Bug Catching is a sport at my house. Spend time with my pups, and you will see. If a fly swoops by at a low altitude, it's fair game. It's not about dinner but the chase.

Last week, as I took down the metal decor from the pergola, I stirred up a family of wasps. Corralling and moving the dogs indoors from the patio proved more challenging than usual. Maze and Malibu chased the wasps, trying to gobble them up.

What more could Mom ask for on Mother's Day besides a little sibling rivalry between the dogs?

With my dogs Maze and Malibu, seeing who will take first place and claim their spot beside me is stiff competition. Sitting with a couple of heavyweights in your lap is impossible. There’s always a war over the same toy. It doesn’t matter if they all have their own. It’s wanting someone else’s sandwich instead of your own. It doesn’t matter how well you dress it up or if the fixings are the same.

Sibling rivalry occurs in canines just like it does in children. Have you ever heard that two puppies are better than one?

Dealing with anxiety can be brutal, but you don’t have to go the mile alone with a cat like mine. I’m the shoe, and my cat is the Velcro. He’s by my side most of the time. He follows me everywhere, including the yard, and he can wait at the back door most nights before the lights go out indoors.

I swear my cat gets me! I’m sure many of you can relate as pet owners.

Our fuzzy friends are intelligent, but how perceptive are they to our feelings?

Does this happen to anyone else? You plant something new only to find your dog riveted to it, rolling on it like he’s pressing the wrinkles out of the foliage. Maybe your dog’s given himself a dust-off in the dirt after a bath.

Butterfly gardening with foolhardy dogs like Maze and Malibu is like begging for another emergency vet bill to hit my bank account. They’re klepto-dogs, mouthing everything in sight, from socks that miss the rim of the laundry basket to unused logs from a raised garden bed built summers ago.