How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend - By Bill Rosen

A humorous look at how our dogs might like us to behave

Bill Rosen standing in front of Stephen King's house

"Equal," that's all any dog wants to be. They don't want to be placed on a pedestal and treated like royalty, nor do they want to be treated like a beast. "A dog is only a perfect human," (says Stephen King) and I think he is on the right track. They just want to be one of the gang and hang out, tag along, and yuck it up with the rest of us. Below are some do's and dont's you may find useful and that will make your dog proud of you and brag about you to the other dogs when you aren't around.

First and foremost, allow your dog to love you. More often than not this will come in the form of a kiss--a great big "Grandmom kiss" that is not unlike a drive-through car wash and quite possibly rivals the Atlantic Ocean. Dogs are blessedly ignorant of germs so when they offer you a kiss, not only are they extending love, but they believe they're actually grooming you, cleaning you, and making you presentable to the general public, while remarking to themselves how cute you look. It's one of the highest compliments any being can bestow upon another. Accept this graciously and go wash your face later. They say a dog's mouth is cleaner than our own mouth, but do "they" know where that tongue has been? You can't believe everything you hear.

Another thing, never underestimate a dog's I.Q. They will, however, floss when pigs fly. People are smart, people are dumb, and dog intelligence works the same way, so look at this realistically; there's "overlappage." Although the consensus among the two-legged, upright being is that people are smarter than dogs, dogs may or may not agree with this. Some dogs are smarter than some people, although they will never flaunt, taunt, shame, or brag about this. They accept us as the inferior beings that we are. They are incapable of judging others, which make them rather unique. They simply love all people regardless of their station in life.

Some dogs actually enter the realm of genius and are capable of thinking "outside the bowl" but still see us as an "equal." Ever watch "The Dog Whisperer"? Who is the trainer really training, the dogs or their owners? Watch the dog try to conceal a smile when Caesar reprimands the owners. I've seen Basenjis actually wink into the camera when this occurs.

Play games with your dog and let him win sometimes. Be a sport. Let the stick slip out of your hand on purpose and play it up a little. Act disappointed. Dogs see this and react the same way you and I do. Act as if you don't see their rook about to capture your queen.

To really make a dog's day, chase him. If you're playing with a small dog, feign being uncoordinated when you go to grab them and let them slip through your fingers. If you have a fast dog and there's no way on God's earth you could even touch the tail, chase after him anyway. Scream and make noises too. Dogs love this and it makes them feel important. Fake a fall and when they double back to make sure you're okay, then jump up and run after them. Everything's fair in love and tag.

Avoid the word "stay." Okay, I admit it's a necessary ingredient in life, but to a dog it's a four-letter word meaning "You can't come with me. I don't want your company." There are times when this is unavoidable, but do your best to not say the "S word." If you must part trails, always bring back a reward: a biscuit, a piece of chicken... one of those beef or hog byproducts creatively shaped into a little slipper and such.

Last but not least, take your friend with you. For a dog, one of the greatest thrills in life is hanging his head out the window at 60 MPH, and no dog should be denied this. Running after a ball or a stick or a Frisbee is fun, but the freeway is "Heaven on wheels!" Meeting another dog is high on the list, and exploring the other dog's scent from end to end (literally) is exciting, but nothing beats rush hour experienced through a partially rolled down window.

Note: This attractive dog is Yoko the barkless Basenji.

Author and dog lover Bill Rosen is a freelance web content writer from Marietta, GA. Some of his allegorical poetry and fiction writing can be found on the Internet at Associated Content.

Slick, An Online Chapbook by Vivian Faith Prescott

Image by drurydrama (Len Radin) via Flickr I have enjoyed reading and writing poetry for many years, ever since I was around 16 years old and discovered a dusty tome in my mom's bookshelf called "The Green Leaf and the Gray" by J.P. Irvine. One of his poems really touched me. It was called "My Little Girl Under the Snow" and featured lines like these:

This night, for my poor little darling,
In her little grave under the leaves,
Only dressed in a shroud of Swiss-muslin,
Cut low at the neck and the sleeves;
For she died when the manifold lilies
Were a-bloom in the garden below,
But the meek little face in the coffin
Was as mute and as pure as the snow.

Sad, isn't it?

I was hooked by the idea that you could write down your thoughts in a rhyming fashion. And so I began to write poems.

Years after first opening that book, I went home to visit my parents, found the book and it now stands on my bookshelf, like a little sentry of time. In leafing through it, I find that J.P. Irvine was a very religious guy (or woman?), a little too many "Gods" thrown into his work for my taste, but I thank J.P. Irvine for showing me the path of poetry.

Recently, I came across this sterling collection - you can read it for free - called "Slick," by Vivian Faith Prescott. She is a writer and poet who lives in Alaska. The theme of her chapbook is the cost of oil, especially the price paid by the indigenous peoples of Alaska.

Definitely worth checking out if you get a chance.

Slick, an Online Chapbook by Vivian Gray Prescott

Figs - A Poem by Patty Mooney

Image via Wikipedia The first figs of the season were offered to Bacchus, and at festivals in his honor, devout females wore garlands of dried figs.

