When you write about animals, of course, you are really writing about the people who love and live with them. Animals mirror and reveal us. Dogs in particular are often reflections of us, and what we need them to be.

Dogs and other animals - goats, donkeys, cows, a grumpy rooster - continue to change my writing life.

I'm one of those people who has always struggled with emotions and revealing them. When my dog Orson died, I did this very male thing of 'It's just a dog and I'll just move on.' I was very slow to grasp the emotion. But Orson is the reason I started writing about dogs.

Lifetime dogs intersect with our lives with particular impact; they're dogs we love in especially powerful, sometimes inexplicable, ways.

I think of animals more as spirits that come and go. They enter our lives at a particular time and they leave at a particular time. The whole glorious history of animals with people is about joy and connection. It's about loving this creature and letting this creature love you.

If you're going to love animals and have a life with them, the odds are you're going to lose them. It's helpful when you get a dog to accept the fact that this dog is not going to be with you your whole life.