On this Memorial Day, I'm honoring those military dogs who not only help serve and protect, but whose loyalty to their handlers is, at times, simply amazing...

Photo found at www.thedogfiles.com

A good friend of mine designed the delightful graphics for this website of mine; I love them.

Her name is Cheri.

Unfortunately, her dear dog, Lacy, passed earlier this week. And, this was so soon after her dear cat, Bobbie, passed late last year.

They were loved by Cheri, the rest of her family, and--many, many others.

This entry is dedicated to them both.

One of my clients lost a pet this week, dear little Sebastian. In respect to their privacy, I will say no more than this:

I love you, Sebastian. Rest in peace, little one.

"Dr. Stanley Coren, a professor emeritus in psychology at the University of British Columbia, writes in a Psychology Today blog post that hugging a dog actually increases the dog's stress level."

Read the full article, on www.npr.org, here:

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/30/476212898/lets-not-hug-it-out-with-our-dogs

Thoughts?

I'm not so sure about this study. But, of course, I would never wanna make a dog feel uncomfortable. So, I think I'll leave it up to the dog to decide if he/she wants to be hugged. Dogs do a pretty good job of letting us know how they feel, don't they?