Sometimes an issue is so politicized, the cultural issues so huge, you can’t imagine making a difference. But you know you have to try. I am calling this issue “Murphy’s Choice.” Because I want your dogs, your beloved animals, to live. Please. Help me take down the animal welfare community as it currently exists. End […]
animal care
Stop Early Spay/Neuter: Save Our Dogs!
Murphy is dead. My beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniel died March 8 of splenic cancer. She was a week shy of 13 years and 8 months. She died of a cancer linked to early spay/neuter. Cancer is the new epidemic in this country: 50% of dogs over 10 get cancer. Don’t believe me? Google it. […]
Stop Cancer in Dogs: Shut Down the Animal Welfare Community
Save Our Dogs Everybody has an agenda. Mine is that you don’t lose your dog the way I lost Murphy: to a cancer linked to early spay/neuter. Make my agenda yours: let’s save our dogs’ lives. Join me: let’s take down the animal welfare community as it currently exists. End it. Stop it. Put it […]
Chiropractic Care Isn’t just for People … or Dogs
Some days you’re just goofing off and you find news about somebody who makes a difference. This one is ironic to me, since it deals with chiropractic care, this time for race horses, in particular, for 2012 Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another. Here’s a link to the article, “Equine Chiropractic Asset to O’Neill Team,” just […]
My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 20
Landmark days—those days that hold special meaning in our lives—are times to stop and celebrate and remember. They are the days that build families and communities—in multi-species families, they include adoption days, birthdays, breakthroughs, and deaths. I remember the day I figured out what the book about my life with Murphy was all about. I […]
My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 19
Euthanasia is murder. Euthanasia is mercy. The problem is, how do we bring those two truths together? Future societies will call us barbaric. They’ll say, yes, they had comfortable lives, but they often ended them poorly. They had everything they needed to live, but they did not know how to die, they couldn’t let go. […]
My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 18
As my beloved dog, Murphy, and I walked the mystery together—her dying and her death—I marveled at how much my life had changed in the nearly 14 years we shared. I used to think people like I am today were impossibly woo-wooey. Were crystal-loving, freakily dressed hippies who believed in weird mystical things, like reincarnation […]
My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 17
Where does choice take us when we live multi-species family lives? When I learned my beloved dog, Murphy, most likely had splenic cancer, I knew that our long journey together was ending. You don’t beat splenic cancer, you just delay the inevitable, and not usually for very long. The problem is, when you find it early, […]
My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 16
How do we walk that last mystery of life with our beloved animal companions? How does the human-animal bond end? I write this as our mystery is over: I lost my dying dog, my beloved Murphy, on March 8, 2012. I continue with our diary because her life ran out before our story did, and […]
My Dog Is Dying: The Real Life Crappy Choice Diary, Entry 13
So here we are, at Part 4 of a four-part series on dying dogs and veterinarians. Like life, the series hasn’t been quite linear, so you can find the other parts in this diary here: Entry 6, #1, where we lose our long-time vet; Entry 8, #2, where we meet up again with a former […]