For the past few years, my dog Chloe and I have been going south for the winter, staying in rentals ranging from cottages at artists’ colonies in Florida to cabins at spiritual retreat centers in South Carolina. I don’t pack lightly for these annual trips. Thus, I always hire someone to help me load my van.

“Just how many dogs do you have?” asked my most recent moving man as he maneuvered yet another large dog bed into the already overstuffed van.

“Just one,” I said.

“And how many dog beds do you have?” the man asked.

“Six.”

He took off his hat and scratched his head as though my answer made his mind itch.

“Creature comforts,” I said.

Yes, it’s true that my dog-to-dog-bed ratio is quite high.

But my girl is getting old. Although I don’t know her age for certain, nine years have passed since I adopted her, so she’s at least 10. Only recently has she started showing signs of old age. The clearest sign is that her new favorite thing in the world is sleep. And I believe that an old, arthritic dog who spent her early days lying on a concrete floor in a shelter deserves a comfortable place to sleep. The more the merrier.

Most of Chloe’s beds were freebies, by the way. One was a gift from a friend in the city who can’t resist buying things in bulk at Costco. (“A $12 dog bed! Can you believe it?” she exclaimed.) Two were hand-me-downs from another friend whose beloved Vizsla passed. The enormous thermopedic mattress came via Freecyle.com from a woman who couldn’t bear to throw it away. The final two were thrift-store scores. It’s easy to find a good dog bed if you know where to look.

At our New York house, I keep one bed in the master bedroom, one in the main living area, one on the deck (for optimal deer-viewing), one in the van (I took out all the seats, so it’s like a studio apartment in there), one in the office (where I spend the majority of my time) and one at our favorite English Setter Rainbow’s house (where Chloe frequently stays).

When we drive south for the winter, I take four of these beds, stacking them on top of one another next to the back passenger door, creating a rather precarious travel throne. Perched up there, Chloe looks like the princess in the “princess and the pea” story. I actually don’t mind dogs on the furniture, in case you were wondering. In fact, I welcome it. There’s something about a sleepy dog curled up on a chair or sofa that makes the house feel more cozy. More down-toearth. (“That’s because you have actual earth on your furniture,” my stepmother used to say.)

In my defense, I do like to keep some pieces of furniture dirt-free, so when I first adopted Chloe, I taught her which pieces were available for her use and which were forbidden. She has her own special corner of a very soft couch, and she is welcome to sleep on my bed at any time. I was dismayed, however, to realize that she only wanted to sleep on my bed when I wasn’t in it. Chloe, it turns out, is not a snuggler. This saddens me to a certain extent—I don’t know what happened to Chloe in her previous life that led her to keep her distance from humans; I don’t know what private sorrows she holds, or how her trust was violated. But I accept her needs. So if she prefers to sleep on the sofa in the living room, that’s fine.

The point is moot now, because Chloe is too arthritic to jump onto furniture. I see her approach “her” sofa, looking longingly at those comfy cushions. I watch the way she seems to ponder the situation, analyzing the amount of strength it would take to leap up and whether her current level of stiffness allows this. More often than not, she turns away and opts for one of her beds.

Yes, my girl is slowing down.

In the past, Chloe was always the first to wake in the morning. She’d trot into my bedroom and stare at me, tense with anticipation, waiting for me to wake up, too. The moment I opened my eyes she’d start her “happy dance,” running around in circles, leaping joyfully, trying to herd me toward the front door so we could take our morning walk. There, she’d press her nose to the crack, wag her tail and wriggle her whole body in barely contained excitement, as if saying Seize the day, seize the day! It was like this for nine years. In her feisty-dog opinion, I slept too much.

Things are different these days. Chloe now sleeps in the bedroom on that glorious thermopedic mattress she loves so much. We call it the Master Bed. I like having another being in the room—another beating heart asserting the continuity of life. Also, I’m now the first to rise in the morning. What surprises me is that Chloe no longer leaps to her feet when I get out of bed; instead, she remains on her Master Bed, stretching a little and wagging her tail, waiting for me to come to her to say good morning and give her a quick belly rub. It surprises me further that she remains on her bed even as I head into the bathroom or walk downstairs to the kitchen.

Chloe used to follow me everywhere in the mornings— from the bathroom to the kitchen to the refrigerator (for the French Roast), to the coffeemaker, back to the refrigerator (for the cream), back to the kitchen drawer (for the spoon). She didn’t relent until I finally finished my morning routine and followed her out the door. Now, instead of trying to herd me, she lies in bed and observes me from the loft—watching, listening, sniffing—alert, but still. She seems to have concluded that she’s not going to walk all the way down those stairs until it’s worth her while.