The Prophet Mohammed once exclaimed: “If I should wish a fruit brought to Paradise it would certainly be the fig.”

The fig was Cleopatra's favorite fruit with the asp that ended her life brought to her in a basket of figs.

Pears, oranges, mangos,
and in the case of Wendy Whoppers,
porn star--Casaba melons--
comprise the universal scale
of a woman's breasts,
fruity, squeezable, scrumptious,
from small to extra large.

And the yield of a man?
Luscious figs.
Note the shape, the heft, the texture.
No other object so perfectly approximates.
Nuts?
Balls?
Jewels?
No.

Now figs, those succulent, sun-stroked fruits
which even at this moment, hang ready
for plucking and eating, are sweeter than
you know; each contains more Vitamin C
than an orange.
And Calcium,
Potassium,
Iron.
Think of it!
For a season those fig trees bow
to me with their bounty:
Calimyrna,
Mission,
Kadota.
I nip, suck, swallow, swoon.
The shape, the texture, the heft.

Drop the Spray Can, Chachi - by Patty Mooney

San Diego County was blessed with a lot of rain this year. In a place so fraught with drought, this is something to celebrate. My husband decided to take me to some waterfalls I had never seen, in the 30-some years I have lived in San Diego... Adobe Falls, located close to San Diego State University.


The urbanization of a natural setting disturbed me. I felt conflicted about seeing what I would otherwise consider some pretty good art, tagged on most of the available faces of the granite boulders in the area.


I thought about how some of the last surviving records of the ancient Anasazi civilization exist in red-rock canyons as petroglyphs and pictographs. Albeit, some of those have been graffitied and pumped full of shotgun holes.


Self-aggrandizing crap like somebody's initials or inane observations are not what I call "art." Who cares whether Chachi loves Joanie? Why do these people feel compelled to deface Mother Nature?


With these mixed feelings in turmoil like ingredients in a speeding blender, I admired the beauty of the falls while realizing that I would probably not return anytime soon.

Tip of the Day on how to enjoy Nature: Leave the paint cans at home, please.

Critters of Mission Trails - Story and Photographs by Patty Mooney

Image via Wikipedia

It is very difficult to get up close to wildlife, especially the predatory kind. They are cunning, swift, and well camouflaged against the backdrop of nature. I sometimes wonder how many times I have been noticed by an observant puma or coyote as I blithely strolled down a favorite trail.

The beauty of the Visitor Center at the Mission Trails Regional Park - the largest city park in our nation - is that you can get up close and scrutinize the wildest creatures that roam this area, thanks to a diorama featuring a puma, a coyote and a bobcat. I'm not a big fan of rhino or moose heads mounted like trophies on lodge walls, because it's like they're saying, "I fell prey to big game hunters with lots of cash." These animals I am about to introduce you to are beloved residents of the Mission Trails Interpretive Center. And FYI, the mountain lion is a reproduction because stuffing and displaying this protected creature is outlawed in California.


Coyotes are sometimes mistaken for dogs. Their appetite for small mammals is an aggravation to people with cats and small dogs who live near Mission Trails. We don't own any pets, which frees us from such consternation, and I enjoy hearing the plaintive wails of roving coyotes at night down in the canyon.

One time, upon hearing the cries of "The Boys," as Mark and I refer to them, I decided to sing back. At first there was a mystified silence, and then a responding wail. We went back and forth for the next ten minutes. It was exhilarating.


Just after the big San Diego wildfires in 2007, we noticed that there seemed to be less coyotes in the area, and thus the rat population in the canyons appeared to be increasing. Now that the native plants have been proliferating over the last few years, the coyotes and other wild animals are beginning to return.


Bobcats are more infrequently seen because they ordinarily do their hunting at night. Count yourself lucky if you do see one because they are notoriously shy.


They are solitary by nature. I was fortunate enough to spot one leaping across a jeep trail where I was mountain biking.


He spotted me, first, of course, and by the time I realized he was a bobcat, he had scrambled out of reach and out of sight.


These large mammals command respect because they could crush a human neck with one bite. If you happened to be in a crouched position while pumping the tire of your mountain bike, and a rogue mountain lion happened to be downwind of you, it could be the last ride you ever took.


There have been a few instances of death by cougar in Southern California, but the mountain lions involved were determined to be crazed with hunger.

I had an experience with a mountain lion a few years ago. I wrote a poem about it called "Puma at Pinyon Canyon", one of those experiences that you tuck away in memory forever.

Mother Resigns, Learns How To Be Selfish - by John Askins

In honor of Mother's Day, I decided to reprint a piece by Detroit Free Press Staff Writer, John Askins, that was originally published on May 10, 1974, about my mother. I posted this on my blog two years ago but I believe it bears repeating.



"Mother's Day is over," the woman said over the telephone. It is the title of an anti-motherhood book, and she knew it was, and she wasn't even calling about Mother's Day, actually; it just sort of worked its way into the conversation.

