A long time ago, I made a commitment to avoid holiday overwhelm. In one sense, I can thank my parents for that—wonderful people who welcomed the Christmas season with angry fights over the placement of the Christmas tree and tears generated by present-wrapping-exhaustion in the early morning hours of Christmas Eve.
Oh no, not me, I declared! I shall be above it all, I said, my wise benevolence shining from the halo over my head. Well, yes, I will admit, I have done relatively well with the whole holiday thing, managing to spend most of my energy savoring family and friendship and the joys of living that are available to all of us, regardless of our credit card balances. But last year I seemed to fall into the abyss, wrapping present after present late into the night, rewriting my To Do list over and over again. (Do you write things on your To Do list AFTER you’ve done them just so you can check them off? I do. Oh my.) The holidays began to feel more like a burden than a blessing. So this year, I have re-committed to making this a time to slow down rather than ramp up.
However, she says, scuffing her feet, I do LOVE giving presents! What is more fun than giving people you love something that makes them happy? The trick for me is to make the entire process fun, rather than turning “finding the perfect present” into a stress test. Here, then, are some of my thoughts about giving presents to the dog lovers on my list, and enjoying every minute of it. I’ve focused on my two favorite things (the kinds without paws, hooves or feet), food and books.
FOOD I mean, really, what is better than food? Everyone needs it, it’s yummy, and it can be super nutritious. Besides, because we eat it, it doesn’t add to the amount of “stuff” that clogs up most of our houses. (Yes, I did read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. It has indeed inspired me to get rid of half of my clothes, but I also suspect that the author doesn’t have any children or pets. (By the end of the book I began to wonder if she had any friends, but that sounds snarky so let’s pretend I didn’t say it.)
Because I love to cook, food for all my two-legged friends is actually at the top of my list. The freezer is already filling up with mini-loaves of carrot bread, soup and baguettes for my friends and neighbors. All the dog lovers will also receive treats for their dog. Here’s the question: Will I make them myself, or buy them? Ah, that depends. If I have time and it feels fun, I’ll make them. My favorite dog treat cookbook is The Ultimate Dog Treat Cookbook by Liz Palika.
Here’s my favorite recipe for dog treats: Chunk Chicken and Sweet Potato Treats (page 6). Preheat oven to 350, mix 1 ¼ cups of ½ inch chunks of cooked chicken, ½ cup of chunks of cooked sweet potato, 2 cups all purpose whole wheat flour, 1 cup evaporated low fat milk, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp baking powder and 2 large eggs. You can do all kinds of riffs on this recipe—I use left over chicken from our dinner, or scraps of pork, beef or even canned meat. You can use regular potatoes, or squash, regular flour, etc., etc. It’s written as a drop cookie recipe, but I’ve saved time by just smushing it all into a pan and baking it like a casserole, then cutting it up as if it was a dish of baby brownies. Cook, cool, cut up and freeze. A perfect treat for your doggie friends.
Here’s another treat book that I haven’t read yet but am going to purchase the eBook: Baked Treat Recipes – For Healthy and Special Needs Dogs by Monica Segal. You can find it on Dogwise; it looks especially interesting for dogs who need carefully monitored diets.
But what if you don’t want to cook? Will your friend’s dog care if you cooked the treats yourself? Ha! I’m thinking not. If I get too busy, I’m happily heading down to my favorite pet store and buying high quality commercial dog treats. Or how about a gift certificate to a great, local pet store for a friend who could use the help for anything pet-related, be it dog food or a new dog bed? Or a gift certificate to a good groomer, or offering to walk her dog on a day that she is especially busy? And here’s a silly idea: Teach someone’s dog a new trick! My favorite is “Are You Ashamed? It’s easy to teach and people howl with amusement when a dog does it. What gift could be better than laughter?
BOOKS Most importantly, books from Dogwise or a local bookseller. Yes, I use Amazon when I need a book extra fast, I’m the first to admit, and have linked to Amazon on the blog if Dogwise doesn’t carry a book. But I love bookstores, LOVE THEM, and it’s important to support them as much as we can. It’s true that they might not be able to get us a book as fast, or as cheaply as Amazon, but after reading what their workers go through to get out orders in such a ridiculously brief period of time, I use it sparingly. Not to mention the importance of supporting our local bookstores. My favorite local bookstore is the amazing Arcadia Books in Spring Green, Wisconsin. It has everything a book store should: Great books and people who love them, know them and love to talk about them, a charmingly comfy café, and lots of live events with authors talking about what they’ve written. At least twice a year I walk out with a stack of books almost too heavy to carry, some for me, some for friends. Here are some great books that I saw there just yesterday or one could order from Arcadia Books or a local bookstore.
