Our doorbell had the world’s worst clang. Interrupting my Saturday morning coffee with the newspaper made it even more annoying. Four children tall enough to see little more than my belt buckle were at the front door. The shortest, about 7, stepped forward, “Can Sam come out and play?” 

Lucy was a Cornish game hen, and she was brilliant. She came into my family's life in 1982, joining a long line of other non-traditional pets such as hamsters, guinea pigs, assorted birds, and even a tarantula. We always had a cat or three around, and a dog from time to time. I unabashedly admit that I was mo...

The game had no rules except one: follow Duke wherever he led. Each day with Duke, my half-collie and half-German shepherd companion, was a celebration as he led me across the mountain to hidden creeks where I drank icy water with my hands.

I am as sentimental about dogs as the next guy, maybe more so. My friendship with Joe Bob, my beloved McNab-border collie-kelpie, was so close that my late wife, Marylee, was just a bit jealous. When he came into my life, Joe Bob had been the longest incarcerated resident of Sequoia Animal Shelter. A former r...

King Salmon has a community of beach-goers, and dogs help build it. Jody and I are the retired couple with Lucy, the little white blind dog. Elisha’s pup Nova is tentative with people, but will allow a pat or two in exchange for a treat. John walks Xena to the beach twice daily. Xena’s a black Lab who swims b...

“Happiness is a warm puppy.” —Charles Schulz Charles Schulz knew a thing or two about dogs. After all, he created “Peanuts,” one of the most enduring and popular comic strips, in which a beagle is depicted with the same intellectual depth as his human counterparts.

Over the last 38 years or so, we have shared our home and life with six dogs. From Eddie the timid golden retriever in Ohio in 1988 to Stella the black Lab mix, who joined the household from underneath a Fieldbrook trailer in 2013, these are the dogs of our lives. They have all been rescue dogs in the sense t...