Sometimes I can’t start my day without looking at DailyPuppy.com – a website devoted to pictures of dogs, puppies and grownup puppies. They update it every single day, and I will even log on at midnight just to see the dog changeover.

I love dogs of all kinds, and I when I look at them, I think about where I might kiss them: right on the dog lips, on the top of their soft dog heads, and on their dog chest, where they should be petted a lot because it makes them thrust out their chest and makes them proud – it is a dog psychological thing. I imagine petting them right at the base of their tail, which will make a lot of dogs legs start to kick out of sheer pleasure. I also imagine what kind of corn chip feet smell they will have – is it like Fritos or Doritos? MMM Cool Ranch!

My friend Ryan Landry says his dogs feet don’t have a corn chip smell because they are so clean, and so he keeps an open bag of Fritos by the bed so he can huff them. He has one two three Jack Russell terriers (the middle girl named after me!) and every time he kisses one, he kisses the others too – all equally so there is no jealousy. He grew up in a household with many siblings and he felt the sting of the rivalry, so he makes sure to love them all exactly the same.

Daily Puppy also has bios of the dogs in the pictures, turn ons and turn offs – kind of like Playboy, but it is dogs not people. One day I hope my lovely dogs will be featured on Daily Puppy!

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I got forwarded this email and I was absolutely horrified. I cannot believe it. It makes me so upset I can’t even deal.

Subject: Boycott Guillermo Vargas at the Biennial Centroamericana Honduras 2008

In 2007, the ‘artist’ Guillermo Vargas Habacuc, took a dog from the street, tied him to a rope in an art gallery, and starved him to death.

For several days, the ‘artist’ and the visitors of the exhibition have watched emotionless the shameful ‘masterpiece’ based on the dog’s agony, until eventually he died.

Does it look like art to you?

But this is not all… the prestigious Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American decided that the ‘installation’ was actually art, so that Guillermo Vargas Habacuc has been invited to repeat his cruel action for the biennial of 2008.

PLEASE HELP STOP HIM.

http://www.petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition.html

It’s free of charge, there is no need to register, and it will only take 1 minute to save the life of an innocent creature.

Thank you for your time.

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How do you kiss your dogs? I like to kiss my dogs all the time. Every once in a while, they will let me kiss them on the lips, but it is rare. That is fun though because I really love dog lips because they are thin and black and sometimes shiny like they wear lip gloss.

My medium middle girl, Bronwyn, who is very beautiful and has many nicknames, like “briony” – after “Atonement” or just “brown” or “brownie” – after her coloring, which is a light honey, cinnamon brown with white spots like she is dotted with macadamia nuts, usually gets kissed on the cheeks. She has high cheekbones due to her mixed up dog heritage, so she gets kissed on both cheeks, above her whisker line European style. One cheek then the other cheek. She has gotten kissed like this so much she knows to turn her head slightly to receive it.

My big boy, Ralph, whose nickname is “Ralph Rapherton, private eye,” which is not a short nickname, but a fitting one, because he is a lot like a private investigator because he has an office, which is a small dark space under some stairs in my backyard where he can go in and receive visits from mysterious ladies wearing picture hats, usually gets kissed all over the space between his ears, because his fur is very soft there and feels good on the lips.

My littlest, Gudrun, who I have been calling “Gud-rin” because she is a lot like “exce-drin” in that she takes pain away, has a little caramel colored diamond on the top of her head, which is what we call a “kissing diamond.” She gets kissed there.

Although all my dogs have designated kissing areas, I would like to mention they are also kissed ‘freestyle,’ which means they get kissed in a ‘jazz improv’ way all over their entire dog bodies with the exception of the ‘whisker line’ – too sensitive and can bend and damage whiskers – which are very important! They aren’t just cute! They help the dog keep his or her balance.

Where do you kiss your dogs, cats, children, etc?

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Oprah did an important show about the horrible business of puppy mills, which are “dog factories,” where female dogs are caged for their entire lives in order to churn out litter after litter, which are then sold at pet stores. It is an awful and cruel (not to mention disgusting and inhumane) practice. I am glad that Oprah shed some light on this situation, which has been going on for decades without anyone being able to stop it, even though animal rights activists have been protesting the entire time.

Puppy mills are horrible and should be illegal! Purebreds are available all the time at animal shelters, and can be adopted as puppies or older. As an old dog mother of three shelter babies myself, I think it is most rewarding to adopt an older dog, and it is also a lot easier. Puppies are so cute, but can be a tremendous amount of work, and they don’t stay little for that long. Older dogs are great – what you see is what you get! Even if you have your heart set on a purebred puppy, if you do a bit of searching, especially if you go to specific breed rescue groups, you can adopt one without a lot of hassle. I think shelters are the way to go though, because people discard their pets tragically all the time, or they don’t spay or neuter and wind up with litters that nobody wants. Animal shelters are full of squirming puppies who desperately need homes and you never know, your baby could be in there just waiting for you to come pick him or her up!

