When my son was eight, we decided we would get a rescue dog. After scouring the shelters, my son chose a one-year-old Border Collie/Lab cross named Dallas. We didn’t have a lot of information about her past—just that she had been brought back to the shelter twice. She was unruly, but not aggressive. My husband nicknamed her “the supermodel,” because she was underweight, leggy, and had impossibly white teeth.   It took Dallas a few days to trust us. Once she... [read more]

Many years ago, when my now grown son was in kindergarten, he asked for music lessons. His father and I enrolled him in the Suzuki piano program, and pretty soon, he was playing simple classical pieces reasonably well. I decided I would take violin lessons, thinking it would be fun for us both to be learning an instrument at the same time. I chose the violin because my sister had one to loan me, and an old friend who was a professional violinist agreed to teach me.   Well, it would... [read more]

As a real estate agent, I show a lot of condos. In skyscrapers, boutique buildings, old condos, new condos, not-quite-finished condos. As the price for a single family home continues to rise, so does our vertical population – condos are now forever homes for many people. And increasingly, condos are homes for dogs. Lots of dogs. Walk around any condo-dense downtown neighbourhood, and you will see that dogs are more ubiquitous than a tall latte.   And why not? Dog lovers,... [read more]