I am Tilin, a Welsh corgi and wine country dog, aka @winecountrydog.
I started pawin the puter and dooin social media in 2008, after I had life-saving back surgery and had to sit-stay to recover. That is when I came to create wine country dog ezine™ — an independent pet-ezine.
My ancient self does have a few health pawblems, but my ortho surgeon gave me a chance to walk again. Other good vets and Mum have helped too. Myself goin wobbly but strong toward 17th BD in November 2014.
Luv to paw-write and tweet, and travel to meet new furriends and nice humans. Some of them write about wine or craft beer or food and health. Wine country has got nommy fresh whole foods and farmers markets. And wine country means most effurrywhere in world these days eh.
You find that my furbro, Jackie Nippers Corgi, does sometimes join me on adventures and on twitter. Our beloved Ani Meezer rarely does.
All three of us were rescued from diffurrent circumstances. Furbro is a "breeder rescue." We doo encourage adoption of furriends from good animal rescue charities. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Howlo. I am Jackie Nippers Corgi (aka pawlitico™).
You may find me on walkies with furbro Tilin Corgi, and out at wine tastings and regional food adventures up and down Pacific coast. Sometimes on social media with furbro. We like to paw-write tasting notes for wine and food.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Our thanks to Mum (aka winecountrydogma™) for editing, web dev, photography, pro fact-checking, and for grrreat homemade whole food meals. Mum is trained in D.A.R.T. and helps us paw out animal rescue info during disasters.
Back in his puppyhood, furbro Tilin repawts, he began visiting wineries in Sonoma and Napa, and on the Sonoma Coast and Mendocino County as well. Furbro turns 14 years old during harvest 2011, and is still an active traveler.
Nowadays, furbro is sometimes joined by mywoofself at tastings, where we doo make wine paw-notes while humans have wine sensory adventures.
Over the years, our regional wineries have become furry pawpular. Furbro observes that both the locals who love wine and the happy visitors now enjoy wine tastings all year round. Wine-loving locals, along with visitors from the greater SF Bay Area and around the world, spend many summer days involved in wine touring. Wineries are a grrreat "staycay" destination for locals. And the autumn harvest happenings are becoming wildly pawpular too.
The wine tasting rooms and wine roads have become busy places.
Inside the tasting rooms, furbro and myself, being rawther short in stature, sometimes feel lost amongst the humans, who can move about and wave unpredictably. Above our dogheads, we doo see towering wine bars and shelves full of wine bottles or winery gift shop items. Small items are quickly rearranged by dogs' tails and toddlers' errant hands. BOL! ... But this is not amusing to humans. And tis not amusing to ourwoofselves when things move suddenly toward us -- as when a wine glass or iphone crashes to the floor, or when an unattended human child reaches out a hand.
Ourwoofselves have learned an impawtant truth: We dogs and wine tasting rooms are not always a good pairing. ...
One might woof that "dog-friendly" wine tasting is not always so friendly. Socially, tasting can be a test for us dogs. And tis not always easy for humans, especially when they are trying to focus on serious wine tasting whilst we dogs (and errant youngsters) pull on them.
Add to the furst truth a second impawtant truth: When California wine country weather is hot -- which it can be any day from May through September -- we dogs cannot wait in cars in winery parking lots whilst humans have tastings. ... Dogs left inside motor vehicles on hot days suffer heat stroke and death from suffocation.
Winery visitors should not expect that there will be shady parking spots: Shade will not keep a car interior cool enough. Doo not think that leaving car windows open a few inches is sufficient: It does not keep dogs cool enough on a hot day. ... The ONLY way to get adequate ventilation is through fully open windows. And on the hottest days, not even fully open windows are adequate for us dogs. Still, in any case, humans cannot leave windows open all the way, as cars must be locked up securely.
Tho it does pain us dogs to be left out, we think furhaps winetasting itineraries should be based on seeking quality wines rather than dog-friendly wineries. Twould be a shame not to focus on finding the best wines -- unless humans simply want to enjoy a casual tour or family vacation.
We have heard it through the concierge grapevine that a number of dogs brought to wine country get left alone in rooms of hotels and inns. This abandonment happens more often in hot weather, when visitors learn it is too hot to take dogs out and leave them in parked cars while wine tasting. ...
Howl. Is this abandonment to be blamed on wineries not being universally uber-dog-friendly? Au contraire! It is the dog guardian's respawnsibility to prepare a dog-friendly itinerary and to always think carefully about a best furriend's well-being.
One would tell humans who want to leave dog furriends in strange lodgings instead to leave them at home or with a sitter! Not only is it unkind to leave a dog alone in a hotel room for hours, but also it is an abuse of lodging policies. What happens to the dog who is discovered?
Dog furriends, tis so much simpler for your humans to call wineries and lodgings before visiting and ask staff about the dog policy and dog care.
Visitors must respect the fact that not all lodging and winery owners, nor all winemakers and tasting room folk, are comfurtable with having dogs around the property. Still, pawleeze know that you will find so furry many winery folk who are happy to see us dogs. A lot of wonderfur wineries promote dog-friendliness and pawsitively adore all wine woofers.
One digression ere: Tis not an OK dog policy -- nor is it good public relations -- for a winery (or a hotel or inn) to welcome dogs under 50 pounds while prohibiting larger dogs. We know of a winery in the Russian River Valley (not one of our regular places) with this unfair dog policy. It means that we corgis -- who are not "small" dogs -- can go inside, but none of our big furriends can join us.
