Best Buddies Forever

Giving my office a deep cleaning, I stumbled across this essay I wrote about my golden retrievers, Ben and Chapel, at the end of Ben’s life in the late ’90s.  Have any of you had a similar experience? Best Buddies Forever by Diane Chamberlain             I sat in the breeder’s kitchen, waiting to meet the…

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Story Weekend: Runaway

I have many tales that fit this weekend’s theme! Like the time my best friend and I ran away . . . to my screened porch, with my parents’ permission. Or the runaway kids I worked with in San Diego. But I’ll start off the comments with a different kind of runaway story that happened…

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Midweek Questions from My Readers: Part 3

On Facebook, I asked for some questions that were a bit out of the ordinary and received plenty! So here’s part 3. Feel free to answer any of these questions yourself in the comments if you like! I’m trying to alternate “personal” and “professional” questions, so here goes: Q. When you were young, did you…

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Winner of a Book Store Gift Card!

Happy Holidays, and congratulations to Deb Miller, whose name was picked randomly from all the comments sent to this blog in the last couple of months. Deb will receive a $100 gift certificate to whatever bookstore, online or not, she chooses. I hope you’re able to enjoy a few days with friends and family, and…

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The New Sheltie

You may remember we lost our eight-year-old Sheltie, Jet, a couple of months ago. There are those people who get another dog right away (me) and those who wait a long time (John) and then there are those who compromise (us, usually). So when I saw the picture of an eight-month-old Sheltie on a breeder’s…

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Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks

In what now seems like another life, I once belonged to a dog training club. My then-husband and I had two wonderful golden retrievers and for years we trained them in obedience and agility, going to shows each weekend and working and playing hard with our dogs. Then there was a divorce and a move…

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Story Weekend takes a Break

This has been a hard week. We lost our beautiful little Jet to cancer on Monday; he’d never even seemed sick until Sunday. A great shock for us, and Keeper is a little lost soul without his brother. I’m still in that painful “I can’t believe it” stage. Then Tuesday night, my email account was…

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Story Weekend: Most Memorable Meal

Hmm. . . I’ll have to think about this one. I don’t want to get too hungry right before bed, so I’ll let you all go first. If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you…

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