Canine Love Quotes

Dogs are my favorite role models. I want to work like a dog, doing what I was born to do with joy and purpose. I want to play like a dog, with total, jolly abandon. I want to love like a dog, with unabashed devotion and complete lack of concern about what people do for a living, how much money they have, or how much they weigh. The fact that we still live with dogs, even when we don't have to herd or hunt our dinner, gives me hope for humans and canines alike.

So let me get this straight. You left this ‘fabulous job’ as you put it, so you could be a dog-sitter in Fort Langley?

Did you know that there are over three hundred words for love in canine?

I love you," Rowan breathed onto her skin, and flicked his tongue over the spot where his canines had scractched. "I'd walk into the burning heart of hell itself to find you.

--and then you're in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, has finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it's the Face In The Floor, the grinning root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it's you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool- and Substance-crusted T-shirt you've both worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) should be beating, in its exposed chest's center and centerless eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you've been had, screwed royal, stripped and fucked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in. You see now that It's your enemy and your worst personal nightmare and the trouble It's gotten you into is undeniable and you still can't stop. Doing the Substance now is like attending Black Mass but you still can't stop, even though the Substance no longer gets you high. You are, as they say, Finished. You cannot get drunk and you cannot get sober; you cannot get high and you cannot get straight. You are behind bars; you are in a cage and can see only bars in every direction. You are in the kind of a hell of a mess that either ends lives or turns them around.

Mustang: (snatches puppy) Dog, huh? (pause) I LOVE DOGS! Fuery: Really? You mean it?! Mustang: OF COURSE! Dogs embody loyalty! They follow their master's commands above all else! Be a jerk to them and they don't complain and they never once beg for a paycheck! Trust me, Fuery, they're the great servants of man! (sings) LOYAL CANINE, HOW WE SALUTE THEE!

The only love she inspires is the canine kind.

What?" Connor asked, frowning at the alpha. "That's my sister," Ren growled. Connor stared at him. "I know. And I love her." "Great," Ren said. "But what are your intentions?" "My intentions?" Connor looked from Ren to Ande, frowning. Ren grinned, showing Connor his sharp canines. "When all this is over, you and I have a lot to talk about too.

I intercepted Chaol, and he informed me of your ‘condition.’ You’d think a man in his position wouldn’t be so squeamish, especially after examining all of those corpses.” Calaena opened an eye and frowned as Dorian sat on her bed. “I’m in a state of absolute agony and I can’t be bothered.” “It can’t be that bad,” he said, fishing a deck of cards from his jacket. “Want to play?” “I already told you that I don’t feel well.” “You look fine to me.” He skillfully shuffled the deck. “Just one game.” “Don’t you pay people to entertain you?” He glowered, breaking the deck. “You should be honored by my company.” “I’d be honored if you would leave.” “For someone who relies on my good graces, you’re very bold.” “Bold? I’ve barely begun.” Lying on her side, she curled her knees to her chest. He laughed, pocketing the deck of cards. “Your new canine companion is doing well, if you wish to know.” She moaned into her pillow. “Go away. I feel like dying.” “No fair maiden should die alone,” he said, putting a hand on hers. “Shall I read to you in your final moments? What story would you like?” She snatched her hand back. “How about the story of the idiotic prince who won’t leave the assassin alone?” “Oh! I love that story! It has such a happy ending, too—why, the assassin was really feigning her illness in order to get the prince’s attention! Who would have guessed it? Such a clever girl. And the bedroom scene is so lovely—it’s worth reading through all of their ceaseless banter!” “Out! Out! Out! Leave me be and go womanize someone else!” She grabbed a book and chucked it at him.

Only Ren wasn't smiling. He was eyeing Connor suspiciously. “What?” Connor asked, frowning at the alpha. “That's my sister,” Ren growled. Connor stared at him. “I know. And I love her.” “Great,” Ren said. “But what are your intentions?” “My intentions?” Connor looked from Ren to Adne, frowning. Ren grinned, showing Connor his sharp canines. “When all this is over, you and I have a lot to talk about, too.

When Charlie arrived home from his mother's funeral, he was met at the door by two very large very enthusiastic canines, who , undistracted by keeping watch over Sophie's love hostage, were now able to visit the full measure of their affection and joy upon their returning master. It is generally agreed, and in fact stated in the bylaws of the American Kennel Club, that you have not been truly dog-humped until you have been double-dog-humped by a pair of four-hundred-pouund hounds from hell (Section 5, paragraph 7: Standards of Humping and Ass-dragging). And despite having used an extra-strength antiperspirant that very morning before leaving Sedona, Charlie found that getting poked repeatedly in the armpits by two damp devil-dog dicks was leaving him feeling less than fresh. Sophie, call them off. Call them off." The puppies are dancing with Daddy," Sophie giggled. "Dance, Daddy!

The hardest bones, containing the richest marrow, can be conquered only by a united crushing of all the teeth of all dogs. That of course is only a figure of speech and exaggerated; if all teeth were but ready they would not need even to bite, the bones would crack themselves and the marrow would be freely accessible to the feeblest of dogs. If I remain faithful to this metaphor, then the goal of my aims, my questions, my inquiries, appears monstrous, it is true. For I want to compel all dogs thus to assemble together, I want the bones to crack open under the pressure of their collective preparedness, and then I want to dismiss them to the ordinary life they love, while all by myself, quite alone, I lap up the marrow. That sounds monstrous, almost as if I wanted to feed on the marrow, not merely of bone, but of the whole canine race itself. But it is only a metaphor. The marrow that I am discussing here is no food; on the contrary, it is a poison.

