Canines Ride to Internet Fame on ‘Puppy Bus’
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- Category: State News
- Created on Thursday, 05 January 2023 15:36
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Chris Bieri
Anchorage Daily News
The dogs of Mo Mountain Mutts have caused a stir before.
Not by howling or barking, but by warming the hearts of canine lovers around the world.
The Mo Mountain Mutts dog walking business, owned and operated by Skagway resident Mo Thompson, has produced a few viral videos over the past year. But a video of four dogs being picked up by the Puppy Bus last month has become an undeniable sensation, receiving more than 48 million views on TikTok alone, not to mention other social media platforms.
The video, shot from the perspective of the bus driver, starts when a black and white German shorthair pointer mix named Jake hops on, meets Thompson, greets a few canine friends and finds his seat before his harness is secured. Amaru, a malamute mix, is waiting alone in the snow when the bus arrives, and quickly hops on and takes a seat. Bama, a black Lab, is next to be picked up and seated. Slade, a young St. Bernard mix, appears to be the most excitable but, after a few licks, takes a seat.
The whole scene unfolds in about a minute as the handful of dogs already on the bus excitedly wait for their friends and walking partners.
Dogs find their seats aboard Mo Thompson’s Puppy Bus in this screenshot from a viral video. (Photo from Mo Thompson TikTok video)
Thompson said people connect with the business’s videos on a lot of levels. But the most recent one has taken on a life of its own, with celebrities like “Schitt’s Creek” actor Dan Levy sharing it on Instagram. Earlier this week, Thompson interviewed with CNN.
One widely viewed version of the video presents the Puppy Bus pickup as the answer to the question: “What is your dream job?” On Instagram, a user commented: “I can’t cope with this. I’m logging off the internet for the rest of 2023. No need to see ANYTHING else for the rest of the year.”
“Somebody has a Lab or somebody has a pointer and they’re like, ‘That looks like my dog or that looks like their family’s dog,’’’ Thompson said. “It’s kind of like relatable because there’s so many different dogs on there, and then there’s just like, the super-mutts – all different shapes, sizes and ages. So I feel like there’s a dog to identify with (for everyone).”
The dog onboarding is remarkably orderly, which Thompson said comes with the routine of the daily walk. “Why can’t teenagers in high school act this way on a bus?” asked one Tik-Tok user.
“The ones that come regularly, they know the drill,” she said. “They know that they’ll get to do what they want faster if they’re calm and polite. So the newbies, like, you can see the older dogs basically rolling their eyes like ‘Come on, sit down so we can get our treat.’’’
Those who watch the videos have also picked up on the dogs’ wide-ranging personalities. Some appear very business-like, while others are more curious and playful. Many of the dogs in the video bypass Thompson altogether to hang with their friends.
“Some of them care about, like, saying hi to me, and some of them do not,” Thompson said with a laugh. “Some of them are like, ‘I’m here for the dogs and like, we don’t really care about you Mo.’”
The videos started organically, as a way for Thompson to share the dogs’ daily routine with their owners.
“I’ve been posting on Instagram and Facebook since the beginning because people will be like, ‘Where did you go? Who was my dog with? What did they do? How were they?’” she said. “So if I just posted a video of them on their walk and take a group photo at a destination, they’ll know where we went and what they were doing. Instead of answering the same question ... I just started using social media.”
Before the business took off and long before the Mountain Mutts became a social media sensation, Thompson was at a crossroads. She had initially made the decision to take on one group of dogs to walk, which she sandwiched between two jobs. She eventually took on a second group and continued more of her focus on trail dog walking and puppy training, which is also one of the business’s specialties. She started mostly walking dogs for seasonal workers, but as more dogs were adopted during 2020 and 2021, she expanded.
“I worked at my job less and less and went from full time to like, four days a week, down to two days a week,” Thompson said. “Every year it was just a little less. It started out as a seasonal thing only. And then COVID hit, and all of the dogs were needing to get socialized, and I kind of had a new niche. And that’s really what pushed me into it being a set job with the actual local community that lived here all year round.”
Now she’s up to five groups a day. Last year she hired her husband, Lee, to drive the bus and assist with other aspects of the business. At first they had a van, but when that broke down a little over a year ago, they upgraded to what is known as the Puppy Bus.
Thompson said she put out an SOS for a vehicle, and in the interim, they were walking from house to house to pick up the dogs. Temperatures dipped below zero, and they had to put a temporary halt on the walks. Finally they found the bus through Jeff Hamilton, who operates Hamilton Construction Skagway.
“He gave us a really good deal on it,” she said. “We actually were about to meet him, and we saw it, and we were like, ‘There’s no way we can afford that. That’s a nice bus.’’’
And that’s when they started finding larger audiences with their social media videos. One featured Lee Thompson as a city bus driver only to reveal the cargo of dogs at the end. Another showed Mo Thompson doing an impression of a flight attendant, handing out complimentary liver treats to all of the passengers. While some posts have neared 20 million views, none have approached the popularity of the bus pickup video.
