notes|from|the|pack

notes from the sunny spot

2013-05-21T21:22:00.001-07:00

NOTES FROM THE SUNNY SPOT

Stella

Atascadero, California

May 2013

the deformity of words

2013-03-07T21:44:00.002-08:00

Not a single one of his myriad sensations ever submitted itself to the deformity of words.

- from 'Flush: A Biography' (Virginia Woolf)

Images: Dogfight With Writing & Black Dog Running

by Bill Traylor

get it, ray ray

2013-02-07T21:21:00.006-08:00

GET IT, RAY RAY

Turks & Caicos Islands

January 2013

Video: Jon Nickson, eyeSpice

the heart of a man

2013-01-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

― Immanuel Kant

Photo: Mike and his Dog, by Jonathan Levitt

Grassdoe

the gods of frolic

2012-12-15T15:08:00.001-08:00

The dog is the god of frolic.

- Henry Ward Beecher

the sea the sea

2012-11-08T14:31:00.003-08:00

THE SEA THE SEA

The sea, the sea, the sea.

It rolls and rolls and calls to me.

- Sharon Creech "The Wanderer"

Photos by Ren Nickson.

queen of the beach

2012-10-13T10:03:00.003-07:00

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QUEEN OF THE BEACH

detail with dog

2012-10-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

DETAIL WITH DOG

… I absolutely believe,

when my yard dog barks at night,

and I can hear the dog at the next farm also bark,

that the next dog's bark is answered by one farther up the line,

and so on until

the bark travels all around the world.

That is why, after relaxing into the quiet of the night,

my rest is again disturbed by my dog barking.

The bark has come all the way around,

as has the night.

- Raymond & Lorna Coppinger

Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of

Canine Origin, Behavior & Evolution

Paintings (from top):

Dawn After the Wreck c. 1841 (detail with dog)

Dawn After the Wreck (full size)

Mortlake Terrace c. 1827 (detail with dogs)

Mortlake Terrace (full size)

- JMW Turner, 1775 - 1851

shelter dogs

2012-09-22T17:55:00.000-07:00

"… only one of four dogs who end up living in our homes come from shelters in any given year.

Most people get their dogs from breeders or from pet stores while perfectly wonderful puppies

and dogs are left to die in shelters every single day.

Those statistics were bad enough, but the one that got me in the gut is this:

If just two in four people, instead of one in four people, went to shelters

instead of breeders or pet stores to get their next dog, then the entire

problem of killing dogs… would be statistically eliminated across the country…

there would be more adopters than there are dogs in the shelters."

- Kim Kavin

Little Boy Blue: A Puppy's Rescue from Death Row &
His Owner's Journey for Truth

Andreas Holm's Incredible Portraits of Shelter Dogs.

See the full project here.

deciding

2012-09-17T08:12:00.000-07:00

DECIDING

Keeping an animal in the house is so familiar now

that it's easy to forget how

fundamentally odd it is,

and what a leap it must have been

to share living quarters with a non-human life form

just to have its company.

Dogs worked hard for the privilege, developing as a species

the capacity to empathize,

or appear to empathize, with human beings

better than any other animal; it's this talent,

rather than their intelligence, that accounts for their being

the preeminent animals in our lives.

- Susan Orlean

Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend

epic stella

2012-09-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in the dog.

- Franz Kafka

Photo: Ren Nickson

the story of a dog

2012-08-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

He had sensitive ears and sharp eyes. A queer character, odd, concealed, independent,

keeping invincibly quiet, and doing many puzzling things...

- 'Stickeen: The Story of a Dog' John Muir

Dog Paintings (top to bottom):

'Doggy' by Iet Langeveld

'Vigilant Indifference' by Eugene Wolfberg

'Disclosure V' by Jari Ronkko

The full story of Stickeen here.

sea fever

2012-08-13T20:22:00.001-07:00

SEA FEVER

I must go down to the seas again

to the vagrant gypsy life

to the gull's way and the whale's way

where the wind's like a whetted knife

and all I ask is a merry yarn

from a laughing fellow rover

and quiet sleep and a sweet dream

when the long trick's over

Photos: Ezra Caldwell's Putney Sue - more at Ezra's Flickr.
His other sites: Fast Boy Cycles and teaching cancer to cry.

