Tripawders Gather for Friendship and Support

First, we want to extend a sincere appreciation to everyone who drove to the Mill Valley Dog Park and make this day so special! Over a dozen Tripawds were there, including those who arrived in time to be in the group photo:

Paw Patch Pastries Makes Tripawds Drool with Delight

We are honored that Carla Ocfemia, owner of Paw Patch Pastries, generously donated a delicious array of custom-made Tripawd treats, pawty favors and even a dog cake made with real bacon and cookies that spelled “Tripawds Rule”!

She even arrived with a shade canopy for tired pups. The treats were a huge hit and all doggies went home with full bellies and even more treats for the next day. Thanks Carla!

Paw Patch Pastries specializes in healthy organic dog treats made with no soy, corn, gluten or wheat. Her treats are all made in San Francisco and are especially ideal for dogs facing health issues. We encourage all Tripawders to support her business by shopping online at PawPatchPastries.com.

 David Oliver Captures the Magic

Another big shout out goes to Bay Area photographer David Oliver, who also donated his Saturday afternoon to documenting this historic event. We hope he’s not too tired from trying to keep up with our three-legged heroes!

This fabulous pet photographer is generously giving all of his photos from the afternoon to anyone who wants them.

If would like copies, please contact Tripawds Member Travis Ray through our Discussion Forums Private Messaging system or email him here.

And of course if you are in Northern California and looking for a great animal photographer, contact David today!

A special thanks to The Oaktown Pack who told Carla and David about the pawty.

The Magic Continues

The Nor Cal Tripawds Chapter is our most active face-to-face group in the world. Members like Lylee and Spirit Maggie’s Pack, Karen, Obie and Tani, often get together to share stories about life on three legs, and just be among other dog-centric friends.

Of course, it’s also a fantastic way to celebrate the incredible stories of long-term cancer survivors like Cemil, who is now nearly three years out from his osteosarcoma diagnosis. This big boy is a three-paw miracle!

Some folks, like Spirit Maximutt’s pack, John, Diane and quadpawds Bernie and Linda, even travel all the way from Southern California (about 10 hours away) to reunite with old friends who helped them get through the cancer journey.

When new members join in, the circle grows and the bonds grow stronger.

Hold Your Own Tripawds Pawty

Join in and share in the fun! If you want to create history in your part of the world and share the joys of living life on three legs in person with others, read:

Tripawds Blog: How to Create Your Own Tripawds Pawty

For more fabulous photos of this historic event, check out:

Lylee’s Blog: The Most Best-est Fab Tripawds Pawty Ever!
Ruby’s Blog: NorCal Tripawds Pawty!
Travis’ Blog: Travis Ray Reporting In

With that said, we are happy to announce Jerry’s fifth Tripawd Pals gallery! Enjoy this slideshow of the fourth gallery featuring 100 friends of the Tripawds community, and send your favorite photo to be included in the fifth.

[[Show as slideshow]]

Starting a free Tripawds Blog is the easiest way to share more photos of your three legged friend. Upgrade with a Tripawds Supporter Subscription to receive plenty of upload space, automatically remove ads, access enhanced features for your blog, and much more!

Check Jerry’s galleries often for lots of photos from his life on the road and of new Tripawds spokespup Wyatt, favorite pet products, procedure and treatment photos and more. Subscribe to the Tripawds Gallery Updates forum topic to be notified of new additions.

Most have cancer, some chased one too many cars, a few suffered at the hands of horrible humans, and others came into the world as Tripawds. Despite the tragedy that has befallen them, our Tripawd warriors fight on, and live life to the fullest despite adversity and illness.

Every new member who arrives here serves to remind us about what’s really important in life: loving the people around you, and having a good time even when life feels like the pits.

Many of our friends earn their wings far too soon. Their losses reverberate throughout this community, but in the spirit of our Tripawd Warriors, we fight on. With their lessons staying strong in our hearts, we are here to help newcomers, share information, find Tripawds homes, and kick butt to put an end to canine bone cancer.

We salute everyone who has ever shared a story about their Tripawd, joined us in the Forums or in the Chat, and blogged about their beloved Tripawd. Thank you for making Tripawds such a helpful and supportive environment for so many. This community would be nothing without you.

