What dictates backlog priority? You could simply discuss it. You could have someone assign it. You could use Faceted Feature Analysis and get a value based on technical ease, business value, and user value. You could let the team organize backlog tasks in light of the development path they will be taking. There are lots of ways to do it. I generally favor one approach in particular, but that is not what this entry is about. It is about our dog, Daisy.
I had a friend tell me that what was so great about dogs is that they, unlike people, will not conspire against you. He is right. Dogs know pure emotion. Vanilla and chocolate emotion. They love. They have fun. They sleep. They do not contemplate why the caged bird sings, although they do contemplate the caged bird.
Daisy had a brain tumor. It was diagnosed after we noticed her anatomical left lagging a bit behind. Sure enough, brain stem, tumor, prognosis a big question mark. My family has had a few dog pass and all but one was due to cancer. Daisy is the only one who came home after the diagnosis. I give the credit for that to my wife, Lara, and her making an issue of being proactive about her health. I would probably not have been as aggressive. Keep in mind, this is my Mom and Dad’s dog, and they are no longer here to care for her. Chemo was not an option for Daisy, the dog who hated that she was a dog. Mikey is our other dog, and he is thrilled to be a dog. Fun fun fun all day. Daisy resented being a dog, and we loved her for it. She did not like having to eat out of a dish. She did not like you to see her pee. She thought she was as human as Lara and I am, but when a cat crossed the lawn, all bets were off and she was a dog.
Her decline was slow. First the left side of her face started to sag, and the muscles in her head atrophy. This was due to the tumor essentially paralyzing the nerves. On her last morning, I hand-fed her pieces of hot dog, and the primal old brain knew how to chew, but it was catching her tongue and swallowing / knowing what to do after chewing was not so clear. She was a little crooked for a few weeks, then one day she could not catch her breath and could only walk in circles. I could not carry her up and down the stairs anymore. She was beyond that. I could not hand feed her. She was beyond that. 
I told Lara, “Daisy will tell us when it is time” and she did. I have video of her eyes that last day. She was asking for relief. She was tough, but fighting just to fight. Daisy was gone. Everyone I love has been falling away over the past year. It is awfully strange, to be honest. I kind of knew Dad’s time was coming, and Mom is a while different story that is too difficult to get into here at the moment. Forgive me. I share a lot here, but reserve some things that I have not come to terms with yet – such as my parents – for myself and my wife. My family. Mikey, too. He knows what to do when I cry. Yes, I cry. I am 300 pounds with 22 inch biceps and I am allowed to cry. I also believe that there is no up without down, and the capacity for pleasure increases / decreases with the capacity for pain. This is part of why I torture myself in the gym. Simple is good. Vice-versa, too. 
When Daisy was diagnosed, we had a nice, open-ended prognosis. Could have a year, they said. Could be less. Nobody knew. Being a horrible thought, the idea of putting her to sleep was filed among the low priority items, while monitoring her was a daily necessity, because of love. Pure emotion.
Daisy followed my wife around like her shadow. When I would yell, which was rare, Daisy would hide behind Lara – who I weigh about 3 times as much as. Daisy cuddled with Lara. Daisy sat by Lara as Lara got ready to go into the lab. For hours. Just sitting there to be near her. When Mom got sick, Daisy bonded to Lara like nothing I have seen before. Lara couldn’t even talk about Daisy being put down. Truthfully, there was no need to.
Until there was a need to.
That last day, when her eyes told me she was gone, let her go, it is too hard to just keep on keeping on, and the Vet agreed that with the bloody nose and infected eye and other manifestations of cancer, even one night like that would be cruel.
This is where life is Agile way before software is Agile. Somehow, I think it all ties back to trust being implicit in love, and passion mandating truth.
I left work thinking we would be increasing Daisy’s prednisone. I left the vet without her. When they injected her, and before, and after, we told her what a good dog she was and how much we loved her. There was nothing complicated about it. This was a very simple situation, and a very sad one, but a very simple one nontheless. How could we have managed her care better? I have been in the position to make a lot of decisions like that for people as well as dogs lately. You do the best you can, day by day. You recognize that what might be low priority today may spring up tomorrow as a fire that needs immediate attention. You mitigate. I knew to be strong for Daisy in those last moments, since she was looking to us to understand what was happening. I knew to make her feel safe because I thought about it and experienced it before. It is not about planning. It is about living.
It is about loving.
Love what you do and you will be great at it. Since this is a Project Managment and Technology blog, I should probably weave a tie-in here. I would suggest you do less discussing of whether the Agile Manifesto should be augmented and more work. I would suggest you argue less about Lean versus Scrum and listen where you would talk. The simplest things, I have always believed, are the most true.
Daisy was simply Daisy, even though I sometimes called her Doodles. We were lucky enough to know how very much that meant; we were lucky to know simplicity and the value of shutting up, listening, experiencing, and letting pack dynamics lead to amazing relationships and more. To be complely honest, Doodles would argue with us, but only because she knew she would win. That’s not really an argument 
Plan more than barely enough and you may miss those little things with vast potential, implications, or joy.
I am still learning, and I owe a lot of what I know to that little, sweet dog. Her nephew still lives with us. We love him too. One day at a time, without planning. Somehow, it works.
More pictures of simple truths are here.
All my best,
Josh
