I had a $30,000 book advance in my back pocket, a regular gig at Pets.com and a six-month lease for a beach house on Alligator Point, Fla., at the point where a line dropped southwest from Tallahassee and northeast from Apalachicola would intersect. We weren’t talking a beach condo, either, but an old-style Florida family weekend house, a simple wood-frame structure heavy on bayfront windows and decking. The little blue house was perched precariously on wooden stilts with so much give in them that the entire place shook during the spin cycle of the washing machine, which had been named for a relatively mild hurricane that had had a similar effect.

My house may have been on Alligator Point, but to the U.S. Postal Service, I lived in Panacea. Looking back, that seems about right.

But no matter: I had my dogs, my van, a handful of books, some music CDs, a couple week’s worth of clothes and a Sony laptop. I was never going to have a day job again.

Well … ha!

Pets.com collapsed not long after my arrival, its sock puppet one of its only assets, along with the work I did for them, which was sold to a Microsoft content site and still pops up now and then. (The sock puppet was last seen working for a used-car dealer.)

I finished the one book, wrote second editions of two others, continued with my  syndicated newspaper column and waited for news on the new book proposals. After a few months I realized I would have to go back to the empty house in Sacramento that I was still paying the mortgage on.

Shortly after 9/11, I knew the economy and the publishing industry weren’t going to be anything like normal for months to come, so I did what every unemployed writer/editor/journalist does in a town like Sacramento: I took a government job.

It was a good fit, for the most part. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is a customer-owned electric utility with a history of public service,  a product of the state’s progressive era, when civic-minded advocates broke the monopoly of the Robber Barons who ran the railroads and were gearing up to run the new electric and gas utilities. In more recent times, SMUD had become world-famous for renewable energy — solar, wind, biofuel, electric transportation and more — and, to a lesser extent, for mothballing a nuclear plant after a public vote. Who knew infrastructure could be so much fun?

My boss had a relaxed attitude and an infectious, honking laugh, and my co-workers were funny, smart and committed to public service. The gorgeous 1950s headquarters building had been ruined inside by the addition of beige “Dilbert”-style cubicles that blocked the light and made the place gloomy, at best, but the grounds were beautiful and every day I got to touch a 1959 Wayne Thiebaud mural as I walked in — and I almost always did, right at his tile “signature.”  For a public-service-oriented policy wonk like me, it was a great place to be.

And it it still is, but as of last Friday, I’m not there.

The Tuesday previous, I woke up and quit. Well, technically, I retired so I could be able to buy group health insurance, but the end result was the same. I’m outta there.

Of course, the seeds of change had been sown a while back, starting when Dr. Becker and I formally became writing partners, 11 (soon to be 13) books ago. Those seeds were watered by the 2007 pet-food recall, and warmed by the greater opportunities Christie and I gained from our  post-recall blogging cred, and with better, more prestigious and, well, better-paying writing gigs. That, and I have a burning desire to be a part of the sustainable, more humane agriculture movement, the heart of which beats in the Capay Valley, one county to the west of me.

The pet-food recall changed my life. I knew it would from the beginning, when Christie and I immediately realized it wasn’t a “pet story” at all, but one about an industrial  food-delivery system for pets and people gone off the rails.  I wanted to report on it, and I wanted to be part of fixing it. And I also, of course, wanted to keep writing about pets.

By any sensible measure, the decision to leave SMUD is a bad one, but truth is any of my co-workers would tell you with a smile that I was always a square peg in the round hole of civil service.

So it’s  time to put the sensible behind me once again. Besides, I don’t have much time to worry: Dr. B and I have a book due May 1 and another due  six months after that. And two more articles for Parade due within two weeks, and a weekly syndicated news feature due Monday.

This time, I hope I’m really on my way.

Top: Ben (died 2005) and Heather (d. 2009) at Alligator Point, Fla., January of 2001. Bottom: The award-winning SMUD headquarters building (Dreyfuss and Blackford). Here’s another view of this splendid building, which is awaiting California Office of Historic Preservation for being  “a virtually pristine example of the International/Miesian style of post-WWII Modernism.”

Late yesterday afternoon, Dr. Becker sent an urgent e-mail to me and to Christie, letting us know that his granddaughter, Reagan Avelle, 13 weeks old today, was in the hospital with a severe viral infection. He asked that we not call, since he was too choked up to talk. Dr. B and his wife, Teresa, are in Coeur d’Alene scouting locations for a TV series that’s being considered, and were pretty much stranded. Their daughter, Mikkel, son-in-law, Pat, and Dr. Becker’s mother, Virginia, where at the hospital with the baby, but to get there from CdA, Dr. and Mrs. B would have to catch a plane to Boise, rent a car, etc. So they’re staying put until this morning, and I bet neither of them slept a wink.

