Amos is not feeling up to blogging today. He's suffering from a severe attack of arthritis, so I've agreed to be his guest blogger for the day. I found Amos on petfinder.com when he was tiny and fat. (He prefers that I use the word "chubby," as he feels it has a more respectful ring to it.) I'd been trolling the site for weeks, sending pictures to my husband in an effort to convince him that our children needed a dog in their lives. Well, when I sent him the picture of this little silvery speckled guy amidst a passel of black puppies, he hopped right on board and suggested I contact the shelter. So I did, and we had a friend watch the kids while we made the two-hour drive to Bellingham to pick up this sweet surprise guy for our family. (My husband has since said, "really, wasn't he for you, Marc?") They had no clue, and when Amos popped his head out of the box we held out to them upon our arrival home, they jumped and screamed. (They would want me to say they didn't actually scream, but that they were a little startled.) At that point, he was not known as Amos, so we all wrote down a name we wanted for him. My husband found Amos in a baby name book. My kids chose Neville and Bone. I wanted Boo, because he was born on Halloween. We put the scraps of paper in a hat, shook them around, and Amos won--and so did we. I could tell all sorts of stories about his crazy and often destructive puppyhood (he prefers I don't), but I still feel that allowing your children to grow up with a puppy is a wonderful thing.