This girl was adopted out and then returned a couple days later when the adopter realized it just wasn't the right time to get a dog but no worries, she was adopted again two days later.

Update here.

It's a funny thing but while some think photographs make people look fat, I think photographs make dogs look skinny, or at least skinnier, because if you saw this girl in real life, you'd go, "Whoa!" - not that she has any self-esteem issues with her weight. In fact, she's quite happy with it (but the vet may not be). The best thing about putting your dog on a diet is that it's your dog on a diet and not you.

The best way to check on the adoption status of this dog (and other dogs and cats and other small domestic animals) is to visit Toronto Animal Services adoption website or call 416 338 6668 for the Toronto Animal Services South shelter. If the dog is no longer on the TAS adoption website, it's probably because it's been adopted already.

You could hang towels on that rack.

The best way to check on the adoption status of this dog (and other dogs and cats and other small domestic animals) is to visit Toronto Animal Services adoption website or call 416 338 6668 for the Toronto Animal Services South shelter. If the dog is no longer on the TAS adoption website, it's probably because it's been adopted already.

Todd is another lemon Beagle (he came in with Norm). Todd also is a barkless Beagle and we're not sure why. I guess maybe he just likes to keep his opinions and secrets to himself. This means he would make a great confidante for someone but wouldn't be very good at writing a gossip column.

The best way to check on the adoption status of this dog (and other dogs and cats and other small domestic animals) is to visit Toronto Animal Services adoption website or call 416 338 6668 for the Toronto Animal Services South shelter. If the dog is no longer on the TAS adoption website, it's probably because it's been adopted already.

The CNE is coming soon and the midway is in the process of being set up. Can't believe how quickly the year has gone by since the last CNE.

We never seem to know until the last minute but TAS South might be closed again for the duration of the CNE or if not closed, access will be limited. This means starting Friday August 17th, no more adoption intakes for TAS South and no volunteering until the CNE shuts down again in September sometime.

In the meanwhile, there are still a few recent arrivals who need homes. Norm is one of them. He's a Beagle without a bark which is like ice cream without calories (I like Beagle barks fine but it can sometimes make them hard to place in our land of thin-walled condos).

Norm is what's known as a lemon Beagle because of his colouring. He may also like lemons but I doubt it. I don't even like lemons unless it's mixed with lots of water and unhealthy amounts of sugar in a pitcher.



The best way to check on the adoption status of this dog (and other dogs and cats and other small domestic animals) is to visit Toronto Animal Services adoption website or call 416 338 6668 for the Toronto Animal Services South shelter. If the dog is no longer on the TAS adoption website, it's probably because it's been adopted already.

All the way from Montreal, on her way to Alberta but got left behind in Toronto. Sounds like some country heartbreak song. And I'm sure Cora's heart is broken, being left behind in a strange city while her owner moves on without her but she puts on a brave face waiting for someone to take her home.

The best way to check on the adoption status of this dog (and other dogs and cats and other small domestic animals) is to visit Toronto Animal Services adoption website or call 416 338 6668 for the Toronto Animal Services South shelter. If the dog is no longer on the TAS adoption website, it's probably because it's been adopted already.

From Willy Pi Pi's new owner: Thank you so much again for Willy. He is an amazing dog and always sleeps in bed and is listening well. He even walks off leash when we are in the bush and does not go after any animals. He also has never had an accident at all. He know asks to go outside when he needs to go. He is doing great and here are some pics and video.

June

Summer weather has come early to Toronto and tonight is the first night I've sat outside on the porch to soak in the cool night air. Smitten is sitting beside me on one side and Simone is standing on the other and this reminds me of Stella, who sat, and Rocky, who stood, and we all look into the darkness now as we did then. Smitten looks for critters. Simone makes quick dashes into the depths of the yard when her courage rises but she always quickly runs back and retakes her place beside me. I stare into the back of the yard and I can see shadows of new growth, of still bare branches, of lights from the neighbours beyond that. The AC units in the area have not been turned on yet, the drunks have not started fighting yet, the clubbers have not come downtown yet. Sandwiched as we are between Queen St and King St, it is surprisingly quiet.

I will miss this house. It's been home to several roommates and their various cats. It's been home to Barclay and Stella and Rocky and we've seen them live and play and grow old here. It's been home to Smitten and Simone, of course, and they've made it their playground to wrestle, chase, explore. It's been home to my marriage and it sees the end of that as well.

Simone will be coming with me, Smitten with Elizabeth. The dogs are each other's friends but they are bonded with their humans. Smitten would be heartbroken without Elizabeth and Simone, well, she is my shadow now.

I've spent the last few weeks getting this house ready to sell and it's been quite a bit of work so the posts here have been sporadic. I even missed going into TAS South a couple of weekends and I don't think I've done that before unless I was out of town or TAS was somehow inaccessible. Now that all this decluttering, painting, repairing has been done, it feels a shame to be leaving this place. It's like I've prepped the house for a great party I won't be going to.

After the first eight years of living in the house, my internal clock stopped keeping track and whenever anyone asked me how long I'd been there, I'd say eight years - and believed it. It wasn't until I checked the records, after the decision was made to sell it, that I saw I'd been here for thirteen years. It was a shock. It was like waking up one day and realizing I was five years older than I thought I was.

