When life as he knows it began, Mr. Biddle was in his late 50s.

Mr. Biddle is one among millions of Americans who lost nearly all his possessions, plus his wife and children, in the single scrawled stroke of a civil court judge's ballpoint pen. All that remained was his retirement account, his blue Volvo sedan, and a young Jack Russell Terrier named Eddie, a name selected by one of Mr. Biddle's children when Eddie was only 5 weeks old.

Five weeks of age is much too young to be snatched away from home. Looking back today, Mr. Biddle concludes that so is 58.

Mr. Biddle rented a second-floor walk-up in south Johnson County, an apartment with new appliances, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a lingering aroma of curry cooking, and a close-up view of the building's trash dumpster. This last feature quickly proved to be no drawback, since all Mr. Biddle had to do to take out his trash was slide open the wide glass door to his balcony and execute an easy underhand fling. The target was impossible to miss.

Eddie enjoyed the balcony, as well. On balmy days he could stand before the wrought-iron railing and see across the parking lot where one building, a mirror image of his own, faced him from the distance. It was from this matching building that Eddie spotted a blond-haired woman training her new dappled dachshund puppy to relieve himself in the grass.

It wasn't long before Eddie, while on the long walks he demanded from Mr. Biddle several times a day, met the dappled dachshund, an equally friendly male named Bogey.

While Eddie raced off-leash around and around the building with Bogey, Mr. Biddle became acquainted with Bogey's owner, a young woman even more beautiful when observed face-to-face. Her first name was Alisa. Interestingly, her last name was the same as that of many of Mr. Biddle's close relations still living in his native South.

Like Mr. Biddle now found himself, Alisa was unmarried.

Alisa's features were what are frequently referred to as Scandinavian: snow-white skin lightly freckled across the bridge of her nose; expressive ocean-blue eyes; a sparkling smile; and a figure that no man, regardless of his age, could refuse to observe.

Mr. Biddle's heart is soft. So, too, is Mr. Biddle's head. Alisa is more than 35 years younger than Mr. Biddle. She always will be.

Nevertheless, within days Alisa was regularly arriving at Mr. Biddle's apartment to attend wine-and-cheese parties he set up for the four of them: Alisa, Mr. Biddle, Bogey, and, of course, Eddie, who brought this quartet together as if he were an appointed messenger of a living God.

But in real life, everything keeps changing. With the insistency and regularly of an ignored alarm on a Sprint-Nextel cell phone, Alisa's inner clock began sounding, a natural fact that coincided with a financially attractive job offer to Mr. Biddle from a friend managing an enterprise in the posh resort town of Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Biddle's rapidly dwindling financial resources forced him to accept.

Mr. Biddle stuffed his blue Volvo with selected belongings, leaving just enough room for Eddie, who preferred to sit for 1,600 miles in Mr. Biddle's lap, his nose poking from the partially open driver's-side window.

Along the way the adventuresome pair stopped to visit Mr. Biddle's younger sister and her husband overnight in a log cabin in the country. It was there that Mr. Biddle acquired Milton, a young, brown, short-haired dachshund with bowed back legs and a sweet temperament who immediately made friends with Eddie and, perhaps equally important, reminded Mr. Biddle of Bogey, which, in turn, rekindled memories of the hours he'd spent in the charming company of Alisa.

Mr. Biddle explained to his sister that Eddie would need a companion during the many hours he'd be at work. Fortunately, country folk have more dogs than a typical Congressman has excuses. Mr. Biddle's baby sister gladly handed over a spare. The following morning Mr. Biddle rose early and continued the long drive to south Florida, now with two dogs in his lap, lowering the window out of courtesy to the shorter Milton.

The threesome crossed the swollen Mississippi River into Memphis, Mr. Biddle's boyhood home; turned south to Mississippi, soaring past faded ramshackle shacks, cotton fields, and bait shops; then west into Georgia through miles of dusty peanut farms with signs offering boiled peanuts by the bag; then south into Florida, where minivans clogged the highway to Orlando. They at last arrived in the playground of the filthy rich: Palm Beach.

Coastal south Florida is everything you could imagine. Eddie, Milton, and Mr. Biddle settled into a wonderful life, taking long walks on the beach every afternoon.

People walking dogs speak to other people walking dogs so the dogs can engage in a well-known sniffing routine. Thanks to Milton and Eddie, Mr. Biddle soon made many friends, men and women ranging from 18 to 88, with the younger women dressed in swimwear that could easily be stored in a Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid box.

Life got better and better.

Occasionally Mr. Biddle would receive letters and photographs from Alisa, to which he promptly responded in kind. Mr. Biddle's topics frequently focused on animals. He told Alisa about seeing a rare black panther, loggerhead turtles, alligators, manta rays, jellyfish, and countless birds in flocks like Jacob's coat of many colors.

With Eddie's experienced assistance, Mr. Biddle befriended his almost-next-door neighbor, a pretty, dark-haired woman with a tiny but expensive dog she carried in her purse. Sometimes his neighbor would surprise Mr. Biddle with a gentle knock at his side door, carrying an armful of dinner she'd spent all day preparing.

