Seasons Fleeting, Season’s Greeting

… Ten-nis balls bouncing,

Nine running bunnies,

Eight treats for tasting,

Seven plates need licking

Six naps a-waiting,

Fi-i-i-ive belly rubs! …

Oh! Hi Everybody! Daisy Jones-Klein here. I didn’t hear you come in. Guess I was, um, focused on other things. Yeah, let’s go with that.

But I’m glad y’all are here! There’s lots to share!

Can you believe we’re near the end of another year? Me neither; time seems to fly by. It sure doesn’t seem like a whole 'nuther year (or seven dog-years) since my last year-end message, and yet, here we are, one more trip around the seasons.

For those of you not familiar with northern New Mexico, you might think that it’s all desert-y, with broiling sun, lots of tall cactuses, sand dunes, and bleached cow skulls lying around everywhere. T’aint so! In the high desert country – it’s 7300 feet altitude here at my Forever Home – we get four full and glorious seasons.

Autumn’s maybe my favorite time of year here in Santa Fe. The summer crowds have eased up, and just about perfect weather and changing colors make it ideal for walks and conducting my “business,” and I think you know what I mean here.

But this Fall was even more special, ‘cause my Big Sis Lindsay came to visit, all the way from North Carolina! It’d been a couple of years since I’d last seen her. So there were lots of hugs, and bellyrubs, and extra plates to lick. Really, what’s not to love?

And being the Fall, there’s lots of stuff to do outdoors. Walking around the neighborhood, we see how the chamisas are beginning to lose their golden glow, and slide into their silvery autumn colors.

And behind us, further up in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the aspens were turning all yellow and gold, soon to drop their leaves and settle in the colder weather to come.

And it wouldn’t be October without the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, the biggest hot air balloon festival in the whole world. For over a week more than 500 balloons from around the world gather for their big party. The cool morning temperatures and the “Albuquerque Box” provide ideal wind conditions for the pilots. Being so early in the morning, I chose to slept in; but the Peeps had a great time there.

     

They even got into the Star Wars mania a little early. Yoda they like; True it is!

And as Autumn eases into Winter, the aspen forests completed their change from green to gold to brown, making the mountains look bare before the winter snows arrive. And along Tesuque Creek, the cottonwoods lining the river banks lose their leaves as well, snaking a long gray trail through the landscape between the green junipers and piñon trees. 

After Thanksgiving, Santa Fe starts to dress itself up for the winter. On the Plaza – the heart of The City Different – lights and garlands go up everywhere. Farolitos line the sidewalks and parapets along the building roofs.

And Winter begins to settle in for a while. El Niño, which is making a big mess across much of the country, has actually been pretty kind to the Southwest, bringing extra needed rain after too many dry years. But in the winter, it comes as snow, and in some places it was up to my neck!

 

And in the low Winter sun, the light seems to take on a special glow.

Happy Holidays to you all! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, or Festivus for the Rest of Us, may it be a good one for you and yours. May you nap in the sunshine, let your Inner Puppy play, have very few visits to the vet, avoid being tricked into taking a bath, not get eaten by a coyote, get lots of bellyrubs, wag more and bark less. Good luck with catching your bunnies, in whatever form they may take, but always remember to enjoy the chase. And give someone you love a lick on the nose today.

“And now let us welcome the New Year—full of things that have never been.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

And ... that's a wrap. It's Par-tay Time, and I'm outta here! Mmmmm ... eggnog!

Daisy Jones-Klein

Santa Fe, NM

December 2015

Daisy’s 10th Anniversary!

Hi Everybody! Daisy Jones-Klein here. Usually, I like to tell y’all about all the things to see and do around here in the Land of Enchantment. But today’s a good day for reminiscing. It’s my tenth anniversary! Yay!

You see, it was just about ten years ago that I adopted my Peeps. I’d been staying at a Russell Rescue home near Harrisonburg, Virginia. My Peeps happened to stop in, spent a little time with me to let me work my charms (the Sad Little Puppy Eyes™; you know the look!), and the rest, as they say, is history. They took me back with them to live in our Forever Home in Virginia, up until three years ago when we took our epic road trip to our new Forever Home out here in New Mexico.

Ten Years! Wow, the bookies sure took a beating on that bet, as they say. Of all my Forever Homes – and I’ve had more than a couple – this is by far my most Foreverest. No one ever said that training your Peeps is easy, but I think I’m finally getting the hang of this.

Training Peeps is tough work! I speak from experience when I say it can take a few times to get it right. And, truth be told, it can work the other way too. I think that in the early days, my Peeps just didn’t understand that biting neighbors’ ankles is a simple way to say "Howdy"; that doorbells are the universal starter pistols for Jack Russell Terrier barking frenzies; and that the phrase “stop eating when you’re full” is simply gibberish that makes no sense to me at all.

But eventually, we came to understand each other a little better. They became fans of Cesar Millan and his show The Dog Whisperer, and belong long they were all trained! Now I recognize that not all Peeps respond to training in the same way, so I can also recommend some excellent advice recently published in that insightful journal, The Onion. Try these handy tips!:

Tips for Training Your Dog

• Start with simple commands like “sit” before working your way up to the more complicated ones like “fill the gaping void in my life.”
• Remember that consistently good behavior will take time. You’re letting a wild animal loose in your house.
• Set a good example for your dog by never chasing after squirrels, no matter how badly you want to.
• It’s important to establish dominance. Show your dog who’s boss by cleaning up its waste and paying for all its food.
• Consistency is key. Remember to use the same expletive every time your dog chews up your shoes.
• Dogs crave clear direction, so be sure to schedule yours for quarterly performance reviews.
• Remain patient during training sessions with your dog, as English is not its first language.
• Rather than simply saying “no” to your pet, engage it in a constructive dialogue about the moralistic implications of the undesired behavior.

