Here is my house guest Julie and friends pulling up a seat at a friend’s party
Pull Up A Seat Photo Challenge
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Tag Archives: Dogs
Thursday Doors, Aug 27, 2026
Off for a walk with our new roomie, Julie, who is living with us for a few months while she writes her new book. For Thursday Doors.
The Lost is Found
Daisy’s family just came and claimed her. Two young men. So happy to have returned her to them, but so so sad as well.. Thanks to all who cared about her and commented. We had a few happy days together, but she wouldn’t let any of the other dogs near me…was very jealous. It has turned out as it should have. oxooxoxox Daisy. I asked her real name but have already forgotten. She will always be Daisy to me.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about go HERE. (In the post you are about to read, I called her Pixie. Later a friend said she’d name her Daisy and I agreed it suited her better.)
A Walk up the Mountain With My Dogs During Wildflower Season, Oct 3, 2021
Pulled by my dogs, I ventured off the gravel road onto the tire tracks that forged a path up the mountain. Lifting the hatch to a metal gate that granted access to the sloping meadows behind the high fence that otherwise would impede our progress, we ventured off the tire tracks onto a path worn only by previous feet. The heavy rains this year had created wildflowers so high that they formed an arch over our heads, belying the fact that the rains, long over, have left the hills so dry, so dense the underbrush, that where I pushed my way the giant hush was changed to soft explosion. The dogs, however, venturing farther into the great banks of flowers, found greener grass that they grazed upon like sheep, impeding my progress as I gave into their needs and let them determine our pace.
for dVerse Poets, we were to write a prosery piece of just 144 words, ithat included the line of poetry from a poem by Yver Winters that I have put in italics.
Below is a video I took during that walk!
HERE is the dVerse prompt and the entire poem by Yver Winters.
Three New Houseguests
Someone abandoned these 3 three-month-old female puppies in the street outside my house in the San Juan Cosala Raquet Club. When I took food out to them and tried to steer them into my garage, another woman came out from up the street with food and water for them. She said she’d been feeding them for two days but couldn’t take them in. They are now residing with me while I try to find them homes. I have a vet coming in an hour to give them vaccinations and to deworm and check for fleas. Hopefully Oscar will help me bathe them tomorrow when he comes to walk my other three dogs.They have comfy beds and a little dog house and space to run and play in to tide them over while they wait for their new people. (I want to keep them separate from my other dogs until the vet gives them a clean bill of health.) I am willing to pay for more vaccinations and even their eventual spaying, but can’t give them a permanent home. I know most who read this blog are far away, but if you happen to live near Lake Chapala and could give them a home, my phone is 331-860-5304.
Update: on Friday, April 10, 9:00 AM. The vet came yesterday and gave them their initial vaccinations and deworming and flea meds. He says they do need to be isolated from my other dogs for two weeks. I would very much like to find other homes for them before that. I would be willing to arrange for them to be brought to you if you live a distance from Ajijic. I have them in an outdoor protected and gated stone-paved terrace 12X21 feet with a padded doghouse big enough for them all to sleep in, but still would like to see them relocated to a more comfortable place asap. Please call me if you have any solutions.
Lifeguards on Duty, for Last on the Card, 3/31/26
for Last on the Card
My Father in Me for dVerse Poets
My Father in Me
After those first two dreams, you never returned again, Dad. So now, more than 50 years after your death, I am instead looking for you within myself. I find you every time I retell an often-told tale adding embellishments as you did, or in my obsession with other people’s babies and that yearning to hold every one I see. I remember your holding the babies of tourists in Mack’s Cafe or Ferns “so their folks could finish their meals.” You loved the tiny ones most. As you explained it, “I like them mewling and puking in my arms!”
I recall all the abandoned baby animals you brought into our lives: a mole, a magpie, numerous baby rabbits, once a puppy held up in a cattle sales ring and tossed up to you in the third row, tiny yellow kittens and the best of all–Zippy, the tiny raccoon found in its nest after hunters killed its mother.
So it is you I see in me as I remember the wild cat from the redwoods shyly watching, then lured by food, who moved into my jewelry studio and gave birth, leaving us with three tiny blue Burmese kittens. And I count on my fingers eleven different puppies and six kittens adopted in the past 25 years since moving to Mexico–found in the street, by the lake, dumped in a cardboard box beside my garage. Is it you, father, delivering these tiny lost ones to me, knowing the you in me that has as much need of them as they have of me?
It was my father
guiding the wild cat to me,
three kittens within.
Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.