Let us take a moment to honor our heroic Tripawds, their siblings and close friends, who earned their wings this year:

• Gambit
• Maximutt
• Raven
• Paris
• Caira Sue
• Supai
• Killer
• Eva
• Zoe
• Tehya
• Jif
• McGwire
• Don
• Havannah Jack
• OJ
• Dunc
• Henri
• Maggie
• Oscar
• Ruthie
• Magic
• Etta
• Buddy
• Harley
• Chaser
• Toto
• Oslo
• Beaner
• Skyler
• Daisy
• Ronnie
• Polo
• Noah
• Sophie
• Gus
• Shadow
• Titus
• Max
• Girl Noel
• Zeke
• Jersey May
• Sampson
• Captain Jack
• Debo
• Molly
• Riley
• JD
• Tshuvah
• Ginger
• Honey
• Shelli Belle
• Rosie
• Chance
• Sadie Bear
• Kobe
• Achilles
• Charlie
• Tai
• Ragley
• Smokey
• Myla
• Harley
• Kona Kai
• Zack
• Denali
• Pez
• Indi
• Ruby
• Mackenzie
• Xena

Pawrents, please accept our deepest condolences for your tremendous loss. We are so very sorry.

If your beloved pup’s name isn’t on here, we sincerely apologize, it was a mistake. All of these heroes were recognized in our Coping with Loss Discussion Forum. We may have accidentally missed the names of beloved pups whose parents only write in their Blog, not in the Forums. Please share their names with us in the comments section below.

Thank you for being here everyone, we look forward to another great year ahead with our Tripawds family.

Fight on, Tripawds, fight on!

Deck the Halls with Tripawd Spirit

This small token of our appreciation was the best way we could express our gratitude to every one of you. We also plan on thanking you in the Chat Room on Christmas Day, but until then…

Thank you so much for sharing your stories, your support, and your encouragement to those who are just starting their own three legged journey.

In this crazy, hectic world, it’s so beautiful to know there are people like you, ready to help a Tripawds newcomer get through one of the hardest times of their lives.

We considered sending holiday cards to everypawdy, but in the end decided that free Tripawd ornaments might be a better use of the funds you so generously contributed to the community this year.

For Hoppy Holiday memories to last a lifetime don’t miss our selection of special edition ceramic three legged dog ornaments in the new Tripawds Christmas Shop!

Get your Free Tripawds Wall Calendar Too!

Another way we want to thank you is by offering you a free download of the 2011 Tripawds Calendar, which normally sells as a wire-bound calendar in our Tripawds Gift Store.

This 28-page PDF calendar includes some of the most inspawrational photos featured in the Tripawds Community.

These three legged heroes are paired with inspirational quotes that serve as monthly reminders to enjoy every day to the fullest.

To download your free 2010 canine amputee hero calendar, just visit our Downloads Blog.

Should you decide to order a professionally printed copy, you can order it here, and feel good knowing that your purchase is supporting this community.

From the bottom of our hearts and the top of Sheriff Wyatt Ray’s lungs, we wish you the hoppiest, most beautiful and loving holiday ever.

May the wisdom of our Tripawd heroes stay strong in our hearts in 2011, and continue helping us to live the best life pawsible.

Despite the blazing hot summer morning, over a dozen Tripawds, honorary Tripawds and their humans came out in force to show the world that life is good on three legs!

Watch for videos with some of the Tripawds who attended. As seen from the photos below, we have great footage.

But meanwhile, here’s a great article and video from the Boulder Daily Camera.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The morning was spent swapping tails of heroic fights against bone cancer, car accidents and remembering those special Tripawds who live on in our hearts.

For some pack members it was their second time attending. For others, we got to meet them for the first time, like Tripawd Sambuca’s pack!

Molly the Tripawd was visiting from Iowa  when she heard about the pawty. She and Tripawd Comet share a lot in common . . . they both have non-working fourth legs!

Even a mohawked Tripawd named Oscar pawtied with us!

Luke Robinson of 2 Dogs 2000 Miles and his boy Murphy also paid us a visit. The duo, along with their pack member Hudson, just wrapped up a 2,000 mile walk to help put an end to canine cancer.

Ironically, Murphy was recently diagnosed with cancer himself. But despite the radiation therapy he’s undergoing, Murphy made an appearance because he didn’t let cancer get him down!

The good peeps at Canine Hardware, promoters of fitness through fetch and makers of Chuck It toys,, were kind enough to send us special Tripawd pawty prizes, which were awarded for things like Oldest and Youngest Tripawd, the longest surviving Tripawd, etc.

As the temperature climbed, Tripawds quickly found shade to relax under, but Tripawd Lilly thought it was more fun cooling off with the hose!

We owe all of the great publicity and attendance to our friend Tripawd Lilly and her folks, Clay and Jody, who helped us get some great press in the Denver Post and the Boulder Daily Camera. Anyone looking for a professional PR guy and extraordinary writer, contact Clay and Jody through Facebook.