Sometimes I worry about how attached I am to this dog. About the fact that the primary relationship of my life is with a canine. That at the end of a terrible day I look forward to nothing more than coming home and lying on the bed, under the covers, with a giant Great Dane.

Oh, go right ahead,' she replied. 'You seem to have such an affinity for canines.' 'Clearly,' he shot back, keeping his voice low so that Mary could not hear, 'they are not so different from women. Both breeds hang on my every word.

The best cure for a stick up your butt is a dog to play fetch with.

As any dog person knows, this is a crucial test in evaluating someone’s character. Do they back away in disgust or do they lean into the doggie kiss?

Every year thousands of dogs are abandoned to shelters because of behavior problems. And these are things that can be corrected with just basic training. Dogs are being killed because of lack of training, and that's what the Canine Good Citizen program is all about. (Mary Burch, AKC)

Is your head bothering you?" Louisa asked. But she wasn't paying much attention. Frederick, her ridiculously fat basset hounds, had spotted a fellow canine in the distance and was yanking on the lead. "Frederick!" she yelped, tripping on a step or two before she found her footing. Frederick stopped, althought it wasn't clear if it was due to Louisa's hold on the lead or outright exhaustion. He let out a hugh sigh, and frankly, Annabel was suprised that he didn't collapse on the ground. "I think someone has been sneaking him sausages again," Louisa grumbled. Annabel looked elsewhere. "Annabel!" "He looked so HUNGERY," Annabel insisted. Louisa motioned toward her dog, whos belly slid along the grass. "THAT looks hungery?" "His eyes looked hungery.

An infant, in his first sleepiness, must let go of the world; a man must learn to die. What comes between are the grains of sand. Ambition. Loss. Envy. Desire. Hatred. Love. Tenderness. Joy. Shame. Loneliness. Ecstasy. Ache. Surrender.

Peony…” Cinder shifted closer to the netscreen. “That’s why the android wanted her chip. You’re telling me it would have ended up inside one of them?” “Spoken with true derision for our canine friends,” said Thorne. Cinder massaged her temple. “I’m sorry, Wolf. I don’t mean you.” She hesitated. “Except…I do, though. Anyone. She was my little sister. How many people have died from this disease, only to have their identities violated like this? Again, no offense.” “It’s all right,” said Wolf. “You loved her. I would feel the same if someone wanted to erase Scarlet’s identity and give it to Levana’s army.” Scarlet stiffened, heat rushing into her cheeks. He certainly wasn’t insinuating… “Aaaaw,” squealed Iko. “Did Wolf just say that he loves Scarlet? That’s so cute!” Scarlet cringed. “He did not—that wasn’t—” She balled her fists against her sides. “Can we get back to these soldiers that are being rounded up, please?” “Is she blushing? She sounds like she’s blushing.” “She’s blushing,” Thorne confirmed, shuffling the cards. “Actually, Wolf is also looking a little flustered—” “Focus, please,” said Cinder, and Scarlet could have kissed her.

They love us, heal us, teach us, make us laugh and sometimes break our hearts with their passing.

From a raging fire that threatened to turn Hazel’s world to ash, the longing instead dampened to a small flame, a flickering candle visible only in the corner of her eyes. You can’t speak to him now, but he’s there if you need him, the candle said. He’s just there, only just out of view. That was the real way she survived losing Jack: by pretending that she hadn’t lost him at all, and that at any moment she might walk up to the big house and see him smiling up at her over tea, see the way his canine teeth extended past the others and overlapped, see his messy hair, which had always contained a hidden pocket of sawdust.

Normally, stress is lowest in the morning and rises steadily throughout the day. But the presence of dogs kept self-reported stress at their morning levels all day long. The researchers also found that the presence of dogs increased communication between workers.

NOT long ago, there lived in London a young married couple of Dalmatian dogs named Pongo and Missis Pongo. (Missis had added Pongo’s name to her own on their marriage, but was still called Missis by most people.) They were lucky enough to own a young married couple of humans named Mr. and Mrs. Dearly, who were gentle, obedient, and unusually intelligent—almost canine at times. They understood quite a number of barks: the barks for “Out, please!” “In, please!” “Hurry up with my dinner!” and “What about a walk?” And even when they could not understand, they could often guess—if looked at soulfully or scratched by an eager paw. Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them. Pongo and Missis found this touching and amusing and let their pets think it was true.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the key to improving dog-human relationships is through social cognition, not behaviorism. Positive reinforcement is a shortcut to train dogs, but it is not necessarily the best way to form a relationship with them. To truly live with dogs, humans need to become “great leaders.” Not dictators who rule by doling out treats and by threatening punishment, but leaders who respect and value their dogs as sentient beings.

But if I've learned one thing during our descent into dog rescue lunacy, it's that dogs bridge gaps between people. they smooth over the human condition, and they provide an extraordinarily valuable function. They take people of all political persuasions, religious faiths, and geographical locations and represent something that everyone can love.