Please adopt pets from animal shelters or rescue organizations. You will not be sorry!

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As the weeks go by and tensions and violence escalate in Tibet, it makes me more and more anxious. Tibet is a beautiful, mysterious country. I visited many years ago, and although there were always problems (I remember one incident when my travel party was delayed for several hours because of public executions!!) it was much calmer than it is now.

There isn’t enough air, which makes everyone who is just visiting a little high. To add to the trippy nature of the place, pretty much every site is religious. Even the graffiti is of different incarnations of Buddha – painted all over the sides of mountain rocks. If you felt sick, you were encouraged to meditate on the cool, indigo blue medicine Buddha, the deity whose color reminded me of the Milk of Magnesia bottle, whose image would soothe, coat and relieve as you pondered upon it. Tibet has the most challenging toilets in the world. I have been everywhere and I can attest to that! Hands down, Tibet is the number one worst place to go number 2.

But to counter that, Tibet has the best looking people in the world. They are Asian but with light eyes! Like green and blue! So everyone kind of looks like they are wearing contacts but they are not. I remember sitting in the courtyard of the Drepung monastery, watching all the gorgeously hot monks draped in their deep red robes, flinging their prayer beads at each other as they argued about philosophy while trying to steal looks at us at the same time. I know you aren’t supposed to hit on celibate people so I just sat on my hands the whole time and tried not to make eye contact for more than three seconds. Girl, it was hard!

I also loved the dog monastery, a special temple for wayward monks who have reincarnated into dogs. The grounds are covered in dogs of every size and shape and breed and hue, silently pondering the cycle of birth and rebirth. Squirming litters of puppies wriggle underneath their dog mothers and their distinguished elders nap in the patches of sun breaking through the clouds. There is no barking, no howling, no fighting, and miracles of miracles – no poo! – nothing but the quiet mediation of dogs and monks. You are allowed to feed the dogs small pieces of dough, and they actually wait in line! When I think of Tibet, I remember the politeness of the dogs, pulling back their dog lips and ever so gently taking the food from my hand with their open teeth, not wanting to bite my hand accidentally and then looking warmly into my eyes with a silent thanks. The thought of rioting and looting and blood in the streets there is too painful to comprehend.

This entry is cross-posted at The Huffington Post

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Wow this is very interesting! People are super passionate about PETA! They really love them or they really hate them! I guess I would say myself, I don’t always agree with all their tactics, but hell, I just love animals. I can’t help it. I love them. All animals. But mostly dogs, because they are the most accessible to me. I am a severe dogizer. Whenever I see a dog, I check her out and try to get with her, at least for a second. I love it when you start petting a dog you don’t know, and you come upon their sweet spot – either on their chest near their dog underarms, or at the base of the tail, and they start thumping their dog foot! It is the most satisfying feeling. I also love the tendency of larger breeds to lean on your leg while you are petting them. They start to push all their dog weight onto you like they could fall asleep on you. I also like to kiss on top of dog heads where the fur is especially soft.

So any organization about helping dogs and other animals, is cool. Whether that is the ASPCA or Best Friends or PETA – I think it is all good because it gives people a choice in what they can do to help animals. Although I love animals, I don’t want to be a vegan. I used to be a vegan – and it makes me have such stinky farts. I almost executed myself in my own gas chamber. Stinky farts. No - stanky farts. Smells so bad that I have to change the ‘i’ to an ‘a’. I mean seriously. It is not ok. As a meat eater, I find that my farts are much more bark than bite. It’s all air and movement and reverb. It is like my ass is blowing you a kiss.

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I hike with my two young girl dogs early in the morning, mostly because they expect it, and they both sit on my chest like the winged incubus from “Gothic” until I cannot breathe. A little like waterboarding, this is dogboarding, but it is not torture for information, it is gentle persuasion in order to get a walk. I am an early riser anyway, and I’m crazy about hiking. It’s true. I am a bit of a creepy nature girl, riding my bike everywhere. Next time you see me I will be wearing a beard made of bees (I know I have said this before but it is my favorite nature girl joke). We hike up in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest, to avoid city debris like broken glass and Styrofoam containers of old fried rice from Panda Express. Also we go there because I am always semi-searching for a dead body because I watch too many crime shows on cable.

