Carpe Canem

10/20/2026

10/13/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1TauDpesG7/

Each of the seven had wanted a dog for years and had talked herself out of it.

They found that out on a Friday under the dryers. Gladys runs a beauty shop in Florence, Alabama, and the nine o'clock wash-and-set crowd hasn't changed in 15 years. Seven women, 74 to 89, all widowed.

Leona brought it up. She's 81, and three times that month she'd stopped at the shelter to visit an old gray poodle mix. Each time Leona had driven home alone. What happens to a dog, she asked the row, when a woman her age goes into the hospital? Or doesn't come back out?

Eunice said she'd had the same argument with herself over a beagle. The same story went around the dryers. Not one of them trusted herself with a dog's whole life.

Gladys took the comb out of her teeth.

"There's seven of you," she said. "And a week's got seven days."

The shelter's form had one line for an owner. Leona's name went on that line. Her six friends signed down the margin, and the woman at the desk counted them and reached for her stamp.

The dog is Curly, 12 years old, and belongs to a different house every day of the week. Handoff is at eight each morning at the next woman's front door. A spiral notebook travels in the tote bag with the leash and the pills. Monday writes to Tuesday. Ate well. Barked at the mailman, as is proper.

Saturday's house has the good couch. Sunday's has a fenced yard. Curly is on a diet at exactly one of them.

When one of the seven is laid up, the next one takes two days. That's happened four times, and Curly hasn't spent a night alone yet. The vet bill gets split seven ways. Last month it came to $11 apiece.

Friday is Leona's day, so on Fridays the dog comes to the shop. Gladys keeps the third chair open. Curly sits in it under a pink cape while seven women get their hair set.

At noon the dryers shut off, and Leona clips on the leash.

Who would be your other six?

10/06/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1F5sE7kDcB/?mibextid=wwXIfr

be honest, which traits has your dog picked up from you? 🤣🐾

10/06/2026

I'm pretty sure that's what they think. SMH
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19sr78e3vP/

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10/03/2026

😂
www.empresslabradors.com