As an opening thought this might seem strange, but I am obsessed with parasites. As was Charles Darwin, who, upon studying a parasitic wasp — that laid eggs inside a paralyzed caterpillar, whose offspring then ate their way out — began to doubt his very religion, wondering how a benevolent…

When I was nine, I stood at the bottom of our driveway in suburban Minneapolis, waiting for the school bus. I was alone. From across the street, our neighbor’s two dogs saw me, sprinted across the road, and attacked me, dragging me down. Fortunately, quickly after the attack started, the…

Since 1948 the Westminster Dog show has paraded the “best of breeds” on national television. It is highly choreographed, and even though I have wished for a tiny moment of dog chaos, I have never seen a dog misbehave. Our favorite breeds — Bernese Mountain dogs, Great Pyrenees, and, um…

This sound: “Clunk, clunk, clunk,” is forever imprinted in my neural network. A note that will help understand the following story. I am not a religious person. I am ex-Catholic. That means while not going to Mass or following the church’s precepts, part of me remains that faithful eleven-year-old altar boy…

“I sing the body electric. . .” wrote Walt Whitman. A high school basketball player. He takes three steps and leaps in the air for a layup. He makes it and returns to earth, his shoes slapping the hardwood floor. He is unaware that he is all grace, muscle, and…

In the 2004 movie “Spanglish,” the new housekeeper, played by Paz Vega, is told never to throw a ball to the family’s Lab, named Chum. In the middle of the movie, while she’s distracted taking English lessons, she forgets and inadvertently tosses Chum’s favorite ball into the next room. Chaos…

When coyotes are in the national news, it’s usually not good. This last month a coyote attacked a two-year-old in a Los Angeles suburb as she stood by her family’s SUV. As the coyote tried to drag the child away, the dad threw a water bottle, and drove the coyote…

Come back with me in time and space. The time is the 14th century CE, and the place is the Arroyo Hondo Pueblo. Six miles north was Ogapogee, or “The White Shell Water Place,” which now sleeps under downtown Santa Fe. To the south was the Pueblo Alamo, destroyed by…

One of the most inconvenient calls possible is from a neighbor in the middle of the night with information that your dog is at their house scratching on their door. It is even more interesting when you are not home and on a ten-day out-of-towner to visit family: Daughter and…