Blog

Boone lunged toward the ball first – but he’s not a good catcher – so the ball bounced past me toward a steel and stone side-table, with Boone in pursuit. He pursued so hard, he smashed his face right into the edge of the steel table.

Last week, I was 100% sure I would be having Otto euthanized at today’s appointment with a veterinarian who provides hospice and home-euthanasia services....

I recently went on a vacation without dogs, for a whole week. My sister took care of my perfect, nine-year-old dog Otto, but my young adult son took care of my adolescent dog, Woody. It was a better fit because my son is an athlete and runs, and Woody would get enough exercise to keep him out of trouble.About 36 hours after I returned and met with my son and brought Woody home, I awoke to the sound of a dog about to vomit – you all know that sound. I jumped out of bed and ran to open the door and encourage the vomiter, who of course turned out to be Woody, to go outside. He lurched over to some tall grass and threw up. Then he went back into the house, climbed onto the couch, and went back to sleep. I went back to bed.I was way too tired to investigate the vomitus until after it was light out, later that morning. Here is what I found!

My dog Otto (now resting in peace) used to get a flare-up of allergies every spring. His body knew before any human in our...

Neither one of my dogs has ever been a beggar – haunting the kitchen or dining table, whining or nudging us in hopes of...

I'm the owner of two middle-aged dogs. I'm also a friend to many people with senior dogs with serious medical conditions. I've started worrying about my middle-aged dogs, especially Otto, my 70-pound wonder mutt / heart dog." (Small dogs live longer

This morning, I saw an obviously lost dog on the road. This isn't your standard farm or ranch dog – and in case there was any doubt at all, the fact that he was wearing a harness, to which a four-foot leash was attached, ruled out the likelihood that he was a local dog who had roamed off his property. Most likely, in my opinion, was that he was in the back of someone's truck, and rolled off when the person made the sharp turn onto or off of the nearby highway and onto or off of this bumpy farm-country road.

Is there anything as good as the perfect playmate for your young, playful dog? One who is about the same size and weight and has the same style of play as your dog? I'm dog-sitting my son's dog, Cole, for three whole weeks while he travels out of the country for his sport. Cole is a coonhound/Lab-mix, just about at the one-year mark - grown-up enough to not offend my now-seven-year-old Otto with his very presence on the planet, but young enough to still crave daily sessions of play.

One of the things I love about my favorite rescue group, the American Black and Tan Coonhound Rescue, is that the group is large enough and organized enough to offer people who want to help any number of ways to dive in and do something.Too many rescue groups depend entirely on one or three exhausted humans, who are run literally ragged, financially and emotionally spent, by the overabundance of dogs needing help and not enough people to do the work that needs to be done. Sometimes, this is attributable to the group's leaders, and their inability or unwillingness to cede control of certain tasks. But sometimes it's simply because they hadn't thought to ask people to take on small jobs. If you get enough people doing small things, it can truly add up to more dogs saved.

The professional" dog walkers have all but taken over all of the dog parks in the area

I've been fostering a litter of six puppies, who are probably only about five weeks old. And I think I have lost my mind. I'm tired, my sleep schedule is all off, I haven't walked myself or my own dogs for a week, I've been eating at weird times (and not with my husband), and I feel alternately so full of love for and weepy about these little guys (they are all boys!) . . . and it's only been a week. Talk about that new-mom feeling!

My very favorite part of social media is seeing photos and videos of dogs having a good time outdoors. Lately, I’ve been seeing a...