Homeward Bound

I would rather train a striped zebra to balance an Indian club than induce a dachshund to heed my slightest command.— E. B. White, November 1940

Without exception, it was the strangest — yet, upon reflection, the most heartwarming — introduction I had ever received in all my years of public speaking. A very dear friend had asked if I would do her a solid by talking to corporate communications people, who happened to be in the media business, about the challenges that journalists face in this multi-platform, multi-universe world of truth, half-truths, and blistering lies. In addition to delivering the boilerplate resumé of my various jobs, accomplishments, hopes, and desires, my friend wistfully added that I was “the owner of a bossy twenty-pound sausage dog.”

No one had ever considered the dog a vital part of my professional life. I wasn’t sure why, but I felt somewhat vulnerable, as though, even...