# Furmentations ## Posts - [7 years vs albacore](https://furmentations.com/7-years-vs-albacore/): In 2019, four Japanese researchers published seven years of work confirming what I could have told them over a Diet Sundrop. Cats know their names. - [Circled in Red](https://furmentations.com/circled-in-red/): Somewhere there is a calendar with my name on it, and somebody has circled a date in red. - [Grab this end](https://furmentations.com/grab-this-end/): Golden retrievers were bred in the Scottish Highlands to swim out into cold water and bring back a duck without bruising it. Captain meets you at the door. - [Sophocles with Fur](https://furmentations.com/sophocles-with-fur/): I do most of my writing at the breakfast table off the kitchen. - [The Boyz Mean Business](https://furmentations.com/the-boyz-mean-business/): Each morning, without fail, I awaken to a golden retriever’s nose close enough to my face that we are sharing the available air. - [Boredom and Bravado](https://furmentations.com/boredom-and-bravado/): The tell was in how slowly they got up. - [Second Chance Parenting](https://furmentations.com/second-chance-parenting/): When Connor was born, I made the usual promises people make before the person they're making them about has had any opportunity to weigh in. - [The Snift Test](https://furmentations.com/the-snift-test/): There are few things in life that fill me with quite as much dread as taking the Boyz to the groomer. - [The Doughnut Hole Standard](https://furmentations.com/the-doughnut-hole-standard/): There is a particular kind of confidence that builds in a man watching a home improvement show from the safety of his own couch. - [the Birka Felony on the 21st Floor](https://furmentations.com/the-birka-felony-on-the-21st-floor/): This past weekend I moved my son into his new condo in Norfolk, where he is beginning his PhD pursuits. - [The Boyz Discover Nightlife](https://furmentations.com/the-boyz-discover-nightlife/): I understood parenting. - [the verdict](https://furmentations.com/the-verdict/): There are days I am fairly certain the Boyz hold staff meetings. - [Winston'S Application](https://furmentations.com/winstons-application/): The local animal shelter has a rather optimistic adoption strategy. - [Code Red](https://furmentations.com/code-red/): My wife has spent forty-two years compiling a very specific dataset on me, and one of its clearer findings is that I should not be on a ladder when no one else is home. - [The Femur Incident](https://furmentations.com/the-femur-incident/): My wife came home with rawhide chewies shaped and sized like human femurs, and I want it on record that I objected on medical grounds before I objected on aesthetic ones. - [Dance Night at the Vet](https://furmentations.com/dance-night-at-the-vet/): Fifteen months, seventy-five pounds each, and a memory of the last vet visit that apparently did not survive the six-month growth spurt. - [Clairvoyance REquired](https://furmentations.com/clairvoyance-required/): There is a commercial that runs sometime around six most evenings, always during the news, always the same setup. - [The Great Known](https://furmentations.com/the-great-known/): I left the back gate open today. Not wide open, not a grand gesture of carelessness, just open enough. A few inches. - [summer Lessons](https://furmentations.com/summer-lessons/): Summer in Middle Tennessee does not arrive so much as it settles; the way a large man lowers himself into a chair that was not built for him, and by the time you notice it has already made itself comfortable and has no plans to leave before September. - [A Glossary for the Modern Sufferer](https://furmentations.com/a-glossary-for-the-modern-sufferer/): Language rarely dies in a dramatic fashion. It doesn’t collapse on stage with a final speech and a respectable funeral. It fades the way old shopping malls do. - [The missing piece](https://furmentations.com/the-missing-piece/): She left for Norfolk yesterday evening, a quick trip with our son, gone before the dogs had finished their dinner. - [Catch and Release](https://furmentations.com/catch-and-release/): Winston keeps himself impeccably groomed. - [Call to Order](https://furmentations.com/call-to-order/): There is a committee that meets in my house every morning. - [we](https://furmentations.com/we/): The Kong was losing. - [What they cannot know](https://furmentations.com/what-they-cannot-know/): There were certain mornings when the household revealed itself less as a system than as a negotiated settlement between species operating under entirely different assumptions. - [The Wet Wrinkle](https://furmentations.com/the-wet-wrinkle/): The Boyz are creatures of habit. - [The Guilt-Laden Bowl and the Gourmet Industrial Complex](https://furmentations.com/the-guilt-laden-bowl-and-the-gourmet-industrial-complex/): I have a confession, and I offer it with the full weight of a man who has watched too many Facebook threads spiral into what I can only describe as competitive dog parenting: I feed my golden retrievers Royal Canin, and sometimes, when they turn their magnificent noses up at it, I supplement their diet with whatever has fallen within six inches of the counter's edge. - [Not today Friend](https://furmentations.com/not-today-friend/): There is an established order at the dog park. - [The Expedition](https://furmentations.com/the-expedition/): I opened the refrigerator looking for cherry preserves. - [Adjustments](https://furmentations.com/adjustments/): The first thing Captain stole from me was a sock. - [A recalibration](https://furmentations.com/a-recalibration/): When Winston didn’t come home, the house didn’t break. - [Dog Park Accords](https://furmentations.com/dog-park-accords/): There’s a moment, right before I open the door, when both dogs go still. They know where we are. - [Rite of Spring](https://furmentations.com/rite-of-spring/): There are certain rites of spring that arrive whether you are ready for them or not. The first warm evening. The pollen that coats everything you love. - [Building a Dog](https://furmentations.com/building-a-dog/): I have spent considerable time trying to understand the specific theological reasoning behind the golden retriever. - [We got you](https://furmentations.com/we-got-you/): I had it handled. Or at least I had it contained in the way a man contains a leaky bucket by setting it in the sink and calling that a plan. - [The Winston Principle](https://furmentations.com/the-winston-principle/): Winston arrived in our house as a rescue, which is a word people use when they want to feel good about a transaction that is, fundamentally, adopting a stranger's problem. - [Zoom Call Shouldn't be literal](https://furmentations.com/zoom-call-shouldnt-be-literal/): There was a time, not long ago and not long enough, when I understood privacy to be a reasonable expectation of daily life. - [The Never Ending Surveillence](https://furmentations.com/the-never-ending-surveillence/): I used to think losing privacy was just a phase. Like diaper blowouts. Or Elmo. - [Pre-Dawn and other Laments](https://furmentations.com/pre-dawn-and-other-laments/): Winston decides it's morning at 4:22 AM. Not 4:15. Not 4:30. 4:22, every single day, with the precision of a Swiss watch wrapped in fur and entitlement. - [First Snow](https://furmentations.com/first-snow/): Winter arrived at our house like an idea nobody vetted. Showed up early, made a mess, and settled in without asking. - [Training. But for Whom](https://furmentations.com/training-but-for-whom/): That sentence alone should come with a disclaimer. - [Sleep. Naaa](https://furmentations.com/sleep-naaa/): June 5th, 2025. A Thursday. ## Pages - [Newsletter](https://furmentations.com/newsletter/) - [Courses](https://furmentations.com/courses/) - [FAQ](https://furmentations.com/faq/): Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. - [Stories](https://furmentations.com/blog/) - [About Us](https://furmentations.com/about/): Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. - [Contact](https://furmentations.com/contact/) - [Home](https://furmentations.com/): Somewhere between my third Diet Sundrop and the moment Morgan decided the couch was his by divine right, it occurred to me that I should probably be writing this down. ## Optional - [Agent (MCP protocol)](websites-agents.hostinger.com/furmentations.com/mcp) [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)