That’s Shawn’s beloved — and very big — dog Charlie, and when Shawn had to leave town unexpectedly this weekend for some family stuff, she recruited me to take in her girl. I often tease Shawn about Charlie’s unruly behavior, but as it turned out, she couldn’t have been sweeter, and she really bonded with my dog Zoe. (That could have been ugly if it had gone differently!)

You can get a pretty good idea of just how large Charlie is in this shot where she’s taking up lots of real estate on my bed. I would wake up in the morning and hear some heavy sighs, and lo and behold this big hairy creature was dozing away right next to me. (Make yourself at home, pal!)

And here’s Charlie relaxing on my deck with her new best friend, my dog Zoe. What a lovefest!

The hardest part of taking care of Charlie was answering Shawn’s hourly texts: “What’s she doing?” “Are they getting along?” “Is she behaving?” It was actually fun to have a canine houseguest . . . . It almost tempts me to adopt a pal for Zoe. But let’s not get carried away.