At the Dog Writers of America Awards
My birthday weekend in February brought me a genuine surprise: I won an award from the Dog Writers of America Association for my story in Bark Magazine on the organization…
Category: Uncategorized
The Black Dog: How Animals Help with Mental Health
While it has been a few months since I have posted, this blog and its readers have been very much on my mind. We are all doing well, although we…
Two years of Rufusness
Two years ago today, I spotted an alert looking dog sitting at the edge of an alley wearing a collar with a leash attached, but without a person. He was…
De-grossification
As a writer, I have learned that the best way to get me to write is to give myself a deadline. In a similar light, as a homeowner, the best…
Big Whoop
Yesterday, in between writing an article for a fancy pants magazine and dog-walking (because we’re nothing if not glamorous), I learned that The Rufus Files had been nominated for…
Tongue Out Tuesday: The Black Spotted Tongue
When Rufus was about six months old – a month after taking him in – I noticed that he had a few new black spots on his tongue. Then a…
The Art of Backing Off
Recently I met up with someone whom I had not seen in years. I soon realized why it had been so long. Within half an hour I was getting all…
Swag update
The red alert ring has held up brilliantly under intense large dog chewing. Rufus really digs this thing. There are no plastic shards falling off at all. He carried it…
The Battle of Heat Vent Alley
When Sophie and Rufus are outside in subzero weather, they run around as if the temperature were nothing. It’s pretty impressive. But once they return to the house they…
We made it
Christmas is over, and Rufus survived boarding. He did it one previous time back in October for two nights but I was closer, in Colorado Springs. This time I was…
Exquisite corpse of an orange thing
What is this? This orange thing in the foreground is a thing that Rufus chewed. I *think* it might have been a part of a broom that he took apart…
Gross carpet stain
When I tried cleaning Rufus’ pee stain on the carpet I think I mis-used the Bac-Out by Biokleen. The directions say to saturate the stain with this, and instead I…
Free to be you and me, at three
At three a.m. Rufus vomited up the part of the towel and soft glasses case he managed to chew while crated. I was at a production of Hedwig and the…
I always tell him he’d look good in anything
It’s less than fifteen degrees out, and the doodle-bug is having a blast running around the back yard, coat-free. I think I’ll take his respectable Republican cloth coat back to the…
Animal Control
In that first week, I posted Rufus’ picture on my neighborhood Facebook page and checked in with local shelters. I also looked around for “lost animal” notices pinned to trees…
The Rufus Files 