After nine years of cohabitation, Chloe has figured out my morning routine. She knows I can be slow to get out the door. She has come to expect that first there will be the sound of the refrigerator being opened, then the sound of a kettle being placed on the stove, then a bubbling of water, followed by the slight hiss of the French press and the smell of coffee. Then this liquid is poured into a travel mug. And so forth. With her keen ears and sensitive nose, she can predict things down to the minute. Once she hears the lid being sealed on the travel mug, she knows what will come next: the sound once again of an opening refrigerator door, that Pandora’s box of cold food smells, the scraping of a stew-pot being removed from the top shelf, and then me calling her name and saying that most special of words: “Breakfast!”

Only then will she spring from her bed, showing signs of the formerly spry Chloe as she scrambles—panting with excitement, down the stairs. While she gobbles her food, I finish my pre-walk tasks: pulling on boots or sneakers, grabbing a hat, searching for keys, opening the front door. Once she hears that sound, Chloe—with another burst of youthful enthusiasm—launches herself through the door.

But our morning walks are different these days. Chloe used to charge down to the river or to the beach (depending where we were), and I would follow briskly, trying to keep up. Now, in deference to Chloe’s arthritic pace, we walk more slowly. We amble, meander, mosey. There is a whole new set of verbs for what we do. Although I miss the aerobic factor of our previous morning walks, these slow ambles allow me to focus on the journey rather than on the destination. On the intricate beauty of a new day. Or the way the birds sound their individual sunrise calls. Or the way the mists rise off the river— as if all the elements of water, sun and air are conspiring to whisper ancient secrets, which one might come to understand if one listens. Or even the distant hum of traffic, which, in the morning, sounds peaceful and hopeful, as the human race tries once again to redeem itself through daily tasks.

Chloe, a water dog, used to spend hours in the water, chasing fish, harassing frogs, observing the ducks and herons in the distance. Now she wades around for 20 minutes or so— sometimes less—then comes and sits next to me on the shore. I like to meditate while she plays in the water. Now, we meditate together: two silent companions harmonizing ourselves with the motherly rhythms of nature and breathing in the water-scented air. It’s nice. It’s peaceful.

Recently, however, Chloe decided that this shoreline was not comfortable enough for her stiff old body, and actually started to head home by herself. Honestly, I wasn’t thrilled about having to cut short my morning meditation, but still. No matter how safe it is (the trails lead straight to the house), I couldn’t let her walk home unaccompanied.

As soon as we return from our morning walk, Chloe goes straight to her bed. This is another new pattern. I’m accustomed to a dog who runs in circles around the house, sustaining the outdoor sensation of a body in motion. I’m accustomed to a dog who grabs the nearest toy and tosses it into the air, clinging to the joy of having been outside. I’m used to a dog who then dashes into the kitchen to see if any food has materialized since her last investigation. So this new going-straight-to-bed thing is almost alarming. Especially when I haven’t even had the opportunity to give her a “thanks-for-coming-home” treat. Chloe’s former favoritething- in-the-world used to be food. Then swimming. Then her boyfriend Rainbow. Then me. Then sleep.

The bed Chloe chooses post-morning walk is the Office Bed, because she knows this is where I’ll be spending the remainder of the day. It’s one of those Snuggle Nests, plush with big bumpers so that I don’t accidentally roll into her with my office chair.

In Chloe’s younger days, my writing seemed to bore her; it was something she had to endure until our next walk. Sure, she would nap while I wrote, but it was a vigilant sort of sleep. If I so much as moved—stretched or yawned or shifted in my chair—she would spring to her feet in one swift, athletic motion and rush to the door, smiling at me with joy, ready for our next great adventure. In her mind, I was always on the verge of doing something fascinating. (This is a dog’s approach to life. We would do well to emulate it.) Most of my daily office gestures, however, are mundane. I might rise to make another cup of tea. I might pause to check my email. I might moan out loud, saying something to the effect of, “I should just give up on this novel and become a street busker.”

Eventually, Chloe figured out the signals. Rising from the office chair with a glazed look on face meant more coffee, not walk. Moaning about the uselessness of writing meant I was going to check Facebook, not walk. The real moment— the true and absolute sign of an impending walk—was (and still is) the moment I shut down the computer, snap the lid shut and click off the wireless mouse. That one tiny click was like a starting gun for her: she’d push herself up and hurry toward the door.

