Our 17-plus year-old beagle didn't think it was time to check out after all. Though all the symptoms we saw yesterday left us concerned she had possibly suffered a debilitating, possibly terminal, stroke, seizure or cranial bleed, a visit to the vet determined she has an inner ear problem that, with medication, can be solved in a week or so.

Neurological tests showed that Molly has "Canine idiopathic vestibular disease", often known as "old dog vestibular disease", for obvious reasons, though she might get ticked if she found out you thought she was in her declining years. Our veterinarian kept Molly on site through the day, reporting she was "doing very well", was cooperative and quiet, arguably the best patient they had.

Quick Googling on Canine idiopathic vestibular disease turned up some promising data, which says we can expect improvement in 72 hours, and full normalcy within 7-14 days.

I picked Molly up around 5:30, paid the bill, in the $200+ range, and took her home in time for her to get dinner, and a new treat, Benadryl, which has already got her extremely relaxed, catching a nap on our loveseat, covered in an Oakland A's blanket. Kristine and I will also team up to administer ear medicine for the next two weeks to help nurse Molly back to health.

After yesterday's scare, we know this dog isn't going to be around forever, but she looks like she'll stick this out and wait until the next crisis.

With all the stories in the news over the last few years of misplaced laptops and lost data tapes containing personal information, including financial details, such as credit card and social security numbers, it figures that is has now come time for me to finally be the victim. Register.com sent me an e-mail this evening saying that "while less than 2%" of the company's customers were believed to have their account and credit card data on a stolen laptop, that I was one of the lucky ones to be impacted.

As the company's customer service director writes, "you are receiving this letter because we believe that your customer data and credit card information was on this laptop."

Register.com, the domain name service by which I registered louisgray.com and host the site, says that the company has no evidence my data has been misused, that there is a low likelihood of my information being compromised, and that "appropriate third parties and law enforcement agencies have been notified." Yet, despite all of these things, the company still recommends I notify my credit card company, and enroll in an identity theft protection service from Equifax. Helpfully, Register.com is offering me the first 12 months free, though I have no doubts I'd be asked to pay up come a year from now.

Beyond the obvious annoyances this poses, the timing of the e-mail is extremely suspicious. The e-mail was sent after 4 p.m. on a Friday just before an extended holiday weekend. If there were ever a time to try and hide a major security incident from the press, now would be a great time to do so. And despite the potential for identity theft, mysterious charges and significant hassle, the company wraps up the e-mail by saying, "thank you for your continued business partnership with Register.com."

They can only hope so. We'll be watching this situation very closely. Have you ever been the target of identity theft or been alerted your data was at risk?

My wife has had our beagle, Molly, in her life more than twice as long as she has had me, after picking up the then 5-year-old hound more than 12 years ago from the pound. Know that line about "love me, love my dog"? Well, it's true. That the dog and I hit it off right away and that Molly was sure about me, likely even before Kristine was, made our dating life and eventual proposal that much more likely to work out, and it did.

But in the five or so years I've known Molly, she's gone from a 12-year-old dog who chased me around the house to the point of her tongue hanging out, and sitting on her hind legs to beg for scraps from the table, to a much more docile hound who sleeps a likely 20 hours a day, is losing her eyesight and hearing, and needs to use a short set of stairs to climb to our bed. And you can forget about sitting on her hind legs or jumping for anything. Those times are long gone.

While much of her aging process, all the way into her 18th year, has been gradual, tonight I came home to see a remarkable change, one that could, sadly, be spelling out the beginning of the end. Something had happened to Molly that has impacted her equilibrium in a serious way, making her disoriented, and frankly, messy, as she can't make her way out to the balcony when necessary... Her eyes are repeatedly twitching, and her head and neck roll back and forth when she sits. Instead of walking straight, with her familiar limp, she meanders about and seems unable to get her bearing.

The good news is she doesn't look to be in pain in any way. Like any good scent-oriented beagle, she hasn't turned down food, though it took her a few tries to get through her dinner. She sniffed her way to a Milk bone dog biscuit I had held in front of her, but her approach was almost drunken in nature. She looks to my wife and me for attention and still wants to jump onto our couch and be next to us.

Since my wife and I were married, we have put some good money into this dog, to remove a toe one year that had become infected, to fix various moles and tumors, and to keep her in strong shape. Others are continually amazed at Molly's heartiness at 17, as it seems she is indestructible, but today, it looks like the wheels are getting wobbly and just might fall off. If they do, and when they do, it will be devastating, leaving our house just that much more empty. We know the end will some day come, but until today, we thought we had more time.


Other Molly-related posts:
Molly the Beagle Sleeping on The Job
Are the Beagle and the Roomba Conspiring?

With just about every network television show hitting the season finale stretch and threatening to send us into a summer morass of reruns, rip-offs and reality shows, it's as good a time as any to recap what shows we thought were going to be good going into the year, and which ones pulled through, despite networks' unprecedented challenges against cable, the Web and the ever expanding world of media.

In the last TV season, my wife and I tried on a few new shows: "Andy Barker P.I.", "Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip", "Raines" and "The Riches". Of those four, Andy Barker died quickly, Studio 60 was put on hiatus, and I haven't heard much about Raines in a while. The only one left standing? FX's "The Riches", a show featuring the incomparable Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver as a family of travelers who in some unlikely circumstances, take on the American Dream by usurping the lives of a rich couple in a glitzy neighborhood, complete with spacious home and high paying jobs.

While at times the show can border on the ludicrous, as it is just about impossible to believe the missing couple wouldn't have enough ties to the past or the present for people to know they were gone, it has become a must see for us every week. Like Fox's "War At Home" the year before it, "The Riches" has taken a permanent place in our TiVo's season pass, and has us looking forward to each week's adventures.

Each of the family's main five characters brings a unique cross of near-psychosis and cautious pessimism to an unfamiliar world, yet somehow tries to blend in. What we learn is that despite their oddities, their very neighbors end up looking just as crazy, if not more so. The family's story is further complicated due to some serious ill will from the home they left behind, which threatens to expose them and possibly bring their lives in grave danger. As "The Riches" try to fake their way through legal briefs and dental hygenics, battling problems with drugs and teenagers, we end up rooting for them to continue in the charade and avoid falling victim to vengeance.

While the networks can't seem to find out how to deliver new shows with substance, FX, buried on cable, has taken a chance with a risk and found gold. If you're not already watching, see if you can pick it up during what will certainly be a slow summer for television.