Man’s Other Best Friend Story and Photos by Les Tanner This story is offered free in its entirety for the first part of May. This is about a cat. Just an ordinary cat. He hasn’t performed any heroic
What Will Save Him? By Jolene Starr My sister gave us Skippy when he was about three years old. He was a peanut butter tan cocker spaniel-like mutt with floppy ears and big brown eyes that she had
Flying Dogs to Safety By Peter Rork Photos by Rene Kaiser Riley The call came from Dee Dee Bowring, Shelter Manager for Idaho Humane Society (IHS) in Boise. Humane Society International (HSI) was on the ground in Korea,
But Worth the Trouble By Toinette Dickey In the spring of 1983, on a promising day for crops to come, my husband Alton Browne disked the field just west of the house beyond the irrigation ditch at our
Good Dog, Happy Boy Story and Photos by Desiré Aguirre When my son Nik was around ten years old, he began begging me to let him have a dog. His media campaign included a list of the advantages
I was five years old when I walked into my grandma’s house with a baby bird I’d found on the sidewalk. With tear-filled eyes, I announced in a determined voice, “It needs my help.” And so it began. Continue reading
We all dream about changing the world. For me, those dreams started early, at an age when the only actual change I could bring about was eating a different cereal for breakfast or watching a different cartoon on Saturday morning—but despite that powerlessness, I dreamed big. Continue reading
The austere concrete block building sheltered a crush of inhabitants, all desperately longing for love. The Kootenai Humane Society in Hayden was more than happy to hook us up with the companion of our dreams, and at a very reasonable price. Continue reading
This is the country, and there will be insects and mice around,” the home inspector explained to my real estate agent from the city. “But the rooster will take care of the bugs and the cats will take care of the mice.” Continue reading
At a freeway exit west of Caldwell, the landscape dips as it stretches west to Sand Hollow, a valley of rolling fields feeding a trickle of a stream lined with cattails, poplar, and purple loosestrife.
Farm homes dot the landscape, many of them surrounded by planted forests. A friend who goes by “Speedy” lives in one of these little forests. He loves the owls and quail and rabbits and hummingbirds and the occasional cougar that all make his abode part of their regular rounds.
Hoping to attract a croaking toad to his garden a few years ago, Speedy decided to dig a little pond between his small yard and the dense trees. The water did attract a more abundant population of critters away from the irrigation ditches, but he soon found himself with a problem—algae loved the pond. To control the algae, he purchased a dozen “feeder fish,” what I’d always known as “inexpensive goldfish,” but what keepers of larger fish call “feeders” for a reason. Continue reading
