What if there were no dogs in your world? Or mine? We would be the poorer for it! I’ve been reflecting on this for a couple of reasons. One, I missed my dogs while we were away for a month, and also  I’ve been reading stories in the Best Friends magazine about various organizations that help poor people to keep their dogs and feed them adequately. As I read about people in Michigan who were only able to keep their dogs because of this help, I vowed to help out as I can, and I felt such gratitude that we can take good care of ours.

This Thanksgiving morning, we’ve been home just a couple of days from our month-long road trip. Our animals were ably cared for by a young couple who lived in our house while we were gone. When we arrived, I asked my husband Kelly to go in the door first, and I followed with my ipad in hand. In this photo, Kelly and Lola are in the middle of greeting… that little bit of her tongue showing in the photo is only a hint to how thoroughly slurped Kelly’s face and hands became! Our old LarryDog is right there too, behind Lola.

I have many things to be grateful for this morning, even with a month’s worth of mail on the desk and the rest of the flotsam and jetsam that has come inside from the car but is still strewn all over the house. Eventually it will all get taken care of. For now, I think I’ll go play with Lola some more.