Now, Chloe sleeps so soundly that sometimes, she doesn’t even hear the click. It’s hard not to smile. A dog in repose conjures up everything sleep should be: restful, peaceful, soothing, safe, warm, comfy. She sleeps so deeply that she snores—a soft, regular snore that sounds like contentment. She often seems to dream as well. I like to watch the way her eyelids twitch and her paws flex. I like to hear her sweet, muffled woofs, which are always sounded in patterns of three. Like a metered poem.

I often wonder what she dreams. Most people assume that dogs dream of chasing rabbits, of leaping over streams, of flushing grouse. But perhaps dog dreams go beyond these mundane visions we humans ascribe to them. Perhaps in her dreams, Chloe visits other realms, alternate universes where all beings exist in harmony, where there is no violence, no suffering, no animal abuse. Perhaps this is the paradise she’s chasing—not some mundane rabbit. Perhaps this is why she used to do that happy-dance in the morning. She’s trying to tell me that such worlds do exist. I hate to wake her. But soon, it is time for our afternoon walk. I lean over and whisper her name. She opens her eyes slowly, unfocused. Then she looks at me, surprised to find herself once again back inside a dog’s body. Surprised, but not disappointed. This has been a good life for her.

Our afternoon walks used to be long, but now—by Chloe’s choice—they are short, especially if the weather is not to her liking. Sometimes she walks a few yards onto the grass, makes a quick pee, then immediately returns to the house and heads straight back to her bed. She’ll circle a few times, then settle down into the foam with a satisfied “oof.” Mission accomplished.

I, however, require more of a head-clearing walk at this time of day, so—iPod in hand—I go back out without her for a brisk power walk along the beach or through the dunes. It’s glorious. Spectacular. Rejuvenating. Refreshing. And yet it feels so strange to walk without my dog. It feels wrong. But I simply adapt to this new phase in my life.

Another new phase: it used to be that when I came home, Chloe was there to greet me at the door. We all know the drill—the happy dance, the joyful barks, the whines of relief. Chloe’s specialty was to grab a toy or a shoe and carry it around in her mouth, enticing me to chase her. These days, Chloe isn’t always there to greet me. She sleeps so soundly that she doesn’t hear me come home.

I must confess I have moments of panic when this happens. I rush through the house, searching for her (because I never know which bed she’ll choose). Seconds might go by, minutes, in which my heart beats more rapidly and I imagine the worst. But then I hear her footsteps and the clicking toenails and there she will be, at the top of the steps, wagging her tail slowly, her lips askew and her face all puffy from sleep, too lazy to come downstairs to say hello.

I rush up the steps to hug her. Her body is warm with safety and trust and comfort; mine is flush with relief. She licks my face and wags her tail, and I get the sense that she is trying to reassure me somehow. Don’t worry so much, she says to me telepathically. But I do worry. My dog is aging. That’s a fact. Her health might very well decline. Maybe someday, she won’t be able to walk at all. And I won’t be able to lift her. But you are here with me, now, Chloe says. We are together now. That’s all that matters. And when the time comes, you will still be with me. And I will be with you.

Then she goes back to sleep. And I go back to my work. Each is its own cure.

One of my favorite parts of my day is the end of it. (I don’t mean that sarcastically, despite my fluency in sarcasm.) What I mean is, I love to read in bed and I love my own thermopedic mattress. Late in the evening, after our final short peewalk, I’ll say to Chloe: “Time to go up to the Master Bed!” At that, she leaps up from her living-room bed and runs up the stairs as enthusiastically as she used to splash through rivers and tide pools. She’ll go straight to her bed, circling a few times and settling herself down with a contented sigh.

Before I get into bed myself, I lie on the floor next to her to say goodnight. I place my face right in front of hers, nose to nose, and whisper some endearment about how pretty she is. She sighs, not really liking such close proximity but tolerating it for my sake. I breathe in her breath. Sometimes she’ll thump her tail a few times, the sound muffled by the bed. Sometimes she’ll hook one paw over my arm and just hold it there. It feels like reassurance. And solidarity. We’ll stay like that for a long while, until I feel her pulse and she feels mine. Until the two of us are aligned.

Thank you, I say. Even though my life is chaotic and rushed and very often unsatisfying—even though it sometimes feels like a puzzle I can’t quite solve—I look at Chloe resting so contentedly and know that here is something I am doing right. Something about me gives this dog comfort. “If you want to feel safe,” the Dalai Lama once said, “help another being feel safe.” She falls asleep within minutes.