Beloved Dog by Maira Kalman. The book is an exquisite homage to her own beloved dog, full of whimsical art and lovely text. Kalman is an artist and illustrator (for Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, EB White’s The Elements of Style, New Yorker covers… she has one impressive resume, believe me!).
Wet Dog by Sophie Gamand. Ms. Gamand is a French photographer deeply involved in rescue, who realized that one of the first things that happen to dogs at a shelter or rescue is getting a bath. She says “[Looking at wet dogs] … makes me laugh, but most importantly, they make me feel guilt, compassion and immense empathy.” Those words struck a cord with me, as did the photos in an accompanying article in Bark Magazine (another great gift idea!). Granted, these photos aren’t going to change anyone’s life, but eliciting laughter and compassion sounds like a great thing to do any time of the year.
Dog Years by Amanda Jones. Ms. Jones is one of America’s finest canine photographers, and she has a new book out that pairs photos of a dog in his or her youth and later when mature, or even elderly. Yet another way to increase the oxytocin levels (read it yourself before wrapping and let it do double duty?)
Dogs As I See Them by Lucy Dawson. (Also noted in Bark, thanks for the reminder!) Originally published in 1936, Dawson’s book of pen and ink drawings illustrated her remarkable ability to capture the personality of every dog she worked with. An original print of this book is considered a treasure in my family; as a matter of fact it is the only thing that I can remember my sister’s and I fighting for after my mother died—we compromised on mutual ownership—that’s how much we value it. Some of Dawson’s prints are also available on Amazon; I’d call them the perfect present for many dogs lovers.
THE CLASSICS: Not to bury the lead, but probably the best books to give the dog lovers on your list are the classics that improve the relationship between the animals at both ends of the leash. Books that can inspire your doggy friends include Bones Would Rain From the Sky by Suzanne Clothier, Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor, Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson, Excel-erated Learning by Pamela Reid and the Dog Trainer’s Resource series from the APDT Chronicle. All are available from Dogwise, or could be ordered quickly from your local bookstores. Speaking of improving relationships, and with apologies if this sounds self serving, my list also includes The Other End of the Leash, For the Love of a Dog and Tales of Two Species.
One last category — Three wonderful books that I recommend for animal lovers: The Horse by Paragon Books. Without doubt the most beautiful photography I’ve ever seen of horses (surely the world’s most beautiful animal). I bought two for friends just yesterday from Arcadia Books. I also just purchased another book of the same title, The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion by Wendy Williams. I can’t wait to read it, it has gotten rave reviews and looks wonderful.
For cat lovers, something humorous? Fat Cat Art: Famous Masterpieces Improved by a Ginger Cat with Attitude by Svetliana Petrova. I know, we shouldn’t celebrate cats who are morbidly obese, but I simply couldn’t help laughing out loud when I saw this book yesterday at Arcadia Books.
One more–no dogs in this book but it is getting rave reviews and is highly recommended to animal lovers: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler. It is suggested that you just dive in without knowing too much about the plot (no spoiler alerts here). Here is what one reviewer Ruth Ozeki wrote about it: “It’s been years since I’ve felt so passionate about a book. When I finished at 3 a.m., I wept, then I woke up the next morning, reread the ending, and cried all over again.”
And, last but not least... EEPS, big news! My memoir will be published by Atria Books (Simon and Shuster) in early 2017. I’ll know the exact month it will be out by the end of this January and will keep you posted. I’ve been working on this book for five years, and can’t tell you how happy I am that it landed at Atria, with my editor from The Other End of the Leash, the incomparable Leslie Meredith. That’s the best Christmas present ever!
What About You? What are your ideas for a loving and peaceful holiday season for animal lovers?
MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Good cooking weather—cloudy, rainy, grey and dull. Mud everywhere. But where is winter? We even have dandelions in the lawn. Lawn? In December? This is all so wrong.
But at least we can still work sheep. The ground is sloppy as a stew, but Maggie and I got out for a brief period this afternoon. The sun (finally!) came out and the sky got all poetic on us. Maggie, of course, came back as if dipped in chocolate. I rinsed her off and as I write she is cleaning herself up like a cat. May you enjoy some beautiful skies soon too.
Lara Elizabeth says
I’d like to suggest another horse-themed memoir: Stable Relation by Anna Blake – life on the Colorado Prairie with equal parts humor and heart, and plenty of farm dogs (and goats, and llamas), too.
Maggie Moss says
I really enjoy reading your Blogs, Merry Woofmass and Happy New Year from NZ
LisaW says
Yay, I can’t wait for your memoir! That must be an amazing feeling of gratitude and relief. I was thinking up titles, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Congratulations.