But can you really trust someone who doesn’t have a pet?

I love you, Tanzy Meadows.” His whispered words circled her ear, her heart, her innermost being. Tender kisses tantalized her neck. “Tell me you love me too.

Dogs are forever in the moment. They are always a tidal wave of feelings, and every feeling is some variant of love.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened." ~ Anatole France

Does one grow wise in increments? By fractioning a life and then summing it? By stacking sand? An infant, in his first sleepiness, must let go of the world; a man must learn to die. What comes between are the grains of sand. Ambition. Loss. Envy. Desire. Hatred. Love. Tenderness. Joy. Shame. Loneliness. Ecstasy. Ache. Surrender. Live long enough and you will solve them all.

The algorithm seemed to be really good at distinguishing the two rather similar canines; it turned out that it was simply labeling any picture with snow as containing a wolf. An example with more serious implications was described by Janelle Shane in her book You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: an algorithm that was shown pictures of healthy skin and of skin cancer. The algorithm figured out the pattern: if there was a ruler in the photograph, it was cancer.7 If we don’t know why the algorithm is doing what it’s doing, we’re trusting our lives to a ruler detector.

We still need animals for research. But the vast majority of this research is currently for humans’ benefit. We need less of that and more research that directly benefits the animals themselves. Let’s start with dogs.

Poor Cook, thought Captain, I must be kinder to her. She makes a splendid pet. How faithful she is! I always say you can't get the same love from a dog that you can from a human. So clever, too. I believe she understands every word I say. I believe they have souls, just like dogs. It's uncanny how canine a human can be, if you are kind to them and treat them well. I know for a fact that when some dogs in history died, their humans lay down on the grave and howled all night and refused food and pined away. It was just instinct, of course, not real intelligence, but all the same it makes you think. I believe that when a human does, it goes to a special heaven for humans, with kind dogs to look after it.

Our dogs relieve chronic pain, lift our spirits, sniff out cancer, detect impending heart attacks, seizures and migraines, lower our blood pressure and cholesterol levels, help us recover from devastating illness, and even improve our children’s IQ, as well as lowering their risk for adult allergies and asthma. Just think—the unconditional love, limitless affection and to-die-for loyalty of a well-chosen, well-trained, well-cared-for dog could be just what the doctor ordered!

The question of what a dog is thinking is actually an old metaphysical debate, which has its origins in Descartes’s famous saying cogito ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am.” Our entire human experience exists solely inside our heads. Photons may strike our retinas, but it is only through the activity of our brains that we have the subjective experience of seeing a rainbow or the sublime beauty of a sunset over the ocean. Does a dog see those things? Of course. Do they experience them the same way? Absolutely not.

The Atlantean Road by Stewart Stafford A snake of stones beneath the waters Soldiers march past spectral daughters Phantom travellers To work or home Atlantean lives replay in foam The water drowned out extinct times Of joy and war Of love and crime The divers rapt by sound immemorial Echoes entombed Sweet voices choral The flame of Erasmus and barking sounds Of canine guards and strangers found The road roused from silent sleep To tell explorers how ancients weep © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

When the Man waked up he said, ‘What is Wild Dog doing here?’ And the Woman said, ‘His name is not Wild Dog any more, but the First Friend, because he will be our friend for always and always and always. Take him with you when you go hunting.’ — RUDYARD KIPLING, JUST SO STORIES

I love Fourth of July. It's my favorite, isn't it, Mim? This was going to be the year I won the golf cart parade and the pie-eating contest up at the lake. William Faulkner, too" "William Faulkner was going to win a pie-eating contest?" I asked. Still channeling Lillian, John David gave me a look. "Don't be ridiculous, Sawyer. There is no canine pie-eating contest. William Faulkner is going to win the costume contest, which is part of the parade." "I mean, sure," I said, nodding. "Who doesn't celebrate American independence with some kind of dog costume contest?" "And parade." John David could not have emphasized those words more.

By the way, you do speak Canine, don't you?" "Canine?" asks Liz. "What's Canine?" "Canine is the language of dogs. Dear me, you don't mean to say that they still aren't teaching it in Earth schools?" Aldous seems truly horrified at the possibility. Liz shakes her head. "A pity," says Aldous, "as Canine is one of our most beautiful languages. Did you know that there are over three hundred words for love in Canine?" Liz thinks of her sweet Lucy back on Earth. "I believe it," Liz says. "It has always seemed a weakness of an Earth education that children are only taught to communicate with their own species, don't you think?" asks Aldous.

Humans are sloppy creatures. Like the proverbial bull in a china shop, we are oblivious to our body language. We bump into objects. We accidentally step on our dogs’ tails. We emit a constant stream of sounds with frequently inconsistent meanings. It is a wonder that dogs can pull anything consistent out of this barrage of signals. And yet they do.

I was struggling to reconcile my scientific research about canine cognition with a set of ideas about the reasons for dogs’ success in human society, which had become widely accepted by the time Ros, Sam, and I brought Xephos home in 2012. These ideas purportedly explained the underpinnings of relationships like the one we were now embarking on with this furry little member of the family.

Early in the year, I had tried to explain to Helen that science is always changing. To which she asked, “You mean that this stuff is wrong?” “Some of it.” “Then why am I learning it?” Because the state says you have to, I thought. But what I said was “Science is a way of answering questions about the world around us. What you are learning is our current understanding of the universe. As we learn more, our understanding changes.” “I still hate it.

