Power of a Pup

Newsweek magazine has a weekly feature called "My Turn," which gives the public an opportunity to submit personal essays about things that matter most to them. Most of the stories often relate to issues that families often deal with, whether its children or the elderly, politics or religion, and so on. This week's issue, however, is a heartwarming story about how a dog helped heal a family's emotional wounds: "The Dog That Made Us a Family" by Ginny Blanford. After a close friend of Blanford and her husband passed away, the couple took in their friend's orphaned child. The girl had never seemed to grieve over the loss of her mother. After the girl begged for a dog, they relented and brought home from a shelter Molly, "a regal chow mix, chestnut red with a feathery tail that wagged all the time," whose picture you see here. Unfortunately, the dog ran away almost immediately afterwards. Their daughter was so devastated, she broke down and sobbed openly for the first time, not only about Molly, but about her mother and all of her feelings. The good news is that Molly the dog eventually did come home after some adventures of her own. Blanford writes that Molly helped break down the walls their daughter had built around her because of her grief, and as a result made them a family. It just goes to show you how important pets are in our lives. It's all about the power of a pup!