There was a time, years ago, when a wild beast came to live with us over Thanksgiving weekend.  She ripped plants from their pots, barked at the cat, peed on the floor (but never outside), and drove Argo into a nervous tizzy.  We changed her name to Stella and worked desperately to find a way to understand her. Eventually she got better. It was a rocky start, but after the first year, Argo and Stella melded into a funny little team. Argo taught Stella how to be a dog.  She watched and copied. They ran around the yard playing a strange game of tag only they know the rules to.  When they … [Read more...]

I've been mostly absent from the internet for the past few weeks. It's hard to dive back in without an explanation, and oh, this is so hard for me to explain. Argo was diagnosed with terminal cancer a few weeks ago. We rushed him out to a specialist in Buffalo and spent days getting opinions and second opinions. J, Stella and I crowded into Argo's inpatient kennel for visiting hours, holding his paw, rubbing his belly, feeding him every favorite food we could procure on our binge trips to Wegmans. In the end, there's nothing we can do to fix him. We didn't think we'd be able to take him … [Read more...]