The best time is right after the sun comes up, and the dew is shiny on the grass and makes a refreshing dog beverage. This morning we went, The New Pornographers loud in my headphones, us three all on leash, into the hills. I saw a pack of coyotes, or I didn’t see them as much as I saw the trees and the grass and the bushes all move in a way that wasn’t the wind rushing through them. A flash of fur, gray and brown and like the dirt and the sky mixed. But a big one stayed behind, his steely eyes locked on mine. I wanted to be scared, because coyotes are known for dognapping, especially delicious little ones like mine, but this big boy, this beautiful wild creature wasn’t interested in them. He was looking at me, and his eyes were soft, and we just stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. His gaze was longing and deep, and seemed to say, “You know, I may not seem like it, but I am a dog too. Not here, not now, not in this life, but maybe, in another time, in another place, I could have been yours.” He turned to join his pack, but then looked back at me, as if to say it again.

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My first true boyfriend is my beautiful manchild German Shepherd mix Ralph, pronounced “Rayfe” like the actor Ralph Fiennes. I got Ralph from the West Valley animal shelter and it was right when “The English Patient” came out. Ralph was such an injured baby. He had a bad wound on his head from unknown causes, and also the people at the shelter said that he had likely been kicked pretty hard because he had some bad problems with his hip. He was really bloody and raggedy and messed up, and I got him because I was depressed at the time and looking for someone to die with. I took him home and put him in the kitchen sink. The water flowed and ran red underneath him from all the dried blood. He was so small when he was wet I could have put him in my shoe. From that moment he was only happy if he could see me or be next to me, just as he is now.

I took him to Janeane Garafalo’s house and she held him tight for about 3 and a half hours and I think it cured him. It was the garafalo holding treatment, implemented by many kisses from her all over his little injured dog body. I named him Ralph because I thought he looked like Ralph Fiennes in that movie, and I felt like Juliet Binoche, nursing him back to health, lying with my head on his little dog chest and listening to his stories of the war. Ralph got better as I got better and he amazed all the vets by how fast he recovered. Then he broke all the records with how fast he grew! I thought he was a chow when I first got him because he didn’t have much of a snout but then one day I turned around and when I looked back at him, he had a snout! It just popped out!

Soon he wasn’t an injured dog child but a dog man and soon like a dog husband. He would lie next to me on the bed, flat on his dog back with his head on the pillow. We would wear one set of pajamas – he’d wear the bottoms and I would wear the top – just like newlyweds. He was so strong and fast that when we went to the dog park together he would outrun me when I wanted to go home. We could only go home when he was ready to go home. He called the dog shots! I had to make deals with other dog owners at the park to catch him for me, but he got wise to that really quickly. People had to walk sideways toward him like crabs, put their hands in their pockets and whistle. He was a dog who moved like lightning. He loved tennis balls with a passion, and the best day of his young man dog life was when I got him a giant box of 500 old, used tennis balls off ebay to play with. My whole existence for those years was all about picking up a saliva slimed tennis ball and throwing it as far as I could, sticky droplets of drool flying off it back at my face. The slime would always slow it down, but Ralph would never be slowed by the slime or time or anything. The only time he slowed down was when he had to have hip surgery for his injured pelvis, which resulted in a lifelong fear/revulsion of the vet. He continues to salivate all over the waiting room floor and hide his snout in the crook of my arm, like if he couldn’t see it, it meant it wasn’t happening. Sometimes I want to do this at auditions, put my snout in the arm of the casting director. This isn’t happening. He is my big dog and I love him and I love everything about him and of him and in him and outside of him. Even his big big big XXXL size poos. I weirdly like picking up dog poo because it is hot – like laundry out of the dryer – but or course, it isn’t laundry because I wouldn’t wanna fold it and it isn’t as nice when it gets cold. I also really enjoy his old man sulfurous dog farts. It smells like I am at a hot springs and I feel really relaxed.

I took my big boy on a rare walk yesterday. He doesn’t go on many walks nowadays because his dog body is not what it used to be, and so he can’t go as far as my young dogs. When he started having more old man dog issues like trouble negotiating stairs, my husband and I moved all our stuff to the top floor of the house, so he wouldn’t have to go up and down for anything. Who needs a downstairs anyway when you have an upstairs filled with good dogs? My beautiful old boy still got a nice walk yesterday, because it was windy, and when the air gets dry and the barometric pressure drops it makes his hip ache like nobody’s dog business. So we took a peaceful stroll, just my old friend and me. If he were an elderly retired gentleman, he would be the kind who would walk slow, bent over a little and wearing a hat, with his hands clasped behind his back, quietly marveling at the how all the gardens in the neighborhood have grown so wild, saying hi to all the kids but getting their names wrong, maybe getting a bit lost on the way home, but then remembering the familiar streets by intoxicating perfume of the flowers that bloom along his path.

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The newest victims of the nation’s foreclosure crisis are pets, which is extremely distressing to me. I love animals. I have 3 dogs myself – I actually have a kennel license in order to do so. I love them so much I couldn’t imagine my life without them. They are the first thing I think of when I wake up, the last thing before I go to bed.