In people like us, the craving is as strong as the craving for food or water, the yearning for touch or light or love. I was looking for something--a diversion, an occupation, an unwavering force--that would elevate me, that would lift me out of the melancholy dissection of my own interior geography that otherwise would have consumed me pitilessly, as it had my father. I wanted to fly above myself-- if only for a few hours--and look down in tranquility upon my life.

If this trainer had used traditional techniques, the leash-popping and pushing your dog this way and that, I think the story would have ended there. For me, there is little magic nor imagination in that old-school approach. But it was my good luck that the trainer used progressive, positive techniques, techniques based on an altogether different philosophy. Rather than learning to boss our pups around and make them into obedient dogs, we learned to communicate and cooperate with them. She didn’t teach us just how to get our dogs to sit, but rather how to think about our canine companions.

People have been trying to understand dogs ever since the beginning of time. One never knows what they’ll do. You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master. Some people call this loyalty. I don’t. I may be wrong, but I call it love—the deepest kind of love. . . . It’s a shame that people all over the world can’t have that kind of love in their hearts. . . . There would be no wars, slaughter, or murder; no greed or selfishness. It would be the kind of world that God wants us to have—a wonderful world. —Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows

Maybe not. But does that make your voice less important? Does that mean stories or speaking your truth don't have a role in activism, too? I don't know about that. Our society wouldn't be the same without the writers who came before you. Use your voice, Lark. in the way that you can—in the way that you know how. Use your passion to help the world. It doesn't help anyone, does it? To force yourself to fit another person's idea of what it means to make change. I think just existing is enough. Just living and breathing and loving ourselves and each other. That's a way to fight back, too. Don't you think that's true?

Darwin’s Bestiary PROLOGUE Animals tame and animals feral prowled the Dark Ages in search of a moral: the canine was Loyal, the lion was Virile, rabbits were Potent and gryphons were Sterile. Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Pride—every peril was fleshed into something phantasmic and rural, while Courage, Devotion, Thrift—every bright laurel crowned a creature in some mythological mural. Scientists think there is something immoral in singular brutes having meat that is plural: beasts are mere beasts, just as flowers are floral. Yet between the lines there’s an implicit demurral; the habit stays with us, albeit it’s puerile: when Darwin saw squirrels, he saw more than Squirrel. 1. THE ANT The ant, Darwin reminded us, defies all simple-mindedness: Take nothing (says the ant) on faith, and never trust a simple truth. The PR men of bestiaries eulogized for centuries this busy little paragon, nature’s proletarian— but look here, Darwin said: some ants make slaves of smaller ants, and end exploiting in their peonages the sweating brows of their tiny drudges. Thus the ant speaks out of both sides of its mealy little mouth: its example is extolled to the workers of the world, but its habits also preach the virtues of the idle rich. 2. THE WORM Eyeless in Gaza, earless in Britain, lower than a rattlesnake’s belly-button, deaf as a judge and dumb as an audit: nobody gave the worm much credit till Darwin looked a little closer at this spaghetti-torsoed loser. Look, he said, a worm can feel and taste and touch and learn and smell; and ounce for ounce, they’re tough as wrestlers, and love can turn them into hustlers, and as to work, their labors are mythic, small devotees of the Protestant Ethic: they’ll go anywhere, to mountains or grassland, south to the rain forests, north to Iceland, fifty thousand to every acre guzzling earth like a drunk on liquor, churning the soil and making it fertile, earning the thanks of every mortal: proud Homo sapiens, with legs and arms— his whole existence depends on worms. So, History, no longer let the worm’s be an ignoble lot unwept, unhonored, and unsung. Moral: even a worm can turn. 3. THE RABBIT a. Except in distress, the rabbit is silent, but social as teacups: no hare is an island. (Moral: silence is golden—or anyway harmless; rabbits may run, but never for Congress.) b. When a rabbit gets miffed, he bounds in an orbit, kicking and scratching like—well, like a rabbit. (Moral: to thine own self be true—or as true as you can; a wolf in sheep’s clothing fleeces his skin.) c. He populates prairies and mountains and moors, but in Sweden the rabbit can’t live out of doors. (Moral: to know your own strength, take a tug at your shackles; to understand purity, ponder your freckles.) d. Survival developed these small furry tutors; the morals of rabbits outnumber their litters. (Conclusion: you needn’t be brainy, benign, or bizarre to be thought a great prophet. Endure. Just endure.) 4. THE GOSSAMER Sixty miles from land the gentle trades that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay sift a million gossamers, like tides of fluff above the menace of the sea. These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean; the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging, small aeronauts on some elusive mission. The Megatherium, done to extinction by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson: for survival, it’s the little things that count.