Christie and I will post what we know when we hear from them. In the meantime, Dr. B forwarded a picture from Pat and asked us to post it, so people could see his granddaughter and focus good thoughts and prayers. Overnight, our Web site moved to a new server, and some things were lost and others aren’t working right. The updates from last night and the picture disappeared, as did many of the comments. The site won’t let me post pictures right now, but Reagan is on Dr. Becker’s FB page, here.

Thank you for your good thoughts and prayers.  Those of you who’ve met Dr. Becker know his family is everything to him, and I can’t truly imagine the hell they’re all going through now.

Update, 8 a.m. PT, from Dr. B:

Good news/bad news. Reagan is doing better: less oxygen needed, crying and coughing less. And continued concerns: still expected to be hospitalized for few days, not eating. The best news: she started to give them an occassional smile.

We are thankful for the great medical care Reagan’s received. Rock solid in family support. Overwhelmed, comforted and grateful for the outpouring of prayers and positive thoughts from our neighbors, colleagues but especially our online family. It’s made my heart bigger.

Update, 9:30 a.m., from Dr. B:

Lungs are better today. Not out of the woods but the sun is coming up.

I still can’t post images. Dr. B send one of Reagan’s rads of her lungs. It’s over on his FB page. Sorry. Mike at Black Dog says it’s a “PHP5 v. PHP4 server integration blah blah he lost me problem.” But they’re working on it.

Our own Dr. Becker will appear live at 9 p.m. ET.

Cooper Lawrence’s show combines expert talk, entertainment, pop culture, comedy and celebrity — all flavored with her unique brand of storytelling. Between Cooper and Dr. Becker, you’ll laugh while you learn on “Dr. Marty Monday.”

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Now that those pleasantries are out of the way, let’s help some pets rise up (off the concrete), lie down (on a comfy bed), and move out (into a loving home)!

Pick a shelter and donate a bed, here.

This last week, the LAFD’s daring and heroic rescue of a drowning dog triggered a lot of the hate mail. My response, outlined in this blog post, was a Facebook fan page to thank firefighter Joe St. Georges that now has more than 5,000 members. The L.A. Times poll says 98 percent agree with what the LAFD did, and firefighter St. Georges himself has been buried in appreciative cards and letters, including these abso-freakin’-lutely adorable ones from second-graders in Northern California, picture sent to me by their teacher, Kerry Forni, who also has flat-coated retrievers, which is how she knew where to send the shot.

All this pro-pet news really drove the haters nuts, to judge from the volume of hate we vaporized this week.

The rest of the hate I figure is a full moon thing. Love the ones that say, “All you people ever write about is pets.” Hello? Look at the top of the page. “Pet Connection.” What on earth did you expect to find here? An historical analysis of the Nazi occupation of Poland?

But here’s what has really made me guffaw — what a great word, huh? — this afternoon: There’s one regular hate-spammer who lands in our spam filter at least three-four times a day. His ho-hum refrain, coming from different e-mail addies but always the same IP address (and the same misspelled words)  is this: Pets are stupid. People who love pets are stupid. People who love pets hate people. Blah blah blah blah blah.

You never see this nut-case’s comments, because they go straight into the spam filter, as I said. Every few days Christie or I glance through all the spam for porn and mail-order pharmaceuticals looking for real, on-point comments that have accidentally landed there. We liberate those, and then we  hit “delete all” and zap the rest.  We barely glance at what this dope writes. Frankly, his comments are worse than stupid:  Stupid can be amusing, but boring never is.

And yet, he keeps on writing it, apparently never, ever noticing that no one ever sees it.

Seriously, dude, not even the stupidest pet is that stupid.

Defining low calorie is in the eye of the label beholder: Go to any store that sells pet food, and look for products marked low calorie, lite, light or less calorie.  Do you know what you’ll find?  A dizzying disparity in numbers, whether you’re looking at dog food or cat food, wet food or dry.  Very likely you’ll have trouble making sense of which product is best, comparing product to product, head to head. The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University has illustrated your understandable confusion with a study out this month in the  Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.  Even reading labels won’t necessarily help you.

There is so much information—and misinformation—about pet foods, it’s understandable that people are confused about what to feed their dogs and cats, said co-author Dr. Lisa Freeman, professor of nutrition at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. To counteract these myths, people are accustomed to turning to the labels on food—but, as this study shows, packaging might not always be a reliable source of information.

