When I was 17 years old, I refused to dissect a frog for high school biology class. My nervous mother didn’t know what to put on the note to the teacher.

“Just write ‘principles' ” and I’ll explain it,” I suggested.

The teacher made me clean out mouse cages while the other students carved up their amphibian victims, but I didn’t mind. My home room teacher assumed, since I was so adamant against killing a frog, that I must be vegetarian.

I wasn’t, but I thought it was a good idea and I’ve been veg ever since. Could it be wrong to kill a frog but OK to kill a cow because I was going to eat it? I decided I should try to be consistent.

As a journalist, I’ve written all kinds of stories. Those involving animals get some of the strongest reader responses. Whether they’re heroic dogs, survivor cats or starved horses, there’s something that we as humans relate to in their tales.

My adult life has been shared mostly with cats, so they may tend to dominate this blog. Cats do, after all, like to think they rule the world and overall, they do rule mine. But I’m not strictly a cat person. In my childhood, I also lived with a neurotic dog, a broken-winged sparrow, a hamster named Rosie, a few turtles and the occasional frog from the lake. Frogs that I didn’t dissect.

This blog is about sharing some of the stories of the good, and perhaps including the occasional rant about some of the bad.

You're welcome to contact me with your comments and your ideas.