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When our son John was just a year old, he loved to walk atop a low stone wall in front of the old parish house around the corner. Id lift him up and hold his hand as he threaded his way along, delighted at the novelty of walking high off the ground and pleased with his competence at being able to stay afoot on the relatively narrow ledge.

So you know that park with the trail that wends alongside a cove where I take the dogs for romps? And you know how I havent talked about that spot in a while? Its because the town has outlawed dogs off leash there, and border collie Franklin has to have significant time untethered every day or he will go crazy. (Translation: He will drive me crazy.)

The night that a blizzard dropped a foot of snow in my area this past winter, little Rosie was having trouble making her way over a snow bank that separated the road from a park. Usually shes pretty tough, but that night she was spooked and, although I had her on leash, she kept backing up further and further into the road. I had already let Franklin off leash, and he easily made his way over the bank and was walking further into the park.

Some photographers of dogs are born great. Others have great photographers thrust across the street from them. It was my luck to have moved across the street from Michael Weymouth, one of the most highly successful and sought after commercial photographers around. Thats how I got this great photo of my son, John, and our first dog, Ellie, when John was two.

You keep making a typo when you refer to one of the veterinarians on your editorial board, a reader wrote. Cailin Heinze is always called a VMD. But the designation for a vet is DVM.

We have often said in these pages that dogs are very social animals, to the point that they will copy each others behaviors just to copy them. To wit: Franklin never used to shake his whole body out (unless he was wet from rain or snow and I had just put on clean clothes and didnt want to get spattered with water). But then Rosie came to us with the habit. She kind of uses the shake-out as a transition from one activity to another - going from inside the house out to the driveway; going from the woods back to the car; and so on. And now, Franklin shakes, too. He doesnt know why hes doing it. Best I can figure is that he thinks, Shes shaking - I should also.

The night after I interviewed Tufts Animal Behavior Clinic Head Stephanie Borns-Weil, DVM, about the different things our dogs are saying to us when they bark (see the story starting on page 1), I dreamt that Franklin, Rosie, and I got caught in the rain - on the street where I grew up some 50 years ago. The two of them told me with their eyes that they didnt want to get wet, so I took them to stand under a little awning at the front door of one of the row houses leading to my apartment building.

Every July 4th, Constance and I have always walked our son John down the street to the harbor to watch the fireworks over the bay. But we have also worried for the dogs. Did the great booms of the fireworks upset them? Were they bothered by all the people who walked down to the water past our house, or parked along our road? There Franklin and Rosie were alone, and we never knew how they fared.

This past July, we got to find out. At 14 going on 15, John wanted to go see the fireworks just with his friends. That was fine with us; it gave us an opportunity to reassure the dogs if they got scared come the loud noises.

Mary Martin (not the one in Peter Pan; the one in Pittstown, New Jersey) is really mad at me.

What a shock to read Larry Lindners News & Views about what his dogs eat in regards to the teeth brushing article [July 2016]. M&Ms ????? Really?? she e-mailed. As an editor for a newsletter from a veterinary university that claims to be for caring dog owners, its shocking and appalling to hear he actually GIVES his dog chocolate!!!

When internationally acclaimed animal behaviorist and advocate Nicholas Dodman, BVMS, was eight years old and food was still being rationed in his native England post World War II, a fledgling song thrush had the misfortune to have fallen out of the nest near my grandmothers front porch, as he puts it. Though the chances of a bird thriving after being put back into a nest are low, my mother felt we needed to at least try.

The non-slip socks you wrote about a while ago finally arrived yesterday. My dog walked funny in them, but he was more stable on the stairs. Then the stair treads I ordered arrived. OMG what a difference! He doesnt have a problem going down the stairs at all now. Whereas he was very reluctant to come upstairs over the past several days, now he has no hesitation because he knows he can get back down. In fact, he comes up to tell me its time for dinner.

Okay, I admit it. We havent been good about brushing Franklin and Rosies teeth. No, scratch that. We simply havent been doing it, a lapse made all the more unforgivable by the fact that they dont just eat dog food. They eat ice cream, sweetened yogurt, a couple of m&ms here and there, cake icing…. Not a lot, but certainly enough that it cant be good for their teeth. …