Humans Ed and Christy Scripps may still hold superior rank aboard

Zeehaen,

home port Seattle, but Daisy (peeking through a hawse pipe) is surely rising in rank, as cocker spaniels often do. So you might say that Daisy, our Fourth Dog of Christmas, is a “hawsepiper.”Here’s how Wikipedia defines the term:

Hawsepiper refers to climbing up the hawsepipe, a nautical metaphor for climbing up the ship’s rank structure. This is in turn derived from the traditional British Naval usage of “came up through the hawsehole,” referring to sailors who first entered the ship as foremast jacks before becoming officers, metaphorically by climbing up the hawser rather than being received directly onto the quarterdeck.

Welcome to Pets Aboard’s special “12 Dogs of Christmas” edition. With dozens of dogs in the queue, we decided that we would pick up the pace over the holidays. So every day between now and Jan. 5—the 12 days of Christmas—we will feature a new mutt.

Usually we do this Friday afternoon (or Saturday morning when we get behind), and since we have dozens of entries, it will take a while to post them all so be patient.

Send pictures of your dog or cat to [email protected], and we’ll put him or her on display like Daisy. Ideally you will include the names of the human companions, the make, model and name of boat, homeport, and a paragraph that provides context for the image or describes what makes your pet special. If you’ve got the image in high-resolution, that would allow us to publish it in the magazine, or a calendar…We just don’t know where this will lead yet, but it’s fun.

Though not exactly a contest, the editors are thinking of providing some kind of material reward to anyone who sends a truly striking image. Cute counts!