care / medical / veterinary, she therefore was a tremendous resource in educating me about the only holistic veterinary practice in the area,  which was key -- at least that veterinarian had seen a few cases in her career or what my cat had (wildly would attack and key symptom I luckily saw, noticed, and remembered to report to the provider was fully dilated pupils during the episode. 

I'd later read of the dangerous, combative adolescents or young adults with autism, and one had mentioned pupils dilating just before the outburst of physical 'fit' and aggression. I'd later, synchronistically once again, be connected to O'Rio's owner, with much more information under my belt (much of it on Lumigrate, too, including fenbendazole and red reishi mushroom extract or other medicinal mushrooms for dealing with toxins), and we'd get underway with very rapid and dramatic results of reversal of symptoms of unwellness, and start walking the path to health and well-being, which Lumigrate's logo and motto has said since our start in 2009.  

  THANK YOU CHOW DOWN PET SUPPLY and THANK YOU GRAND VALLEY KENNEL CLUB!

For those interested, here's Chow Down's link, they have a brand new website at this time, it's under construction / a work in progress: www.chowdownpetsupplies.com/