Tails-By-The-Bay Dog Camp

09/18/2026

She is adorable

09/18/2026

Morning Blessing

May sunlight find its way
into the corners of your morning.
May you choose one thing today
simply because it brings you joy.
May your thoughts have enough space
to wander beyond the practical.
May you recognize the gifts
hidden inside an ordinary hour.
May you remember that
wonder often begins with paying attention.
And may the day leave you
with a story worth telling yourself tonight.

✍️ Rivers in the Ocean

09/18/2026

So true

There's a stretch of time near the end that nobody prepares you for. The days still look normal from the outside. You still take the walks, still make the meals, still sit together in the same spots. But you know. You feel it in the ordinary parts of the day, the ones you used to take for granted. Not doing anything special. Just being together while there's still "together" to be.
People love to say things like "cherish every moment," and it's not wrong, but it's also not the whole truth. You can cherish every single moment and still not be ready when it ends. Both things live in the same chest at the same time. The gratitude doesn't cancel out the grief, and the grief doesn't erase the gratitude. They just sit there together, taking up the same space, refusing to pick a side.
If you're in that stretch right now — the one where you're loving someone hard while also quietly bracing for the goodbye — I don't have anything that makes it easier. I just want you to know you're not alone.

09/17/2026

Beautiful

When Carl Lindgren died in Tucson in March, his family sorted out the house, the truck and the fishing boat in about a week. Nobody wanted Otto.

Otto had been Carl's shadow for 12 years, a bloodhound with ears like dish towels and bad hips. Carl's sons both lived in apartments. Otto went to the county shelter with a note on his file asking for an extra week, and a niece called the one person she thought might answer.

Herb Lindgren is Carl's older brother. He lives alone outside Salina, Kansas, about 1,100 miles away, and he'd turned 84 in January. His daughter told him flat out he wasn't driving to Arizona. He'd had cataract surgery in the fall and only drove in daylight.

Herb called the shelter that afternoon. The woman who answered said Otto had stopped eating and spent most of the day lying with his nose against the kennel door. Herb asked her to hold him until Saturday.

He left Wednesday morning in his 1999 Ford pickup with a quilt folded on the passenger seat. Herb drove only while the sun was up and stopped every two hours to walk around the truck. He spent the nights in motels in Amarillo and Albuquerque.

He'd only seen Otto a couple of times a year, at Christmas and on fishing trips. Everybody in the family had always said the brothers sounded exactly alike on the phone.

At the shelter a kennel worker walked Herb back to the last run. Otto was lying against the door with his eyes closed. Herb crouched down as far as his knees allowed and said, "Hey, old man."

Otto's head came up. He got to his feet on those bad hips and let out a long bloodhound bay that brought two other staff members out of the office.

The shelter waived the fee. Out in the parking lot Herb opened the passenger door, and Otto tried twice to climb in before Herb got his arms under the dog's back end and helped him up onto the quilt.

Herb drove the 1,100 miles home the same way, in daylight, with Otto's chin on the armrest between the seats. Somewhere in New Mexico he started telling the dog stories about Carl. He told the one about the ice-fishing house that sank and the one about the Buick they wrecked in 1958, and he kept going until Kansas.

Otto sleeps on the rug beside Herb's recliner now. Herb has kept paying for Carl's old cell phone so the voicemail still works. Some nights he calls it and puts it on speaker, and Otto lifts his head at the sound of the voice.

09/14/2026

Love this

Loki fell asleep on the couch this afternoon
in the position he sometimes sleeps in
that I have never fully understood.
Completely on his back.
All four legs pointing at the ceiling.
Head slightly off the edge.
The position that looks deeply uncomfortable
and apparently is not
because he sleeps like this for hours sometimes
without any sign of distress.

I was reading in the armchair.
The house was quiet.
Everything settled.

Then Mochi came in.

She jumped onto the couch.
Looked at Loki upside down on his back.
Looked at his exposed belly.
Looked at me.
Then looked at the belly again.

She made a decision.

This Domestic Shorthair cat
climbed onto this Siberian Husky's belly
and curled up on it
like it was a piece of furniture
that had been placed there for exactly this purpose.
Turned once. Settled.
Eyes closed within thirty seconds.

Loki did not wake up.
He has never woken up when she does things to him.
He slept through the sock on his head.
He slept through the ear grooming.
He slept through her sitting on his back.
He slept through all of it
and he slept through this.

I sat in my armchair
holding my book
looking at a Husky upside down on the couch
with a cat asleep on his belly
and I put the book down
because whatever was in it
was not going to be better than this.

They slept like that for forty minutes.
His belly rising and falling slowly.
Her rising and falling with it.
Both of them completely still
and completely unaware
of how extraordinary the ordinary
looks sometimes
when you stop to notice it.

09/11/2026

Beautiful girl

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Roselle, a calm, golden‑furred guide dog, rode the elevator up to the 78th floor of the North Tower with her owner, Michael Hingson. To everyone else, it was just another Tuesday. To Roselle, it was a job: stay close, stay steady, keep her human safe.

When the first plane hit, the entire building lurched like a ship struck by a wave. Lights flickered. Ceilings cracked. Papers rained down like snow. People screamed. But Roselle didn’t. She simply pressed her body against Michael’s leg, a silent message: I’m here. Follow me.

Smoke began to fill the hallway. The air tasted like burning metal. Sirens wailed from every direction. Yet Roselle walked forward with the same steady pace she used every day, guiding Michael to the stairwell.

Behind them, dozens of terrified people followed her tail like a beacon. Step by step, floor by floor, she led them downward through the choking darkness. The stairwell shook. The heat intensified. But Roselle never sped up, never panicked, never once broke her rhythm. She knew that if she stayed calm, her human would too.

Somewhere around the 30th floor, a woman froze, sobbing, unable to move. Roselle stopped. She nudged the woman gently, leaning her warm body against her leg until her breathing slowed. Only when the woman whispered, “Okay… okay,” did Roselle continue the descent.

It took nearly an hour to reach the lobby. Firefighters shouted for everyone to run. The tower groaned above them. Roselle guided Michael through the chaos, out into the blinding sunlight, and down the street, refusing to stop until she sensed they were finally safe.

Minutes later, the North Tower collapsed.

Roselle didn’t know she had just saved her owner’s life. She didn’t know she had led more than a dozen people to safety. She didn’t know she had become a symbol of courage around the world.
She only knew one thing: her human was alive, and she had done her job.

Most people know Roselle guided her blind owner down 78 floors of the North Tower, but very few know what happened after they escaped. As the tower collapsed behind them, a massive cloud of ash and debris roared through the streets like a tidal wave. Michael couldn’t see it coming, but Roselle could. Instead of panicking, she leaned her entire body into him and pulled forward with absolute determination, guiding him through a darkness so thick he couldn’t breathe or hear. Even as the ground shook and people screamed around them, Roselle never once broke her pace. Her training didn’t tell her what to do, her loyalty did.