Needless to say he had a newfound respect for that blind vampire. There were very few things iAm hadn’t been able to move in his adult life. He’d changed a tire while acting as his own tire iron. Had been known to walk vats of sauce big as washing machines around a kitchen. Hell, he’d even actually relocated a washer and dryer without thinking much about it. And then he’d had to lift that truck off his brother about two years ago. Another example of Trez’s love life getting out of control. But down in the training center with Wrath? There’d been no budging that fucker. The King had been bulldog-locked on—and the expression on his face? No emotion, not even a grimace of effort. And that body—viciously strong. iAm shook his head as he crossed that apple tree in full bloom. Trying to budge Wrath had been like pulling on a boulder. Nothing moved; nothing gave. That canine had gotten through, though. Thank God. Now, ordinarily, iAm didn’t like animals in the house—and he definitely wasn’t a dog person. They were too big, too dependent, the shedding—too much. But he respected that golden whatever it was now— Meeeeeeeeeeeerowwwwwwwwwwwwww. “Fuck!” Speak of the devil. As the queen’s black cat wound its way around his feet, he was forced to Michael Jackson it over the damn thing so he didn’t step on it. “Damn it, cat!” The feline followed him all the way into the kitchen, always with the in-and-out around the ankles—almost like it knew he’d been thinking benes about the dog and was establishing dominance. Except cats couldn’t read minds, of course. He stopped and glared at the thing. “What the hell do you want.” Not really a question, as he didn’t care to give the feline an opening. One black paw lifted and then . . . Next thing he knew, the g*dd*mn cat was leaping into his arms, rolling over onto its back . . . and purring like a Ferrari. “Are you fucking kidding me,” he muttered. -iAm & Boo

— and then you’re in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, has finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it’s the Face In The Floor, the grinning root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it’s you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool-and Substance-crusted T-shirt you’ve both worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) should be beating, in its exposed chest’s center and center-less eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you’ve been had, screwed royal, stripped and fucked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in. You see now that It’s your enemy and your worst personal nightmare and the trouble It’s gotten you into is undeniable and you still can’t stop. Doing the Substance now is like attending Black Mass but you still can’t stop, even though the Substance no longer gets you high. You are, as they say, Finished. You cannot get drunk and you cannot get sober; you cannot get high and you cannot get straight. You are behind bars; you are in a cage and can see only bars in every direction. You are in the kind of a hell of a mess that either ends lives or turns them around. You are at a fork in the road that Boston AA calls your Bottom, though the term is misleading, because everybody here agrees it’s more like someplace very high and unsupported: you’re on the edge of something tall and leaning way out forward….

Love has made him surprise himself. He would never have believed it possible, but it's turned out that he is a man who can walk up to a closed door on a murky November day, wearing his one good suit, and knock without hesitation, waiting while the rain comes down around him, even though he's not wanted. He can do this and not think twice, just the way he can spend hours watching a wounded cedar beetle and weep over its rare beauty, as well as its agony. Richard is certain that other species fall in love - primates, of course, and canines - but he has wondered about his beetles. There are people who would surely get a chuckle out of the mere suggestion, but in Richard's opinion it's pure vanity to presume that love exists only on our terms. A red leaf may be the universe for the tortoise beetle or the ladybird. A single touch the ecstasy of a lifetime. And so, here he is, in love despite everything. It is he, stupider than any beetle, and far more obstinate, who has traveled three thousand miles, even though he fully expects to be turned away.

Men traveling alone develop a romantic vertigo. Bech had already fallen in love with a freckled embassy wife in Russia, a buck-toothed chanteuse in Rumania, a stolid Mongolian sculptress in Kazakhstan. In the Tretyakov Gallery he had fallen in love with a recumbent statue, and at the Moscow Ballet School with an entire roomful of girls. Entering the room, he had been struck by the aroma, tenderly acrid, of young female sweat. Sixteen and seventeen, wearing patchy practice suits, the girls were twirling so strenuously their slippers were unraveling. Demure student faces crowned the unconscious insolence of their bodies. The room was doubled in depth by a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Bech was seated on a bench at its base. Staring above his head, each girl watched herself with frowning eyes frozen, for an instant in the turn, by the imperious delay and snap of her head. Bech tried to remember the lines of Rilke that expressed it, this snap and delay: did not the drawing remain/that the dark stroke of your eyebrow/swiftly wrote on the wall of its own turning? At one point the teacher, a shapeless old Ukrainian lady with gold canines, a prima of the thirties, had arisen and cried something translated to Bech as, “No, no, the arms free, free!” And in demonstration she had executed a rapid series of pirouettes with such proud effortlessness that all the girls, standing this way and that like deer along the wall, had applauded. Bech had loved them for that. In all his loves, there was an urge to rescue—to rescue the girls from the slavery of their exertions, the statue from the cold grip of its own marble, the embassy wife from her boring and unctuous husband, the chanteuse from her nightly humiliation (she could not sing), the Mongolian from her stolid race. But the Bulgarian poetess presented herself to him as needing nothing, as being complete, poised, satisfied, achieved. He was aroused and curious and, the next day, inquired about her of the man with the vaguely contemptuous mouth of a hare—a novelist turned playwright and scenarist, who accompanied him to the Rila Monastery. “She lives to write,” the playwright said. “I do not think it is healthy.

