Our darling Jack, little ruffian rescue dog who barged into this house full of testosterone - and heartworms, as it turned out, has been with us for a little over 8 years. He has become the most wonderful dog. Everyone who visits wants him to sleep with them, and he does. When we visited my elderly dad, Jack looked at me as if to say, "Just to let you know, I'm going to sleep with Grandpa. Okay, bye." Off he'd go.

He has mitral valve disease and collapsing trachea. He coughs day and night, and I'm medicating him twice as much. He wakes me up panting at 3 a.m. I believe while he's not in pain, he's struggling.

This is the hardest decision - everyone in the family agrees, but I'm just plagued with uncertainty. Yet, I know.

I just lost it feeding him his dinner tonight. Boy loves to eat, still.

One of our dogs, our spayed female dachshund/papillon Chloe, seems to get along with the male dogs in our extended family better than the female. We have six dogs between all four couples (daughters & husbands & us): Four males, two females including Chloe. Right now, Chloe and Jack are our two dogs. I'm looking at other dogs on Petfinder, and have been limiting my search to male dogs.

Do any of you have experience with females living with other females, or is my gut telling me to get a male the best choice?

Thanks in advance!

I’m at my Dad’s. He’s 90 and a staunch Republican. I can’t even tell you about our conversation today because I’d be slapped down for spouting Republican talking points. HIS talking points. Everything you’ve heard, on steroids. When I asked him if it’d be okay for any political party to have received help from a foreign government, it took him wading through five tries to say it wouldn’t be okay. Other things he’d “never heard about that.” All I can say is he’s moved on from Fox to a station called “One America News.”

I just can’t. I’ve left the basement where the tv is and am up I’m the living room.

So sad.

the ENTIRE conversation.

Where is Joy Reid when we need her?

We have 40+ videotapes of our family dating back to 1988 (we rented that camcorder, I'm sure of it!) Our daughter and I just went through and labeled all of the tapes and I've found someone locally who will digitize them. I'm not sure if I should ask for DVDs (old technology, I know) or USB/thumbdrive. I have a newer computer with a built-in DVD so I can easily watch them. We also have a few DVD players in the house.

Can I transfer them to USB by myself? Has anyone done this before? Thanks in advance for advice