Author: Roxanne Hawn

Trained as a traditional journalist and based in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, USA, I'm a full-time freelance writer for magazines, websites, and private clients. My areas of specialty include everything in the lifestyles arena, including health and home, personal finance and other consumer interests, relationships and trends, people and business profiles ... and, of course, all things pet related. I don't just love dogs. I need them in my life. Seriously.

  • Busting the Myth – Dogs Do Not Wander Off to Die

    As much as I enjoy having social media feeds full of dogs, cats, and other animals (Jimothy anyone?), sometimes I come across things that make me furious. This week … it’s a local lost dog post for a really, really, really old Labrador Retriever. Ultimately, his body was found. His body. The original poster / dog’s family trotted out a huge myth. So, let’s be clear — Dogs do NOT wander off to die. The dog wandered off (due to poor supervision) and then died. It wasn’t intentional by the dog. It was human error and, I think, procrastination of making the decision to euthanize.

  • New Indicator of Cognitive Decline in Dogs

    A study published by researchers at North Carolina State University in June 2026 shows that stride length of the front legs is associated with cognitive decline in dogs. Yep, how dogs walk is an additional sign of an aging brain. It’s true for people too, which feels relevant at this point in history (*wink). Let’s see what researchers found. Click through and scroll down to see video monitoring of Clover’s stride.

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    Book Review You’re With Me

    A while back, Timothy McHenry asked me to review his latest novel called You’re With Me. It’s about a teenage girl, her life, and her dog. Amid (gestures wildly) all the things going on, it took me a while to finish the book. It’s hard to review You’re With Me without giving too much away. So to start, I will share that I texted a couple of my writer / author friends mid-book to say the foreshadowing indicates some Big Sad ahead. One of them replied something like, “As long as the dog doesn’t die!” We all laughed about that because … right?! I can indeed report. The dog does not die in this book.

  • Pet Ownership Inflation

    The new report from the CATalyst Council describes pet ownership inflation in painful detail. It is not your imagination. Your budget is struggling. Owning pets now costs 32% more. The cost of everything — especially veterinary care — is way up. According to the new report, veterinary services now cost 51.4% above pre-COVID levels — nearly 2x the pace of overall inflation (which is already terrible). Let’s dig into the data.

  • Lesson of the Tiny Cherry Tree

    A few years ago, I bought and planted a tiny cherry tree and a tiny apple tree behind the house. Gardening of any kind is tough at our altitude and in our dry climate, which is worse than ever with ongoing drought. Weather extremes makes planting trees an act of faith anyway, so to speak. Everything went fine, until it didn’t. Both trees — to differing degrees — got decimated in 2025 by what we think was a pack rat. Heartbreaking. Yet, this week, the cherry tree did something that I think teaches an important lesson, especially at this point in our shared history. Enjoy a bit of a photo essay as a break from all the things.

  • Veterinary AI for X-Rays

    There’s buzz in the veterinary world about a paper published in March 2026 where researchers tested the accuracy of veterinary AI for x-rays. The TL/DR conclusion? Of the 6 veterinary AI tools assessed, “…none appeared suitable for clinical use in their current form.” The makers of the AI platforms say that the tools continuously (and exponentially) improve, so tests done 18 months ago don’t reflect today’s reality. Fair point, maybe, but let’s look at what the AI tools saw and what they ignored or misdiagnosed. See for yourself the actual x-rays that 3 of the 6 AI tools botched in spectacular fashion.

  • Book Review The Insomniacs

    Thanks to a long-ago subscription to an online group for professional, indie writers I amassed quite a few connections, including some incredibly successful people. That’s how I kind of *know Allison Winn and get the chance to follow along with her new ventures — including her prior novels with movie and series rights bought by big-name Hollywood folks. Her latest novel, The Insomniacs, is a murder mystery that Parade magazine’s reviewer thinks should be the next season of Only Murders in the Building and should have a sequel pronto. Not that she needs my help to promote her newest novel, but I think you will enjoy it too. I highly recommend you read The Insomniacs and all of her other books, especially if you need a boost of spirit. And, yes, she’s a lover of dogs, especially rescued labs and lab mixes.