With so many groups to walk, Thompson mixes up where she takes the dogs depending on a number of factors. She avoids taking large groups on trails with tighter passages or blind corners, opting instead for wide-open places. Puppies and younger dogs likely can’t go on more rigorous hikes, and there’s always an element of matchmaking that goes into the groups.
“You can’t just put any dog with any dog,” she said. “You really have to find the right energy matches and put dogs who are good with each other. Finding the right group setting, the right vibe and making sure the dogs have like the training that they need to be successful out on these walks, too, is very important.”
Thompson has established a website with a dog calendar for sale and merchandise is on the way. Lee Thompson said that while they’re creating more content for social media, they try to keep it as genuine as possible.
“I think the biggest thing is a lot of people that do the social media stuff, they really try to force content, they’re really trying to come up with something,” he said. “For us, it’s something we were really just already doing. So we don’t go greatly out of our way to make certain types of videos or anything. We just kind of do what we’re already doing.”
Legislators Expecting Little Abortion Action
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- Category: State News
- Created on Thursday, 05 January 2023 15:34
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By JAMES BROOKS
Alaska Beacon
Two weeks before the Alaska Legislature convenes in Juneau, members of the state House and Senate say they don’t expect much work this year on legislation involving controversial social issues like abortion and transgender rights.
“I think it’s safe to say that the social issues along those lines probably will not get a lot of movement,” said Rep. Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla.
Bills involving those topics will be introduced as soon as Monday, the first day that legislation prefiled ahead of the legislative session will be revealed to the public.
But with a bipartisan supermajority in control of the Senate and tight margins expected in the House, lawmakers say they don’t expect controversial bills to advance because Democrats will be positioned to block conservative legislation and Republicans will be able to block progressive items.
Rep. DeLena Johnson, R-Palmer, supports restrictions on abortion. She said she and other lawmakers have the right to introduce bills dealing with social issues, but she’s also pragmatic.
“The Dobbs decision is on everybody’s minds — has been nationwide,” she said of the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing states to ban abortion.
“Here in Alaska, I don’t think there’s any exception. There’s going to be interest in what people are going to do, but given our setup, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Nothing’s going to happen with that,” she said.
Anything that becomes law will require compromise and bipartisan support, as well as the consent of Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy. That can be tough to find: In the 32nd Legislature, 686 bills were introduced but only 111 became law.
Abortion-related legislation faces a particularly high hurdle here because the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that abortion access is protected by the privacy clause of the Alaska Constitution. Restricting abortion would require a new ruling from the court or a constitutional amendment. Dunleavy has said he will propose such an amendment, but passage requires a supermajority in the House and Senate.
“I can’t see anything too radical — either left or right — getting by the Senate, and if there’s a level of bipartisanship in the House organization, that’s just another roadblock for legislation that’s controversial,” said Rep. Dan Ortiz, I-Ketchikan.
Senate President Gary Stevens said members of the 17-person Senate supermajority will meet starting Thursday in Girdwood to begin considering their legislative priorities.
That work will continue through the start of the session on Jan. 17, he said.
“It’s going to be pretty much moderate issues that we deal with. No extreme issues, I wouldn’t think,” he said.
Stevens said his top priorities are avoiding overspending from the Alaska Permanent Fund and preventing the implementation of an income tax or a sales tax.
Beyond that, he said, he expects education funding, food security and state employee retirement to be big issues.
Those priorities are in line with those voiced by members of the Alaska House. Rep.-elect Dan Saddler, R-Eagle River, is returning to the House after serving four terms in the 2010s.
“The budget’s going to be big, the dividend’s going to be big again,” he said of items that will consume legislative time.
“You’ve seen a real push among the chattering classes about the need for education funding increases. Inflation is a much larger factor in Alaska state finances than it has been for the previous 20 years,” he said.
Alaska ended its pension program for new state employees in 2006, but the state has struggled to retain and recruit employees in recent years, and there is a push to revive a pension plan to encourage hiring.
A pension program for public safety workers passed the House last year but died in the Senate, and many lawmakers anticipate a revived push this year.
Rep.-elect Rebecca Himschoot, an elementary teacher from Sitka, is a nonpartisan first-term lawmaker who will be sworn into the House on the 17th.
“Defined benefits fits into any conversation I’m going to have about a state that provides the workforce and the services that community members need to thrive,” she said.
Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, said that defined benefits — the formal name for a pension plan — “needs to be and will be pushed forward in the House this time around.”
He said the “holy grail” issue for state lawmakers is agreement on a long-term fiscal plan, a theme echoed by other members of the House.
In 2021, a bicameral, bipartisan working group drafted the framework for a fiscal plan, which included a revised state spending cap, new formula for Permanent Fund dividend payments, budget cuts and new revenue.
Last year, lawmakers were unable to agree on the precise structure of any piece of a plan, and none passed into law.