Where is Albert?" "He'll be here momentarily. I asked our housekeeper to fetch him." Christopher blinked. "She's not afraid of him?" "Of Albert? Heavens, no, everyone adores him." The concept of someone, anyone, adoring his belligerent pet was difficult to grasp. Having expected to receive an inventory of all the damage Albert had caused, Christopher gave her a blank look. And then the housekeeper returned with an obedient and well-groomed dog trotting by her side. "Albert?" Christopher said. The dog looked at him, ears twitching. His whiskered face changed, eyes brightening with excitement. Without hesitating, Albert launched forward with a happy yelp. Christopher knelt on the floor, gathering up an armful of joyfully wriggling canine. Albert strained to lick him, and whimpered and dove against him repeatedly. Christopher was overwhelmed by feelings of kinship and relief. Grabbing the warm, compact body close, Christopher murmured his name and petted him roughly, and Albert whined and trembled. "I missed you, Albert. Good boy. There's my boy." Unable to help himself, Christopher pressed his face against the rough fur. He was undone by guilt, humbled by the fact that even though he had abandoned Albert for the summer, the dog showed nothing but eager welcome. "I was away too long," Christopher murmured, looking into the soulful brown eyes. "I won't leave you again." He dragged his gaze up to Beatrix's. "It was a mistake to leave him," he said gruffly. She was smiling at him. "Albert won't hold it against you. To err is human, to forgive, canine." To his disbelief, Christopher felt an answering smile tug at the corners of his lips. He continued to pet the dog, who was fit and sleek. "You've taken good care of him." "He's much better behaved than before," she said. "You can take him anywhere now." Rising to his feet, Christopher looked down at her. "Why did you do it?" he asked softly. "He's very much worth saving. Anyone could see that." The awareness between them became unbearably aware. Christopher's heart worked in hard, uneven beats. How pretty she was in the white dress. She radiated a healthy female physicality that was very different from the fashionable frailty of London women. He wondered what it would be like to bed her, if she would be as direct in her passions as she was in everything else.

To those who think it’s not a good thing to have the men give up their dogs and be heartbroken, Jacobs-Meadows says: “Life carries with it unexpected happenings that involve tragedy and loss. And the lesson here is that if you keep doing the next right thing and making the next right decision, the next great joy is right around the corner.” In the case of Canine CellMates, that joy is getting another dog and falling in love all over again.

Dogs

Science is about questioning how the universe works and discovering new things, not memorizing a series of facts out of a textbook.

...The most important characteristics of a great leader are clarity and consistency. Without those two qualities, people (and dogs) cannot know your intentions.

She made her way to her favorite area of the daycare. The smaller of the two playrooms' aesthetic was a nod to her Frenchie's white-and-black piebald coat, with splashes of purple to add a royal flare. Portraits of Duchess hung on the walls in gilded frames. Was it a bit over the top? Absolutely. But when it came to her baby there was no top. Seconds after she entered the room, Ashanti was bombarded by a cadre of feisty canines with Napoleon complexes. This is what she missed the most. Having to devote so much time to baking, she didn't get to play with the dogs nearly as much as she wanted to. "Hey, Lulu and Sparkle," she greeted the Pomeranians, giving each dog one of the dime-sized treats from her pocket. "And how is my favorite Chihuahua," she called to Bingo, who had been coming to the daycare since the first week it opened. She followed the treats with quick head rubs for each dog, then went in search of Duchess. "Where's my dog?" Ashanti asked Leslie, who was running the Parkers' Cavalier King Charles through the agility maze. Leslie gestured to cushioned mats in the corner. Ashanti walked over and found Duchess hugged up next to Puddin'. The two lay in a yin-yang pattern, with Duchess's head nestled against Puddin's chest, and her squat legs arcing around the puffy topknot atop the poodle's head. "Kara was right. You two really do need a room." At the sound of her voice, Duchess's stubby tail started wagging like a windshield wiper gone haywire, but she still didn't move away from Puddin'. "If you don't get over here," Ashanti said. She reached down and lifted Duchess into her arms. "Don't forget who keeps you in tiaras and rawhide," she said, nuzzling the dog's flat nose with her own.

And Annie. My sweet, sassy baby pup, Annie. Thank you for the warm cuddles and whiskery kisses, for being such a joy and a comfort on both the brightest and darkest of days. There is no greater or more faithful canine companion than you. I love you forever.

Sled dogs love new trails. The drive to explore unknown ground, to huge distances with pack mates, is genetic. In the wild, it is necessary for food gathering and survival. All canine senses come into play in this vital game of life. But, by far and away, the most important is the dog's astounding sense of smell, a million or more times that of a human, we are told. A canine’s innate desire to travel, to sniff out new ground, and thig inborn compulsion to run with its kind, provides a key answer to the often-asked question: “What makes Iditarod racing dogs run a hundred or more miles per day?” In truth, nothing or no one really makes them run. They are, in fact, by their very nature, compelled to run. They were born that way. Selective breeding for those wondrous, wild instincts—in the case of the Seavey kennels, some twenty sled dog generations to date—simply brings to the top the very best of what hay been there for centuries unnumbered.

And here we encounter perhaps the coolest thing about being human: we never outgrow our neoteny. However long we live, our true nature retains the features that wilder apes have only as babies: relatively flat faces, small nose, small teeth. The anthropologist Lee Berger, who discovered the richest deposit of “missing link” hominid bones in scientific history, told me that the egalitarianism of a human-like species can be judged by fang size. Baboons, who are brutally hierarchical, have huge canine teeth, while our canines aren’t any bigger than our molars. Like humans and unlike any other apes, small-toothed, peace-loving bonobos bare their teeth in friendship rather than aggression, peeling back their lips in a bright smile that says, “Look! I still have baby teeth! I couldn’t rip out your throat with my jaws even if I wanted to! But I don’t even want to! Hah-hah!

