My vote is ‘yes,’ and other animals can too. I’ll never forget the first time I noticed this. I was lying on my bed, in an old abandoned Texas farmhouse I had bought and brought up to livable condition. It had been the homestead on […]

Some of the hardest cases I handle are the goodbyes — where an animal has come to the end of his life, or his life has been ended suddenly and unexpectedly, and he and his person must both deal with the grief of physical separation. […]

That’s what a good friend calls Frida, my long-haired Chihuahua puppy who is now 4+ months old. I don’t know about you, but I had never even HEARD of a long-haired Chihuahua when I met Frida, who was then just a 5-week old ball of […]

Lately I’ve been carting my little baby dog, Frida, around in a puppy pack. She really wants to go with me every time I feed my horses (or go anywhere else, for that matter) and can scoot out the door without my even seeing her. […]

As she raced by me and squeezed out the gate like greased lightning, I distinctly heard Bessie say: “I’m done! I’m outta here!” This was yesterday morning. I was entering the chicken coop. And she was exiting it — and not to be deterred! It […]

Well, not exactly, but fingers and toes crossed. This is my “mustang who thinks she’s hot stuff,” according to Copper the Quarter Horse, but who yes, did indeed buck someone off last weekend for the first time in her entire tenure as a riding horse. […]

Remember the famous song “Wildfire,” by Michael Martin Murphy, in the mid-70’s? It was about a horse who lived up to his name. A taste of the lyrics and story: “Oh they say she died one winter when there came a killin’ frost, and the […]

When I first met Gabriel in 1997, he was six years old and was at my friend the horse vet’s clinic. He had broken down completely after coming in off a long haul from a show circuit. Standing tied for 24 hours in a moving […]

There is nothing sadder than losing an animal. The grief and anguish that accompany this kind of loss are almost unbearable. Unlike death, you don’t know for sure what condition or situation your animal is in, so all kinds of visions and awful scenarios take […]

To all you neophytes out there who suddenly find yourself an “only” cat, just listen to me. I have lots of tips and tricks of the trade to give you. First, ahem, please excuse today’s blog — Leta obviously did not get down everything I […]