Remember, you can arrange your own Tripawds pawty in your hometown and spread the word that “It’s better to hop on three legs than to limp on four!“

Yes, we have now uploaded 300 pictures of three legged friends submitted by members and guests. Below is our third gallery of Tripawd Pals and we’ve added links to all of our first three galleries of pals, so they will never be forgotten.

We’ve just started our fourth Tripawds Pals gallery, so if you don’t have a Tripawds Blog for easily sharing photos of your pup, keep sending those pictures!

Tripawd Pals Gallery #3

[View with PicLens]

1234...8910►

There are also lots of new Tripawds Blogs telling tales of many amazing three legged adventures.

Here are just a few recent items of interest from all over the Tripawds web site that members may find interesting…

Behind the Scenes Blog

We have a blog ring now.
Every Tripawds Blog is now linked together in a true Blogger style Ring of Blogs!

Supporters Demystified
All about Supporter Blogs and Premium Plugins.

New Easy Method for Embedding Videos
Instructions for putting movies in blog posts.
How to embed movies in forum posts.

Active Tripawds Blogs

Jake’s Life in Pictures
Beautiful Example of upcoming Flash Photo Gallery premium plugin. Stay tuned for details.

Travis Ray aka GSRNC’s Caruso
Codie Rae’s pack mate needs a furever home!

Raven is doing really well!
See his new movie in the forums.

Maggie meets new friends
Tri-pug Maggie meets Cemil

Support Tripawds while Shopping Amazon.com
Help keep René busy!

Random Tripawds Blogs
Browse random Tripawds Blogs.

Tripawds Discussion Forums

Tika has left us
May our hero rest in peace.

Winter Apparel
Discussion of warmth for amputee dogs

Tags Enabled on All Forums
Assign tags ro topics for easy cross-reference.

What Can Forum Moderators Do?
Member and Moderator capabilities compared.

Welcome New Tripawds Bloggers!
Subscribe to topic for new blog announcements.

The Tripawd Dictionary
The three-legged lexicon is growing.

If you have signed up for a free Tripawds Blog account, you have been given 25MB of server space for uploading photos, PDF files, etc. This space can be consumed quickly with large image files.

To make the most of your free server space, pay attention to the size of files you upload and understand that anything over 150± kb is often overkill for image display in your blog. We have found that an image size of 400×300 (@ 72 dpi) works well with most blog themes.

Another option is to keep your photos hosted on an online photo sharing site like Flick’r or SnapFish. You’ll still be able to place the images here on your blog, but the actual digital file is kept on those sites instead of in your Tripawds Blog media library. This can save you from exceeding your upload space allotment.

For additional tips, read our post about how to use online photo sharing sites to make the most of your free blog.

Of course, the easiest way to avoid quickly filling your file quota is to upgrade your blog with a Tripawds Supporter subscription. This can be done at any time via the Supporter tab in your blog dashboard.

But, for all Tripawds Bloggers – either with free accounts or Supporter subscriptions – who just want to manage images with their own easy to use Media Library, we have some some tips to keep your file sizes down to a minimum.

How to Optimize Photo Sizes for the Web

Never upload an image directly from your camera to the web. Original digital photos are too big to publish online, and will use up your file size allotment quickly.

To shrink your photo file sizes down, many photo editing software applications have a push-button option that will optimize files for “web” or “e-mail” use. Windows XP and Windows Vista both have this functionality built-in. But to re-size images manually and determine their file size, follow these simple steps:

• Launch your photo imaging software of choice.
• Open your photo and do a “File/Save As” renaming the image so you don’t overwrite your original.
• Crop your image to focus on the subject as desired.
• Look for a menu option typically called “Image Size,” “Resize” or “Resample.”
• Change your Resolution size to 72 DPI (Dots Per Inch).
• Change your dimensions to a maximum of 640 pixels wide.
• Click the box to “Constrain Proportions” or “Keep aspect ratio” when changing the image size. This keeps the image from getting distorted when you resize it. When this option is enabled, you just need to enter either the height or width; the other value should adjust automatically.
• Preview the image at 100% and re-size or crop further as desired.
• File sizes from 30 kb to a maximum of 150± kb per image will suffice and use the least space. The smaller the better when putting several files on the same page.
• Save as a JPEG file, with medium compression if given the option.

Keep in mind that these steps apply to any image file you upload to your blog. You cannot crop or re-size images after uploading. A little arithmetic can help put things into perspective. If you upload 1 MB images – 1,000 kb – you may only be able to upload 25 photos. On the other hand, you might be able to upload 500 images at 50 kb each.

