I like to send a newsletter every other week — you can sign up for those on the home page or on the blog page. In those emails, I offer updates on general happenings on the community, what Council’s up to, a link to my latest blog post, and, during campaign season, interesting things that happen while doorknocking.

I’m a person who has to be away from home a lot, so I can’t own pets. This means that, in spite of mild allergies, when doorknocking, I try to pet every cat or dog I run into. And I’ve taken to putting out updates about those pets in my biweekly newsletter.

Last term, I intended to close out the campaign by putting out a comprehensive list of pets I ran into while canvassing, but I always had some other boring policy point or thing happening that I wanted to write about instead. This week, we have the Preliminary City Council Election on Tuesday, 9/16 — which you should vote in (see your polling location here and the list of candidates I’m supporting here). But, I’ve been campaigning a lot, I’ve written about my policy positions quite a bit on this website already, and, frankly, I was a bit stumped this week on what more I could say about it that would be interesting. So I decided that now is the time to put up the full collection of pets and animals I ran into from my past emails and put them into a comprehensive blog post. So, without further ado, in reverse chronological order, here’s the updates I’ve put out about pets in both the 2023 campaign and the 2025 campaign thus far:

09/14/25: Turkeys. I ran into a group of turkeys. I’ve included a GIF below. (A group of turkeys is called a “rafter”.)
Additionally, I ran into three different cats today. One was 18 years old and liked treats, one was 19 years old and had an owner who didn’t want it to escape, and one was an indoor cat who did successfully escape into a bush outside. Its owner chased it out from the other side and I herded it back into the door, and then the owner said he would vote for me.

08/31/25: My mom visited from Oklahoma over the weekend and she found a likely voter (pictured below) when we were canvassing around Hillside. I tried to canvass one house, but it had a “beware of dog” sign and a boxer out in the front who kept barking. I personally thought he looked friendly but wanted to respect his space, so I sadly had to skip that house.

08/17/25: Quite a few pet updates. I was just at a block party on Morton and a docile dog named Ernie earned a few belly rubs, as well as a poor dog who was recovering from some injuries and was being carried around by its owner in a sort of baby carrier. The cutest one I ran into was a King Charles Spaniel that lived near Chipman Street, who was next door neighbors with a cat that stared at me confusedly through a glass door for a while before I realized its owners weren’t home.

08/3/25: The only pet I ran into at the doors was a very sweet English Cocker Spaniel, though after canvassing I ran into someone walking an older black labrador retriever who got me to pet its belly.
07/20/25: I can only recount one pet I met this week, and that was Rusty, an older daschund who was grumpy initially after he took his medication but calmed down and was ready for pets after he sniffed the garden a little bit.
07/06/25: Some of the pets I met this week include:
- Spot, an old and blind dog that lives on Garfield Ave, who its owners also called Petunia. I got the opportunity to feed Spot a treat. I like Spot. Spot is great.
- River, a one-year-old Golden Doodle that lives near Surrey Street, who kept jumping up, mud and all, and licking my arm. River is also great.
- An unnamed cat that snuck its snout through an open mail slot as I was attempting to find an object on a porch to put my palm cards under. That cat startled me.
- A grey cat named Scooter who was lounging on the porch while its parents weren’t home.
I also liked the a setup of porch cactuses I saw, as well as a house that I passed by that had some really cool statues in the yard (see below).

*A very, very nice backyard on Washington Street. I later found out that it’s a local Tibetan Buddhist Studies* *center*.

06/22/25: I’m starting to canvass again, focusing particularly on the areas around Salem Street, and I met a few friends along the way, including:
- Cody, a three-year-old dog who kept sniffing my shoes
- A pug I ran into while running.
- When running around I always enjoy a bit of local birdwatching, so I took two videos of birds getting ready for the summer (see below)
06/08/25: I’m starting to canvass again, focusing particularly on the areas around Salem Street, and I met a few friends along the way, including:
- Kiki, a cat who belonged to an extremely nice 88-year-old woman who invited me into her house to tell me about him. I’ve attached a photo of one of her setups.
- A three-year-old corgi being held by its owner.
- A very nice older dog who continuously barked at the door until his owner started talking to me about the roads in front of his house. When the dog saw someone passing by on the sidewalk during our conversation, he resumed barking.
- I went to the Pride Fest and that was taken over by pets waiting to compete in the beauty contest. I got to hold a chihuahua mix for a while during one of my colleague’s speeches. I was also impressed by the Saint Bernard owned by one of Medford’s librarians.

10/23/23: As usual, I met several very distinguished pets on the trail:
- An old blind dog named Lucy who was a sweetheart
- A King Charles Spaniel puppy who was struggling in his mother’s arms while I was pitching
- There have been quite a few instances in which I go to people’s doors and pet their dogs while pitching them.
- A boxer attacked the door when I knocked. I didn’t meet the owner, just the boxer.
- I was getting my oil changed this past week and an auto mechanic brought in his pet parakeet named Blue. He said Blue had been depressed sitting at home alone and wasn’t cleaning himself. While waiting, I sat near Blue and played with him. His owner seemed happy later to see Blue eating.
10/9/23:
- A 13-year-old beagle-terrier mix named Penny
- A three-month-old labradoodle named Norbu — a Tibetan name that means “jewel”
- A dog named Pickles
- A lassa apso named Mr. Inky.
- Henry, a black pug.
- A very pretty spider on someone’s porch.
- A grumpy golden retriever mix named Trixie.
- Lastly, I encountered a gang of no-gooders in a few neighborhoods — I’d seen them both around Hastings Park and around North Medford — who were invading private property. I posted a picture below.

9/10/23:
- A pomeranian with a very positive attitude, who had been shaved at one point as a puppy so couldn’t grow more hair.
- A small white dog named Zeus who was being walked by a young boy.
- A few dogs tried to bark through the screen door while their owners edged out to talk, including a pair of golden/labrador retrievers and a pair of Frenchies.
- I’m still making headway in my friendship with one of my neighbor’s pets, Marvin the one-eyed bulldog, though he still plays the tough guy when I pet him.
8/29/23:
- A dachshund named Pepper whom I met twice, once when her owner was out walking her and a second time when I knocked on her owners’ door. The first time, she was super barky and the second time calm as a cucumber.
- Sissy, pictured below, who had many brothers and sisters.
- A French bulldog named Mookie who had an inner ear infection that affected his walk. Mookie was awesome.
- A Golden retriever named Oakie who had a stuffed animal and sat on my foot, delaying my exit from his porch.
- A Boston terrier puppy named Maggie, who I initially confused for a French bulldog because I was still thinking about Mookie.
- A cat named Spider that his owner described as a “tabby tuxy”.

8/14/23:
- A 2-year-old named Nala in Ward 3
- Two small, white, and extremely well-behaved dogs named Rocky and Jacob. Rocky was a Havanese/Maltese mix and Jacob was something else, but they looked quite similar.
- Two large and not-so-well-behaved poodles named Milo and Brutus.
- A beaver near the Fells that ran out from under a car and into someone's front yard. I'd never seen one before.
- I was accused last week of not paying enough attention to cats. I take these allegations very seriously. There were two notable cat-related incidents. At one door, a nine-month-old kitten ran out before being caught by an off-duty firefighter that owned it. In a second, while canvassing, I met a Siamese cat outdoors that sniffed my shoes in curiosity when I was fiddling around with my literature, then ran and smartly kept its distance when I tried to pet it. But I snapped a photo, which can be seen at the bottom of this email.

A list of pets I’ve run into while canvassing

Speech from the City Council Candidates’ Forum