Unless You Look Really Deep

图片取自 The Fifth Paw

　　She looked him up on the computer and then conferred with an associate. The She went in the back and didn't reappear for at least ten minutes. There was clearly an issue with Junior.

Doorbells

图片取自 The Fifth Paw

　　But when we lived in Santa Monica, the absolute worst day of the year, every year, was Halloween. We lived in a neighborhood with a lot of families with little kids.

　　Kids who went trick-and-treating.

　　Kids who rang doorbells.

I Felt Like Tom Hanks

图片取自 The Fifth Paw

　　At the first sign of the barking during those interviews, I would hide in a room with the doors closed. They haven't invented doors that could keep out the kinds of sounds our dogs could generate, but they helped a little.

Annie

图片取自 The Fifth Paw

　　Of the three hundred or so dogs that we've had in our home as pets, I can give you an exact count of how many have preferred me to Debbie.

　　Three.

　　And Annie was one of them.

Total Nuts

图片取自 The Fifth Paw

　　It's a myth that dogs shed when the weather goes from cold to hot so that they'll be more comfortable in the summer. The truth is that they shed 365 days a year, twenty-four hours a day. I have no idea where all the hair comes from; maybe the groomer uses Rogaine on them. Otherwise they would be bald by now.

171 E-mails from Strangers

图片取自 The Fifth Paw

　　On our forth night in the hotel I got an e-mail from a reader in Maryland, who asked if we were anywhere near the fires. She described herself as a dog rescue person, and was of course concerned about the dogs.

Just for a Little While Longer

图片取自 The Fifth Paw

　　We took her on vacation to Carmel and stayed in Doris Day's dog-friendly hotel. We went to Zuma, Tara's favorite beach in Malibu, three times a week. But she gradually started to slow down; walks becoming shorter, and her breathing was becoming heavier and more labored. While Debbie and I noticed it, neither of us would admit it, and Tara's occasional good days provided sustenance to our denial mechanism.