I personally don’t know any humans who sleep so well. There she is, snoring lightly, her chest rising and falling and her brown snout smooshed against a pillow. There she is, smelling faintly of sunshine and earth, with a mind uncomplicated by thoughts. Dogs don’t agonize over what they have or have not accomplished on any given day; they don’t worry about the additional tasks, hopes or goals they will not accomplish during the day that follows. No, they simply sleep, breathing in the oneness, breathing it out.

Chloe starts to dream, woofing and flexing her paws. I watch her with such love and tenderness I feel I might burst. Sometimes I wonder if she remembers her life at the shelter and all the nights she slept on a concrete floor. I wonder if those memories help her appreciate the marvelous fact that she now has six beds. But maybe it’s not about remembering or forgetting. We can forget and move on, or we can remember and move on. The trick is to not let those things plague us. We need only keep leaping through the meadows, running forever forward toward the next great thing.

Yes, my old girl is slowing down. So I will just try to slow down with her.

The dog has run away again. It’s the third time this month. One of the construction workers accidentally left our backyard gate open, and Bowie wandered out. Or maybe he darted out—I don’t know, since, busy washing dishes and corralling the kids, I didn’t see it happen. When I looked out the kitchen window and saw the gate wide open, I knew he was gone. He’d never let an opportunity like this—for freedom, adventure —go to waste. I dropped the sippy cup I’d been rinsing, yelled at my husband to watch the kids and sprinted out of the house. I was barefoot, but didn’t want to waste another second. As fast as he runs, he could be two towns away.

But at the sidewalk, I stop. Because we like to give him variety on his morning walk, we take him on a different route each day. He could be anywhere. I have to decide which way he loves the best.

I tell myself to think like a dog. Or, more specifically, to think like this dog. Surely he would’ve stopped at the stained mattress our next-door neighbor left at the curb weeks ago, which we’ve all complained about. Bowie likes to pee on it to show his disgust. He seems to feel it’s his civic duty. I choose to head in that direction.

I ring the doorbell of the house three doors down, where his girlfriend, a Toy Poodle named Coco, lives. They haven’t seen him but promise to be on the lookout. What else might have sidetracked him?

I run past someone’s heartbreaking Lost Dog poster. I imagine making one for Bowie, hoping it doesn’t come to that: his Beagle face looking forlorn, his huge light-brown eyes ringed with what looks like Goth-black guyliner, the perpetual puppy pudge even though he’s eight and his tricolor is turning white with age and his black body is speckled with what we tell him is a “distinguished gray.” We haven’t been getting along that well lately; I have less time for him. He resents the fact that my husband and I have introduced two new babies, less than a year apart, into his life and sacred space. I imagine he misses our original pack—my husband, him, me—and the way we used to dote on him, our little Beagle prince, named Beauregard for how good-looking he was, then nicknamed the more accessible Bowie for the playful personality that quickly emerged.

If it was at all possible for a hound’s face to fall any lower, it did the day we brought our first daughter home from the hospital. I don’t know what he’d been expecting us to bring back after those few days away. A Labrador, maybe? It was like we’d given him socks for Christmas. Now that baby has a sister, and both girls love him rough. They squeal in his ears and kiss him a little too hard and pull his tail when trying to keep up with him.

No wonder he’s run away, I think, as I scream his name in every direction. I run a street over, checking to see if he’s loitering around the pachysandra he likes to poop in. But he’s nowhere in sight and the street is eerily quiet.

He had so been enjoying having the construction workers around: new people, new smells. He walked around them with a swagger, like he was their foreman, inspecting their work. He crawled under the house with the nicest one, as if to hand the guy tools as he needed them. He’d sun himself beside them during their lunch breaks, and afterward they’d give him whatever food was left—an orange segment, a bite of empanada. My husband and I joked about fitting him for a tool belt.

A couple of the workers climbed up on our roof right before I ran out, acting as aerial guides and promising me they’d yell if they saw him. Even though he resents the babies, Bowie’s always been tolerant. During the course of a year, he endures the bunny ears, the turkey headdress, the Santa hat. Each time, as he stares at the camera, his eyes say, “You know I descended from wolves, right? You know I could kill you but show great restraint and choose not to, right?” We’re certain that’s how he sees himself: he stalks … a tennis ball. He eviscerates … a stuffed animal.

Maybe he’s run off to be a wolf. Maybe he’s searching for the respect he feels he deserves. More likely, he found a scent and followed it.

I run to the trash bins in the alley two streets from our house, where he once found the remnants of a discarded chicken dinner. He checks in there every so often in hopes of a similar bounty.

