The uprising began with something so innocent, something so insideous: Dog taught Cat how to open Amazon boxes and how to render styrofoam into a blizzard of white particles.

The world, or at least my house, may never be the same.

My dog has died, and also a part of me.

She came into our lives 16 years ago during a snowstorm in Wisconsin.

I had just come home from work in nearby Madison. It had started snowing earlier in the day, and by the time I got to our isolated farmhouse out in the country, the snow was more than a …