All Big Canines

06/19/2026

🌱 Monday Morning Nursery Hours at Esperanza's Sanctuary
📅 Every Monday · 7:00–11:00 AM
🌤️ Weather permitting
📍 Sky Valley
Start your week with us in the food forest.
Every Monday morning, our nursery is open for you to:
🌿 Browse our small but mighty selection of food-producing plants
🪴 Pick up our site-made compost
🌳 Take a stroll through the food forest
❓ Ask all your plant questions no judgment, just answers
Whether you're a seasoned grower or you just killed your first basil plant, come see us. We love this stuff and we love sharing it.
🐓 Finding us: Follow your GPS and look for the 6 foot rooster. You can't miss him. If you don't see the rooster, you haven't arrived yet. Keep going.
See you Monday. ☕🌱

06/16/2026

Tonight is the Desert Hot Springs City Council meeting and your voice belongs in that room.
The agenda includes items that will shape this city for decades. Warehouse and logistics center
development along the Palm Drive corridor. Data centers. Plans that without specificty and enforcement ordinances can lead to data centers & ice detention. Flock surveillance cameras going up across the city. The future of local small businesses and what kind of economic development Desert Hot Springs actually wants to invite in.
These decisions affect air quality, water use, traffic, public safety, and the character of this community.
They affect working families, renters, people who have lived here for generations, and people who just arrived.
If you can be there, be there. Public comment is your legal right and it is one of the most direct forms of civic power you have. You do not need to be a lawyer or a homeowner or have anything figured out. You just need to show up and say what you see. If you cannot attend in person, you can email the city council. The agenda packet is available at cityofdhs.civicweb.net/document/117097 so you can read exactly what is being discussed before you write.Desert Hot Springs deserves development that serves the people who live here. Come say so tonight.

Share this post with every Desert Hot Springs neighbor you know.

06/15/2026

Here is what happens when you buy eggs, compost, plants, or native wild flower seeds from Esperanza's Sanctuary.
Your purchase feeds the chickens, which produce eggs and manure. The manure goes into our
composting system. The compost feeds the garden beds. The garden beds grow the plants we sell and giveaway in our outreach and workshops,and the food we recover and share with neighbors. The food scraps go back to the chickens. Round and round.
When you enroll in dog training or behavior services, that revenue supports the food and on going care for the animals,maintain the sanctuary, and keep the whole system running.
Nothing is wasted here. Everything feeds something else. And every dollar you spend closes the loop a little tighter.


Come meet the system in person every Saturday at the Palm Springs Certified Farmers Market, 401
South Pavilion Way, 8 AM to 1 PM.

06/15/2026

Most people in shelter and boarding environments are trying their hardest. They are also working with a framework that was never designed to reduce Fear, Anxiety, and Stress in dogs.
Here is what FAS actually looks like in practice. A dog at Level 0 or 1 is relaxed, accepts treats easily, and has loose body language. By Level 2 or 3 you are seeing lip licking, ears back, avoidance of eye contact, restless movement, a furrowed brow. That is the intervention point. That is the moment to offer a break,remove the dog from the stressor, and let them decompress before returning them to the group.
By the time a dog reaches Level 4 or 5, learning is no longer happening. The dog is in survival mode.
Dilated pupils, freezing, excessive panting, escape behavior, or active aggression. At that point the dog cannot hear you, cannot learn from you, and cannot benefit from training.
A lot of what gets labeled as bad behavior in shelters and boarding facilities is actually a stress signal.
Excessive barking is often a dog trying to self-regulate an overwhelmed nervous system. Mounting is frequently a self-soothing response to arousal, not a dominance behavior. Destructive digging is an anxiety outlet.
Esperanza's Sanctuary offers professional FAS mitigation consulting for shelters and rescues. We help facilities assess their environment, train their staff to read behavioral cues accurately, and create systems that reduce baseline stress for every animal in their care.
Watch our full breakdown on daycare and boarding facilities (there is a lot of overlap) YouTube: https://youtu.be/YlwbhhF9KRM?si=OXPolrHxKpNFhrk2


If you run or work in a shelter, rescue, or boarding facility and want to talk about what a consult
looks like, send us a message.

06/15/2026

Our tiny pantry at 22600 Larsen Lane in Sky Valley is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No
appointment. No ID. No judgment.
If you need it, it is there. If you have something to give, drop it by. Right now we also have a previously
loved toaster oven and a toaster sitting up front in need of a new home. First come, first served.
This is what community looks like. Not a waiting list. Not an application. Just neighbors taking care of
neighbors.


Share this post so someone who needs it can find it.

