Meet my four-legged best friends, Magic (the black cat), Amber (the platinum and black German Shepherd and Australian Shepherd mix), and Barnaby (the black and red mix of German Shepherd and Chow). All are rescues, and I feel like the luckiest pet guardian in the world to have them in my life. As a writer, I work alone, but thanks to Magic, Amber and Barnaby, I’m never lonely.

Magic was rescued as a four-month-old sick kitten in an area where men were rounding up stray cats to kill. I fell in love the moment I saw him, but I had to take him to my veterinarian, Dr. Jeffrey Marks in Rancho Park, California, immediately. $400 later I had a “free” cat.

When I fell in love with Amber, she was a three-month-old puppy given to German Shepherd Rescue in Burbank, California by someone who said she was “defective” because she was born without a tail. It turned out that she wasn’t defective at all–but she wasn’t a purebred German Shepherd, either. That was fine with me. I’ve always been partial to mixed breeds. She weighed 24 pounds when I brought her home, in April of 2008. Now she’s fully grown and weighs a perfect 82 pounds.

The black and red gentleman in my “Author” photo is Barnaby. He was hours from being put to death at a “high kill” shelter when I met him. Love at first sight again. I was looking for a young male companion for Amber and knew he was meant for us the moment I saw him. He wasn’t in very good shape, and he must have known he was in trouble because he had to be carried out of his kennel. But he seemed to like me, and he liked Amber a lot! After a bath and grooming, he perked right up. He’s only two months older than Amber, and is smaller. They love to run together. He’s faster, but she’s smart enough to cut across the lawn to catch him. Every night before we go to sleep it’s “Wrestle-Mania” in the bedroom. Barnaby is in the Author picture because he was willing to sit still for photographer Dan Irvin.

I will always be grateful to Grace Karnosky and her volunteers at German Shepherd Rescue for Amber, and to Steve Spiro and Andrea Braver who told me about Barnaby’s coming execution, and arranged for me to meet him just in time. And to Arthur Abelson, who saved Magic, and who found homes for the twelve previous endangered cats he saved before sick little Magic suddenly appeared–as if by “magic”–and climbed into his lap.