. . . or Starsky and Hutch? There are two little beagles Ricky and I have been running into lately on our “destination” walks at Southport Harbor. They’re brother and sister, seven years old, and a lot smaller than Ricky. (The two of them are the 13-inch breed of beagle; Ricky is the 15-inch.) The boy is lean; the girl is . . . pleasantly plump. The second time we saw them, their owner, a British-accented gentleman, said, “Well hello, Ricky.” ...

Lewis and Clark -- and Ricky All three of my sons — the human ones, that is — are excellent athletes. Football, basketball, baseball . . . I’ve gotten a huge kick watching them play over the years. I’ve also coached tons of their youth sports teams, and it would be fair to say that, as much as anything, sports is the glue that binds us together. But the one thing my hypercompetitive sons have never wanted to share with me are the recreational sports —...

Robby and his pet -- er -- animal companion Usually when I visit my barber shop, they’ve got Shibani Joshi or Neil Cavuto or some other talking head from the Fox Business Network squawking about the U.S.’s role in the global economy — and I promptly fall asleep. But last time I was there, Mario, my barber, was in charge of the remote (his partner was on vacation), and News 12 Connecticut was cranking. The back of my brain seized on an item about animal activists...

Happy Birthday, Ricky! Somewhere along the line during UConn’s historic and magnificent run through the Big East Tournament and then March Madness, Kemba Walker mentioned Sunday, May 8 as being a very big day for him. It would not only be his 21st birthday — reason enough to go wild — but also the day of his early graduation from UConn. In our house we had that date circled on our calendar — but not because of Kemba, even though he’s a super-hero to...

Have dog, will travel Though I hinted this might be the case in an earlier post, now it’s fact: Our youngest son is heading west to USC in August to start his college career, and my wife and I couldn’t be happier: We’ve often said where the third kid goes to school should be all about where the parents want to visit. Though he’s the first Herman to venture off the beaten track of East Coast schools, he’s shown zero trepidation — except for one...

Ricky Last October, my friend Chris — also a writer — informed me that Lukie, her beloved Lhasa Apso, had passed away. So I was glad to hear that recently she got a new pup, another Lhasa Apso. She also told me that she’d named him Ricky. After congratulating her, I had to give her a little grief, of course, for name-stealing. “You’re supposed to be a ‘creative,'” I teased, “and you couldn’t even come up with your own...

As Carol came in from the garage to the playroom last night, she was blitzed by an eager, kissing, licking, tail-wagging little beagle. He, of course, had heard the car pull up, and was waiting by the door. I followed Carol a moment later, and got the exact same treatment. We’d been in Vermont for the weekend — and had been away from Ricky for all of two days. It’s not the length of the absence, though, that matters. I can drive up Maple to Athletic Shoe...

Jake Ricky’s not a perfect dog. Where food is concerned, he has no morals whatsoever. What’s his is his, and what’s yours is his. He’d steal your croissant soon as look at you. On top of that, he’s stubborn to the point of obsession. Let’s say I want to walk on Turkey Hill, and he wants to walk on Taylor Lane. I can pretty much guarantee we’ll wind up on Taylor Lane. ChinaBut he counters these character flaws with the sweetest, most...

So sweet when he sleeps I hear that shakety-shake-shake-shake, ears flopping side to side against his head — the universal sound of Dog Waking Up. It’s pitch black. Four A.M. This is a little early for Ricky’s morning toilet ritual but, as they say, when you gotta go, you gotta go. Since we’re not set up with a doggy door, Ricky requires a human escort to perform this function. Today would be my turn. We make our way downstairs, Ricky traversing —...

In a recent post (“Dad, Can I Have a Dog?”), I traced Robby’s campaign that led to Ricky’s becoming a member of our household. Now I realize I left out an important part. Yes, from the time his middle brother went away to college (leaving Robby an “only child”) till he finally wore me down more than a year later, Robby asked for a dog approximately twice every day. But it was a stopover at my buddy Jeff’s house (best friend since junior...