Live Performances

Every Tuesday in July (7/7, 14, 21, 28) 6-9PM solo at The Taos Inn, Taos NM

Sunday July 19 6-9 PM The Serpent Herders at The Taos Inn, Taos NM

Saturday July 25 6-9 PM w/ Lisa Joyce at The Chili Line Depot, Tres Piedras NM

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Musings – Dogs

If you know me, you know I love dogs.

If you know me more than casually, you know that’s quite the understatement. When I’m playing a gig and someone walks by with a dog I lose my place in the song. The anxiety I feel in social situations melts away if there’s a dog present. ‘Oh good,’ I think to myself, ‘someone to talk to!’

I’ve lived with dogs my entire life except for the 4 years I was an undergraduate. Even then, I got a job at a pet store so I was interacting with dogs most days.

My parents got a cocker spaniel named Annie for their first anniversary, and I was born a couple years later so I grew up with her.

My grandparents raised bullmastiffs, which might explain my love of big dogs.

One day when my mom was picking me up from kindergarten, a big, dirty stray dog jumped into the car with me. We took her home and cleaned her up, and it turned out under all that dirt she was an Old English Sheepdog. My mom found her owner and told him if he couldn’t take better care of her than that he should just leave her with us. He agreed, and we named her Panda.

After graduating from college and moving back to Albuquerque, one of the first things I did was go to the humane society there and adopt a dog. She was a yellow lab mix and I named her Cleo. She had clearly been underfed and mistreated, and she could never be off leash or she’d take off running, but she was a good girl who lived to be 17 years old.

Cleo and I moved to Portland and I got a job teaching at an alternative high school. My students had to do community service hours and I arranged to take them to the Oregon Humane Society. Needless to say, I came home with a puppy. He was a golden retriever/chow mix and I named him Loki.

The night I met my husband he had a rooster in the hatchback of his tiny Volkswagen Golf (a story for another day) and three big dogs in the back seat. It was love at first sight.

When we were still living in Oregon, Jeff and I rescued Mona the bullmastiff from the suburbs of Portland. She had a huge personality and we liked to joke that she was a roller derby queen.

Soon after moving back to New Mexico we went to the shelter in Taos and adopted Eddie, a shepherd mix. He was a very cool dog.

Those dogs have all passed on. Now we have 3 dogs: Hank, an Anatolian shepherd/bloodhound mix who had been at a shelter in San Antonio, Hazel, an English mastiff who was at a farm in La Jara, and Gus, a St. Bernard who was being kept on a short chain at a farm in Taos because he chased chickens as a puppy. That’s over 300 pounds of dog in a 750 sf house. I love it!!!!!

Recently my mom and I started volunteering at Stray Hearts, the animal shelter in Taos. We both want a puppy but neither of us is in the position to get one so we decided to go hang out with the puppies (and adult dogs) that might not get much attention otherwise. We love doing it, but as you can imagine it’s bittersweet. I’ve fallen in love several times over already.

My husband and I have talked about starting a senior dog rescue someday, and I hope we pull it off. Basically, I just want all the dogs.

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miscellaney

~ If you live in the Taos area and need to have a pet spayed/neutered, Spay Taos offers this and other services free of charge

~ recent reads (and listens) – Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Feral by George Monbiot, Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, Lessons From Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog by Dave Barry, The Keeper by Tana French, and Euphoria by Lily King

~ No finished knitting projects this month, hopefully double next issue!

~ Look for a special bonus installment of my newsletter in a couple weeks!

Thank you for reading! Until next time…