Dog Story

Part 2: An 80-Year-Old Retired Carpenter Built 347 Tiny White Doghouses in His Workshop and Refused to Sell a Single One — When the Reporter Looked Inside the Roof of One, He Stopped Asking Questions

I’m Lainey Beckwith. I’m twenty-eight. I’m a feature reporter at a small weekly paper in central Pennsylvania called the Sayre…

Read More »

Part 2: An 88-Year-Old Woman Fell in Her Own Front Yard at -20°F While Getting the Mail — When the Postman Came Back to the House 3 Hours Later, He Saw Something He Couldn’t Stop Filming

I’m Eleanor’s granddaughter. My name is Hannah. I’m thirty-one. I work at a hospital lab in Duluth. What I am…

Read More »

Part 2: A Retired K9 Cop Carried His 85-Pound German Shepherd Outside Every Morning to Lie in the Sun — When the Reporter Asked Him Why, He Said One Sentence That Got 15 Million Views

I’m Lara Whitmore. I’m a feature reporter at the Arizona Daily Star. What I am telling you, I am telling…

Read More »

Part 2: My Daughter’s First Word Wasn’t “Mama” or “Dada” — It Was the Name of the 80-Pound Golden Who Had Slept Beside Her Crib Since the Day We Brought Her Home

We brought Lila home from Wake Med Hospital on a Wednesday afternoon in late January. Drew carried the car seat…

Read More »

Part 2: A 75-Year-Old Vietnam Vet Slipped Into a Diabetic Coma at Midnight — The 911 Operator Who Took the Call Said the Voice on the Other End Wasn’t Human

I want to tell you what was happening in that bedroom. My father was on his back. The bedside lamp…

Read More »

Part 2: My 7-Year-Old Daughter Hid in a Closet Every Night Her Father Came Home Drunk — Our Golden Retriever Started Going in With Her, and One Night He Did Something I Will Never Be Able to Repay

The first time I noticed Sunday was missing from the kitchen on a bad night, I assumed he was sleeping…

Read More »

Part 2: A Pit Bull Was Returned to the Shelter 6 Times for Howling Every Night — The 7th Adopter Was a Man Who Couldn’t Hear a Single Sound

I want to tell you what we tried. We hired a certified veterinary behaviorist out of the University of New…

Read More »

Part 2: A 79-Year-Old Woman Had a Stroke Alone in Her Bathroom — When Paramedics Got There, Her German Shepherd Had Already Done Two Things They Didn’t Know Dogs Could Do

What Atlas did next, we know from two sources. We know from the bathroom door itself, which had to be…

Read More »

Part 2: An 82-Year-Old Vermont Man Fell Down His Stairs at 2 A.M. — What His Golden Retriever Did Next Was Caught on a Milk Delivery Driver’s Doorbell Camera

I’m Susan. I’m fifty-three. I’m a school nurse in Burlington. I’m Walter’s only child. What I’m telling you, I’m telling…

Read More »

Part 2: A 94-Year-Old Woman Survived 3 Days Without Heat in a New Hampshire Blizzard — When the Vet Looked at Her Pit Bull’s Temperature, He Stopped Writing

I want to tell you what was happening inside that farmhouse while we were trying to reach her. I called…

Read More »