This woman was only 25 years younger than Mr. Biddle, so if his head and heart reacted, as by now we should expect, it wouldn't be like Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13-year-old cousin. But everything keeps changing. This time the change that arrived was named Frances.

Frances was the first hurricane to strike Palm Beach County in 25 years and she made up for lost time. Waiting until everyone had gone to bed, she made landfall at 11:00 p.m., then remained in place for more than 24 hours, churning away at Mr. Biddle's neighborhood like a KitchenAid food processer switched to "high."

Unlike other females Mr. Biddle encountered after his surprise divorce, Frances had a single eye, like Cyclops, and it pulsated like a beating heart measuring between 50 and 70 miles wide. The storm herself extended 400 miles across. Six million people lost power—most of them for at least three weeks, during which time civilization reverted to a prehistoric era. In Florida the official count of the dead was 37, six from Palm Beach County. State officials didn't attempt to count the number of animals Frances killed, but Mr. Biddle did because one of them was Eddie, his closest friend and guardian angel.

Mr. Biddle cried for days. So did Milton. Eddie was gone forever.

To this day, Mr. Biddle misses Eddie. He keeps the two-year-old terrier's ashes in a carved wooden box beside the dog's framed photograph and Florida vaccination tag. Someday, when it's Mr. Biddle's turn, his ashes will be mixed with Eddie's before they're scattered in a secret place known only to his sister.

Milton was so sad that he was in danger of pining away, so every evening at closing time Mr. Biddle and Milton showed up at Palm Beach Pets, where the ladies in charge locked the door and released all the dachshunds, causing scenes like you'd expect to see in an animated film from Disney, until by the fourth overactive night it was clear that Milton had picked a favorite.

Mr. Biddle named the new dog Tommy, a variation on Alisa's last name. Tommy, it turned out, was the reincarnation of Eddie, possessing the overconfident characteristics of a Jack Russell Terrier. No wonder Milton selected him!

Within short order it was obvious to Mr. Biddle that Tommy should have been named "Trouble," but every time Tommy defiantly committed a punishable act, Mr. Biddle merely smiled.

A month went by before mail service was restored. Among several cards and letters from Alisa, Mr. Biddle found an invitation to her wedding in Minnesota on a date now passed. Her fiancé—now husband, he presumed—was a man her age. Mr. Biddle understood.

His work contract with his friend in Florida was for just a year. When the time arrived, Mr. Biddle filled his car with his few possessions and drove all the way back to Kansas City with two little dogs in his lap, something to which he'd become quite accustomed.

He bought a new townhouse in south Overland Park, facing a pocket park and the only pathway to a lake.

One evening after dining alone at a restaurant, Mr. Biddle crossed the parking lot to the Land of Paws, a pet store specializing in pedigreed puppies. His heart still half-empty, Mr. Biddle left with an eight-week-old long-haired dappled dachshund that his youngest child, the one who'd named Eddie, suggested he name Danny.

So Danny it was, and Danny he is. Danny fit into the household immediately and Mr. Biddle rediscovered the joys of living with the blessed continuous pitter-pat of little feet.

Although the presence of three dogs within a single home is frowned upon by the City of Overland Park, Mr. Biddle happily paid the punitive annual fee for his decision. And he didn't stop there.

Mr. Biddle became a trustworthy caretaker of the neighborhood birds, word that spreads quickly in the wild, requiring Mr. Biddle to refill the cylindrical plastic feeder before he feeds the dogs. Like Mr. Biddle, birds are early risers.

Mr. Biddle spent a year researching marine life to rekindle his fonder memories of Florida. With help from a relative and generous assistance from a newfound friend at Doctors Foster and Smith pet supplies in Wisconsin, Mr. Biddle assembled the complex parts for a saltwater aquarium in his office. When the habitat proved safe for what he had in mind, he ordered a young Octopus bimaculoides over the telephone from an effervescent young woman named Sandy.

The baby octopus arrived the next morning. The moment Mr. Biddle opened the bag, the world's smartest invertebrate climbed onto the back of Mr. Biddle's liver-spotted hand and looked him square in the eye. For a multitude of reasons, some apparent, some not, Mr. Biddle named her Sandy.

Sometimes Mr. Biddle sits up all night long to watch his nocturnal cephalopod perform. Usually Tommy lies beside him while the other dogs sleep.

When you add in the palm tree, banana tree, orange tree, hibiscus, and ferns in his south-facing front windows, plus the chromafish, damselfish, snails, and crabs hiding upstairs from Sandy, Mr. Biddle is responsible for the care of more of God's living forms than he can count.

Little wonder that Mr. Biddle is currently reading a biography of Saint Francis of Assisi

Little wonder that, as he last did as a child, the 65-year-old man once again goes to church—not to ask for favors or forgiveness, but to sing praises, pray for others, and give thanks.

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