Dear _______, I was recently one of thousands of people to see your classified ad about rehoming your dog, and I thought others might benefit from this experience.
Category: Life
“It means forever, and that’s a mighty long time.” Prince, “Let’s Go Crazy”
Categories
No, You Can’t Have a Wolfdog
One of the lesser-known challenges faced by animal welfare organizations is what to do with wolf dogs (or, as we referred to them, wolf hybrids).
Categories
Their Favorite Mom
The other day my daughter shared some letters she had written to each member of her family, including one to her birth mother, who is dead, and one to me. The letter to me was heartfelt and said how much she loved me. The letter to her birth mother, which she wanted me to read, […]
I’ve been watching Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. I’ve laughed, cried, felt my heart soar and ache, and wondered how it is that fiction can be so deeply touching. I keep coming back to something Emily Gilmore says; I wonder how this character, this fiction, has struck me so thoroughly in the heart. She […]
Not all of us have had ideal parents, and sometimes long after we’re out of their sphere of influence, the damage they’ve done remains. I certainly fall into the category of someone who still is affected by what happened in her childhood, and the damage was enough that I worried that I’d do the same […]
Categories
Caregiving: Fight Song
This has been the song on constant repeat. The soundtrack to my coming out of hibernation. The tune that I have reached for as I feel myself turning into a ball of stress. Winter has come and gone. Spring has bobbed ever closer; no longer a speck on the horizon, but a season that has […]
Categories
Never Buy a Puppy From a Pet Store
In rescue I worked very hard to be diplomatic; in this column less so. Still, this one might be one for the record books. Here goes: if you buy a puppy from a pet shop, you are encouraging animal cruelty.
Categories
Volunteering at the Farm
Turns out, Pippi Longstocking inspires the strangest people. For January, I’ve been staying and helping out in a small farm in Ontario, Canada that looks like Pippi was at the very least involved with the building of it. The owner and his tenants could definitely be the “Where Are They Now?” of the stories from […]
Categories
Unintentional Dog Commands
With most foster dogs, training really means acclimating them to living in a house, housebreaking, teaching them to go up stairs. It’s really just about getting them to understand the basics — anything else is up to the adopters, or at least that’s how I viewed it.
I think most people have figured out that New Year’s resolutions rarely succeed, for a lot of reasons including the fact that you are probably hungover the day you start them. However, I’ve got one everyone should do.
Categories
Would You Let Your Dog Fly Cargo?
One of the issues dog owners face is that when they move, they need to figure out how to get their dogs to the new location. Most of the time this is accomplished by automobile; sometimes, though, it needs to be done by airplane.
Categories
Tell Me About “Hey Girl,” My Friends
I’ve reached out to the PMag readership once before for advice on tights, and it was good stuff. I am yet again asking for counsel, and this time it’s about the greeting, “Hey, girl.”
Categories
The USA Stole My Boyfriend
This is the undesired ending to a two-year-long story.
Categories
The ‘End of Year List’ List
Love them or hate them, end-of-the-year roundups are now just an essential part of December. Everything that we can rank the best of, will be ranked and then vehemently disagreed with in the comment sections.
Categories
Someone to Watch Over Me
I never set out to have a protective dog, but soon after I adopted Chowder, my orange* Chow, I realized that I had one nonetheless. He had certain behaviors that revealed this. He would become extremely agitated on a walk if we encountered another dog and I was closer to the dog than he was. […]