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?

It’s spring time in the desert.  The prickly pears are blooming. The temperature has been unseasonably high. We’ve already hit a hundred once. I’m being forced to make a big decision that I don’t usually make until June.  Should I give Morgan his summer cut early?

I never clipped my dog’s fur before I moved to the desert. It was only after becoming friends with a fellow Golden Dad who clipped his dog that I was convinced to try it. Harley looked younger, seemed cooler and loved all the attention being doted on him.  I decided to give Willy the “Harley Cut.” He loved it for all the same reasons that Harley loved it and I loved it, too. Less hair. Easier to brush. Easier to get the sand and salt off him. Easier to get the stickers off him and any ticks he might have picked up. Then I made the decision to keep the Harley Cut year round for Willy.

Since Morgan was a rescue I changed my approach. He traditionally gets the Harley Cut in June. Since we didn’t have him as a puppy and see his fur grow out I wanted to admire him all woolly. Morgan has beautiful Farrah Faucet fur. All different shades of gold. I just thought he deserved to be handsome after all he’d been through. But with the heat coming on so soon this year I’m thinking of having him clipped earlier. Say this weekend.

Check out the photos below and then tell Morgan which you prefer – Woolly Morgan or Clean Cut Morgan?

It was Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who first penned, “Ring out the old, ring in the new” in a poem called Ring Out, Wild Bells in 1850. Since then there have been many variations. One common contemporary saying is “Out with the old. In with the new.”

Like most people, my family and I have several New Year’s traditions besides making resolutions. Taking a hike with the dog on the first day of the year is one of my favorite. And to go along with the title of this blog, cleaning out my closet of clothes that I no longer wear and bringing them down to Revivals, the local second hand shop, is another tradition.

In preparation for this New Year, I sat Morgan down the day after Christmas, when all the packages had been opened and all the guest had left, and I told him about all the dogs down at the Palm Springs Animal Shelter who don’t have a warm home like he has, nor family and friends to love them and take care of them, like he has.

I told him that he had a lot of toys that he never played with and that now he had even more than before. Morgan got a serious look on his face and then without even the slightest pause, he gathered up all his old toys and put them in a basket. I asked him if he was sure he wanted to do this and he nudged my arm with his nose. So we got into the car and drove down to the shelter. He told me he didn’t want to go in with me, that he preferred to wait outside. I couldn’t blame him, it breaks my heart going in there. At the Palm Springs shelter, most of the dogs are Pit Bulls. I hate seeing them there in the kennels, staring out, hoping for a miracle. The volunteers were grateful and said they’d be put to good use. When I came back out, Morgan had his old smiley face on. I think he knew he was helping his cousins. I thought the occasion called for a good hike along the Las Palmas Wash where Morgan gets to run free.

Morgan and I wish everyone a happy healthy New Year!   Share with us some of your New Year’s traditions.