Poem: Sea Fever by John Masefield.

after the twists and turns

2012-08-09T20:45:00.001-07:00

that boxing day morning, I would hear the familiar,

far-off gowls and gulders,

over keenaghan and aughanlig

of a pack of beagles, old dogs disinclined to chase a car

suddenly quite unlike

themselves, pups coming helter-skelter

across the ploughlands with all the chutzpah of veterans

of the trenches, their slate-greys, cinnamons, liver-

browns, lemons, rusts and violets

turning and twisting, unseen, across the fields,

their gowls and gulders turning and twisting after the

twists and turns

of the great hare who had just now sauntered into the

yard where I stood on tiptoe

astride my new Raleigh cycle,

his demeanour somewhat louche, somewhat

lackadaisical

under the circumstances, what with him standing on

tiptoe

as if to mimic me, standing almost as tall as I, looking

as if he might for a moment put

himself in my place, thinking better of it, sloping off

behind the lorry bed.

'Beagles'

- Paul Muldoon

(Photo: Full Cry)

KF Barker 1938

2012-08-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

Sleeping Dog.

Drawing by KF Barker, 1938.

More here.

small figure in a vast expanse

2012-08-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

Photo: Ren Nickson

release the hounds

2012-07-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:

Follow your spirit; and upon this charge

Cry "God for Harry! England and Saint George!

- William Shakespeare

Photos: 'The Lure' by Toby Dixon via Four and Sons

dressing up the dog

2012-07-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater...

suggest that he wear a tail.

- Fran Lebowitz

gold rush dogs

2012-07-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

GOLD RUSH DOGS

'And in an era consumed with greed,

they were sometimes the only ones a lonely gold seeker could trust.

They were packhorse, transit system, security guard, and pal rolled into one.

They were truly worth their weight in gold.'

'For he was a most independent dog and took to himself
an air of partnership rather than subjection…
Not every dog is fit to be a partner with a man;
nor every man, I think,
fit to be a partner with a dog.'

(Pictures and words from 'Gold Rush Dogs' by Claire Rudolf Murphy & Jane G. Haigh)

sea dog

2012-06-27T16:39:00.005-07:00

THE SEA IS A HUNGRY DOG

Giant and grey.

He rolls on the beach all day.

With his clashing teeth and shaggy jaws

Hour upon hour he gnaws

The rumbling, tumbling stones,

And 'Bones, bones, bones, bones! '

The giant sea-dog moans,

Licking his greasy paws.

And when the night wind roars

And the moon rocks in the stormy cloud,

He bounds to his feet and snuffs and sniffs,

Shaking his wet sides over the cliffs,

And howls and hollos long and loud.

But on quiet days in May or June,

When even the grasses on the dune

Play no more their reedy tune,

With his head between his paws

He lies on the sandy shores,

So quiet, so quiet, he scarcely snores.

'The Sea'

- James Reeves

absolutely everything

2012-06-21T19:00:00.003-07:00

ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING

"When I found out that one of my years was seven of theirs, I started biting absolutely everything."

- Max

(Photos via Juliette Merck.)

dharma

2012-06-08T20:46:00.004-07:00

THE WAY THE DOG TROTS OUT THE FRONT DOOR

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella,

without any money

or the keys to her dog house

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example

of a life without encumbrance -

Thoreau in his curtainless hut

with a single plate, a single spoon?

Ghandi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world

with nothing but her brown coat

and her modest blue collar,

following only her wet nose,

the twin portals of her steady breathing,

followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside

every morning

and eat all his food

what a model of self-containment she would be,

what a paragon of earthly detachment.

If only she were not so eager

for a rub behind the ears,

so acrobatic in her welcomes,

if only I were not her god.

'Dharma'

- Billy Collins

saturday stella

2012-06-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.

- Isak Dinesen

Photo.

my dream of you

2012-05-30T09:08:00.001-07:00

Everybody is waiting for cooler weather--and I am just waiting for you.

- Bob Dylan, in a letter to Suze Rotolo

Photo: Nir .B.

small and useless things

2012-05-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

SMALL AND USELESS THINGS

There are records of dogs that hunted in packs with their keepers
in both England and Wales in the 13th Century.
Early on, these hounds were divided by size;
the large ones hunted deer and other large game and
the small ones hunted hares, rabbits, and pheasants.

The small hounds were called “beighs” or “beagles,” perhaps
after “beigle,” the French word for “useless or of little value,” or
“beag” the Celtic word for “small.”

The Beagle is a well-muscled, small-to-almost-medium-sized dog
with a keen sense of smell and a wanderlust that can lead him into trouble.

He comes in two sizes.
Unfortunately, when a Beagle is left alone, he may
lament his situation long and loud.

-from "The Dog Owners Guide"

Beautiful Beagle photos by Shingo Uchiyama.