If the Animal Kingdom were to raise up an army I don’t know who would be the commander, probably a lion or an elephant or something. The beagle would be out front, though. That’s the creature born to announce an arriving horde.

When Kim and I lived with our first beagle, Daisy, we used to take the co-dependent sweetheart everywhere with us. She was constant trouble, fighting here, escaping there, pooping in that other place. She made socializing a challenge. So we got smart. We built a kennel, and got more beagles for company, and decided that it would be much easier to leave everyone at home.

Now we’ve grown more mature, and home is where we like to entertain. I’ll be damned if the dogs haven’t got a solution to that, too. Whenever anyone comes over, they bell at the top of their lungs, so that it’s impossible to have a conversation, or really even think. Maybe they will grow out of it. At any rate, I embrace the role of writer with eccentric housepets.