I love you,” Rowan breathed onto her skin, and flicked his tongue over the spot where his canines had scratched. “I’d walk into the burning heart of hell itself to find you.

You have a new dog and you wish the dog to treat you (rather than another member of your family) as "Master." The first rule is to feed the dog regularly, and, if possible, in early months, make sure no other member of the family ever feeds the dog. In ethological jargon, the dog will imprint you as the equivalent of Top Dog in a wild dog pack, or the closest analog to that Top Dog in a domesticated canine-primate ambience. Similarly, all brainwashers use this principle — usually unconsciously — by feeding their victims. This is necessary to keep the victims alive until their minds have been re-conditioned, of course, but it may also be a re-imprinting technique. We are mammals, too, and we tend to imprint as Top Dog those who feed us when we are helpless. The "paradoxical" sympathy for terrorists often reported by those who are held captive may also grow out of this neurological tendency to make a Top Dog out of whoever feeds us. It is shocking, to some, to think that this may also be the origin of the infant's love for its mother. One cannot help wondering how much of the reality-tunnel of the Military-Industrial Empire gets imprinted or conditioned upon the Scientific Citadel which is fed by it.

She remains intent on renovating the old, historic house her great-aunt left her and giving it a new life as a B&B.

This way, female,” I called over my shoulder. She scowled, but followed me, which for some reason made me smile. Anger burned hotly beneath that glower of hers, her thumping heartbeat a sweet, tantalizing thrum in the air. My canines ached at the thought of tasting her. That was unusual. Startling, even. Especially when I let my mind wander to its deeper meaning. But that couldn’t be so.

I looked around, weighing up how mad she’d be if I ran away. Or maybe I could push her into the harbour and hope the water dragon ate her. Everything in me screamed to get her far away from here. Portlock was my new home and I loved it. She was going to criticise everything, look down her sharp, pointed nose at all the rough edges of the life I’d built there.

McKenzie gave the MRI her best border collie stare. Despite the susurrations of the cryogen pump, McKenzie soon realized that the magnet was not alive and could not be herded.

The brain is always on. It is a myth that we use only some small percentage of our brains. The truth is that we use all of it—just not all at once.

In answer to the question “What are dogs thinking?” the grand conclusion was this: they’re thinking about what we’re thinking.

The most touching photo was of a dog strapped to the chest of a soldier parachuting out of an airplane at thirty thousand feet, both wearing oxygen masks. The soldier cradled the dog with one arm while pulling the parachute release cord with the other. The closeness of the bond and the physical embrace really hit home for me: dogs and humans belong together. We couldn’t exist without each other.

stress is lowest in the morning and rises steadily throughout the day. But the presence of dogs kept self-reported stress at their morning levels all day long.

Science is about questioning how the universe works and discovering new things, not memorizing a series of facts out of a textbook. Science constantly changes as we learn more about the world we live in.

The evidence continues to accumulate that not only are dogs sensitive to where humans’ attention is directed, but dogs are also sensitive to the social context. They know when it is appropriate to attend to their human’s attention and when it is not. This means that dogs have more than a theory of behavior. They have a theory of mind. In humans, theory of mind, or ToM, means that we can imagine what another person might be thinking. Reflecting the importance of humans’ social lives, most of our large frontal lobes seem to be concerned with this function. We spend huge amounts of mental energy navigating the complex social structure of human society. Knowing how to read people and how to behave in distinct social settings is the difference between success and failure. And at the extreme, autism may represent a failure of the ToM system in the brain. If dogs have ToM abilities, they are probably simpler than ours. The small frontal lobes in the dogs’ brains are clear evidence of that. But even if dogs have only a rudimentary ToM, that would mean dogs are not just Pavlovian stimulus-response machines. It would mean that dogs might have about the same level of consciousness as a young child.

Dogs’ sensitivity to social signals also puts a new twist on the old notion of human as “pack leader.” While it is easy to confuse being a pack leader with being dominant, that is a mistake that has harmed more dogs than any other piece of advice.

In fact, Callie showed evidence of more than reading our human intentions. She indicated her intentions. At dinner, she stood in front of the glass door leading from the kitchen to the back porch. She turned her head and looked at me. Then she turned back to gaze longingly outside. Back to me. Come on, I want to go outside.

Just like humans aren’t aware of the smell of their own breath, dogs seem to tune out the smell of their own pee.

I really want to see the experiment. Don’t you always say that real science is exciting? Wouldn’t I learn more there than I would at school?

dogs and humans belong together. We couldn’t exist without each other.

The brain-imaging results showed that dogs had mental processes substantially similar to our own. And if that is true, shouldn’t they be afforded rights similar to humans?

Humans’ eyes are unique. We have more white in our eyes than any other animal, which means that we can tell with extraordinary precision where other people are looking.

Humans, even with our powerful brains and capacity for abstract thought, are still slaves to our emotions, which dogs will pick up on and resonate with.

In answer to the question “What are dogs thinking?” the grand conclusion was this: they’re thinking about what we’re thinking. The dog-human relationship was not one-sided. With their high degree of social and emotional intelligence, dogs reciprocated our feelings toward them.

