Jenny Berry's Art Blog

Meet my new Monster ;)

Most of you are probably familiar by now with Henry, my eleven year old golden retriever. 

 

He and his sister Lucy used to be in the art show booth with Mark and I almost every weekend so many of you know him in person - and no doubt still have the hair on your clothes to prove it :) 

Sadly, Lucy passed on last summer, she was 13. It was another difficult time in a very difficult year. Last year was just a tough one all around. So it's been a whole year, just me and the Hen... until now... 

Meet Fisher, my new little terror :) Although he doesn't hold a candle to brother Henry. Not yet anyway. Don't believe me? Read about Henry under the My Notorious Dogs link to the right... the boy's got a prison record... need I say more??!!

  

But this is the sweetest little guy ever. He's only a year and a half so he's got tons of puppy energy but it's just all happiness. He's such a love. 

A few days ago I noticed that he gets the hiccups when he's nervous and when it happens he wants to sit and hold your hand until they go away. That's what he's doing here. 

It's the cutest thing! He'll just sit like that for a minute or two, then the hiccups go away and he's all systems go... off terrorizing the geese on the lake or old grumpy Henry again.

This never stops. It's all day like this... you'd think sometimes they were going to eat each other with all the carrying on, howling, growling and barking... but they love it! 

Auntie Trish just sent some new pics taken yesterday when she was visiting... they're hilarious! 

For some reason they both love sleeping in grandma's flower garden. Sorry mom... and I just noticed the paintings all laying out on the picnic table. I like to bake the final layer of varnish in the sun so it's not tacky. 

This was hilarious! His name is Fisher after all!!!! 

 

What a little goof ball! Luckily the fish had just died and was floating there but it wasn't rotten yet. ew. I tell him to drop it cuz.... it's GROSS!! and Trish was like no, wait I've got to get a picture of that... Here Fisher take the pretty fish again for a photo op!!!! Even he was like... hmmm, i don't know... it IS pretty GROSS!!!!

 

Henry's Big Day...

Henry's Big Day:

So in the end there was no way around it - in the case of The City of Albuquerque vs. Henry's um... manhood. The city won and Hen was well... deflowered? no that's not exactly right... well you get the idea. 

He does want to pass along his sincerest appreciation for the get well thoughts that you've emailed. Here, as you can see, he is recovering nicely and in typical form, quite unfazed by the whole ordeal. 

He is not thrilled about the cone thing which he'll have to wear for a week or so but other than that all's well. Thanks again to his amazing vet Dr. Rob Dana (Taylor Ranch Veterinary Hospital) who took extra special care of him!!!

Henry's Night in the Doggie 'Big House'

Henry's Night in the Doggie 'Big House'

For all who have been emailing me the past couple of days worrying about Henry... never fear, the amazing Houdini dog has reappeared. And yes, that is his mug shot above, I ordered several in wallet-size so let me know if you can't live without one. 

All last night I'm crazy worrying about him. I knew they'd put him in doggie lock up but I was so worried that he'd be traumatized or something... then I see this shot of him and I just started laughing. This huge smile. He actually had fun! What a little weirdo!

I run the dogs every morning out in the desert (dog parks are just soooo 90's. everyone with their designer water bowls...) and yesterday Hen just flies out of the car like a bullet in pursuit of a bunny (his fav pass time). I scream and yell - biscuit, biscuit, biscuitbiscuitbiscuitbiscuit... he just goes until he's a little blond speck on the horizon like, 'I'll see your biscuit and raise you one bunny." 

I call these things bunnies but they're high desert jack rabbits. Huge. They're half as big as he is and don't so much run as hang glide. He would freak out if he ever actually caught one. 

Lucy, my female caught a big, fat ground hog once in a New Jersey parking lot. Some of the ground hogs there are so fat they can hardly walk so Lucy, who doesn't ever really see a reason to run herself just walked up to the thing and tried to get it to play (apparently) I say apparently because I couldn't actually see any of this. 

All I could see was a brown furry basketball slowly rising and falling over the crest of a grass mound as Lucy gently tossed it up in the air trying to get it to play with her. I finally coaxed her away from the obviously stunned and shocked ground hog so it could waddle off and collect itself. 

