My Blog

Part 2: My Nine-Year-Old Daughter Has Down Syndrome and Ate Lunch Alone Every Day. Our New Golden Retriever Started Waiting at the School Gate for Her — and Did Not Miss a Single Afternoon, Even in the Worst Storm of the Year. I Found Out Why He Never Failed.

May 26, 2026

Part 2 I need to tell you how we got the dog, because the way we got the dog turns out to be the whole story, and I did not know that for almost a year. We got our Golden Retriever in the summer before last — so, the summer before the school year I…

Part 2: An Eight-Year-Old Boy Was Lost in the Colorado Mountains for Eighteen Hours. The Search Dog Who Found Him Was Not a Search Dog at All — He Was My Rescue Pit Bull, and I Only Brought Him Because He Was Good With Kids.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 The missing boy’s name was Caleb Foss. He was eight years old. He was visiting the area with his family — they were not locals; they were from Phoenix, up for a long weekend, staying at a rental cabin near the Hermosa Creek trailhead. Caleb had wandered off on a Saturday afternoon. It…

My Father Has Advanced Alzheimer’s and No Longer Knows My Name, My Mother’s Name, or His Own. There Is Exactly One Word He Has Never Lost. The Night He Forgot Everything Else, That Word Walked Five Miles to Find Him.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 I need to tell you about Biscuit, and about how my father and Biscuit found each other, because the how of it turns out to matter at the very end. Biscuit is not a young dog. Biscuit is, the vet estimates, about eleven years old now. He is a Labrador-and-something mix — black,…

Part 2: An Old Dog at Our Shelter Carried the Same Toy to Every New Puppy, Then Walked Back to His Empty Kennel Alone. We Did Not Understand Why That Toy — Until We Found His Surrender Paperwork From Six Years Ago.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 I want to tell you exactly what Gunner did, because for six years we watched it and softened it into something sweet, and the truth underneath it was not sweet, it was something much larger. Ridgeline takes in a lot of puppies. We are a county shelter in a rural-ish part of Tennessee,…

Part 2: I Found a Starving Pit Bull on a Wisconsin Lakeshore and Took Him Home. Every Night at Eleven O’Clock, He Sat at the Door and Stared North for Two Hours. Eight Months Later, a Phone Call Told Me What He Was Looking At.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 I want to tell you about the eight months I had Lake before the phone call, because you need to understand the ordinary, good shape of those months to understand what the strange thing in the middle of them turned out to mean. Lake healed. It took time — it took most of…

Part 2: Two Men Stopped Me on My Bicycle to Rob Me of the Jewelry in My Bag. I Put My Hands Up. Then the Twelve-Pound Dog Who Rides in My Bike Basket Did Something That Cost Me Eight Thousand Dollars — and Six Months Later, Put Both of Them in Court.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 I need to tell you how Karat came to me, because the how of it matters to the kind of dog she turned out to be. Eight years ago, on an ordinary afternoon, a woman came into my shop. She was not a customer. She was carrying a cardboard box, and in the…

Part 2: For Seven Years, a Golden Retriever Rode the School Bus With Me Every Morning and Sat in My Seat Because I Cannot See Well Enough to Drive. When His Owner Died and the New Driver Banned Him From the Bus, I Did Not Yet Know That a Law Would One Day Put Him Back On It.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 I have to tell you how the dog came to be named Bus Driver, because the name tells you everything about Harold, and Harold matters to this story even though Harold is gone. Harold got the dog as a puppy, about a year into his own years of driving the bus, and Harold…

Part 2: Every Time I Said One Specific Name Out Loud, My Rescue Pit Bull Got Up, Walked to the Door, and Sat Down to Wait. I Did Not Know Anyone by That Name. Then I Asked the Shelter Who His First Owner Had Been.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 I want to tell you exactly how I discovered it, because it took me a while to even believe it was real. I live alone, or I did then, and a man who lives alone with a dog talks to the dog, and talks to himself, and talks on the phone, and the…

Part 2: I Adopted a One-Eyed Pit Bull That Nobody Wanted, and When My Friends Laughed at His Face, I Told Them Something I Did Not Yet Know Was About Myself. Eight Months Later, His Missing Eye Saved a Child’s Life.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 I need to tell you about myself, a little, because you cannot understand why I chose Wink, or why the sentence I said about him mattered so much, without knowing one thing about me. I have a scar. I have had it since I was eleven years old. It runs along the left…

Part 2: I Adopted a Retired Military German Shepherd Who Lost His Right Ear to a Blast in Afghanistan. I Lost My Right Leg to a Blast in Afghanistan. We Did Not Find Out, Until We Read His File Together, That It Was the Same Blast.

May 26, 2026

Dog Story

Part 2 I want to tell you about military working dogs, briefly, because most people do not know how this works, and you need to know it to understand the rest. Military working dogs are soldiers. I do not mean that as a sentimental flourish; I mean it as a fact of how they are…