Category Archives: This and That

In the past, Teresa and I made a committment to adopting those cats who didn’t have a chance at the local shelter — the feral, the unfriendly, those who just didn’t like people — to be barn cats at our Almost Heaven Ranch. Caring for them wasn’t always easy, but we always took care of […]

Heaven gained another four legged angel last week: Our Miss Quora. Despite taking every measure possible, our family was unable to save her, and she died at the age of 14 after unsuccessful surgery for hemangiosarcoma at Washington State University. The loss of Quora is truly heart-wrenching as she’s a treasured member of the family; […]

Love of animals and of writing runs deep in our family. I’ve written 25 books, selling over 8 million copies with three New York Times bestsellers. Our daughter, Mikkel, has co-authored five books in the Ultimate Pet Lovers Series, as well as the upcoming book, Fearful to Fear Free. Now the third generation is starting […]

Teenagers must text, and cats must scratch. To a cat, scratching is as just like eating, drinking, peeing, and pooping; it’s something they must do to stay both physically and emotionally healthy. And if you don’t provide him a surface to sink his claws into and pull, he’ll pull a fast-one on you and create […]

I’ve been writing and learning about the human-animal bond for decades now — since I was in veterinary school. And I’ve never seen anything like this video of a woman and a goose greeting each other after an absence. Geese tend to have a reputation as being aggressive and unaffectionate. It’s hard to believe that […]