She was so thrilled because it was the first time in her life she'd actually captured anything she was in pursuit of... except for the occasional tossed stick... which she just lays down and chews on. She is a retriever in name only, she has always taken the idea of actually retrieving something as a personal affront to her dignity, so I just don't push that whole fetch thing with her...

There's also the time they both chased this armadillo out into the desert in Texas and the Rattlesnake incident and the time Henry pissed off a Sea Lion in Fort Bragg, CA so bad just by looking at it that the thing jumped up on the dock in one ferocious movement and started screaming, snorting and chasing Henry down the dock (those suckers can move let me tell you - like a sumo coming at you 100 mph).

And those poor chickens in Alaska... that was a bad scene... a lot of you know the little old lady/dog of Chuckie incident that happened in Florida... I mean she had a walker for God's sake... and she just came up to the car wanting to pet them... so of course Hen is going to go into psycho barking mode (we call him Dog of Chuckie when he does that - eyes glazed, slavering, fangs gnashing against the glass, the whole nine) he nearly gave her a heart attack... but dogs don't know the difference between walkers and say semi-automatic weapons, little old ladies and gangsters... my dogs just do these things. Never a day without excitement. I don't know how but it's like they're trouble magnets. 

So anyway, when Henry wouldn't come back after about two hours of driving around looking for him I went down to my studio thinking he'll be so worried when he comes back to where the car's supposed to be and I'm not there. I'll show him... all day I kept checking. No Hen. 

So later that evening they called from the Albuquerque... what's the exact phrasing of their name? Animal Welfare Department, that's it. Even though I was quite traumatized by the whole ordeal as I pulled up to their building this morning to spring my delinquent son, the irony of their name or maybe it would be more accurate to say the sheer 1984-ness of their name, did not escape me. And t he blood curdling howls of the freshly neutered only added to the ambience. 

Oh, in case you still live in a non-insane city... 'sterilizing' your animal is a law here. Apparently, the overpopulation of house pets in this city at one point was bordering on pandemic. There were serious concerns for the welfare of the populous... from what I hear it would not be an exaggeration to say the citizens of Albuquerque were facing a plaque of house pets. 

So the bureaucrats put on their thinking caps and came up with this law and as is the case with most other committee-fied problem solving: The plague of house pets is now worse than ever. It is now in fact worse than most cities without such a law. Good thinking people. Keep up the good work.

But none of this good thinking is helping the Hen. He isn't neutered because he had seizures when he was a pup... not bad ones just this eye blinking thing that he does and then he tips over. He's been doing it since he was about 8 weeks old. When he was about 3 or 4 months old we were going to take him in to get him 'fixed' (at least with horses they're more honest about what they're doing and they call it 'breaking' them. refreshing.) anyway, I got a call from his breeder saying that two of the puppies had died under anesthesia while being neutered and both puppies also did the blinking thing.

After checking with everyone all the other dogs in the litter were okay but none of them did the blinking thing except Henry (and the two puppies that died) so the breeders' vet talked to our vet and they concluded that it's probably best not to put him under if at all possible - ever.

They ran tests and found nothing but generally concluded it's just best to not sedate him unless it's a life threatening situation. Neutering wasn't a law where we were living at the time (crazy liberals!) and I've always kept a close eye on him so no big deal. Oh, did I mention... He's TEN years old now. please. 

So as you can imagine they're forcing me to 'sterilize' him (that was my favorite term of the day). Well, thankfully I have the most fantastic vet on the planet - possibly the universe. (Dr. Rob Dana - @ Taylor Ranch Veterinary Clinic. Shameless plug but honestly he's the best vet - I would drive from New York to see these people!) So Doctor Rob sends a fax and talks to the vet over at the 'welfare' place and talks him into letting Hen go with me... 'intact'... as they say.

Earlier, they told me quote, unquote - that dog won't leave here 'intact'. sad, creepy, downright mean spirited, yes. and i know you're thinking i was probably acting badly or carrying on with them or something. nope. i smiled the whole time and didn't say a single thing. Not a harsh word was exchanged.

In fact, when i left they were all being so nice and laughing and the whole place was calling Hen 'the Houdini dog'. Maybe it's just me but I've never subscribed to the philosophy: Act like an ass first and apologize later if forced to at gun point... it's just uncool. All that neutering must go to their heads. 

But, all said and done they ended up being basically decent and I know their job has to be horrible, I mean euthanizing all those animals and dealing with people screaming at them all day. Very difficult i'm sure so i just figured they're just doing their job-o-matics... so I subscribed to the philosophy: I'll be as pleasant as possible but you will not put my dog under! done.

