Automobile Club of Southern California
The Auto Club of Southern California
We’re Always With You!
How do we love our canine companions? Let us count the ways.
hese days, they're everywhere. Dogs pulled up to tables at Peet's Coffee & Tea in downtown Manhattan Beach. Dogs—big dogs, little dogs, black dogs, and white dogs—carousing in the dog park in Santa Monica. Dogs on skateboards in Venice. Dogs on surfboards in San Diego.
But it's not a new phenomenon. Dogs, it seems, have long been a part of the cultural fabric of Southern California. William Wegman started taking his famous Weimaraner photographs while he was teaching at Cal State Long Beach. (The Hammer Museum in Westwood has his work in its permanent collection.) Local universities have undertaken groundbreaking academic studies on dogs: Scholars at UCLA determined that already-domesticated dogs were brought to North America by settlers, and UC San Diego researchers concluded that dogs do, in fact, resemble their owners (or vice versa). More than a dozen magazines devoted to dogs are published in Southern California, from Dog Fancy to Bark to Puppies U.S.A. Perhaps most celebrated is the National Geographic Channel's Dog Whisperer, starring L.A.'s own Cesar Millan. The series just aired its 100th episode; Millan is publishing his third book, A Member of the Family (Harmony, 2008, $25.95), this month.
So we thought it was about time to celebrate the dog's life, SoCal style.
Michael Becker
DOG'S BEST FRIEND
For those who've seen Cesar Millan's Emmy-nominated show, Dog Whisperer, on the National Geographic Channel, it won't come as any surprise that as a child growing up in Mexico, the famous dog trainer spent a lot of time with a pack of dogs at his grandfather's farm and considered them his closest friends. Millan's ease with the four-legged friends translated into a dog-grooming job in Los Angeles, where he built a client base that was awed by his instinctive ability to understand dogs. Enter Millan's Dog Psychology Center, which opened in 2000 and focuses on rehabilitating dogs. He still receives up to 100 calls a week from dog owners who are desperate for his help; by the time they call him, they're often considering putting their dogs down.
Millan focuses not just on the dog's bad behavior, but also on how the family the dog lives with might contribute to the behavior. He uses the "Power of the Pack" method: establishing a "pack leader" in a household whom the dog can respect (and obey). "I can't stress enough how important it is to match the level of a dog's energy—no matter what the breed—to your lifestyle before making a choice," Millan says. "And no matter what dog you pick, you need to be the leader, from day one. For dogs, it is all about your energy.
"Dog psychology is Mother Nature. Most training seeks to teach dogs how to obey commands, but this has nothing to do with understanding how to fulfill the needs of your dog. Rehabilitation to me means helping a dog connect to his natural instincts."
BEACH- AND PARK-GOING DOGS
Check out hautedogs.org for listings of dog beaches, parks and activities that range from interfaith dog blessing events to dog-themed poetry contests.
Justin Rudd
DOGS ON THE GO
HIKING DOGS
The "K-9 Hiking Section" of the Sierra Club website (angeles.sierraclub.org/k9) encourages taking dogs on outings, including hikes in pristine national forests, camping trips, and full-moon doggy hikes.
Dogs can also join California Canine Hikers (caninehikers.com), a group that organizes outings with dogs throughout the year.
Their owners can get information on 62 regional hikes in Best Hikes With Dogs: Southern California (The Mountaineers Books, 2006, $16.95) by Allen Riedel, hiking columnist for the Riverside Press-Enterprise.
DOGGIE BUS IN OC
Doggie Bus (doggiebus.com) runs each weekend from Laurel Glen Park in Tustin to the Huntington Dog Beach. Not only that, owner Corey Brixen doesn't charge for the 35-minute ride and plays a "doggie bus mix" CD that includes (of course) "Who Let the Dogs Out."
DOGGIE PADDLING IN SAN DIEGO
In San Diego, dogs can take guided kayaking trips (with their human counterparts along) around Mission Bay with Family Kayak Adventure Center (familykayak.com). Each two-hour expedition is reserved just for the dog and the owner; the destination is Fiesta Island, a leash-free paradise where pooches can run around and play Frisbee before paddling back.
Eric Van Eyke
DOG SURFING IN CORONADO
At Loews Coronado Bay Resort's Su'ruff Camp, run by the Coronado Surfing Academy (coronadosurfing.com), dogs get surfing lessons, room service meals of beef tenderloin and salmon, and doggie board shorts or spiffy surf bandanas.
Surfing dogs have become so popular that Loews Coronado now holds an annual Surf Dog Competition (loewshotels.com.) as a fundraiser each summer; nearly 60 dogs competed this year, both in tandem with their humans and alone, and won prizes based on length of ride, confidence level, and overall ability to "grip it and rip it."
DRIVING WITH DOGS
Number one thing you should do before traveling in a car? "Exercise," says Cesar Millan. "A resting dog is a calm dog."
Why do dogs hang their heads out of the windows of cars? "They are stimulated by all the scents," says Millan. "Thousands of them, whizzing by!" As thrilled as Rover may be by this, though, it's dangerous: He could get hit by anything airborne. He'll get a safer, albeit less intense sniff session, if you keep the window down just a few inches.
FLYING DOGS
Both LAX (lawa.org) and San Diego International Airport (san.org) have "pet parks" so pooches on trips can stretch their paws and take a potty break.
Courtesy Guide Dogs of America
CANINE HALL OF FAME
Checkers
It looked like Richard Nixon's political career was over until the now-famous "Checkers Speech." In it, Nixon said that he had accepted no inappropriate gifts, except for his little dog Checkers, an American cocker spaniel, whom his children had grown to love. It might be a crime, he said, but he wasn't giving the dog back. Checkers is immortalized as a topiary at the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda.
Rin Tin Tin
Rin Tin Tin was rescued as a shell-shocked German shepherd puppy from a bombed-out kennel in Lorraine, France, by Corporal Lee Duncan during WWI. Duncan brought him back to Los Angeles, where he landed his first starring role, in 1923's Where the North Begins. Rin Tin Tin was so popular, he was credited with saving Warner Brothers from bankruptcy.
Toto
Played by a black cairn terrier named Terry, "Toto" earned $125 per week in The Wizard of Oz (1939), which was more than some of the human actors in the movie.
Lassie
In 2005, when Variety named its top 100 movie icons, Lassie was the only animal to make the list. The dogs playing the part have all been males from the same line, starting with Pal, a male rough collie owned and trained by Frank and Rudd Weatherwax of North Hollywood.
Jamie Stringfellow lives in Hermosa Beach with her Boston terriers.
You are reading the October 2008 issue of Westways. Some information contained in this publication is time-sensitive, and the terms of some offers (cruise or vacation packages, for example) or services (provisions for roadside assistance, for example) might have been superseded by subsequent information and might no longer apply.