Stories & Lit

Musings on the world's oldest friendship in personal essays, memoirs, fiction, classics and, of course, humor.

by Dana Shavin

I'm in the Palatial Tampa Theater with my husband, eating fistfuls of hot popcorn and watching Oscar-nominated animated film shorts. This is just one of the activities he has planned for us while we’re in Florida, in what will be a series of valiant efforts to get my mind off my grief.

A Love Letter to My Dog

by H. Lovelyn Bettison

I was sitting on the sofa thinking about sleep when you walked into the room. Standing in front of me, you gazed into my eyes, your mouth opening and closing and opening again like you had something to say. Maybe fatigue was making my thoughts a little fuzzy, but in that instant, I realized that I loved you.

Lala the Loot: A Dog Who Attracts Dog-Snatching

by Michelle Huneven

For a good part of my life—16 years —I had a dog named Lala. During our time together, she was stolen from me three times. Now, Lala was not any kind of pedigreed canine, but rather, a small mixed-breed, part Chihuahua, part Dachshund and part something else, possibly German Shepherd. She looked like a miniature German Shepherd—blonde with black tips—and weighed around 11 pounds. She was undeniably appealing—dark, expressive eyes and chronic joyousness—but she was not the kind of dog you could fence for money.

Baja Stray Finds Herself a Home

by Laurie Priest

My friends knew that kayaking the Sea of Cortez was a big entry on my bucket list, so when I turned 50, we planned a February trip to Baja California to do just that. Over the years, this group of women and I had hiked and kayaked in some adventurous places, but little did I know that this trip would change my life and the life of a street dog in ways I never imagined.

Search and Rescue

by Leslie Morris

Mia’s long sleek body arcs over Switchgrass
and Side Oats, Antelope Horns and Butterfly Weed.
Her nose and flews quiver to pull in scent—feral
hogs and gunpowder, cat piss and deer scat.
But more: she tracks the disruption my body
has left in its wake, the displaced molecules
as they swirl through her neural scrollwork,
the air regrouping behind me, the erasure
of shape that still trails my trace
as I wait to be found.

Traveler

by Clay Carpenter

the dog sprawls in a different room
every two hours and I wonder if
each is a small vacation for her, bones
in Barcelona this morning chasing
birds in Istanbul in the afternoon
then digging a hole in Montana to
surface in time for dinner in Shanghai

Greyhounds of Avalon

by Laura Schenone

Set against Ireland’s green and rocky beauty and its harsh economic realities, The Dogs of Avalon is the story of a determined group of women who fight for the well being of ex-racing Greyhounds. Marion Fitzgibbon helped to found the County Galway sanctuary she named Avalon, is a model of compassion in action, and author Laura Schenone journeyed to Ireland to learn more about her work and what motivates her to do it.

Wildlife Researcher Recalls His Backcounty Co-pilot

by L. Jack Lyon

During the mid-1970s, I directed one part of a multi-agency study of the responses of elk to logging in the northern Rockies. My study involved an area in western Montana on which we mapped site-specific annual levels of elk use by counting pellet groups on contour transects. I was always accompanied—and often surprised—by my Norwegian Elkhound, Tigre, who was inclined to herd anything on four legs.