Team Small Dog tours the Southland, and their social director doesn't even schedule in a single teeter totter ride.

Did you even notice, Team Small Dog away missing?


To the land of 1,000 Lakers. A million. A billion. Thank god they were winning. I think LA not a fun place to go if the Lakers aren't winning.


There was some howling.


But minimal. And they only barked at one officer of the law, one Coast Guard representative, and one guy with a completely restored '65 Barracuda. I am happy to report that I was not arrested and no one had to call the rest of the Coast Guard. Because I have learned not to photograph officers, Chinese shipping containers in Homeland Security harbor zones and stepped away carefully from the Cuda.


The small dogs toured places like the squirrel garden at Whittier College. The park in San Luis Obispo on the nice little river where the homeless people drink under shady trees. Hendry's Beach in Santa Barbara. The path in Palos Verdes where the old guy feeds many, many cats near the No Dogs beach. Beaches with rocks instead of sand and not one, not two, but three seal carcasses! Grassy fields with trucks screaming by on I-5. The cute downtown in Ventura where the CUPCAKES are. Multiple times, they were forced to act like dogs you see on tv and stroll around city streets and parks and sit outside pizza joints and not eat pizza or passerbyers. Thanks to the power of dog training, they totally did this. Or the power of something. Sheer exhaustion?

Hey, helpful travel tip! Always keep your cellphone in your pocket and have it on your dog's nametag because if you happen to have a dog that can squeeze through rat sized holes in fences, he might take a tour of the apartment house next door and make friends with all the surfer guys who are having a busy day drinking la cerveza on their deck. So you could get a call, all, "Duuude, I have this little black dooooog here and he's eating my catfoooood and I live on this busy street and..."

And when you go to find him, a super tan guy with puka shells might be feeding him catfood. Hypothetically speaking.


There were other, important reasons for our trip. Not naming names, unless your name is Laia and you got a Masters Degree!


Or like if you are Joey and you turned one years old and luckily have a brother who can do the whole candle blowing bit for you.


Or like the steaks! Wait! Team Small Dog, did not steal ANY steaks.

Really, were relatively mayhem free. Aside from the whole seal carcass thing. And I'm sure that the Harbor Police would appreciate me passing along the info that Homeland Security High Alert means EVERYBODY, even dog agility ladies, can't just drive around in our great Port of Los Angeles taking pictures of shipping containers. They do let you keep your camera if you just get back in that car nice and slow. But with the non stop weekend of graduation ceremonies and luncheons and brunches and birthday parties and going to the park and the pizza joint and the hippie cafe and the cupcake shop and the dog beach and finding sneaky places to run dogs and getting up at 5:30 and freeway driving, all crammed into 3 days, really too structured for us all to get into much trouble.

So there's some dog training something or other in here somewhere.

This about sums it up.


Whew. Just a lot going on. This animal we visited, kept safely in a cage.


This guy, should not be driving. Period. Thinks he knows how to back up already. I'm just saying. Maybe wait til 4 for parallel parking.


This one. Likes to nap. Dance around. Get licked by dogs.


These things. Also, this photo not posed. They just did that. In the like 5 minutes of entire 2 days where there were not total jerks. What happened? Of all of them, Black Beauty only respectable houseguest. I used to have all easy traveling dogs. Now I have a completely evil stalker named Otterpop, total jerk Gustavo with resident big dog, and Ruby's new drama queen victim personality change. Those three, complete separation anxiety meltdown cases which meant shuttling dogs along with car seats and bananas and cheerios in little ziploc bag around the greater Los Angeles area. Chihuahua, just buzzes around unfettered and oblivious and happy to do whatever activity dujour was. Like how about get stuffed in a crate and drive on the freeway some more? SUPER! Would be the answer from Black Beauty.

Am actually worried the easiest dog in the world may be causing some of the household unrest. Everyone seems to love her, she loves everyone. But Otterpop has flipped a serious screw loose somewhere and can't be separated from Ruby, or else when put back together with her acts like crazyland and not in a good crazyland way. When kept close, everything just fine. Twisted and bizarre and challenging to manage and just really from left field the last couple weeks, and only thing besides Obama skyrocketing in polls and stocks rollercoastering is addition of Black Beauty to household pack. Really weirdo and amplified when we were away from home, and making me wonder if Chihuahua was the catalyst of it, can Chihuahua stay? I will not have another dog fight happen between my dogs. That's what I have to say about that.

