Besides finding out my melanoma was stage one and confined to only my nose, the second-best Christmas gift I got this year was a new puppy.

My parent’s generation thought of dogs as animals. In my generation, they were elevated to family pets. And now, in the homes of millennials, they are treated as children.

Dogs are great but that doesn’t mean everyone should have one, especially young people whose lives are in flux.
That is why, when son Jack came home from a dog walk in the woods with friends and announced he was thinking of adopting a dog he just met, I was vehemently opposed.

As I pulled out on to Markham a young dog, about the size of a standard poodle, runs in front of me and towards this bicyclist on the opposite sidewalk. The Bicyclist and I thought he was running to attack him. But no. There, in the oncoming lane, lay a big black lab. He’d been hit by a car and his dog companion was seeking help. It must have just happened.