South Dakota 1954. Zippy, our pet raccoon
Boulder Creek, CA 1987, our little kittens from the redwood forest
Mexico, 2002.Annie, my second kitten adopted in Mexico, in her favorite place. She was adopted a year or so after after Talulah, whom I had found in a basket of scarves in a shop in Tonala that she had streaked into a minute before I walked in. The owner, whose daughter was allergic, begged me to adopted her and guess what?
Mexico, 2002, Lulu teaching Annie how to climb the screen door.
After finding homes for five puppies found on the beach after the death of their mother, I found Frida trotting toward us on the busy highway. At first I thought she was a big rat. Cars were speeding by. Of course, she came home with me.
First there was Frida, then Diego.
For the fifteen or more years Frida lived with me, this is where she was most of the time, checking out the neighborhood and occasionally barking at someone who didn’t belong there.
Then Morrie, abandoned by a houseguest, joined the menagerie..
Morrie got the closet door open and attacked 36 rolls of toilet paper!!!
One day I came out to find this tiny kitten standing up to Annie to steal her meal. I opened the garage door to find two more climbing the bougainville vine and another in a box.
Since I’d fed a number of stray cats over the years, it may be that the mother cat brought these kittens to my house hoping I’d feed them as I’d fed her a few times, but the presence of this box makes me think someone dropped them off.
Ollie, runt of the litter of 4.
And so, four more kittens to join my adult cat Annie.
When Frida died, I had a sculpture of her installed on the roof dome.
And Frida’s ashes went into this effigy which we concreted in place on her favorite place on the dome, to watch for as long as I have any say in the matter.
These things are never really planned, but shortly after Frida’s death, I found Zoë on a beach north of La Manzanilla.This was the first time I ever held Zoe.
And strangely enought, Ollie, once runt of the litter and now the largest and only male cat, became Zoë’s Mom.
At home, the older dogs and Zoe are not exactly siblings yet.
Then sadly, Diego passed away and the day after, I was introduced to Coco, rescued from the streets of Guadalajara, and you might not be surprised to discover she joined our family. I was egged on to adopt her by my visiting nephew and his friend.
And the terrible duo was begun!!!
As new real puppies joined the family, I installed a gate to keep less experienced little feet off the dome, but inevitably, guests or Pasiano would leave the gate on the stairs up to the casita whose terrace adjoined the dome.
Neighbors snapped this photo, then called to advise me that Frida had visitors.
For dVerse Poets
The Numbers Game #97. Please Play Along! Nov 3, 2025
Click on Photos To Enlarge
Our Lady of the Moon
Then sadly, Diego passed away and the day after, I was introduced to Coco, rescued from the streets of Guadalajara, and you might not be surprised to discover she joined our family. I was egged on to adopt her by my visiting nephew and his friend.
My mom got a man on the beach to make me this collar with my name and her phone number on it, so I guess any escape will be short-lived.
Welcome to “The Numbers Game #97”. Today’s number is 219. To play along, go to your photos file folder and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title. This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. Here are my contributions to the album.
***Click on Photos to Enlarge and View as Gallery.***
Art Show Finery for Cellpic Sunday
Some photos taken at the Artists of Lake Chapala Show yesterday. Lots to look at in addition to the art!!!
For Cellpic Sunday
Can’t believe it, but…
TMy dogs actually love used coffee grounds! How do I know this? Because I just had Pasiano replant a large anthurium plant in a new flower pot and later, when I was cleaning up the kitchen, I noticed the coffee grounds in the basket of the coffee maker. Remembering that they were good for plants, I went out and scattered them over the dirt of the newly planted anthuriums and Coco immediately ran over and started LICKING THE DIRT! He was frenzied in his antics, so I scattered the rest of the grounds in his dish and not only Coco but also Zoe competed in licking them up. Already hyper, I wonder what this will do to them? Who would have guessed. Now need to go Google it. Do all dogs love coffee grounds?
Months ago, Chris and Barb brought me this gorgeous anthurium in a Talavera vase. Now twice as big, It is the plant I transferred to the bigger pot on the terrace. Hope anthuriums like coffee as much as my dogs do.
Oh No! I should have Googled this earlier. This is what I just read!!!
While some dogs might show interest in coffee grounds due to their smell or curiosity, coffee grounds can be harmful and even toxic to dogs. Dogs are more sensitive to caffeine than humans, and ingestion can lead to caffeine poisoning, causing symptoms like hyperactivity, vomiting, and in severe cases, seizures. It’s best to keep coffee grounds out of reach of dogs and to discourage them from consuming them.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 