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  • THE DOG’S BODY KEEPS SCORE TOO

    A dog’s body begins keeping score long before a breeder is willing to admit that something is wrong. That is one of the hardest truths in breeding, especially once we live with more than three or four dogs. At that point, we are no longer simply sharing our home with several beloved pets. We are…

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  • DIFFERENT DOES NOT MEAN WRONG, BUT IT DOES NOT REMOVE RESPONSIBILITY

    I have learned something about myself: I was never built for a straight, easily explained life. I am intensely curious, stubborn when something matters and rarely satisfied with an answer simply because an authority delivers it confidently. I have never needed my path to make sense to everyone else, but I have always needed it…

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  • WHAT KIND OF BREEDER ARE YOU REALLY?

    PART TWO: REGISTRATION IS NOT A STANDARD OF BREEDING In Part One, we began with selection. We asked who prepared the breeder to make decisions that may influence generations and why two particular dogs were chosen. Now we turn to one of the greatest sources of confusion in the dog world: the difference between being…

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  • WHEN THE MIDDLE GROUND DISAPPEARS

    My cat Thomas taught me something about modern veterinary medicine that I have never been able to forget. When he developed a urinary blockage, I was presented with two choices. I could authorize approximately $5,500 in treatment, or I could euthanize him. Somewhere between comprehensive hospitalization and death, every other possibility had disappeared. That moment…

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  • THE LIGHT IN THE OTHER PRACTICE ROOM

    THE LIGHT IN THE OTHER PRACTICE ROOM Before allowing myself to stop practicing at night, I would look down from the boarding-school dormitory toward my friend’s practice room, and if her light was still on, I felt as though I could not leave. Leaving first felt like losing. My sister and I left home to…

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  • The Work of Remembering.

    Life is not what I once thought it was. It is stranger, harder, more beautiful, and far more purposeful than I could ever have imagined. The older I get, the more I realize how much of life is spent unlearning what we were taught to accept without question, peeling away assumptions, looking beyond what is…

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  • Where is the breeder ?

    I read this post and while everyone else was probably already thinking about slicker brushes and dryers and shampoos and scissors and puzzles and lick mats and all the other things that people believe a ten week old poodle puppy needs, me, I kept looking at the words “frantically trying” and thinking about something entirely…

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  • WHERE IS THE BREEDER?

    I wonder how many people will read this post and notice what immediately caught my attention, because I have a feeling that most readers will do exactly what we have all been conditioned to do. They will begin answering the question. They will recommend the best slicker brush, their favorite dryer, a shampoo they swear…

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  • LOVE CHANGES WHAT WE CALL WORK

    Every now and then someone tells me, “Well, that is easy for you.” I usually laugh a little when I hear that because there is almost nothing about the way I live that happened easily. People see the dogs running across ten acres, the puppies eating raw food, the garden, the freezers, the articles, the…

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  • Cultivating What Has Been Entrusted to Me 

    The older I become, the more I realize that my greatest influence has never come from competing with others. It has come from cultivating life. Whether I am raising a litter of puppies, teaching a piano student, encouraging someone at church, writing an article, or opening my home to those around me, I find myself…

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