We first met Frida, a dog at the very heart of my family for the last 15 years, when she was part of the reason for the watermelon-sized belly on the bedraggled, ready-to-burst pregnant beagle, a stray rescued by PHS/SPCA. Once it became clear that the pregnancy was...
Yeah, sure, you might think the big holiday was a couple of weeks ago but you would be wrong. The 4th of July has its upsides. A long weekend most often celebrated with excessive food and beer, and who doesn’t love that? But today is July 16th and we all know that is...
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that North America was once home to lions, zebra, and other megafauna (mega as in big, fauna as in animals) which led to questions from apparently doubting readers. Come on folks: there were a lot of years after dinosaurs but before the...
The 4th of July is not my favorite. It’s not anything political, but rather the obnoxious, drunken human behavior that somehow got linked with the holiday. So while your neighbor gets his illegal fireworks ready, it’s time for you and me to talk pets. First, the only...
Horses loom so large in America’s mythology, especially here in the west (even in the urban-suburban SF Bay Area west), it’s a bit surprising how little most of us know about their natural place in the environment. To sum it up, while wild horses are a thing of beauty...
Twenty-plus years ago my daughter insisted on bedtime stories about Jasper, my first dog. My father’s day column, I offer her this written version. To begin: I wasn’t allowed pets as a kid, a loss I’ve (over)compensated for, and Jasper was my 21st birthday gift to...