I was away too long,” Christopher murmured, looking into the soulful brown eyes. “I won’t leave you again.” He dragged his gaze up to Beatrix’s. “It was a mistake to leave him,” he said gruffly. She was smiling at him. “Albert won’t hold it against you. To err is human, to forgive, canine.” To his disbelief, Christopher felt an answering smile tug at the corners of his lips. He continued to pet the dog, who was fit and sleek. “You’ve taken good care of him.” “He’s much better behaved than before,” she said. “You can take him anywhere now.” Rising to his feet, Christopher looked down at her. “Why did you do it?” he asked softly. “He’s very much worth saving. Anyone could see that.” The awareness between them became unbearably acute. Christopher’s heart worked in hard, uneven beats. How pretty she was in the white dress. She radiated a healthy female physicality that was very different from the fashionable frailty of London women. He wondered what it would be like to bed her, if she would be as direct in her passions as she was in everything else.

Unable to resist the scent of hot dogs, she padded up to the top of the steps, but once there, she balked at climbing onto the patient table. Of course, I could have picked her up and put her there, but it was important to remain faithful to our ethical principle of self-determination. Callie had to do it of her own free will. The MR techs started laughing. How could we do an MRI if the subject wouldn’t even get on the table?

According to the American Treeing Feist Association, the treeing feist, or mountain feist, existed in the southern Appalachians long before rat terriers were brought to America. While terriers were bred to catch vermin, feists were bred to hunt. And while squirrels are their primary prey, the feist will gladly hunt raccoons, rabbits, or birds. With longer legs than terriers, feists are built for silent speed. They live to tree a squirrel until its owner comes to catch it. The feist has a storied history intertwined with the beginnings of the country. George Washington wrote about them in his diary, and Abraham Lincoln even referred to them in a poem.

Their entrance was marked in dramatic fashion by an ear-piercing “Eeeeeee! Eeeeeee! Eeeeeee!” I rushed out of the kitchen. My colleague’s wife, wrapped in a lovely sari, had backed herself into a corner, shrieking like a bird at the mere sight of the dogs. This behavior baffled Callie, so she paid no further notice to her and moved on to look for food droppings. Lyra, on the other hand, found these vocalizations highly stimulating. She tracked right to the sound and starting jumping up and down and barking in what appeared to me to be a request to play.

Do dogs have some concept of humans as something more than food dispensers? Simply knowing that human feelings toward dogs are reciprocated in some way, even if only partially, changes everything. It would mean that dog-human relationships belong on the same plane as human-human relationships. None of these questions

humans. Even so, the results have been mixed. For one thing, how can you conduct a double-blind study where neither the researcher nor the patient knows what treatment is being given, if one set of patients gets to play with dogs while the other doesn’t?

Interestingly, when you look at the entire literature on animal-assisted therapy, patterns begin to emerge. Of the different animals used in therapy, dogs are the ones associated with the largest beneficial effects on health. And although positive effects were observed in most age groups, children seem to derive the most benefit.

Lorenz, however, believed that the ideal canine companion was a “resonance dog.” He noted the extraordinary parallelism in personality between many dogs and their owners, sometimes to the point that they even looked alike. According to Lorenz, strong dog-human bonds were created when both human and dog resonated with

Not only are dogs nowhere to be seen on a campus, but most universities explicitly forbid them.

times. The only universities that allow dogs a relatively free run of campus are Stetson University and Eckerd College in Florida, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania (although in the latter case you need to prove that it is a family dog you have owned for at least a year).

case. They appeared to be the front legs of a calf starting just above the ankle joint. In the actual MRI, the dogs would be scanned in a sphinx position. Their heads would be upright, supported by a chin rest, and their front paws would be sticking straight forward. Andrew

We love dogs, but what do they think of us? Even with just two dogs, a picture was beginning to emerge. The pattern of activations in the cortex suggested that they concocted mental models of our behavior, which might be due to mirror neuron activity. But regardless of the mechanism, the smell data showed that their mental models included the identity of important people in their lives that persists even when the people aren’t physically present

the fact that the dogs knew who we were, and that they had categories for us, indicated that we humans make a lasting impression on our dogs. We are appreciated.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the key to improving dog-human relationships is through social cognition, not behaviorism. Positive reinforcement is a shortcut to train dogs, but it is not necessarily the best way to form a relationship with them. To truly live with dogs, humans need to become “great leaders.

The defining trait of dogs, therefore, is their interspecies social intelligence, an ability to intuit what humans and other animals are thinking. Wolves do this to hunt prey. But dogs evolved their social intelligence into living with other species instead of eating them. Dogs’ great social intelligence means that they probably also have a high capacity for empathy.

Not everyone loves dogs, but for those who do—and that is about half the people in the United States—their dog’s welfare is intimately tied to their own.

Humans use memories and ascribe meaning to people and actions all the time. Apparently, so do dogs.

The dogs in Berlin do not have owners, they have partners. Every canine confidently trots beside its human counterpart, sharing an unspoken agreement. I love you, but zis is a bond zat ve’ve built on mutual respect and admiration for each other. I vill vait for you outside ze shop vhile you get your cigarettes, but I do not approve of your choices. Vhy is it zat you can put cancer in your body, but I cannot eat a shoe, ja?