And speaking of keep trying ‘til you get it right, here’s a FUN FACT: It’s sometimes said that if you practice something 10,000 times, you become really expert at it. Well, bear with me while I do some math. I was about 4 to 6 years old when I found my Peeps at Russell Rescue. (No one’s really sure about my age, but a lady never tells, anyway.) So that makes me at least 13. With 365 days per year, that’s probably 5000 days for moi. And with at least two walks per day, and most of them being “meaningful” (and I think you know what I’m talking about here), then I’ve probably delivered over 10,000 times. So I guess that makes me an expert Puppy Pooper! I hope that all of you can achieve your dreams and achievements as well as I've achieved mine.

Do anniversaries make you nostalgic? They sure do for me, especially when I realize that in dog-years it’s like a 70^th anniversary. I’ve been looking through some of my picture albums from the early days with the Peeps, and comparing them to my recent pix. One thing's for certain: I still look good!

And despite all the changes and activities over that time, it seems that in so many of the important ways, we revert to form, and what was good then is still good now. For instance, there’s pinning down sunbeams:

  

Then ………………………………………………. Now

Finding a favorite pillow:

  

Then ………………………………………………. Now

The simple joie de vivre of a fresh tennis ball:

   

Then ………………………………………………. Now

Going on neighborhood patrol:

  

Then ………………………………………………. Now

Taking a meeting:

 

Then ………………………………………………. Now

And especially showing appreciation to my hard-working Staff:

  

Then  ……………………………………………. Now

And on that last point, here’s a bit of good advice for all you finer critters out there. If you like your Peeps, and they like you, show your appreciation. A little lick on the nose works for me. My Peeps seem to like this so much that they rarely even think about the last place I licked.

All in all, it’s been a pretty good gig for the Internet's "favorite dogblogger". Can’t wait for the next 10 years! As our favorite Vulcan would say, “Live long and prosper.”

Daisy Jones-Klein

Santa Fe, NM

October 2015

Labor Day for a Working Dog

Hi, Everybody! Daisy Jones-Klein here. Did you have a good Labor Day weekend? I certainly did, and want to tell y'all all about it.

Labor Day is a funny sort of Holiday, at least for Peeps. Since the late 1800s, on the first Monday in September, Peeps celebrate the American labor movement and contributions that workers have made to the country. And just how do they celebrate? Well, by not working. Hmmm … think on that for a while. And I also suspect that picnics, cookouts, new cars and mattresses somehow figure into celebrating labor.

But for us Jack Russell Terriers and other working dogs, Labor Day is another day for, well, labor. And there’s always lots to do! There’s taking the Peeps on walks around the neighborhood, making sure there are no leftovers in the food dish, barking at Carl the UPS Guy, napping where the sunbeams are, receiving belly rubs, helping clean the plates for the dishwasher, and even writing the occasional blog post to stay on top as the Internet’s “favorite dogblogger”. I tell you, the days are just packed!

But this Labor Day weekend was even busier. My Bro' Ethan and Marianna came for a few days, all the way from my old Forever Home in Virginia to my now Forever Home here in New Mexico. Yay!!! It’d been three years since I last saw them, but after a couple of scratches behind the ears and some extra snack treats, I recognized them right away.

Having them here meant twice as much work for this working dog. Twice the plates to lick, twice the belly rubs, and twice the laps to sit on. But you know the old saying: if you really love your job, it hardly seems like work at all.

The Peeps spent lots of time being out and about, especially walking and hiking around cool places. New Mexico’s got about a zillion places to see, lots of them just a few minutes away. Now, I’m mostly an on-road dog these days, since small paws + cactus thorns = OWWW! But the Peeps all had hiking boots and sent me back a bunch of pictures.

Their first hike was just off our own backyard. Our house is in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, backing up against a state park and the Santa Fe National Forest behind that. A hike up to the ridge takes you to views of the Jemez Mountains in the west and the Santa Fe Ski Basin to the east. The trails wind through the remnants of an ancient petrified forest and overlooks of Tesuque Creek far below.

 

And less than a half hour away, just three miles past the Santa Fe airport, is La Cieneguilla Petroglyph Site. Hundreds of petroglyphs, most dating between the 13th and 17th centuries, can be found on the rocks on the way up to the top of the mesa.

Also nearby, a little south of Los Alamos, is Bandelier National Monument, over 33,000 acres of rugged beautiful canyon and mesa country. Some 500-900 years ago, ancestral Pueblo people lived and worked there, and the remains of their central plaza and dwellings line the valley floor and canyon walls.

 

 

Another half-mile up Frijoles Creek takes you to Alcove House, 140 feet above the canyon floor and mostly reached by ladders. Reaching the kiva at the very top of all those ladders is clearly not in this small dog’s skill set!

 

 
Whew! That sounds like a lot of work for a non-working weekend. And at the end of the day, it fell to me to help them unwind. Such is the lot of a hard-working doggie.

Daisy Jones-Klein

Santa Fe, New Mexico

September 2015