While tis any business owner's prerogative whether or not to run a dog-friendly place, we doo believe being "dog-friendly" means that every polite, clean dog is welcome, regardless of size or breed.
How to make dogs and wine tasting a successful pairing:
Dog furriends, tell your humans to
Get wine maps and then call around to tasting rooms to verify dog-friendly policies. Ask for hours on intended visiting dates.
Ask winery folks for recommendations of nice local lodgings and restaurants. Never rely solely on maps and apps for traveling.
Ask winery folks and the lodging concierge for recommendations of doggie daycare places and in-room dog sitters.
Always leave dogs at home on triple-digit temperature days. Doo not think about traveling with ill or elderly dogs on the hottest days.
Never leave your dog alone in a hotel/inn room, or alone in the car for hours. Take turns being the dog's attendant, or hire a dog sitter.
Teach your dog to be a good winery visitor. Offer Fideau the course in Canine Wine Sensory Evaluation or Pawmelier accreditation.
Whenever we can visit grrreat wineries in our region or beyond, we are happy. And whenever we can help our wine country visitors, human or canine, have a grrreat time, we are happy too.
Paw-script: Doo ave a look at this Wine Road listing of wineries round our home dogturf.
This story is set in the period of heightened pawlitico-military tensions during the Cold War era of the early 1960s, a time when effurryone fears the likelihood of a howlish war with the USSR.
A lone Pawlish spy cat, Hans-Dieter Maow (nicknamed "Blackie"), is working under dipawlomatic cover as a dog in the Moscow countryside. Every day, Blackie barks to his furriends various plans in code. Over the winter, Blackie and his furriends risk capture daily to stockpile stolen caviar noms and hold spy meetups in a forest den.
(Here's where the story gets boring, so we'll skip the whole middle pawt.)
A bitey villain of a tom, Blackie Maow finally finds compawssion in the spring when he meets charming spy Lizzie Goldpaw. Goldpaw is an esteemed English librarian's cat who has swallowed secrets to help the West. Blackie Maow is assigned the mission of getting Lizzie Goldpaw safely back to England.
Blackie is so smitten with this kitten that he barks as he has never barked before . . . or since.
Early this spring morning, Blackie sits on his windowsill, barking coded orders to make sure Goldpaw is escorted safely out of the forest.
This is the last we see of Blackie.Does he run off and become the world's furst sustainable Pawluga caviar producer? Or does he manage to follow Goldpaw to England and write a best-selling spy novel?MOL
Have you ever spent time talking with a pig, or running across a farm field together on a sweet summer afternoon?
Pigs are wonderful, smart, playful, social animals. They deserve to be regarded with respect and treated humanely!
So then why does the popularity of factory-farmed bacon continue to grow?
Sadly, not often do humans stand up and say publicly "Eating bacon and other meats is one thing. But if you can't get meats from pastured farm animals who've been humanely raised, we don't want any of it!"
Maybe everybody just needs to see the truth of how pigs are confined and abused on "factory farms" -- intensive industrial facilities that are not farms at all.
Mum sez she does defy anyone to go on eating factory-farmed bacon, ham, and pork once they've seen what those pigs endure.
Howl. Let us now visit with a happy pig. Furhaps you remember Bella the Piglet, rescued from a factory farm back in 2004?
Bella became a spokespig for the Australian campaign SaveBabe.com, which works to bring an end to factory-farming practices there.
Compassion changes the world, and it all begins with taking a closer look at what's in our food bowls.
Myself and Jackie Nippers are lying at mum's feet, listening to her recite a passage from The Outermost House by naturalist writer Henry Beston.
“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by a complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge, seeing thereby a feather magnified, the whole image in distortion.
We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man.
In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.
They are not brethren. They are not underlings. They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
Paw-notes: The Outermost House by Henry Beston is a book chronicling a season the author spent living on the dunes of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was published in 1928 by Doubleday and Doran and is now published by Henry Holt and Company.
posted by Tilin Corgi and Ani Meezer and Jackie Nippers
"Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor, peering apprehensively into the kennels. I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her. I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid.
"As she stopped at my kennel, I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today. Sometimes the shelter keepers get too busy, and I didn't want her to think poorly of them.
"As she read my kennel card, I hoped that she wouldn't feel sad about my past. I have only the future to look forward to, and want to make a difference in someone's life.
"She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and the side of my head up against the bars to comfort her. Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship.
"A tear fell down her cheek, and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well. Soon my kennel door opened. Her smile was so bright that I instantly jumped into her arms.
"I would promise to keep her safe. I would promise to always be by her side. I would promise to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes.
"I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor. So many more are out there who haven't walked the corridors. So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.
"I rescued a human today."
~ Author unknown
--- Paw-notes: The human we rescued feels fortunate to have us, and we are so grateful for her. ... Woofin bout gratitude, this day marks the third anniversary of Tilin Corgi's "disc blowout" and successful surgery. Tilin does continue to luv walkies arfully much.
Our pawpetual question: Why do dogs and cats get canned and kibbled foodstuffs 'stead of fresh foods? If you live 'ere in wine country or other place where fresh whole foods are plentiful, why not support local markets and make your own pet foods?
