Dan and Morgan were recently featured in The Desert Sun, 2/22/2016.

This past Sunday morning I took Morgan and his best friend Cody, both Golden Retrievers, on a hike. We started behind Von’s in Palm Springs and headed up the goat trails towards Murray Peak.The rugged outcroppings and steep grades make it a true adventure. This year with the January storms the peaks are capped with snow and are breathtaking. By all the tail wagging I could tell that even the canines could feel the wonder of it all.

However I was surprised to see several hikers that were not carrying water for themselves or their dogs. Hiking in the desert isn’t like hiking in other places where there are streams and rivers and lakes.

Therefore, even on a cool day, you’ve got to bring plenty of water for yourself and Fido. I always bring more than I need. You never know what’s going to happen, how your body is going to respond to the wind, the dryness, a change in temperature and even an accidental spill of the water bottle. You don’t want to be up there without water. I bring a quart of water for myself and one for each of the Goldens. Keep a close eye on your canine companion. He could just as easily get dehydrated. Their thirst usually happens before mine. But I always let them decide whether they’re ready for water or not.

You also need to keep yourself nourished. Make sure it’s not salty. Fruit is good. I like sliced apples. Trail mix is a good alternative. Sometimes I even make an old staple – a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And of course, I never forget a treat for the dog. This is a lot of activity for humans and canines as well. I sometimes bring a half of cup of food each for Cody and Morgan and fill their bowls with plenty of water so that they drink too.

It’s important to pack tweezers just in case one of them steps on something. Desert plants have mean thorns and stickers that literally jump out and stick to you as you pass by. And with all the Golden fur it’s easy to happen. You don’t want to pull anything off of them with your bare hands. Some people bring gloves but I’ve found that tweezers are enough.

As a further precaution I bring bandage and gauze. The rocky terrain is slippery and accidents can happen to you or the dog. You don’t want to be up there with anyone’s leg or paw bleeding. Every year there are dramatic rescues of hikers in trouble.

Not to dampen the spirit of adventure, it’s important to know about snakes. Here in the desert we have some venomous ones. There have been incidents where dogs and humans have been bitten by them. Me and the dogs encountered one warming himself in the winter sun on the Lykken Trail. Fortunately they took a snake aversion class and stayed away. There’s a snake aversion class on February 28th at Demuth Park. Contact the VCA animal hospital in Palm Springs or Rancho Mirage for more information.

Happy trails to you and your dog.

I heard Dad say that the weather in Palm Springs has become mild and now he’s getting the suitcases out so I know that we’ll be heading home soon. It’s been quite an amazing few months. It all started back in June when we visited my friend Skyler the Basenji in Santa Barbara. If you can remember the summer before we weren’t able to visit Skyler because he was still injured.  It was a fun way to start our trip. Skyler and I are such great friends. I’ve known him since he was just a puppy.

Closing down a house takes a lot of preparation and packing the truck took a lot of work too. Every year the dads say we aren’t going to take as much stuff but the back of the truck is always filled to the very top. When we arrived in San Francisco it took a couple of weeks to get settled in. There wasn’t much furniture and we had a lot of shopping to do. Some of it was quite basic like getting a couch and a kitchen table. But soon the apartment took shape and it became our home for the summer.

One of the first big surprises was when I met Tuesday, Captain Luis Montalvan’s Golden Retriever, and the star of the book Until Tuesday, at the American Library Association’s conference here in San Francisco. After this my Dad took me to his alma mater, the University of San Francisco and I got to wear a graduation cap. Then there was July Fourth and the crazy get-up that Dad made me wear. I didn’t mind. He seemed to enjoy himself and I was happy to see him laugh. Whenever I do something for Dad he always takes me swimming at the dog beach at Crissy Field. Over the July Fourth holiday we went to Opera in the Ball Park again. This year we watched the Marriage of Fig-ooww-roo. That’s how I like to say it. It was a lot of fun and the singing is always exquisite. And we can walk over as the ball park is just a few blocks away.

It seems we had just settled in when we took off in a plane to Cape Cod. I didn’t mind. I’ll go to Cape Cod any time of the year. It’s like a home away from home. Just three short weeks this visit. But we got to Provincetown again and got our old room right by the bay. We swam every morning and in the early evening. I visited the famous towns of Woods Hole and Falmouth and took a hike with a new friend. It’s always nice to visit with Nana and Grampy. They’re so generous letting us use their Cape House for a whole week with my three nieces and their mom and dad.

