A Note From Patrick: Holidays 2023

Dear readers,

Is it the Holiday newsletter already? Wow. What a fast and interesting year it’s been. Way back in January, Heart To Heart, my collaboration with the Dalai Lama, was published. And in April I had the opportunity to travel to Dharamshala, India, and present the book to His Holiness in person.

In September I became part of the Marvel Universe with the publication of The Super Hero’s Journey, my "collaboration” with comic book legends Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko.

And, on November 1, the Guard Dog story began in the MUTTS comic strip running in newspapers and on www.the-mutts.com. I’m so appreciative and moved by your responses to Guard Dog and Doozy’s journey. Thanks for all your support. I have a lot more to say about that, so will be writing a separate letter about Guard Dog and will be sending it out soon.

While I was completing the art for the Guard Dog and holiday strips, the 2023 leg of my tour for The Super Hero’s Journey was also wrapping up. It was fun to again travel to speak about a new book and meet so many MUTTS readers who could relate to the book’s themes: growing up reading Marvel super hero comics and the inspiration and impact of art. This tour took me to NYC, Baltimore, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, and Miami.

This weekend, on Saturday, December 2, I’ll be in conversation with Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber at the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice in Princeton, NJ. He’s an insightful interviewer and I’m looking forward to it.

And on the following Saturday (December 9), there will be a reception for a print exhibit of my environmentally themed MUTTS comic strips in Princeton at D&R Greenway’s Johnson Education Center.

Then I’ll be home catching up and decorating the tree. 

Wishing you and your loved ones the merriest of holidays. Let’s look forward to an even better 2024.

Patrick

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— Alison Datko

Comments (64)

Please set Guard Dog free and give him a happy home. He deserves it. It is time. You can create a new story line to bring awareness – which I fully support – but Mutts is not only about raising awareness it is about love for and the preciousness of all animals. Guard Dog deserves all the love that Mutts stands for and that means granting his wish and giving him his happy ending!! Please.

Ginny & Muggie

Thank you, Patrick, for raising awareness about the cruelty of chaining dogs outside. No animal, or person, deserves to be treated cruelly. But dogs are pack animals, and so the isolation is very hard on them. Our dogs have so much love to give us! Let’s treat them like members of our families.

Barbara Sutton

Patrick,
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and God Bless you and your loved one. Every day a short prayer I say is, “God Bless the Beasts and the Children and keep them all from harm.” Thank you for Mutt’s and your wisdom.
Peace🌲

Ernie DeCaro

My parents got our first family dog when I was 5 years old. Bonnie, a black cocker spaniel, died 14 years later. Bonnie roamed the family’s neighborhood in Vermont, watching over my straying little brother. Children and dogs were safe in their wandering in the 1950s there. That stopped a few years later when we moved to Ohio. It’s wonderful to follow Patrick and his neighborhood gang of dogs and children who all know each other.

Jude Preissle

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, we always had dogs, and we always had yards that were fenced in well so that the dogs couldn’t dig underneath or get through any holes in the fences, and they were high.

We did have a dog named Nikki who was a rescue and who jumped the fence each night, but he’d always be home in the morning, after visiting his girlfriends, my parents always said. He was too tired to jump back over. Yet he never failed getting home.

My dad worked shift work, and when he worked overnight shifts, Nikki would stay home. He knew it was his job to stay home and take care of Mom and my brother and me because Dad was out.

My parents would never have dreamed of chaining up Nikki, though, and they never did so to any of our other dogs. Mom and Dad never said anything about it except for once when I found out that a friend of mine’s parents chained up one of their dogs. Mom and Dad said then that a dog should never be chained up without being able to move about freely in their own yard, and that a yard that contained a dog should have a good fence and plenty of room for a dog to run around. They said that if a yard wasn’t big enough, then a dog should be taken out for walks regularly. Their example and those words always made it clear that no one should ever chain up their dog. It’s not at all fair to the dog.

I’ve also watched plenty of Pit Bulls And Parollees and seen too many dogs in that show who were chained up before being rescued to think that’s any kind of life for any dog or any other creature. One or two dogs in that show who’d been chained up stand out more than the rest because of how massive their chains were. Like chains for boat anchors! Horrific!!

Guard Dog’s story has touched me so deeply and I eagerly await to see what will happen now that Ozzie will be brought into the situation.

Mutts is one of three daily emails that I eagerly open each day. All are animal related. Mutts is the one I’ve been receiving the longest. Thanks, Patrick.

Michelle

Years ago, on the Mutts site, I started calling out to “FREE GUARD DOG!!!” After a while, someone from his team responded to me that Patrick’s mission, having Guard Dog chained, was to bring awareness to everyone about the plight of “Guard Dogs” everywhere. So, I took it upon myself to start my own personal FREE GUARD DOG! mission. I joined an organisation in New Mexico called NMDog. One of their driving missions is to make it illegal to chain or tether dogs on one’s property. After years of protests, speeches, & letters it is now illegal in Santa Fe County (SF being the capital city) to chain/tether dogs (small steps!). I also began donating to several organisations that mainly rescue abandoned & chained dogs. I have five rescue dogs of my own- three I personally saved from abusive situations by negotiating with the owners who were happy to give their unloved dogs to me. I’ve been an avid reader of Mutts since its inception often sharing the day’s panel on FB & cutting from the newspaper my favorites to tape to my walls. The one that really got me going on my mission was Guard Dog looking up at the moon saying how he guards his family & their home, but how does one guard against a broken heart? Even thinking about that one starts me crying! My FB page is now daily covered with Guard Dog’s story with my own plea: “If you know of a Guard Dog in your neighborhood, or have a Guard Dog of your own, PLEASE unchain him! Friends don’t chain their best friends!” Thank you, Mr. McDonnell for ALWAYS being a voice for the Animals & for kick starting MY mission.

Catharine J Orellana

I am SO GLAD I found out I could get Mutts each day through email. Our local newspaper is not published on a daily basis anymore so I was missing out…. Now I can keep up with “the pack” each day! I look forward to the conclusion of Guard Dog’s storyline. ❤️

Martha Carson

For many years now my MUTTS email is the first one I open. As a rescuer, Guard Dog’s plight has always wrenched my soul. That cartoon dog hurts my heart as much as the real dogs on chains hurt my heart. Guard Dog gives millions of chained dogs a voice. That is beyond priceless. Thank you…

Julia L Sharp

I am SO GLAD I found out I could get Mutts each day through email. Our local newspaper is not published on a daily basis anymore so I was missing out…. Now I can keep up with “the pack” each day! I look forward to the conclusion of Guard Dog’s storyline. ❤️

Martha Carson

I can’t look at the moon in the sky without thinking of Guard Dog and praying that he and all other chained/penned/abandoned animal find the friendship, love and care they deserve. Thank you for sharing this heartfelt story. I can’t imagine how you feel each time you create a strip about him and all the shelter animals. Maybe one day, you’ll be able to bring the story of all of them to a very happy ending – a day when all beings, both in art and in life, are free and loved.

Kit Mellema