We hope this information helps you make the most of your free Tripawds Blogs account. But remember, if you don’t want to take the extra step to optimize your file sizes, just upgrade your account with Tripawds Supporter subscription, and you can have a full gigabyte of upload space! Simply visit the Supporter tab in your blog dashboard. Upgrading via your dashboard will automatically remove the banner ads from your blog too! Supporters also get plugins for embedding blog videos and much more. We’ll talk about all that soon.

All free Tripawds Blogs include 25MB of server space for uploading your three legged dog photos. Tripawds Suppporter Blogs get a full gigabyte of space among other benefits. But if you aren’t quite ready to upgrade to Supporter status yet, here is one way to make the most of your upload space quota:

First, if you don’t already have somewhere else to upload your photos, join an online photo sharing site like Flickr or SnapFish. You’ll still be able to place the images here on your blog, but the actual digital file is kept on those sites instead of within your Tripawds Blog account – saving you tons of space here. If you do this, you may never have to upgrade to Supporter Status to get more server space. Though you might consider it for the other benefits.

To place your hosted images in your blog post, do the following:

1. Write a draft of your Tripawds Blog post.
2. Go to your photo sharing site (where you have presumably already uploaded photos) and find the image you want to place in your blog.
3. Place your cursor in the middle of the photo, right click and choose “Copy Image Location” to grab the image URL.
4. Return to your Tripawds Blog post, and put your cursor where you want your image to appear then click the “Add an Image” button next to “Add media:” (Choose the first icon, a grey box with a white border.)
5. When the pop-up “Add media files” box opens, choose the “From URL” option.
6. Place your cursor in the “Image URL” field, and paste the image location you copied.*
7. Give your image a descriptive Title.
8. Add an optional caption if you want it to appear under the photo in your blog post
9. You may also optionally set how you want your photo aligned: to the left or right of your text, centered between paragraphs, or none at all.
10. Click the “Insert into Post” button, and re-size the image as desired by dragging it by the corner handles.

*NOTE: A small green check mark will appear next to your Image URL if it is validated as a bona fide image file location. If a red “x” appears, check to ensure the Image URL is valid, and that it is not hosted by an account that requires logging in to view it.

A note about the “Link Image To” field … Click the “Link to image” button only if you want the original larger version of your photo to load in the browser window when clicked. If you do want the original image to load when clicked, just place your cursor in the “Link Image To” field and click the “Link to Image” button. Alternatively, you can link the image to any web page by using any valid URL in this field.

If you don’t like the way your photo is aligned, or want to edit its title or other advanced features, simply click within the photo, place your cursor over the top left corner, and click on the “Edit Image” icon that magically appears. A new window will appear that gives you the chance to resize and re-align the image or edit other attributes.

If all of this seems like a hassle, be sure to always minimize the size of your photo files before uploading them to your account – 25MB can fill up quickly if you’re not careful!

Or, you could just consider upgrading to be a Tripawds Supporter and not worry about any of this! Please stay tuned for more tips on How to Get the Most Out of Your Free Tripawds Blogs!

Then came the Tripawd Discussion Forums, which offered even more support and resources for those coping with canine amputation and bone cancer from our growing number of members. Next we introduced the Live Tripawds Chat.

Today, we are hoppy to announce the new and improved Tripawds Blogs community – a special place where anyone can share tails about their own three legged dog adventures!

Whether your pup is three legged from birth, by accident, or because of bone cancer, we hope you will come join our community of Tripawds Blogs to share his or her story today. Simply sign up for your Tripawds Blog now and you’ll be dog-blogging in no time!

Tripawds Blogs are an easy way to share your amazing dog’s story and photos with the world. And best of all, it’s free!

In just a few minutes you can start your own blog which will appear at yourblogname.tripawds.com. Just sign up and select the blog name of your choice and give it a title. Or, just type your desired blog name into your browser and see what happens!

Existing Tripawds users are already a member of this blog. Just be sure to log in before signing up and you will be automatically recognized and asked to create another blog.

The upcoming series of posts here in the main Tripawds News blog will cover all the new Tripawds Blogs features and discuss avatars, plugins, widgets, upload space, Supporter blogs, and much, much more. For now, you may find our WordPress tutorial videos helpful in getting started and making the most of your new blog. Please post any questions in the Tripawds Technical Support forum.

My people have been working extremely hard behind the scenes here for the past few months to make this happen. But this exciting new community wouldn’t be pawsible without the generous support of our Tripawds pack. Earlier this year, they helped us acquire the hosting resources needed to maintain this new and improved website. Thanks to their kindness, your inspawrational stories can now help us show the world that … It’s better to hop on three legs than limp on four!