I am severely dog-deprived. I smile at every canine within yards of me and pat any whose companion humans give me permission. Today I accidentally happened upon a blog post by someone who wrote about the loss of her pup and included a video of him, in his prime, singing what she assured us was “Happy Birthday to You.” It made me weep.

My grandnephew and his fiancée have a dog that might well have been a disaster. Much to our dismay, they acquired him from a pet store, where he’d spent the first six months of his life in a crate. But he is now a wonderful, lovable mush, nicely trained, and I would dognap him in a millisecond if I could get away with it.