It began when I took my dog to the veterinary clinic where my wife works. At the time she was still in vet school and I was a first-time pet owner who’d chosen to spend most of my adult life responsible solely for my own fun and convenience. Archie, my dog, represented my first, hesitant step toward maturity. “He has a tick and I don’t know how to remove it,” I said to my future wife. Thankfully she pitied me, removed the tick, and thought I was cute enough to date. Three years later we got married with our dogs among the witnesses.

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My first trip, I was only 17. The family of one of my best friends was moving to Bethesda, Md., right after our graduation. So he and I and our mutual best friend, a funny teenage triangle, drove one of the family cars east. My mother had just died, and I knew with certainty that she never would have let me make that trip alone with two boys. She loved those boys, she knew they were good boys, but she could rarely get beyond appearances. My grieving, distracted and much more open-minded father, on the other hand, gave me his blessing. It was the first tangible result of my mother’s absence, and it was good and bad. I was free; I was also unmothered, untethered.

We bombed across Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana and into Wauseon, Ohio. The desk clerk at the roadside motel wasn’t sure what we were up to when we asked for two rooms, but made sure I was the one getting the second room, by myself (I was). I could hear the noise from the turnpike, and I didn’t sleep well. Suddenly I didn’t like the way freedom smelled: like the disinfectant they used in my mother’s hospital room on top of old cigarette smoke.

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“People are surprised,” Bush said. “Of course, some people are surprised I can even read.”

He noted that he takes “great delight in busting stereotypes," but didn't really have an explanation for why he decided to take up the hobby, along with other activities such as mountain biking and golf. “You’ll have to call all the people who’ve written these books about me, who claim they know me, the psycho-babblers," he said.

“I like challenges,” Bush continued. “I find that charging up the hill is very rewarding — and frustrating. It’s important to set goals in life and have purpose.”

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In an exclusive interview with the Dallas Morning News this weekend, Bush opened up about his new hobby.

“People are surprised,” he said. “Of course, some people are surprised I can even read.”

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Rereading Scott O'Dell's "The Island of the Blue Dolphins" (every bit as great as you remember it being) for a book group, I'd loved the main character's dog, Rontu. Rontu, in turn, reminded me of several other notable literary canines, particularly the intrepid fox terrier, Montmorency, from Jerome K. Jerome's comic classic, "Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)." Why, I wondered, are dogs more endearing and amusing in novels while cats claim precedence in Web videos, captioned photos and GIFs?

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I complained in my last post that it’s been hard to meet people since I’m averse to leaving Sadie alone in a hotel room. But in Evanston I met a drunk welder in a cowboy hat as soon as I checked into my dog-friendly Best Western. “Hey, good lookin’,” he said, and I can state categorically that I was not good looking at that moment: dirty hair, no makeup, boots still salty from our trip to Bonneville Salt Flats.

(Oh, here’s Sadie, before she got salt poisoning.)

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I never meant to be a crazy dog lady, partly for that reason – I didn’t want to love someone I was pretty much guaranteed to lose -- but I have become a dog lady anyway. It turned out, after my daughter left for college, that I am a person who needs the tether of caretaking. I liked the cooking and cleaning up, the dressing and the driving to school, the daily bustle of family, where someone else has to come first. For the first time in 24 years I lived alone and I didn’t like it. So I moped for a while, and then I got a puppy. Now, at the time of life I’m supposed to be grateful for my freedom, the capacity to travel the world and come and go as I please, I can’t. And it turns out that’s fine with me.

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(Well, besides the "forever" homes they will have in all of our hearts because this video is seriously too much. It is just too much.)