06/13/2026

today until 1pm come get your plants, seeds, compost, compost tea and ask all your desert gardening questions at the Palm Springs Certified Farmers Market 401 s pavillion

06/09/2026

I asked for the City of Desert Hot Springs's emails about water and development. They gave me years of records. Read what I found before tonight's planning commission meeting.
This is not about the Snider Logistic Center specifically. This is about everything that had to happen across this city for a million-square-foot project to show up at a planning commission tonight with no water supply assessment, three different parcel numbers in the same packet, and a fire department saying in writing they cannot keep up.
For years, Desert Hot Springs has been trying to solve a water and sewer problem. The problem is simple: CVWD holds the service territory but MSWD is closer and cheaper for developers. City leadership has been working behind the scenes to change that. These are not my claims. These are their own emails, produced through a public records request.
In 2021, Mission Springs Water District told a broker in writing that MSWD could serve the entire east side of Palm Drive from Dillon to 18th Avenue if those parcels were annexed.
In 2022, the previous Desert Dunes developer was emailing MSWD with the DHS City Manager copied, working through how to get wastewater routed to MSWD infrastructure.
In May 2024, DHS City Manager Doria Wilms told their economic development consultant that the challenge on a major warehouse project in the city is utilities, which could be provided by MSWD but CVWD wants to provide water at a cost. Her words. A public record. See the screenshot.
In July 2024, City Manager Frank Luckino emailed MSWD General Manager Brian Macy directly saying the city needed clarity on the CVWD/MSWD agreement because they had a couple of developments with cost issues related to extending to CVWD facilities. Macy wrote back that the City has played a significant role in getting CVWD to the table both figuratively and literally.
In October 2024, Luckino emailed his own planning director: Good news, the water district has had a meeting with CVWD and they want MSWD to annex that area.
In October and November 2025, Suzanne Charnley of Land Forward CA, representing Blue Fern Development on the Movida project, was scheduling meetings with the DHS City Manager about getting MSWD and CVWD to cooperate on sewer service for specific properties. Shane Bouchard of Blue Fern was included on the invite. This is the same period CVWD and DHS arranged their November 6 closed 2x2 meeting with Jim Barrett and Director John Aguilar.
In November 2025, DHS City Manager Wilms told the chief of staff to Assemblymember Greg Wallis that MSWD and CVWD are still engaging and we should know by the end of December if there will be a workable path.
In February 2026, CVWD General Manager Jim Barrett signed an unauthorized Letter of Intent handing ID-8 to MSWD. No board vote. No public hearing. The CVWD Clerk confirmed in writing there are no authorization records.
In April 2026, MSWD General Manager Brian Macy forwarded the ID-8 consolidation resolution and the Letter of Intent directly to DHS City Manager Doria Wilms and City Engineer Daniel Porras. The city was in the loop on the grant application the same week the community learned it existed.
That is the citywide backdrop. Now look at what is on the agenda tonight.
The Snider Logistic Center on Calle de los Romos, on the west side of Desert Hot Springs, is being presented as a logistics warehouse. 1,002,109 square feet. The fourth project of this scale in the city. The planning commission is being asked to approve it tonight with no water supply assessment, three different parcel numbers across the same packet, an environmental baseline from 2019 that predates three warehouses already operating, and a fire department condition in the packet acknowledging cumulative adverse impacts that cannot be mitigated.
I am not saying this is a data center. I am saying it does not add up as a simple logistics warehouse. The commission should be able to tell you what the tenant will do in that building. What the water draw will be. What the electrical load will be. Whether there will be battery storage or server rooms. Whether the expansion provision in the packet has been fully analyzed. Can they answer those questions tonight?
Desert Hot Springs is prime placement for a data center. It has available industrial land, I-10 proximity, and a water governance fight already in motion that would shift water authority from CVWD to MSWD. Coachella just cancelled its data center contract and passed a moratorium. Indio passed a moratorium. The planning commission tonight should be asked to support a moratorium on data centers in Desert Hot Springs until the community has had a real conversation about what that means for water, for fire service, and for the people who live here.
Show up tonight if you can. Desert Hot Springs Planning Commission. If you cannot show up, file public comment. If you cannot do that, share this post so someone who can show up sees it.
Public records are truth. Pull them yourself.

06/07/2026

We need volunteers. Every day. For real.

This is not a once a month thing or a special event ask. Esperanza's Sanctuary has daily needs and we are looking for people who want to be part of something ongoing. Even if what you have is only a little time each month or its just assisting in things from your home. Trust when we say there is a place for everyone.

Here is what we need help with right now:

Animal care and enrichment. Egg collection and packaging. Garden and native plant work. Compost maintenance. Food recovery runs. Farmers market prep (our first market is June 13 in Palm Springs!). Photography and social media. General sanctuary tasks.

We also welcome people who need to fulfill community service hours. Court requirements, school requirements, probation. You are welcome here, no questions about why, just glad you are here.

Sign up directly at the link below. Pick a day. Pick a task. We will be there.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0445A8AC22A4FAC43-64344735-volunteer

Please review the available slots below and click on the button to sign up. Thank you!