Willow.

Willow, hard at work. She does not take meetings before her morning walk.

How she found me

A year before Willow, I lost Dora — the love of my life, and the best dog I will ever have. I wasn't ready for another. So I started fostering instead: a way to keep a dog in my life a little at a time, and to help a lot of dogs by giving them somewhere safe to land between homes.

Willow was my very first foster. She'd been found as a stray in southeast Texas and brought all the way to Nova Scotia by Furever Homes Dog Rescue of SETX — a genuinely wonderful outfit that pulls dogs from southeast Texas and gives them a second shot up here in Atlantic Canada. If you have room in your life for a dog, start with them.

She'd even had a home already — adopted by a lovely couple in New Brunswick. But after only about six months, illness meant they had to make the impossible decision to let her go. That's how she landed with me. Just for a while, I said.

It took me two years to admit the obvious and adopt her. Not because I didn't love her — because it wasn't my plan. I kept telling myself that: this wasn't the plan. Turns out life had other plans, and I have never been so glad to be wrong.

Her actual job description

Now, here's the honest truth about our partnership. I built Yes Car No Car to help people — which is exactly why there are no dealer deals, no advertiser money, and nobody on the other side of your decision. My motives are clean.

Willow's motives are less noble. Willow is in it for the bones. She wants Dad to make money so she can retire into a mountain of them. She is, proudly, the only member of this team with a real conflict of interest — and she has asked me to tell you she will not be recusing herself.

— Willow, Cofounder (Bones Division)