Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

How to Feed a Fussy Little Dog: Chile’s List of Requirements

1. Preference to remain someplace safe — lurking in the shadows, under a bed — while the other dogs (“idiots”) chaotically dance around and drool at the ping of kibble hitting the bowl. Rationale: You can get stepped on, drooled on, or accidentally eaten when Maisy mistakes you for a bit of sausage (it could happen). 2. Include something special in the bowl — preferably on top of, not UNDERNEATH (!!) — the kibble. Sausage will do (see sausage comment, above), as will turkey, cheese, chicken, ham, or almost any kind of food preferred by the French. Foods to avoid: Eggs (blech!), lamb (not sure why, I just don’t like the idea of it, I guess), and any kind of vegetable, although clearly this should go without saying. Also, bear in mind that not all dogs like liver and other organ meats, and this includes me. I’d rather have a […]

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About A Dog

My little dog Abby lost her right eye yesterday. “Lost” is a funny term for it—implying that she misplaced it somewhere and can’t for the life of her remember where, like you might car keys. Maybe, in time, “lost” will be enough to define the visceral brutality of what happened. But not quite yet. Then again, I’m not entirely sure what happened, exactly. I do know this much, in the way that your mind tills over and over the details leading up to a terrible thing, as if to search for clues that things were about to be altered forever: My daughter Caroline and I were in the backyard. I was combing the surface of a new garden with a steel rake. Abby and her canine sister, Maisy, were with us, too, roaming—as they often do—amid a thick bed of flowers and ferns some 50 feet away. Abby stands only

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Georgie: A Rescue Story

This morning I got an update on a former foster dog — a Cavalier King Charles spaniel who lived with us two years ago, from just prior to Halloween to just before Christmas. The dog had some kind of skin condition and arrived hairless, itchy, raw, reddened and miserable. He was about as sad as sad can look. He didn’t come with a name, so I named him Georgie, because his naked face reminded me of the illustration of the children’s book character Curious George. Another volunteer, Huntly, picked Georgie up in Vermont and a mutual friend delivered him as far as a highway exit in New Hampshire. The first time I saw him, he was in a dog crate in the back of a van at a rest area, growling and snarling, his skinny body pressed as far back as he could get against the crate’s back wall, and

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Gigi Spies a Green Tomato: A Tragicomedy in Five Parts

The stage: A small wooden deck with sturdy balusters, overlooking a vegetable garden in late season. Enter main character: Gigi, a 6-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. It’s clear from her saunter that Gigi is unhurried and uncomplicated, and her portly figure implies a dog who is enthusiastic about her meals. Suddenly, Gigi sees something that piques her interest, and a drama ensues. Scene 1: Gigi spies a green tomato that has fallen from its vine in the garden. From the glint in her eye and quickening of her step, it’s clear she considers the green tomato a tasty prize — a kind of lucky harvest her enterprising belly has stumbled upon. Scene 2: Lacking a working knowledge of spacial relevance, Gigi attempts to reach the tomato by squeezing her ample physique (oof!) through the (blasted!) unforgiving deck rails. In an instant, she regrets the enthusiasm with which she enjoyed last night’s

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