He’s a mama’s boy, though he tries (and fails) to downplay it. Ever since he was a pup, I could say in a certain tone of voice from across a crowded dog park, “Who’s Mom’s best boy?” and he’d stop whatever he was doing and come running, tail wagging his whole body, as if to volunteer “I am! I’m your best boy! That’s me!” I yell it now in hopes he’ll follow the sound of my voice and find me.

Lately, when we go to the park, he rarely leaves my side. He sits next to me with an air of maturity, as though scoffing at the puppies tackling each other, doing all the things he used to do. He had a very long puppyhood, an extended and difficult adolescence. Yet I miss his puppy energy. I miss the feeling of endlessness to his life, our love for him. This dog has been with us since the beginning of our marriage, has seen me through some of my toughest times—infertility treatments, miscarriages, surgeries. I never needed a hot water bottle because I had my Beagle to keep me warm, to cuddle with.

The wind whips up and there’s a snap in the air. I’ve been looking for him for almost a half-hour, and it’s getting cold. This is a dog who burrows under the bedcovers every night; how will he survive in the wild? How disappointed will he be when he realizes there’s no one to pour chicken broth over his dog food, or give him a neck massage while watching TV? How will I ever sleep again, knowing he’s out here, lost, hungry, looking for home?

And how would I live without him? I thought about it when he got sick last year, but it was the sort of thought I had to quickly shake off for fear it would swallow me whole. I can’t—won’t—imagine life without that face, the face we fell in love with the moment we saw him peeking out of the empty plastic baby pool in the home of a crazy breeder in the San Gabriel mountains. He was the only puppy left.

“The runt,” the breeder had said between a puff on her cigarette and a hacking cough. Already feeling protective, I had lifted him up, covered his huge ears and said, “Nonsense. He’s perfect.”

Running around the neighborhood now, I’m feeling frantic, going hoarse, but still screaming. “Bowie! Cookies! I have cookies!”

Nothing.

I stub my toe on the uneven sidewalk and trip. My toenail is instantly throbbing and bleeding around the edges. I lie down on a lawn and curse, my face hot and wet with tears. He wasn’t even wearing his collar. I had just given him a bath and he was drying himself in the afternoon sun. When we adopted him, we had him microchipped, the “lojack for dogs,” but that assumes someone finds him, then actually makes the effort to take him to a vet’s office or shelter to be scanned.

It’s hopeless. He’s gone.

I remember 10 years ago when my parents’ dog died. My mother wailed into the phone, “That dog was my best friend.”

Though a lifelong dog lover, I was dogless at the time, and not only didn’t understand, but secretly pitied my mother, thinking that it was an imprudent overinvestment on her part. You enter into an agreement when you get a pet: you know in all reason and with near certainty that you will outlive this creature and will someday have to let it go—will have to endure heartbreak. And yet, you do it anyway.

Eight years into my own dog ownership, I get it now. He’s not just my best friend, he’s my first-born, and my love for him defies reason. He has his own room in my heart—a room not far down the hall from the space reserved for my children and husband. It’s not just that his love is unconditional in quality. It’s the quantity of that consistent love, which I haven’t felt before, or enough. My husband and I have the occasional fight and ensuing silent treatment. My daughters will grow into teens and hate me on and off for years.

This dog has never been mad at me.

I’ll never forgive myself for letting him get away. I should have paid more attention, but I’ve just been so busy with the babies. I feel like I’m failing everyone, especially him. I forgot to give him belly rubs, or decided that it was easier to navigate the behemoth of a twin stroller when I didn’t bring him on the walk as well. Most of the time when I talk to him lately, I’m scolding him. He has been acting out, developing an appetite for crayons, baby dolls, poopy diapers.

I turn around and notice that I’m on the lawn of the big white house with a crabapple tree that Bowie loves. He eats the apples. They give him diarrhea, but he still eats them whenever given the chance, so we usually avoid this house on walks.

“Bowie! Apples!” I call feebly.

Just like that, he appears far down the sidewalk. I can barely make him out. He stands still, stares at me, his tail waving like a flag. I yell his name. He bounds down the sidewalk, his ears back from the wind, the excitement. He charges toward me and jumps into my arms, pushing me onto my back. I can tell he knows. He knows he was lost, he knows he was scared and that I was worried. He knows I still love him as much as I did the day I scooped him up for the first time. I carry him the four blocks home, 40 pounds of pleasantly plump Beagle spilling out of my arms as he licks my cheeks.

