After Sandy, my mother, came to live with me and my family following a stroke, I hired my friend Jim to help with her rehab. He came with Lucky, a chihuahua he had recently inherited from an elderly neighbor who had passed away.

One of those one-person dogs, Lucky was astonishingly aggressive, considering his size and age, Learn More

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a dog sing at her wedding, but I was. She was known to her legions of followers and fans as Beanie the Singing Dog. When my boyfriend and I eloped to Lake George, she was among the friends and family who helped celebrate our union.

Did Beanie really sing? Learn More

His name was Vaseline.

I knew him during the years after I had graduated college, when my husband and I would come out to Sea Cliff for the summer to escape the simmering city. By then, Fred had gone on to his Maker and my family found itself between dogs.  Learn More

Sparky was the name we first gave him when we adopted him from the vet. A born car-chaser, he was a stray who had tangled with somebody’s front wheel. He came with a big cast on his front leg. But when it came to expressing his excitement and gratitude for his new home, you’d have thought that cast was spring-loaded. Learn More

I’ve written the stories of Togo and Buddy and Barry—dogs famous in their own right. And I’ve told of Fala and Timber and Sweet Lips—dogs famous for their human companions (Roosevelt, Dickens, and Washington). But this space, at least for now, is for stories of dogs I’ve known and loved—call them everyday dog heroes. Learn More