Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.  Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx  

BIO

2004: Connie dies on April 3, at the age of almost fourteen and a half.

2003: Buffy the Vampire Slayer finishes its six-season run

2002: Phyl and I enter our first sheepdog trial.

2001: I import Phyl, my second border collie, from John Atkinson in England.

2000: I become co-owner (with Sally Molloy) of a flock of sheep.

1999: Ollie earns his companion dog excellent obedience title, which also earns him a Basset Hound Club of America versatility certificate.

1997: I see my first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

1997: Ollie earns his companion dog obedience title.

1996: Leap, my first border collie, joins my household.

1996: Ollie earns his conformation championship.

1995: I start work at the Educational Testing Service, focusing on the verbal section of the SAT. ETS turns out to be a good place for me, since it's filled with Ph.D.s who for one reason or another became disaffected with the academic world.

1995: I meet Eileen Stein, who will become a close friend and enormous influence on the way I think about dogs and dog training.

1995: Ollie earns his Tracking Dog title.

1995: I join a border collie discussion list even though I at the time didn't own a border collie, and my world is rocked.  This list made me think differently about the relationship of dogs to human beings, and the almost totalitarian role of the American Kennel Club in shaping what we think of as the "correct" way to view a dog. 

1994: I start writing a book review column for the obedience publication Front and Finish.

1994: Ollie, my second basset hound, joins my household.

1993: I finish Connie's companion dog excellent and tracking titles, making her the twelfth basset to earn Basset Hound Club of America "versatility" title.

1993: My first web site goes up; it's laughingly bad by today's standards, and even by the standards of the time it wasn't that exciting.  But it was enough to hook me on the web. 

1993: I realize that I can't become a college professor, since I have zero interest in teaching anyone anything and have a near-phobic fear of speaking in front of groups of people. I hang around Princeton for the next two years, serving as a research assistant on a vaguely defined American religious history project. 

1993: I graduate from Princeton University with a Ph.D. in American religious history.  My dissertation was on William James's dislike of the new Ph.D. degree that was taking off in the early twentieth century and how that attitude related to the anti-institutional strand in his religious and philosophical thought.  Writing a Ph.D. dissertation about someone who thought Ph.D. dissertations were appalling seemed amusing when I picked the topic, but the joke wore thin by the end.

1992: I meet Sally Molloy, who will become my dog-training and sheep-owning partner and close friend.

1992: I finish Connie's conformation championship and companion dog obedience title.

1991: I adopt my basset hound Connie from Brenda and Eva to keep me company in graduate school.

1988: I graduate from Yale University with a B.A. (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) in Religious Studies (a peculiar choice for a non-religious person, but Yale was a peculiar place).  Good things about Yale: Yale.  Bad things about Yale: New Haven.

1985: I start playing around on Internet newsgroups and the old Bitnet listservs.  The possibilities of the Internet dazzle and intrigue me, but unfortunately thinking about ways to use my early knowledge to make money never occurs to me.

1984: I graduate from Cheshire High School in Cheshire, Connecticut.  Good things about high school: reading (I was pretty stuck on Russian literature back then) and not yet realizing what an intellectual hack I really am.  Bad things about high school: high school.

1982: I put my first obedience title on a dog, a Pekingese that I convince a neighbor to let me train.  Later that year I convince my mother to let me have a dog of my own, a Labrador retriever that I show in obedience and junior showmanship classes.

1981: I meet Brenda Jubin and Eva Balogh, two former Yale professors and current basset hound breeders.  They give me a job as a proofreader and let me help with Brevis Bassets, inspiring me in multiple ways.

1980: I graduate from Dodd Junior High School in Cheshire, Connecticut.  The less said about seventh and eighth grade, the better.

1975: Fourth grade at Wintergreen School in Hamden, Connecticut.  I refuse to learn how to write in cursive, despite threats from some scary-looking teachers.  I think in the long run I was right, although my inability to sign my name has proven embarrassing on occasion.

1972: First grade at Peck Place School in Orange, Connecticut.  The highlights of that year were learning to tell my left from my right and learning to read.  I got better and better at reading, but left and right has remained a perpetual challenge.

1966: I'm born in Yale New Haven Hospital.  I was scrawny and shrieked a lot.  While the shrieking has continued, the scrawniness unfortunately evaporated.