After 13 long years of life, my parents’ Cocker Spaniel succumbed to a list of health problems. My father swore up and down that he’d never get another dog – the overall experience involving said list of health problems was very emotionally draining.

But through a series of events, we received news that a one-year-old, (mostly) house-broken Spaniel mix would be coming up from HARTT on a Love Train, and I encouraged my parents to “just meet her and see what happens”.

Fast forward to now, where Casey (fka Midge or Midget) now constantly demands belly rubs from Dad, and I’m relatively certain she spends a non-trivial amount of time being carried around by him.

Methinks the dog won this battle…but then again, Dad was pretty much always destined to lose…

Midge now Casey