Roxy wasn’t supposed to be my dog. She was for my wife and kids. In fact, I was told to keep my distance. Roxy joined the family while I was on a business trip to Orlando in 2006. She was a bundle of Golden Retriever energy from day one. She loved her new family and […]
Tag: The Great Dog Pack
Hard Choices
Having dogs in your family is a joy—the companionship, the love, the adventures, the comic relief. There are a lot of responsibilities and chores as well. And some annoyances. That’s just part of the deal. Then there are the hard choices. Buster was the first leader of The Great Dog Pack. Today is the anniversary […]
Buster: The First Leader of The Great Dog Pack
Buster came into our lives in the late ’90s—thanks to a routine trip to the food court at White Marsh Mall. After eating, I’d walk to the pet store on the upper level to play with the puppies. That afternoon, I met a German Shepherd puppy—my favorite breed—and he was impossible to ignore. I played […]
Boomer
I bought my first house in 1990—a three bedroom townhouse in suburban Baltimore. I didn’t think I needed a house. It was something people told me I should do—prepare for the future. But I was excited about one thing. I could finally get a dog. Turns out, those people were right. My future came more […]
The Man with the Dog
In 2016, I moved to a small townhouse in Aberdeen to start my post-child-raising life. Roxy and Blitz came with me. We kept to ourselves and really didn’t get to know the neighbors. A couple years after I moved in, I walked out of my front door and there was a man moving in two […]
The Wild Child Returns
Dakota and I walked along the shore of Lake Michigan on a summer afternoon in Door County. Dakota loves the water, so I let her wade in. My father texted. “It’s time to come back for dinner.” I called Dakota to come, but she wasn’t ready to leave. Usually, Dakota wears a harness for exactly […]
Dakota
The day we got Alex’s diagnosis was one of the worst in our lives. We sat with her, trying to say the right things, trying to make it feel manageable. We told her we would be with her every step of the way—that this was just a temporary setback. Nothing worked. The only thing that […]
Alex
At 6 a.m., nurses rushed into the hospital room. “We have to go now,” one said as she unlocked the bed and started pushing it toward the door. The other nurse handed me a set of scrubs. “Put these on and meet us in the OR.” They were small. I was not. I grabbed a […]
Why I Wrote The Great Dog Pack
In February of 2025, I became a grandfather for the first time. After losing Alex, I didn’t know if that was something I would ever get to experience. Watching my granddaughter grow this past year has been one of the great joys of my life. And with each passing month, it brought me back — […]