Dog for Life

So the lovely writer Anne Bowen and I were talking about dogs, because she has a picture book coming out in the spring that was inspired by her dog River, who died a few months ago. She misses him terribly, because he was, for her, that special dog. The Dog for Life. You know. The one who gets to you the most out of all the fabulous dogs who get to you.

Who was that dog for you? Or cat? Because, yeah, there are Cats for Life, too. In spite of what my son Dylan thinks.

Empty Nesters, pt. 1

Here's the dealio about LIFE: you never know how a thing's gonna be until you actually experience that thing. If you have a good imagination, you can figure out part--sometimes even a lot--of it before hand. Still, when you're in the thick of a new experience, some things surprise you.

For instance, I realize I now have to build extra time into any departure strategy from the house, because the dogs need to be let out and also retrieved before I take off. I used to have back up. I could say to Geoff or Q, "Hey, Geoff or Q! Let the dogs out for me, okay?"

But I can't do that now that one of them lives in Provo and the other one lives in Logan.

There's a thing I didn't expect. See what I mean?

An observation about dogs

So Geoff and I were driving home last night after seeing the grandbaby (she's in town! staying with her fab grandmother Karin!) when we saw a guy out walking a dog wearing one of those dog coats. Geoff snorted and went I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE PUT CLOTHES ON DOGS. DON'T THEY KNOW DOGS ARE MADE OUT OF FUR?

I loved that--dogs being made out of fur.

Also, it feels good to use the shift key like that. So good.

Going to the dogs

Really, there's no better present than a book. My husband, Ken, gave me THE MODERN DOG by Stanley Coren (he went to four different bookstores on Christmas Eve to find it--so it's a book with a story in more ways than one!) and I've been reading random bits of it. Anyway. I'm kind of in heaven. The book is full of interesting little factoids (most playful dogs include English springer spaniels and miniature poodles, least playful dogs include bloodhounds and bulldgos), as well as a lot of great anecdotes. Coren's style is friendly and unaffected, making him easy to read.