He came back. Someday, he may not. Someday, he won’t be able to run that fast. Someday, I’ll have to decide when it’s time to let him go. But I refuse to sit with these thoughts for more than a second, because this afternoon, I am the luckiest mom alive: I have more days with my best boy.

Welcome to our 75th issue. When we launched The Bark almost 18 years ago (before email became the ubiquitous medium it is today), we relied on traditional “pamphleteering” to campaign for off-leash recreation. That humble eight-page broadsheet—the first incarnation of today’s magazine— showcased articles similar to those in this glossier version.

We set out not only to help dogs (and their people) by advocating for dog parks but also, to chronicle the nascent modern dog culture. We were the first to cover it, and the first to examine the complexities of the humancanine bond. Researchers are now exploring this relationship, and some of the mysteries behind the world’s oldest friendship are being unraveled. However, all dog people know in their bones that no matter how far back our co-evolution goes, or how domestication came about, the core value of our relationship hasn’t changed much in the thousands of years since we teamed up. That continuity guides our course at The Bark.

The importance of adoption has long been a critical part of our agenda, and in this issue, we showcase innovative sheltering programs. It has been almost 10 years since we covered the plight of satos, stray dogs of Puerto Rico, and it’s encouraging to learn that progress is being made with the assistance of groups like Pets Alive Puerto Rico, profiled here. John Woestendiek examines college programs that reward students for fostering dogs and cats in their dorm rooms, and Science reporter David Grimm takes us on a visit to a unique Louisiana prison-shelter program that began in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The Endpiece by Elaine Sichel, prizewinner in our humorwriting contest, also perfectly complements this theme; in a lighthearted way, she makes it clear that we’re the winners when we adopt shelter dogs. Finally, our intern, Jennifer Senski, who is doing her PhD dissertation on the state of sheltering, puts out a call to the shelter community for assistance with data collection.

On other fronts, Jane Brackman considers the ways dated and misapplied definitions have been used to set breed standards, and Karen London tells us why it’s important that dogs learn to focus. Plus we discover that autumn is the perfect time to “revisit” Minnesota’s scenic Highway 61, with a drive along Lake Superior. Pieces on the value of probiotics, a recipe for homemade kibble, a home-visiting vet and the ways dog “germs” make our homes healthier round out the issue. Speaking of home, this photo shows our Kit—who recently turned five— striking a pose on a stone memorializing César Chávez at our local OLA in César Chávez Park. Many of you know that we adopted her and her sister Holly from a shelter in Kentucky. Both had rough puppyhoods, but were definitely making steady progress, Kit more so than her sibling.

Because many of you routinely inquire about the girls, I feel I must share some sad news about Holly, though it’s still difficult for me to write about. A few months ago, my husband was walking Kit, Holly and our Pointer Lola in the park’s off-leash area when an unexpected storm blew in; Holly, easily spooked, bolted. With Lola and Kit’s help, he searched for more than 45 minutes, canvassing the 100-acre park in a torrential downpour.

They finally spotted her in a parking lot, darting between cars, but before they could reach her, a car struck her, and she died instantly. I was home with our fourth dog, Charlie, nursing a broken ankle, when I got the call. Needless to say, we were devastated. At that point, my biggest concern was for Kit. I wasn’t sure how she would respond to this loss; she and Holly were inseparable, seeming at times to be one magical, eight-legged dog. Charlie turned out to be a great comfort to Kit (and to the rest of us, for that matter). Once again, I was reminded of how resilient dogs can be, and was inspired by it.

On to business matters. For a limited time, the digital version of each issue remains free for subscribers. Those who are concerned that we are abandoning print can rest easy, however, as we have no intention of dropping the ink-on-paper magazine. We too love print, but its digital cousin gives us another way to enhance our content and expand our reach. Last, a heads up: printing costs are skyrocketing and in 2014, we will be forced to increase our cover price and subscription rates to cover them. Now’s the time to take advantage of the current low rates and place a new or renewal subscription. Support independent publishing and help us get to issue 100!

A friend of The Bark’s just told me about BBC Radio 4’s marvelous series called Dog Days. You have only a few days left to listen to them. Each runs around 15 minutes, and discusses various aspects of dogs behavior and dog culture. Interviews with researcher, John Bradshaw, and other British dog aficionados. From My Dog Tulip and Flush to current research on dog love. As the programs’ presenter, Robert Hanks (along with his Whippet Timmy), describes it, “When we tell stories about our dogs, we are also telling stories about ourselves.” Give a listen.