When my dad flew out for Thanksgiving, I couldn’t wait to show him my new home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He couldn’t wait to buy me a chain saw! So began a new phase in our father-daughter relationship.

Dad lives in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, where owning a chain saw is right up there with having a good 4-wheel-drive pickup. It’s where he taught me to water ski, drive a stick shift and climb glaciers, even though I preferred my mom’s lessons of cooking, cleaning and, especially, shopping.

So I didn’t mind the trip to Scotts Valley’s hardware store on Black Friday. But to get a chain saw? And an ax? Were those really necessities?

Well, yes. And leave it to nature to build my dad’s case.

We arrived home late the next night, after dining in San Francisco and reveling in the crowds at Union Square. Half of Scotts Valley was in the dark, thanks to high winds and downed power lines. We started up the driveway to my house and were greeted by ever larger branches on the road, until they turned into two huge trees that blocked the way entirely.

With just the light of my cell phone, we picked our way around the wreckage and trekked up to the house. The next morning, nothing could have made Dad happier than to discover that the downed trees were oaks. He’d been bemoaning the fact that I had only redwood limbs to burn in my stove. Oak is the stuff real fires are made of, apparently.

So I discovered the true meaning of living in the mountains — and being my father’s daughter. That chain saw was exactly what we needed to cut the trees into foot-long chunks and split them in fourths with the ax. And now? I have a full stack of the best firewood around to get me through the winter.

Another first in my year of firsts. Thanks, Dad! And for the record, never let it be said I’m not a true Montanan at heart.

Now for the dogs

My most recent column about Chancey (“In defense of carrying small dogs,” Nov. 27) drew a firestorm of comment on our Web site. Last time I looked, 96 postings were left for me on the bottom of the story.

Commenters from across the country asked not only for my head but for my job, suggesting, I suppose, that I fire myself, since there’s no one else around to do it. They also suggested that I be fined and sent to jail for parading my dog as a true service dog and then bragging to the world about it.

One of the rare folks who came to my defense was a friend, Lee, from Kentucky. He never goes anywhere without his black eye patch and service dog, Baby, who works with him in hospitals, hospice and drug rehab clinics.

They’ve traveled everywhere together, including trips to visit me in California. Lee knows how much I love animals and how I’ve rescued so many that I named my last home Lost Dogs Farm.

He understood my intentions. But service dog people are touchy, he said, because of those who try to pass off their regular dogs as legal service dogs that are trained and certified to perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability. Those people try to get them into hotels and on planes and even go so far as to use their pseudo-service mutts for drug transportation. Not good.

I used the term “service dog” as a metaphor, with the intention of highlighting the comfort that dogs give us humans. But some people thought I was flip with the term and with the very serious job that service dogs perform.

If nothing else, I hope my column opens the conversation about what a service dog is and isn’t. I know I learned something.

• Year of Firsts is an occasional column by Cheri O’Neil Matthews, publisher of the Press-Banner, who moved recently to Scotts Valley. She’s a longtime newspaper editor/reporter and vice president of the California Press Association. Reach her at cheri@pressbanner.com or 334-6300.