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    New Kid in Town

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    And then life happens.
     
    Thought I’d be back sooner, dog-blogging, but guess what? The Dog-Ma brought home another dog!
     
    Here we go again. This happened to me once before. First, she puts me in the car and we go to a weird place, and I meet a dog. You know, sniff his butt, hang out for a bit, nothing major.
     
    Next thing I know, that butt I sniffed is coming through MY front door!
     
    Hello? Excuse me? Do I get a vote here?
     
    Do we live in a democracy, or what?!
     
    That was Gadget. Now it's one month since the other new guy got here, and there’s too much to tell. Frankly, I’m a bit exhausted, so I’ll give over the rest of today’s blog to the new kid and let him tell you his story.
     
    See you round,
     
    Dolly La
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    ​Hi!
     
    I like you, do you like me?
     
    Hi!
     
    I know I said that already, but that’s just my personality.
     
    Hi! There, I did it again.
    So I’m running around, right? I’m like sniffing, and peeing, and looking for stuff. I’m super-hungry. Like, ribcage showing, “can we get a dog a snack or what!” hungry. My fingernails are getting way filed down by all this running around. I’d love to find more grass somewhere.
     
    I’m trying to stay out of the way, but there are cars everywhere. I’m in traffic, out, so I grab some sidewalk and start running.
     
    Then out of nowhere, this car stops, and a lady hops out.
     
    “Hi Sweetie!”
     
    She says it in this super-happy voice, and I’m like, “Do I know you?!”
     
    And she’s like, “Good boy! Good doggie! Hi Sweetie!”
     
    This was confusing, but not in a bad way, so I stopped running.
     
    Next thing I know, the lady’s gone to her car and come back with something in her hand. She breaks off a piece of it and throws it at me.

    ​I back away, because ya know, maybe it’s a bomb. But then I catch a whiff.
     
    Peanut Butter!
     
    I’m down for that and slink forward and gobble it up and start to run away again.
     
    “Hey, Sweetie, GOOD boy!” This lady is really excited, and she lobs another peanut butter bomb in my direction, so I’m like, “OK, if you’re throwing it away.”
     
    We go on like this for a while. Meanwhile, the lady has jumped into her car to put on blinking lights and there are still all kinds of cars whizzing by, but we’ve got kind of rhythm going with the peanut butter thing.

    She gets out a plastic thing that doesn’t smell like it would taste very good, and starts talking to it. “Where? How far is that? OK. Thanks.” She doesn’t use her happy voice for the plastic thing, so I’m starting to feel special.
     
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    But then, wham, the lady tosses this rope-string thing over my head and gives it a tug, and tries to pull me towards her car. The nerve of some people! I buck like bronco. “Whoa!!!” I tell her, “I thought we were friends!” She drops her end of the torture device and goes back to giving me peanut butter and bits of bread. “Well alright then,” I say.
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    The lady sits down on the back seat of her car, so I have to get a bit closer to get the peanut butter. Then she’s like reaching all around, I don’t know what she’s doing, but then she finds something. Fruit I think. And starts crunching on it. Apple! She takes a bit and feeds it to me. I’ll tell you a secret about me, I love apples. Carrots are OK too, but apples are friggin’ awesome. 
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    ​So now I’m really into getting closer to the car, because she keeps moving further onto the back seat so eventually I just climb in so I can get more apple. I’m nervous, but more hungry than nervous.
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    She slams the door behind me, and I’m like “Cool, it’s quiet in here, kinda cozy, and I can eat in peace. The lady starts rubbing my ears, and I’m like, “Nice!”
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    She drives me to a place nearby, all the time talking into the plastic thing, and the plastic thing is talking back now, “Take a left and go 200 meters, then take a right.”
     
    I give her a big kiss and then she leaves me at that place. 
    “Hayward Animal Shelter,” it’s called. I’m there for two weeks, which is alright, but no picnic. Even though Emma and Vanessa, I think that was their names. They were super!
     
    Then the lady came back with these two other dogs. A German Shepherd who’s a little standoffish but smells divine, and a young frisky guy I could see might be
    pal-material. He’s just a few months older than me.

    ​Me? I’m coming up on one year of life. I am filled with youthful exuberance. YEAH!  

    So, the lady took me home.

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    It’s been a month now and I have to say, mostly it’s been awesome! Treats like you wouldn’t believe. Kibble three times a day! Walks all around. Dog park. I jump on the bed and the lady chases after me screaming. It’s great, except I don’t know what is up with those laundry room stairs, but I am not going down there. Nuh, uh.
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    The little guy’s scrappy. We play dawn to dusk. The shepherd and I go for tandem fetch, but she still won’t play one on one with me, even though I’m making an idiot of myself bowing to her all the time. But she’ll come around. They always do, because I’ll tell you one thing about me: I’m loveable.
     
    That’s just how it is.
     
    My name?
     
    I’m Hayward.
     
    Nice to meet you.
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  • Published on

    Thoughts and Photos for Mom: Happy Women's Day!