So Doc Rob had to promise their vet that he'd neuter Hen next Wednesday so in the meantime he's going to run some tests on him to see if he can prove to the 'humane', 'welfare' vet that Henry does indeed have some sort of neurological problem that would prevent his being 'fixed'. So hopefully he'll be able to find something conclusive because I just can't see the humanity in neutering a ten year old, pure bred Golden Retriever prone to seizures. I get the point of the 'no dog left intact' campaign but this is just bordering on insanity. Just another example of 'the system' running people instead of the other way around. 

I'll keep you all posted on Hen's manhood situation because I'm sure everyone'll be losing sleep over this one. So many of you have met my dogs at shows and I've blown off how many... Sam, Todd, Matt, Tina, Jeannie, Lisa, Earl in the last couple of days... & yes, a special thanks to Monica who offered to bake him a dog biscuit with a file in it. clever girl... my god do I need to go on? how many people have needed me to finish their commissions or track down paintings that my other favorite bureaucracy, USPS has temporarily 'misplaced'? Sorry everyone but I'm back on the job now. 

So here's Hen since we got home. He crawled onto his featherbed (okay... I found it. He's not so spoiled that I would buy the thing for him!) and he's been crashed for the last five hours in this exact position:

 

See the little pink pig under him? He grabbed it first, then laid down and fell asleep. What is it with that pig? He loves the thing. Carries it around all the time and offers it to me when I come home and I've been gone all day. He's such a character. It was horrible spending a night without him!! Thanks again everyone for all your support and understanding. Hen thanks you, too!

Coyotes at the Gates

© 2008 jberryart.com / Coyote Fence Morning

Well here I go again with more fences. Fences often appear in my work and here they are again...twice today.

© 2008 jberryart.com / Coyote Fence Moss    

These paintings remind me of coyote fencing. In Santa Fe you often see fences made of sticks, branches (or whatever) wired together to keep the coyotes out out of the yard so they don't eat the family dog (or any other member of the family for that matter).

So instead they sit on the other side of the fence and scream and howl until you are thoroughly awake, it's like they know instinctively exactly how long to keep at it...then they just go on down the arroyo and wake up someone else.

If they get too close to the house (like they did a couple of nights ago) Henry jumps up on my bed and stands right on top of me shivering all over! Here's his exact expression (we recreated it for you):

(Of course it's blurry because he's shivering)

Yeah, thanks O Great protector! A fat lot of good you are! Sometimes when I laugh at him too hard he gives a pathetic little boof under his breath for good measure. But he's no dummy, a pack like that would make short work of his fluffy little butt!

No Trespassing

I finished this one last night and didn't realize until this morning while varnishing it what the real inspiration behind it was. The markings at the bottom are reminiscent of fencing and I've always had fence and barbed wire imagery in my work, nothing new there. I suppose I find it intriguing in some way like, what's in there you don't want me to see? Curiosity and defiance or some such stuff.

But lately I'm very annoyed at this huge developer here in ABQ. He owns about a billion acres around the NW part of town and there are dozens of trails back in there and it's a nice place to let the dogs run and chase rabbits every morning.

So about a week ago this developer posted these enormous NO TRESPASSING signs - they're huge, about 6 or 7 feet wide. Now the only people I've ever seen back there is the occasional construction worker in his white truck cutting from one development project to another (and I've only seen 4 or 5 of them in the past year) and there's an older couple that live in a nearby subdivision that take their walk there every morning. (They look so SW even up close you'd swear it was O'Keefe and Stieglitz walking right toward you, tapping their walking sticks along the ground, no doubt talking about something artsy and terribly interesting.)

I think a few people, like me, run their dogs back there because I've seen the tracks but honestly who is this big-headed freak trying to keep out? Rogue bands of health conscious elderly people? Maliciously destructive, bunny chasing Golden Retrievers? Please.

Well, there must be 100 different trailheads that enter into this enormous chunk of land so we all just go in on trails that aren't marked and I suppose we'll just play dumb if he ever decides to enforce it. I don't see the old couple out there walking anymore so at least he's accomplished that much. Bravo, idiot! Keep up the good work. If nothing else at least he's inspired a good painting — I bet he'd hate to know that!