Posts Tagged ‘dog training’
Give The Boy A Dog This Summer
When I was a child, my parents held out to me the example of an excellent and dedicated writer, my great-grandfather, Arthur Gray Staples. My mother, a Pulitzer-Prize winning poet herself, told me many stories of his life in Maine, in the early 1900’s, as the editor-in-chief of the Lewiston Evening Journal, which was considered…
Read MoreGuilty Pleasures
So, it’s Thursday at 5:00 in the morning and I’m speeding along at eighty miles an hour, in the pitch black, to a burg called Vallejo, which is about an hour and a half from my house. I’m keeping watch in my rear view mirror for “CHIPies,” (California Highway Patrol), who will pull me over…
Read MoreA Happy Display of Foolishness
To be misunderstood is one of the more difficult experiences we all face. It happens to every one of us at one time or another. How one deals with it speaks to both our self-confidence, and our willingness to take a risk. Will we continue to reach out in a positive way, despite having been…
Read MoreA Dog Is A Dog Is A Dog
A second chance is one of the most miraculous and elusive gifts we can give. But why is it so hard to forgive–not only the ways in which we let others down, but also the ways in which we disappoint ourselves? Over the past two years, there has been an aspect of my life in…
Read MoreDon’t Mess With Mr. In-Between
It’s Sunday afternoon, and my dogs lie beside me on the couch, chewing on fresh bones, while my husband watches the 49’ers game. Because the weather is somewhat rainy (cause for celebration here in California) and because the 49’ers are winning (another miracle at which to marvel), I am happy just to hang out, even…
Read MoreMARGARITAS, FIRE ALARMS, SHIPS, AND SHOWS!
A road trip! A road trip! Who doesn’t love a road trip! While mine down to Southern California thirteen days ago wasn’t exactly filled with Jack Kerouac moments, it was nevertheless an exhilarating break from the pressures of daily life about which I wrote in my previous newsletter. The Thursday before last, I went south,…
Read MoreA LESSON IN LOSS FROM GREEN BEAN
As usual, I have a “dog story” to tell you. And as usual, it is far more than that, having become, for me, a “life story.” I am on a plane travelling to the Dalmatian Club of American National Specialty Show in Ohio, writing by hand on a yellow pad of paper, with a solitary…
Read MoreWATCHING MY FEET
Everything in life that is worth anything at all requires the belief that, if you persevere, you will eventually get wherever you are headed. The Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu once said: “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” While I am neither a Taoist, nor a “religious” woman (“spiritual” would be…
Read MoreBASKING IN THE ROSES
Early spring is here in Northern California. In my last newsletter two weeks ago, the daffodils were nodding their cheery yellow faces at the wind, but now they have gone past and are only little wrinkled heads on the top of long green stalks. However, my neighbor’s magnolia trees hold out boughs on which perch…
Read MoreMEET MAC! “BESPOTTED’S” COVER DOG!
As I promised you in my last newsletter, today you will meet one of my Dalmatians. I have chosen to tell you an anecdote about Mac, our youngest, as he is the “cover dog” for Bespotted. You can watch Mac as he grows up in the photos below this blog. Mac was born into a litter of…
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