She called because she wanted equal time on a story the Free Press ran about depression. Why should a man tell women about depression just because he was a doctor and supposedly an expert? she asked. Why couldn't she, as a woman who was sometimes depressed, be an expert, too?

"And what was she depressed about?" she was asked. Motherhood, for one thing.

For her, Mother's Day is over because she has decided to resign her position. Her children and husband are no longer allowed to call her "Mother" or "Margaret;" now she's "magi." With a small "m" because "I'm still a baby." And no last name.

She said she has found a judge who is willing to grant the name change but first she must complete certain legal steps which she was a bit hazy on.

"See, I take one step at a time, and I don't know all the ramifications of what I want to do. But I'm gonna do the first step, which is to type out my paper and then take it back there with the birth certificate and my marriage license to prove I was who I say I was, and to change to who I want to be."

She is 53, or will be in a couple of weeks, and she has six children, the oldest 18, and she has realized for a couple of years that she "resented having to feel responsible for other people's lives." She had thought that being a mother and wife meant doing things for the others; now she decided she was going to do something for herself because it seemed she had lost her identity somewhere along the way.

Over the phone she sounded bright and aggressive and a little squirrelly, but in a nice way. She described herself at one point as "the biggest bitch I know," and she seemed to veer back and forth from patting herself on the back to feeling guilty and wanting reassurance. It hasn't been easy, she said.

"When you say you're gonna be selfish and you're gonna look after yourself it sounds terrible, doesn't it? I have to learn how to be selfish."

She said marriage almost ruined the relationship between "the man I live with" and herself. She is still married to him but feels "psychologically divorced," she said.

"He can do his thing and I can do mine. And in order to do mine, I have had to cut myself away from both my father and the man I married and say, 'I will stand under this one banner: magi.' A four-letter word.

"It sort of evolved, from Margaret to Margie to finally -- there was something in the Bible about the wise men, the gift of the Magi, you know? So I'm playing with words. But it's a technique for me to get out of the lock-step. And it's working. The only people I have trouble with are the driver's license people and where I register to vote."

She tried to get the others to pitch in on the menial work around the house, using cajolery, coercion and money, but when they don't, she just lets the clutter and dirt accumulate, she said, and when it gets too bad she goes out and does "something that makes me feel good."

Mostly that seems to mean going to public meetings and seminars, writing letters and doing other constructive work to correct social problems. One gets the feeling she does this as much for the sense of self-worth it gives as for the sake of the cause itself.

"The thing that's frustrating me," she said, "is that I'm sure I have a talent. If I could just channel it in one direction, I could -- I could carve my name someplace or other."

When Magi made her big announcement to the family about how she was tired of doing all the dirty work, the response was a kind of collective yawn. They didn't believe she was serious, apparently, and they didn't seem to get the point; she has had to make it without their support.

She has had to learn to say no when her inclination was to say yes, and has had to learn to make deals: If I do this for you, what will you do for me? Sometimes when the pressure gets too great, she leaves rather than staying and fighting. She thinks that's cowardly, but at least she's not giving in.

"American women just don't know how to be selfish," she said. "I have to do it consciously, and then it seems kind of contrived, you know?

"But I have to do it, to get out of this lock-step I've been in, because I've followed those patterns for so long, doing the things a good mother should. You know, there's so many 'shoulds' laid on us... and if we try to live according to somebody else's 'shoulds' we get lost and then we start deteriorating and when it's too late we're called senile.

"I don't think I ever really wanted to be in this position, but it was the thing to do. Get married, have children. In retrospect it was stupid, making carbon copies of yourself and feeling like a god but not getting all of the benefits of a god.

"So I finally was able to say I hated these roles. And nobody put me in jail or killed me for saying that, and the kids are still living, they're eating well, they're healthy and strong, we love each other, we hate each other -- young people learn from the whole community, not just one female.

"When I was playing mother, they hated me. Oh sure, they were quiet and obedient, but they hated me. I was taking away some of their options, their right to think and do for themselves because of this terrible desire to do things for them.

"Let them wash their own damn socks. They'll be better off."

And happy Mother's Day.

A Lovely Hike in Mission Trails - A Photo Essay by Patty Mooney

Mark and I went on a hike at Mission Trails just before torrential rains hit San Diego about a week ago. We spotted this young loving couple walking hand-in-hand. They reminded us of ourselves when we'd first met and shared many hikes in our early years.

There were a few other people at the park who flirted with the oncoming storms, including this runner.

It drizzled a bit, bringing out the vibrant colors in the rock formations.

We made it all the way to the waterfalls which gushed down into the verdant pool, and still no deluge of rain on our heads.

Can you see the tiny droplets of water on this succulent?

I love to be out in Nature with my best buddy, Mark. It's fun to be happy together! After flirting with the drizzle all afternoon, the sky opened up and let 'er rip just as we arrived back at our car. Impeccable timing, I must say!

What I love about hiking: no two hikes are ever the same, even if you walk the same trails. It is a fine trip through Nature in which exercise is a by-product of having fun. So much more spiritually uplifting than spinning in a gym. Try it, you may discover something you have been missing - a glimpse of your very own soul.