Of all the unbendable rules governing weddings and marriage that millennials have inflicted on the world, and themselves, the one that intrigues me most is: get a dog before you get a baby.  (Sometimes, before you even get engaged.)  The thinking seems to be: Might be a good time to break in that a…

I hear from a lot of “experts” that dogs don’t experience time the way humans do.  You can leave your dog for an hour, they say, and to him, it’ll just feel like a second.  There’s probably some truth to this.  But I think they have it backwards.  Here’s how it works. Every morning, when we’re gett…

[Here, the second installment of my epic poem from 2016.  A related ode, “The Dogs of Sunville,” appeared last summer and celebrated Kemba’s life on the beach.  The rhythm and theme of all three follow Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat,” which is, more or less, the only poem I know.] &nbsp…

I knew it would be bad, but not this bad. You’ve been seeing a lot about Pickle, Robby and Brianne’s new puppy, in BEAGLE MAN.  I wrote about him back on February 1 (“Uh-oh.  New-Dog-in-the-Pack-Alert!”).  Remember my prophetic words in that post?  I said, “Can you imagine when little Pickle arriv…

A close friend who’s from Ukraine forwarded to us this report — “Waiting for Death.”  Kemba, Ricky, and I thought all of our BEAGLE MAN followers should see it, too.  It was written last Sunday by a resident of Mariupol, Nadiya Sukhorukova, and translated by Laura Olla AZ Palmer: I go outside in be…

Glad to see the young fella is upholding a truly great tradition . . .    (Check out Beagle Man’s 2013 post on the subject.)               The Roof Rack Report used to appear regularly on Mondays. Now it appears once in a blue moon, when Beagle Man deigns to giv…

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  It’s right there in my last post: when Pickle arrives, it’s gonna be Kemba-Who?  Pickle this.  Pickle that.  Might as well call it The Adoration of the Puppy.  Texts, photos, phone calls to everyone in the family — all about Pickle.  Not even so much as a “How’s Kemba…

A week ago, Beagle Man showed me a family text from Robby:  “Everyone, meet Pickle!” The message was under the photo you can see, to the right.  The little whippersnapper (drop-dead adorable, I know, I know) is supposed to arrive at Robby and Brianne’s in two weeks, on February 14.  That’s right…

The drive, I’ll admit, is long. At least an hour up 95 to Hartford. Then another hour up 91 to Brattleboro. And then still another hour — if we’re lucky and don’t hit snow/ice/fog — along 30, which is a twisting-and-turning two-lane blacktop. But even if I’ve been zonked out in the back seat, I can…

Nope, that beat-up ball in my Chuckit (photo, right) is not the one we had when we started out at the dog park. It is the one we ended up with, though. Here’s how it goes. I open the front door of the Jeep and Kemba barrels out as if his life depends on it, dashes to his spot on the dirt at the ed…