As a child growing up in Germany, neighbors would bring me injured animals to nurse back to health. Once, I witnessed a moped driver deliberately running over a kitten on the sidewalk near my family home. The kitten was not expected to live, but I nursed it back to complete health. When I was about 12 years old my beloved Dachshund puppy, Susie, disappeared. I searched for her, and did not give up, until I found her many weeks later tied up in a yard on the other side of town. The local newspaper wrote a story about it. In 1992 a friend of mine accepted a position as English professor at an English University in China and asked me if I would take his dog, Mischka. He said that I was the only one he would trust to take good care of his dog and give him all the love he needed. Mischka, a Keeshond/Collie mix, was nine years old at the time and stayed with me until he died at age 14. I acquired two dogs after Mischka died—a Keeshond puppy and a Cockapoo puppy—Beko and Frodo. Both dogs were my best friends and hiking buddies until they died 14 and 15 years later. We always had dogs when my kids grew up and I have been accused, on a couple of occasions, of loving dogs more than people.