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    Today I’m looking forward to the Women’s Day celebrations, and I’m also honoring my mother.
                Last week I attended an event to celebrate Mom. The California Women Lawyers association was giving her an award. Named for trailblazer Rose Bird, who was not only the first female justice on the California Supreme Court, but the first female Chief Justice on the California Supreme Court. But beyond that, Bird was a woman of exceptional courage and principle. She opposed the death penalty, and overturned 56 death penalty sentences before she was voted out of office after a highly publicized campaign against her. And in a case we might be hearing more about as states continue their efforts to curtail the right to abortion, she ruled that poor women should be provided with free abortions.
                Mom was thrilled to be receiving an award named for this woman.
                It was a nice event, with a buffet dinner and a medium-sized room packed with about a hundred lawyers and Judges. My niece, who will be 14 in a month, was all dressed up and wanted to circulate in the crowd by herself. I loved watching this, and can’t help but think it had something to do with the fact that it was a very pro-female room.
                Mom’s acceptance speech included profound thanks to her clerk and bailiff, and the social workers she deals with daily, but also a rousing cry of outrage at the decimation of the judicial system, the budget cuts that make it more difficult to dispense justice, and the new administration’s cutting of the a legal services corporation for the poor. And as she spoke, I watched the faces of the women lawyers, many of them about my age, mid-life and working hard to do their thing. And I saw how much Mom meant to them. How they had watched her for years, and been influenced by a woman doing her job with grace and authority.
                Mom’s been a trailblazer in her own way, working hard to support drug recovery as an option to prison, and for the past ten years helping to establish a mental health court so that people receive treatment instead of jail. And I could tell it was meaningful to these women, what Mom had done.
                Mom didn’t have examples like that. Mom went to Harvard Law School in the 50’s, applying to the Law School because her first choice, the Harvard Business School didn’t accept women. (But it does now! Here's a picture of m    y cousin Kathleen, Mom’s niece, graduating from Harvard Business School in 2014.)
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    There were nine women in Mom's class at Harvard Law in the fall of 1956, one of whom was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And when the dean welcomed them, he told these women: “You know, you’re taking up a space that should be filled by a man.”

    ​Even having heard the story all these years, I still find it hard to imagine such a thing.

    So here she is now in 2017, 82 years old, happily married to Dad for 58 years, three grown children, four grandchildren, still serving on the Alameda County Superior Court, working with young public defenders, prosecutors, and social workers, trying to be fair and just and reasonable and kind to the people who come before her, both the “clients” as they call them, and the attorneys. California’s newest Senator, Kamala Harris, (who’s rockin’ the resistance in the Senate by the way,) Kamala served as a District Attorney in Alameda County for eight years, and argued in front of Mom, as did so many women who’ve gone on to do great things. And I think it’s been good for the men, too, to see a woman Judge who’s fair, diligent, and capable. And Mom’s all of those things.

    So Happy Woman’s Day. I’ll probably go down to a midday rally later, to enjoy the activism that is inspiring our nation right now. But the real celebration is going on in my heart, as I give thanks for the greatest blessing a woman can have, an inspiring mother. 

    Thanks Mom.
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    P.S. Mom's grandmother was born in Lithuania in the 1880's. Her family left there the year she was born, fleeing the persecution of Jews that was so rampant in Eastern Europe at the time. I had the chance to go to Lithuania to sing a few years ago, and one of my concerts took place at a Jewish museum. This is a photo of me taken next to a painting there. Is this woman one of my lost grandmothers?
     
  • Published on

    Five Ways To Avoid Leaving the Park

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    ​1. Stay out of reach. I know this sounds obvious, but you have to be a bit subtle about it. You can’t just defy your person openly. If you go tearing off over the ridge chasing a bird, you could end up with your off-leash privileges revoked. Just ask Gadget!
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          I’m just saying don’t get within arm’s reach. A crisscross pattern in front of your person works well, or a long loop around. I like to think of it as keeping my options open. 
    ​2. “Lose” your ball. That’ll buy you five minutes righter there. More if it’s an expensive, squeaky ball. Careful not to ​really lose your ball. Then the joke’s on you.
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    ​3. Find a shady spot to rest. This is a tricky one. It could make your person think you’re tired and need to go home, and then they’ll want to leave immediately. But on the other hand it could make them feel worried that you’re over-tired, and then when you go back to running and playing, they’ll be relieved, and let you run and play some more.
    ​4. Get your person to have a seat.  Do this by circling a bench a few times, or lying down under a picnic table. You’re saying, “Relax, take a load off. Why go home and sit when you can sit on this comfy bench here in this lovely park?”

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    ​5. Be adorable. Prance for joy. Delight in your surroundings. Smile at your person appreciatively. You could even consider breaking rule number one and come alongside your person for a pet, just one!
         You’re saying thanks. Thanks for this really long walk in the park.
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    Bonus Tip: When it's time, admit defeat. You'll get points and maybe even get a treat when you get back to the car. Try to think ahead. 
    ​Video Demonstration: Please note the technique here, not too close, but never too far.
    ​     The Dog-Ma would like me to add for all you ladies out there, this works pretty well on the male of your species too. Be alluring, sometimes be available, sometimes aloof, in just the right combination.
     
    Dolly La
  • Published on

    World Peace: A Video Demonstration

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    I don't know about humans, or what they call "politics."
    Dogs fight over two things: Resources and Territory.
    This video illustrates my point.
    In it, I have a stick.
    I am happy with my stick.
    Gadget comes and takes my stick.
    I am unhappy.
    I bark loudly.
    The Dog-Ma finds another stick.
    She throws it for me.
    I am happy again.
    Gadget is happy too.
    I have a stick.
    Gadget has a stick.
    All is well.
    The End