When we got back to California we heard that a Golden Retriever had died from green algae in the Russian River. My friend Rocky’s dads weren’t letting him in the water anymore up there so we decided instead to go to Lake Tahoe, a place I’d never been before.  It’s spectacular. That water is so blue and so clear. I loved it.  We stayed in a cabin in the woods and took a hike and a swim each day.

Before we knew it the sun was lower in the sky and summer was over. Dad’s talking about “heading back down to the desert.” Now the suitcases are being packed again and we’ll be heading south this week. Please check out my photos of my summer adventure and let me know you’re favorite shot.

Over the years, I have had a sometimes great relationship and sometimes not so great relationship with my Father. Things are always great between us when I do exactly as he advises and not so great when I don’t take his advice. The same holds true for his relationship with my dogs. My first Golden, Nicholas, was trained and well behaved. He followed voice command with ease. When I visited Massachusetts my father walked him twice a day. “He’s no trouble at,” my father said each time I told him that he didn’t have to do it.

Then came Willy, wild and wonderful Willy, who I didn’t train in any class. Who I practiced lessons with sporadically and half-heartedly. Willy was famous for doing whatever he wanted to do, sometimes just dropping when I tried to get him to do something he didn’t want to do. “He does whatever he wants to do,” my father said exacerbated one night when he came home with my dog. What could I say? It was true. That’s what Willy did. I remember the time when we were on Cape Cod hiking around the neighborhood when we accidently came out to the beach road. Willy thought we were heading to the beach. He drove headstrong toward the water. Not a good assumption on his part. Willy dropped when he realized he was mistaken. I tried to convince him otherwise by telling him that we’d go later but he wouldn’t budge. A crowd of beach goers watched his performance, laughing at the spectacle. I admit I got a bit irritated at his antics at first, but then I laughed too. After all it was my fault. So I faked a give-in and when he rose to head for the ocean I reached down and lifted him up and carried him away to applause. Willy was horrified at being tricked.  Willy was famous for his games. He danced around whenever I called for him. I didn’t mind. I loved him and he brought joy to everyone he met – except my father. For me, Willy could do anything he wanted to until the orange cape was wrapped around him. And he did. He knew the time for his shenanigans was not then. On the plane it was as though he had been trained by an expert for years. At a restaurant, he sat and waited beneath the table. On a train or a boat. Perfect. That’s all that mattered to me regardless of what my father thought. I walked Willy when we visited my parents.

Now there’s Morgan – well-trained Morgan, and once again my father walks my dog twice a day. “He’s so well-behaved,” my father says. “That last dog did whatever he wanted to.” I just smile and shake my head. Dads are dads. They’ll never change and we love them anyway and are grateful to have them in our lives. Morgan and I wish all dads – dog dads and human dads – a Happy Father’s Day.

I can’t tell you how many times I have tiptoed into the kitchen to get myself a snack without Morgan knowing. If Morgan is in a sound sleep I can usually get the fridge door open, select some goody for myself and make it to the kitchen counter unnoticed.  But no matter how quiet I try to be something gives my covert operation away. Whether it’s a bag of potato chips, a box of chocolate chip cookies, or a package of Swiss cheese, the slightest crinkle sound gets his attention. Even when Morgan is sound asleep on the cool bathroom floor, way in the back of the house, lo and behold there he is, suddenly appearing by the kitchen, manifesting himself out of thin air and staring intently at whatever I have in my hand.

Morgan gives me one of three looks. The first is the stern look on his face as though he knows I was sneaking something on him. Have you ever seen those commercials where the parents are caught sneaking some ice cream or cereal on their kids? The parents squirm and get all uncomfortable trying to explain away the infraction. That’s how I feel. I too get defensive and tell him that he has just eaten an hour ago.  Or that he can’t have chocolate or sugar or whatever Dad probably shouldn’t be eating anyway. The second look is the sad face. This one kills me but I’ve steeled myself against giving in to this masquerade. The hardest look for me to say “No” to is when he has on his sweetest smile. He closes his eyes ever so slightly and looks at me like I’m the best dad in the whole wide world. A dad who would never sneak a treat on his best friend. That’s the one that cuts right through me. I immediately reach up to the top of the fridge where his treats are stored in the red fire hydrant cookie jar and get one of his Trader Joe’s peanut butter biscuits or one of his liver krisps from Bones n Scones, the neighborhood natural Dog Bakery and suddenly all is well again in Morgan’s home.

How far away can your dog hear the crinkle crinkle crinkle from the kitchen kitchen kitchen?