A few simple rules to make it all go smoothly.

Let's see if I can get this straight.

Gustavo bugs Matilda. She is bigger but he is faster. Watch them around the ball.

Watch the kids around all the dogs. Except Nicky around Matilda.

Watch Otterpop around Ruby. Especially when Matilda is there. Otterpop and Beauty can sleep in crates.

Ruby and Otterpop can ride in the crate together. When Nicky is in the car, stuff Beauty and Gustavo in a crate together. Don't leave any dogs alone. Just stuff them all in crates somehow.

If Nicky not in car, then Gustavo can ride without Beauty.

Ruby and Otterpop have to be near each other at all times or you have to watch Otterpop.

Otterpop has to be near me at all times or she starts to stress out then you have to watch her around Ruby.

Make sure Nicky doesn't chase Beauty.

Watch Gustavo and Matilda around the food.

Don't forget Yellow, whatever you do. If you do, then drive back and get Yellow. Make sure to take out the car seat and then there's room for the other dog crate.

Don't let Gustavo lick the baby.

OK. Once you've done all that, multiply one toddler times 4, subtract 3 if baby is sleeping, add in the whole Whittier double bonus point trips, which are actually exponential, divide by shady parking space (although subtract 8 when there are no parking spaces), don't count the knee replacement, and then you have the answer.

In L.A.

In L.A.
Dogs being super neurotic and evil. All of them.
Except for the Chihuahua.
Go figure.
Really not fun for anyone.
Except for the Chihuahua.
In L.A.

The Ruby slippers all make sense now.

Here you go. Something nice to do. Go to see the Broadway Musical Wicked! With many people in red holiday sweaters and dresses with beads on them at the swanky deco theater on Hollywood Blvd, the Pantages! Leave a pack of howling dogs loaded up with tennis after tiring them out on the Long Beach Dog Beach (inside the cones only!) with the relatives and off you go!

Having a penchant for Broadway Musicals, it is of course possible this play is dorky? I don't know. My taste is questionable at best. In some circles, the breaking into song and dance numbers at every twist and turn of life is considered wrong. i find it super however! And lots of lighting and costumes and flying actors in monkey suits with wings. The songs, maybe not so much. Many songs of sort of a Celine Dion-y kind of vibe to them with little dances but we don't mind that due to the pagentry of it all. Also the idea, so FABULOUS! Think Legally Blonde meets PETA meets government coverup story meets Wizard of Oz. RIGHT??? Who woulda thunk it?

The Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the good are in college together (big song and dance!), boyfriend issues at the party (big song and dance!), PETA type saving of the animals (big song and dance!), the evil Governor (big song and dance!), the heiress (big song and dance!), the whole Wizard Ease on Down the Road business (big song and dance!)...

Then before you know it, the whole Wizard of Oz story makes perfect sense without having to actually deal with any Wizard of Oz crap, happy ending and then you try to find something good to eat in West Hollywood at 10pm on a Sunday night that isn't Pinks Hot Dogs or some Entourage featured cool kid club. How much do we love LA? Thanks actors and set designers and producers! I am sorry I made wicked fun of you all in high school when you were in the band and doing your little plays and I was smoking a cigarette outside and scowling at you! And now you even know where the good margartias are in West Hollywood at 10pm on Sunday night and I don't.

They are closing down the rest stops?

If you were one of my dogs, you would have had a really bad day yesterday, staying locked up in the icey cold for a boring work day, then sitting locked up in the car for many hours because right after icey cold work all day, you are taken hostage for a car ride to LA. Which, it turns out, is what EVERYONE else wants to do-take hostages for car rides to LA, all leaving at 3pm from Watsonville too! Like we all called eachother and said, let's all leave NOW! And the road is a parking lot until it is dark on I-5 and finally the rest of the drones take their hostages to motels I guess, leaving us our own road so we can be in Los Angeles by late night time. If you were one of my dogs, you would have thought you were on some kind of crack pot religious pilgrimage evacuation, with one not fun stop at a parking lot crowded parking lot of McDonald's to walk around and pee on a dead shrub and eat some food then get locked back up with a hefty bag of presents and driven around some more. The torture of it all.

But then finding it's worth it to be in LA where it is sunny and clear and there is a backyard and tennis balls EVERYWHERE and Christmas decoration stuffed things eveywhere to kill. Now that's what Christmas is all about.