Our holidays are really low key. We used to make the all presents and cards and travel a lot, but now I make a holiday card for a shrinking list of people (hmm, attrition or should I be worried?), buy one or two gifts to mail, and we stay home and cook or visit friends or sometimes we go find a place to stay somewhere and eat take-out.
Many years ago, we cut down and hauled in a beautiful tree. We didn’t have ornaments so we strung several long strands of popcorn and draped them on the tree. When they work together, dogs have no trouble bringing down a 12-foot tree to gingerly eat the popcorn off the string 🙂
My favorite holiday memory is the liter of 11 pups born in the wee hours of Christmas morning at my parent’s house after we had assured them our dog wasn’t due for another week. Getting all of us the 250 miles back home in our small car in a snowstorm was an experience. Ah, the good old days.
Happy Solstice everyone.
Chloe De Segonzac says
Very happy holidays to you.
I am very very much looking forward to your new book.
Being a pet sitter, I will be spending the next few weeks working furiously but I don’t mind at all. I like Holidays because I usually loose all my dog walking since people and the kids are home and can care for their dogs, but I get to see all my cat clients belonging to people who go out of town and instead of house sitting I take 2 or three dogs in my house. It feels like seeing friends I have not seen in a long time.
Gifts: I have Beloved dog on my list which you mentioned. It is Geogeous. I was a bit disappointed because I read all her books and more than half of this one is a compilation of her others. But I loved the new story and illustrations.
I think a year subscription to Bark magazine is also a great gift.
One book you did not mention is ‘Nice Nosing You’ a beautiful book by Elke Volgelsand. Wonderful photos of her three rescue Spanish hounds and their story, likes, and adventure. That one I keep.
My favorite treats are still the peanut butter dog buiscuits recipe from King Arthur flour. I change it to have all organic ingredients. Bake 1/2 and freeze the rest. Dogs love it and if you are stranded in traffic, well they are pretty yummy! Lol
Andy says
Congrats on your book! Looking forward to it! Also appreciate all your recommendations, I’m almost finished with the complete Linda Case oeuvre (I’m a very slow reader) and have the Handelman illustrated handbook on deck.
HFR says
Congratulations! I had no doubt someone would snap your memoir up, but I’m sure the suspense was stressful for you. Can’t wait to read it.
Xmas is easy for me. Not my holiday. But I wish all of you and yours the best of holiday seasons!
Jennifer Gervais says
It is a little off topic, but… Now that your memoir is almost finished, may I suggest a gift to those of us who have blind dogs, in the form of a training guide that does not assume sight? I adopted a 2.5 year old rescue border collie 4 months ago. He is a great dog, happy, resilient, loves people, and wants to work. I hope to eventually register him for therapy work. However, he is a product of double Merle breeding and is mostly blind and deaf in one ear. He was also apparently aversively trained, as he is terrified of clickers (I had him evaluated by a trainer and behaviorist). He has not learned to offer behaviors so I can’t try shaping them yet, and hand signalsor lures are very hard for him to follow especially without smelly food. I have found various rescue sites for these dogs, but very few training resources. This dog can learn a whole lot more than sit or down. They all can. But we owners need more tools to effectively communicate with them! Help!
Chris from Boise says
Jennifer – Your young lad sounds like he has a wonderful personality, and a bright future in your home and hands. I wonder if you could use a sound other than a click as a marker. A musical tone? I’m visualizing an ocarina or other simple, portable instrument. Even using Yes! (or any other word) can work; though it lacks the precision of the click, it’s a lot better than nothing. Then there’s touch. Some people who work with deaf dogs use an e-collar set to vibrate, though that can be aversive to some dogs. I’ve heard of someone using a light caress on the head as a marker. The key, as you know, is pairing FABULOUSLY good treats with the marker until he has the idea, and being really precise with your timing and cues. (Please note, I’m speaking from ignorance, as our deaf and blind dogs aged into their handicaps, and learned how to learn when they had all their senses. Hope someone with more hands-on expertise chimes in).
Trish – SO excited to hear your memoirs have found such a good home. Now we only have to wait for a year or so…(whine).
Gift ideas: a donation to your friend’s/family’s favorite charity. As I am a spectacularly bad gift-chooser, this has taken most of the stress out of and added a whole lot of joy into our holidays.