The Dunleavy administration is expected to unveil a carbon-monetization program later this month, which could satisfy the call for new revenue, but multiple legislators said any idea along those lines is likely to take more than one year.
“It takes a while for people to learn about new ideas,” Johnson said.
She suggested the House Ways and Means Committee could be tasked with working on a fiscal plan, while Himschoot speculated that a special session focused on long-term fiscal issues might be warranted.
In either case, lawmakers believe it won’t be easy or quick to resolve this year’s session, even if social issues are off the table.
In 2017, the first year of the 30th Legislature, lawmakers needed four special sessions. Two years later, in the first year of the 31st Legislature, they needed two special sessions. In 2021, the first year of the 32nd Legislature, ––––
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Juneau Gets Back Land Meant for New Capitol
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- Category: State News
- Created on Thursday, 29 December 2022 14:33
- Hits: 298
By JAMES BROOKS
Alaska Beacon
The state of Alaska is returning to the City and Borough of Juneau a multimillion-dollar plot of land once envisioned for a new Capitol building.
On Tuesday, acting Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Vasilios Gialopsos signed an order transferring Telephone Hill, a historic residential area overlooking downtown Juneau, to the capital city.
The transfer was required under legislation written by Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, and passed by lawmakers earlier this year, ending an almost 50-year-old project intended to construct a new Capitol for the Alaska Legislature.
“It really needs to be in the hands of the city,” Kiehl said in August. “It’s going to lead to some better use of that parcel, with full public participation on what that looks like.”
The transfer won’t be final until city officials sign an affidavit releasing the state from liability, which would allow the deed to be signed over, said DNR natural resource specialist John King.
Juneau officials have already been considering their options, including using the property for a new city hall.
In October, local voters rejected a proposal to borrow $35 million to build that new city hall, but because the bonding proposition failed by less than 3 percentage points, city manager Rorie Watt said city officials believe voters may have liked the idea of a new city hall, just not the particular plan on the ballot.
Kiehl said he doesn’t care for the city hall idea.
“This is really prime real estate,” he said. “It could be anything from hotel and condo — various housing options, hopefully with an inclusive low-income element — to large-scale light commercial. I’m not inclined for that to be the city hall, though I do think Juneau needs to own its own much larger city hall.”
The residents of Telephone Hill are also concerned by the idea. Since Kiehl’s legislation passed, they’ve been in limbo and subject to unenforced eviction notices.
In September, resident Tony Tengs testified to the city assembly, saying it doesn’t make sense to demolish homes during a housing crisis.
Telephone Hill is Juneau’s oldest historic neighborhood, home to the oldest still-occupied house in Alaska, the Edward Webster House, built in 1882. Seventeen people live in the neighborhood’s seven properties, a city survey found in August. None of the homes in the area are eligible for historic recognition because they have been modified, but all date from before 1920 and are some of the oldest homes still standing in Alaska.
The neighborhood has been owned since 1984 by the state, which was considering construction of a new Capitol and acquired the site in anticipation. The city contributed $2 million to the state’s purchase of the properties on the hill, under the condition that it be developed for a new Capitol building.
That never happened, owing in part to the cost of the project and the unpopular result of a city-sponsored 2005 Capitol design competition. Meanwhile, the city charged the state interest on its $2 million investment. By 2008, the figure had reached $6.4 million, and the state and Juneau signed an agreement that said the debt would be forgiven if the land was given to the city.
When Gov. Mike Dunleavy entered office in 2018, he ordered a review of surplus state-owned land across Alaska, and Telephone Hill — then owned by the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities — was identified as a prime candidate for disposal.
After Kiehl’s legislation passed, DOT transferred Telephone Hill to DNR in preparation for the ultimate transfer to the city. That ended a decades-long leasing arrangement with the neighborhood’s remaining residents, who received eviction notices in August.
Those notices have never been enforced, and Watt said the city has no intention to do so. For the meantime, residents are on month-to-month leases with the city, which is also in charge of managing the property.
How long the status quo remains in place will be up to city officials once the local government takes full control.
“There are any number of good possibilities,” Kiehl said in August, “and frankly, the opportunities for redevelopment of any lot downtown are tremendous.”
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Thanks to the generosity and expertise of the the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska broadband department, Tidal Network ; Christopher Cropley, director of Tidal Network; and Luke Johnson, Tidal Network technician, SitkaSentinel.com is again being updated. Tidal Network has been working tirelessly to install Starlink satellite equipment for city and other critical institutions, including the Sentinel, following the sudden breakage of GCI's fiberoptic cable on August 29, which left most of Sitka without internet or phone connections. CCTHITA's public-spirited response to the emergency is inspiring.
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Sheldon Jackson College’s Service Programs and Civic Engagement Project is teaming up with One Day’s Pay to provide volunteer service in remembrance of Sept. 11. ... To join the effort contact Chris Bryner.
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From On the Go by SAM: The Greater Sitka Arts Council has issued its first newsletter – congratulations! Included with the newsletter is an arts event calendar.
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