Ralph’s fluffy black body lying next to my bed, sprawled out comfortably snoring on the fake mink bed I made for him. I made it white so that I wouldn’t step on him in the dark. He’s a big boy, and he snores all night, filling the bedroom with pleasing dog sounds and dog dreams. I can’t go to sleep until I hear his deeply drowsy final nightly sigh, the heaviness of sleep overtaking him. My middle girl dog, Bronwyn, curls up in a tight ball at the foot of the bed, looking like a Cinnabon fresh out of the oven, sweet and warm. Then there is my littlest one, Gudrun, my tiny Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix – or Pomchi for short. She sleeps right next to me. She really loves to find my warm spots, Knee back hollow, Tummy Lane, Underarm Pass. She finds the most heated areas and plops herself down for the night. Sometimes she is so tired from lengthy walks, playing with her brother and sister, chewing on her toys – such an intense life for such a little dog – she can’t even bring herself to find one of the warm spots. She just collapses where she is, tumbling down into dog slumber. My bedroom is a symphony of snoring – dog and human. There is no real conductor, and we all do solos. When the dogs have been playing a lot and not been bathed a lot, the whole room smells like Fritos. I love that corn chip dog paw smell. It is delicious and reassuring. It smells like love.

The thought of people abandoning their pets is a nightmare to me. I would’ve been one of those people in Hurricane Katrina refusing to leave my flooded house because they wouldn’t rescue my dogs along with me. I think it is really sad that when people lose their homes they kind of lose their minds too. I’m not trying to judge anyone. Financial hardship is overwhelming, but when we lose our love for our animals, we lose our humanity, which to me is a million times worse than losing our homes.

This entry is cross-posted at The Huffington Post

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Here’s me and Abigail on Good Day NY. She’s a very nice pug in need of a good home!!!

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This weekend we went to the pagan pride day celebration in Whittier and Gudrun and I got an aura photo taken:

“The interpretation of the particular colors of Gudrun’s aura says that she “wishes to achieve inner peace and harmony in the world,” has and will “will work extremely hard using all (her) resources to fight for a worthwhile cause.”"

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I like wet dog noses resting on my skin, and feeling the fine, downy soft hairs of a sweet muzzle underneath. I love dogs, mostly all dogs. Possibly one or two I have met in my lifetime rubbed me the wrong way, but of the many thousands I have petted and cuddled, that isn’t too bad.

When I am away from home, I put pillows on my body so that when I fall asleep, it still feels like my dogs are there. Pillows don’t radiate heat or curl around my neck like a Chihuahua can, but when you are a dogless nomad, these and other people’s dogs are all you have.

I think that there should be dog prostitutes. High priced Great Dane gigalos. Miniature Doberman hustlers, in tiny white tank tops and studded leather collars. A fancifully beribboned Bichon Frise, a little aloof, but with kind eyes, to coo over and stroke all night. I want a mixed breed Midnight Cowboy, to warm my bed and ease my lonely heart. Of course, in the end, when you have to go to your early morning flight, with no time to check in any odd sized baggage or go to the vet to get a travel certificate, you would have to pay them to leave, just like you paid them for the extras, like maintaining a down stay for an extended period or any particular canine agility.

I would spend a fortune on dog prostitutes, most likely fall in love more than once, filling up my home with dog whores from all over the world. Lhasa Apsos and Labrador Retrievers. French Poodles and English Bulldogs. Chows and Irish Setters. All mine for the night, then all mine forever. I have the potential to be one of those crazy people who take in hundreds of strays and then irresponsibly die, only to have all my dear pets eat me. I will have someone look in on me now and again to ensure that does not happen.

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I am so worried for all the animal victims of Hurricane Katrina. Ever since I have gotten a dog myself, I have had many nightmares where I have unintentionally abandoned my pet, trapping them in the house where their screams and cries wake me from my fitful sleep. If I were there I would be one of the people who refused to evacuate, sitting in my house with my three dogs, shotgun across my lap, staring at the water line nine feet up on the wall. There is a wonderful effort by organizations like PETA and Bestfriends.org to rescue as many of these poor animals as possible, but it is a huge job and they can’t save them all. Those pets surviving the disaster now must face the sickening reality of human cruelty, which is ultimately more damaging than any storm. I saw a video from Louisiana showing armed officials shooting down a yellow lab as she trotted happily toward them. They are just shooting dogs down there because they are trying to ‘clean up’ the area. It makes me so angry, thinking about what those poor creatures have gone through already, who now must contend with this. I wish the animals had guns, and could find a way to defend themselves. It is already clear that our government doesn’t care about human lives. Why should I have expected them to care about animals?

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