The evolution of dog identity politics: Far and away the best piece of writing I’ve read all week was forwarded to me by Pet Connection colleague Kim Thornton.  New York Magazine’s John Homans, whose gorgeous dog Stella is pictured here, has written a nuanced, interesting and thoroughly worthwhile essay on the path to where we stand today in the world of dogs.  Mr. Homans covers a broad swath of the landscape, and addresses many of the issues we talk about here on a regular basis.   It’s a long article, but it’s a must read.

The remarkable life of Moscow’s stray dogs: I’ve seen five or six variations of this story, plus two referred separately by loyal readers Linda and Anne.  The Financial Times has the original, comprehensive tale, but my favorite summary is from our friends over at Dogster, and includes a sobering opening line:

Moscow is home to 35,000 stray dogs. That’s 84 dogs per square mile. It’s a hard life, especially in sub-zero winter months.

Read on.  You’ll see that in Moscow, the strays ride the subway, and have jobs.

Run with your dog, or just walk: I take Cami and Harry for frequent walks, but many dog owners like to run with their dogs.   Linda sent me this New York Times story saying, in essence, running with your dog might not be a good idea.

It’s a lesson that Michelle Powe, an English teacher in Midlothian, Tex., learned last summer when trying to run with Mookie, her 90-pound Catahoula.

“He kept trying to herd me,” she recalled. For the entire three-mile run, Mookie displayed the kind of herding behavior that is typical for the breed, throwing his weight against Ms. Powe and nipping at her legs.

Cold nose, warm toes: It started with our Dr. Marty Becker visiting Orange County Animal Care Services in Orlando, and seeing two Italian greyhounds sharing a tiny bed with a pit bull mix because that was the only place they could escape the cold, hard floor.    Dr. Becker’s idea was simple: these dogs need beds so they don’t have to sleep on the floor.  Everyone chip in a little, and we can help a lot.   Almost immediately, the idea caught fire.   We’re now over 30 beds donated, in less than a week.  Yesterday, Good Morning America’s Facebook page picked up the cause (Dr. Becker, as you know, is GMA’s resident veterinarian).  You can help, too.  Here’s the link for donations to Kuranda beds.  From all the pets who will benefit, thank you.

Cat vs. Bear — The Showdown: A bear comes to the back door, with a nose for the trash bag left on the porch.   The cat decides it’s time to protect the property.   The Huffington Post has the video.  Enjoy.  I’m betting that bear isn’t coming back for another visit, and is most likely wondering “What is that thing?”

Got a tip?  Got a story?  Don’t keep it to yourself.  Send it to me, or give me a shout in the comments.

Photo credits:  Stella: Jill Greenberg.  Crowded Dogs: Dr. Marty Becker.

Of course, it’s not really a day of rest: There’s other work, both the professional (other writing projects for me, for example) or the personal (the laundry, cooking, etc.) But we’re also trying to do some relaxing things: Cuddling the cats, walking the dogs or reading something unrelated to our work, much as we love that work.

Before I start my New Year’s resolution and turn off the social media machine for the day, I want to share the following example of why  I have pets in my life, courtesy of the Land of PureGold blog:

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Pets just make life better. Even in the snow. That tail never, ever stops wagging! And here’s what a cat would be doing, instead:
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Gotta love it!
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And one more (thanks Ohmidog) ….
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See you tomorrow.

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McKenzie: Hey Woody, you look like an idiot with those on.

Woody: Back off, sister. You might wanna take a look in the mirror before shooting off your yap.

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We’re closed today so everyone can here enjoy the holiday. Back tomorrow!

Image from 2006: I never have been able to figure out where those reindeer “antlers” went after this picture was taken. Hmmmm …

But whatever: I’m delighted.Dr. Becker and I have been business partners for going on three years now, with eight (soon to be nine) books, Parade magazine articles and a syndicated column to our credit — and two more books coming in 2010.

The blog has always been “my thing,” though, in the same way that “Good Morning America” and “The Dr. Oz Show” have been his.

It kind of started when Christie and I got him hooked on Facebook. We set him up with a Dr. Marty Becker fan page and have been helping him figure it all out. Then, Twitter! I guess the only social media left was blogging, and he’ll be joining us here a couple times a week.

I have one more blogger to add besides Dr. Becker, and I just haven’t had time to get him launched. But be patient: Lots of good stuff coming.

But in the meantime, Dr. Becker and I have to get another book project out of the starting gate. And much more.  Funny, you may be seeing less of my blogging even as you start seeing more of Dr. Becker’s.