If dogs have ghosts, I wonder if they are location constrained like human ghosts. Perhaps then Stella and Rocky and Barclay will haunt this place. The future owners will hear the pad pad pad of paws. They will find dusty hair balls mysteriously appearing and rolling across the floor. They will feel the warmth of a furry weight settling in on their laps. And if the new owners are lucky, if they are especially sensitive to these kinds of things, they will feel a sense of overjoyous, crazy welcome every time they come home and walk in through the front door.


July
As we grow older, each year seems to go by faster, each winter feels colder, and each move becomes harder. Our baggage, physical and mental, accumulates and weighs us down. In the past, it was always a mutual agreement between friends to help with each other's moves: a bunch of boxes, a few pieces of heavier furniture. Not a big deal, nothing a few pizzas and cases of beer wouldn't help cover.

This time, I hired movers - a necessity. The furniture, now several pieces, are all heavy; the boxes, now multiplied in number, have gained weight as well, and the new place is narrow hallways, narrower stairs and three floors. The movers hauled for almost eight hours straight in the heat. By the end of the day, their clothes were soaked through from shoulders to knees.

There were times when I couldn't watch, like when they were carrying the three hundred pound couch up the stairs with a clearance of less than inch on either side or when they were trying to shimmy the awkward TV (a big old console) around a tight corner without scratching anything or busting the screen.

"You're never moving that TV again are you?" one of the movers asked.

"No," I said. "If I ever move again, I'm going to have a smash-the-TV-party and you're gonna be the first to get an invite."

Simone doesn't like living with boxes. She's particularly skittish around them. I bump into one, she jumps. I pull the packing tape off one, she jumps. I slide an empty one down the stairs, she jumps. She'll be happy when they no longer populate every room and hallway.

She likes the new neighbourhood, though. So many new smells. She stops more than she's ever stopped. At every new yard she passes, she has to mark - yes, she's a marker. She's even learned to lift her leg.

This morning as we stepped out the door, across the road was a guy walking two Whippets. They were blonde and sleek and gleaming, emblematic of the neighbourhood. Simone, a Parkdale dog if there ever was one, eyed them with suspicious. They stared back. They bucked and pulled at their leashes trying to get over to us. Simone dared them on. I'm not sure who grunted first but immediately after, the snarling/barking started.

Poor behaviour on all the dogs' parts to be sure but I thought it was kind of funny. It played into a classic narrative friction between the established and the newcomers, the polished and the unkempt, Roncevalles and Parkdale.

Maybe I'll get Simone a shinier collar. Maybe I'll start wearing less trashy clothes.

Or maybe not.




August
The old house is empty now. I am back one final time to say goodbye to the ghosts. Soon there will be new spirits inhabiting this place.

It's silly, but I feel I'm abandoning this house. Perhaps I'm confusing that feeling with a feeling of having abandoned a big part of my life. I never did all the things I wanted to do here. There was always something that needed to be done, big projects, big plans, as any of you living in old Victorians probably know. I often hated the place, all the responsibilities that came with it.

But I'm not just talking about the house. There were other things undone as well, in life, in love, undone, incomplete.

I often wanted to leave but I never actually saw myself leaving.

Now it's happened.

I wonder how many times this scene has replayed itself in this house before, similar thoughts from others who have been on the edge of leaving. I've seen this house indicated on a map from the 1880s so it's at least 130 years old. That's almost as old as Canada. How many families have passed through here since then?

There are echoes in here now with all the furniture gone. They are echoes of love, joy, sadness, happiness, anger, hope soaked into the bones of this old house, emanating back out. I leave that behind now.

I lay on the floor and stare up at the ceiling and I think: this once was mine.

May the new owners take care of these old ghosts.


1999 - 2012
These are the lives who have passed through here:

Davian, Gavin, April, Kelly, Jason, Lindsay, all their cats, Barclay, Stella, Rocky, Smitten, Simone, Elizabeth, myself.

Duke is a chatterbox so no condo living for this guy, unless you've got neighbours on all sides who like the sounds of out of tune violins being played by tone deaf three year olds on sugar pills. Okay, he's not that bad but he does like to bay when he converses and he seems to have a lot to say, at least at the shelter.

I suspect part of it is that he's missing his owner and he's not getting enough attention at TAS. At one point, we were stopped on our walk by three young women who were on their way to the Drake concert. They wanted to know if they could say hello to Duke and in response, Duke pulled himself over to them and plopped himself down in their midst. As they cooed and ran their hands over him, he was completely quiet and he gave me this look and I swear he was thinking, "Sucks to be you."



The best way to check on the adoption status of this dog (and other dogs and cats and other small domestic animals) is to visit Toronto Animal Services adoption website or call 416 338 6668 for the Toronto Animal Services South shelter. If the dog is no longer on the TAS adoption website, it's probably because it's been adopted already.

After a recent tragedy, Stella is back in at Toronto Animal Services South, this time along with another Basset Hound, Duke (tomorrow's post). They are friends but aren't bonded and so will be adopted out separately.

You may remember Stella from her first time through when she was still a pup. Hopefully, her stay this round will be just as short.

The best way to check on the adoption status of this dog (and other dogs and cats and other small domestic animals) is to visit Toronto Animal Services adoption website or call 416 338 6668 for the Toronto Animal Services South shelter. If the dog is no longer on the TAS adoption website, it's probably because it's been adopted already.