My dog Snuffles is terrier mix called a schnoodle, which is a mix of schnauzer and poodle. My son Jake and I adopted Snuffles in October 2006 from the Connecticut Humane Society in Westport. The name Snuffles comes from the Harry Potter books. I wanted to name him Sulley, after the character James P. Sullivan from the PIXAR movie Monsters Inc., because they are both furry and cute. But because I had named our two cats (Smithereens and Linus), Jake demanded that he be allowed to name the dog.

When my fiancé Michael and I get home from work, Snuffles greets us exuberantly. Snuffles also greets mail and parcel delivery trucks exuberantly. Snuffles enjoys cookies, chasing squirrels, and snuggling for naps with his people. (But I am by far his favorite person.)

Unfortunately, while he is adorable, Snuffles is not the friendliest dog in the neighborhood. He does not like strange men (but who does?). Once Snuffles gets to know you, he is very friendly and playful. He enjoys the dog park and prefers to play with big dogs like German Shepherds and Rottweilers. It seems like most small dogs think they are big dogs!

Adopting Snuffles has had a wonderful impact on my life, and I created this website to encourage people to adopt dogs from shelters. This website started as an HTML training exercise at my company. I had to code boxes and I had to put text in the boxes. What else would I write about but my dog? I enjoyed learning coding so much, that I just kept going; the result is this site. Yes, thirty-five-year-old female copy editors can learn to code!