The puppy is lucky she’s cute. Tonight has been full of the barky, destruction, and peeing in the house. The peeing in the house is our fault. We closed her in our room using the child gate and mistook her scratching as simple desire to escape.

Now that summer is upon us, we have to find a way to keep her in the back of the house without turning our room into a sauna. We have the child gate on top of a giant bin. She may be able to squeeze between the wall and bin, but she hasn’t yet.

I’ve always been just a little paranoid about my dogs. If I wake up in the middle of the night and they don’t react, I’ll put a hand on their side to make sure they’re breathing. Losing Moree (our Aussie) last November, 5-6 years earlier than we’d been expecting, just made me worse.

Right now, Smokey (our lab/pit mix) has hurt his leg. He can’t get up on the bed with us, and that makes me sad, and then I get even more paranoid. It’s a vicious cycle. How is it that I’ve become a pessimist about my pets’ health?

Someday, when I am more organized, I will start a charity. I will call it City Pets (or some such thing), and we will be devoted to helping the pets of the homeless.

I know a lot of people think that the homeless shouldn’t have pets when they can’t care for themselves, but if I lost my job and my home, I can not imagine also losing my dogs. The unconditional love they provide is a key to staying sane. My goal would be to provide pet food, help with veterinary care, and eventually help with shelters and transitional housing.