And yes, I too add completed tasks to my To Do list, and get a great sense of satisfaction from checking them off after-the-fact. I suspect that we who do are truly warped – but hey, it’s harmless. 🙂
Ray Harrison says
A new book that makes a heart-filled gift is Pet Illness, Pet Loss, and Prayers That Help by Annie Baker and animal chaplain, Donna Rae Yuritic. It helped give me strength and comfort from the time my dog, Classy, was diagnosed with a heart murmur to the time he died (only 5 months later). The prayers by the authors and the people they interviewed, including clergy, helped me during my darkest times when I dreaded Classy’s passing, despite faithfully giving him his medications. The chapters address every emotion I was going through and uplifted me, provided prayers for healing for my sick pet and helped me accept his end of life. The last chapter gave stories of gratitude and signs people received from their pet told them that they were still present in their human” s life. I appreciated this gift from a friend who affirmed they understood how much my Classy meant to me and how much I needed spiritual and emotional support. They bought it from amazon.com and keyed in “pet illness” in the book search box. I highly recommend it.
lin says
@Jennifer: This is a bit older, but maybe you can try “Living with Blind Dogs: a resource book and training guide for the owners of blind and low-vision dogs” by Caroline Levin (book ordering number [isbn] 9780967225340 It’s published in 2003. Actually, if you look up that book in Amazon, it suggests a number of other titles. Mostly not training guides, but I assume there are tips you can adapt to training. I’m not fond of Amazon, but must give them kudos for often-excellent search strategies and results.
This book was bought for our library by a former librarian who had a blind dog.
Francesca Koumarianos says
Dear Patricia,
I hope you will have the time to help (I know you CAN help) Jennifer Gervais with her request above.
Jennifer,
Thank you for rescuing such a valuable working dog with the goal of making him a therapy dog.
Best of luck and training!
Mireille says
First of all Trishia, congrats on your memoir, I also am looking forward to reading it.
Here in the Netherlands mostly gifts are given at Santa Claus on December 5th/6th, which is more a children’s party, and Christmas is more about dinner with loved ones. For my parents this must have been a blessing when we were younger, not having to do everything together.
We don’t “do” Santa Claus usually anymore, since we do not have children and my nieces and nephews have secretly grown up much to fast ;-).
Christmas this year is a bit sad, since my mother-in-law is suffering from dementia, a proces that is has been accelerating over the past few months. We are all going to her, including the dogs. She loves them and they are sweet to her. The dogs are also a terrific distraction for everybody who feels sad or overwhelmed when visiting her and for the dogs I hope we’ll find another spot of deserted beach to run around for a bit.
As to gift books: I love Tim Flachs book with dog photo’s. I bought it for several dog lovers already.
Trisha says
To Jennifer: Kudos to you for giving this dear dog such a wonderful home. The advice from Chris is excellent; I too would suggest using a marker other than a clicker, and using touch (different number of taps, touch on different places) also as a way to communicate. I’ve learned that being deaf in one ear seems to be disorienting for dogs–they can’t localize where the sound is coming from, so if that is paired with being blind as well as being fearful of being hurt, the dog has a lot to cope with. Patience patience patience is going to be the key, as well as creating structure and routines that the dog can count on. He needs to have some sense that he has control over what happens to him. One add’l comment: You said he doesn’t “offer behavior.” Sure he does! Anything he does is a behavior, so if he stands up, that’s a behavior!
To lin, re Amazon. I’m not a fan of Amazon either, but yes, I use it too. It’s search function is outstanding, and I have to admit I have profited greatly from getting a book in two days. I try to balance using Amazon when I feel I need too, and using my local stores when I can. (You know how bookstores can suffer from people who browse their books then order online? Why not do that in reverse? Browse Amazon, then call your local brick and mortar store and ask them to order the book for you.)
Chloe: Thanks for the recommendation of Nice Nosing You. I just saw photos from that book this morning, and they are wonderful. The plight of sight hounds in Spain is truly heart breaking, so any support we can give to those who are rescuing them is a good thing.
Thanks to all of you who commented about the memoir. Hard to imagine it really coming out, even if it is a long time from now!
Jennifer Gervais says
Thank you all for the great suggestions! Keji and I really appreciate it, and we’ll check back to see what anyone else comes up with. Just ordered “Living with Blind Dogs” from my local bookstore (Amazon.com is a good place to find ISBN numbers!)
Gayla says
“but that sounds snarky so let’s pretend I didn’t say it.” – made me laugh out loud!!! Thanks for the book recommendations, as always. And looking forward to reading your memoir.
Bruce says
My very thoughtful spouse had Red Dog DNA-tested by the good folks at Wisdom Panel. Since Red Dog was a stray, we had no idea of her particular breed concoction (highly mixed, as it turns out).
Good idea if a spouse / friend / family member has expressed curiosity about their mystery mutt.
Ellen Pepin says
Thanks for the wonderful post. I would like to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas.
I can’t wait for the release of your memoir.
Jenny H says
Loving and peaceful holiday season? We had a WONDERFUL Christmas this year NO visitors! No special meals! We didn’t even go out. 🙂