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But Bush's artistry goes beyond nudity and dogs. He paints cats, landscapes and more. Gawker, who first obtained the six previously unpublished artworks, explains:

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Vick, who served over a year and a half in prison after pleading guilty in 2007 to felony charges regarding a dogfighting ring, has spent the past six years trying to prove he's a changed man. Since serving his sentence, he's not just gone back to his football career; he's become a volunteer for the Humane Society, speaking out in schools and public events about animal abuse and dogfighting. Last year, his foundation gave $200,000 to renovate a rundown local Philadelphia football field. He even became a dog owner, and when the news of his family's new addition emerged, he announced, "I want to ensure that my children establish a loving bond and treat all of God’s creatures with kindness and respect. Our pet is well cared for and loved as a member of our family. To that end, I will continue to honor my commitment to animal welfare and be an instrument of positive change." And now, he's written a memoir for a Christian book publisher with the hopeful title, "Finally Free" – a tale his publicity materials describe as the story of "how a broken man sought and received forgiveness for his wrongs."

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We are here because Tova began pacing my apartment, her tongue shooting out of her snout; she worked her jaws and licked the air. The vet tech who answered the phone, the same one who hands Poochie’s owner a leash and collar with a heart-shaped tag, told me to bring her in right away: “It could be gastric torsion.” Gastric torsion: The belly, swollen with gas, crushes the diaphragm, pinches blood from the heart. It could kill my sweet girl—the one who finally wakes me with head-butts and nuzzling after the alarm has gone off; the one who dances when my key turns in the door—within an hour.

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Dog vocalizations may not sound very sophisticated. Raymond Coppinger pointed out that most dog vocalizations consist of barking, and that barking seems to occur indiscriminately. Coppinger reported on a dog whose duty was to guard free-ranging livestock. The dog barked continuously for seven hours, even though no other dogs were within miles. If barking is communicative, dogs would not bark when no one could hear them. It seemed to Coppinger that the dog was simply relieving some inner state of arousal. The arousal model is that dogs do not have much control over their barking. They are not taking into account their audience, and their barks carry little information other than their emotional state.

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Be honest: You've probably said this to your dog before. Maybe it's because he once successfully fetched a tennis ball that was hidden by some bushes. Or how about that time he barked in the direction of your apartment keys while you were looking for them? Or perhaps it's how he can make toaster waffles for you in the morning. (OK, that last one is actually really smart.)

If you are looking to quantify that hunch about your pup's superior brain power, there is now an app for you.

Duke University's "Dognition" project is trying to revolutionize scientific understanding of canine cognition by crowdsourcing data about man's best friends from around the world.

"In a weekend, we could have 10,000, maybe 50,000 people give data," Brian Hare, associate professor in evolutionary anthropology at Duke, director of Duke's Canine Cognition Center and creator of the "Dognition" app, told LiveScience. "I can't even say how big of a quantum leap this will be."

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Today, as any owner of a “pit bull-type” dog* can attest, parents often recoil in horror when they spot one of these animals, pulling their children close as if to protect them from a marauding werewolf. Fanciful myths about the breed abound, and some public officials have compared their bites to those of sharks and tigers.

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The protesters said the dogs are innocent, and many claimed the victims were probably killed by humans. They acknowledged the famished dogs that live in a hilltop park in an east-side slum where the bodies were found may have bitten the corpses after they were already dead.

"Dog friends, the people are with you!" the protesters chanted, as well as, "The dogs aren't criminals, the police are inept!"

"We are completely certain ... the dogs are innocent," said Nominis de Esparza, an animal activist who has adopted 30 cats.

Autopsies determined that the three women, a teenage boy and a baby found in the park since mid-December died of loss of blood due to bites from multiple dogs.

But those findings have been met with widespread skepticism in a country where drug gangs frequently dump bodies of their victims in public spaces, and prosecutors seldom thoroughly investigate such crimes. The idea has taken hold among many that killers dumped the bodies in the park, hoping that packs of stray dogs would destroy the evidence.

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“Great idea,” I said. “Where we going to find a Santa?”

Rachael looked at me and smiled.

I knew that smile.

We had dumped good-paying gigs to open the kind of business no one had ever heard of. But starting a business and working with animals combined Rachael’s lifelong dreams.  She was convinced that doggy daycare was the next big thing. I did what I usually did. I went along. Besides, once Rachael set her mind to something, there wasn’t much point in resisting her. Especially when she hit you with that smile.

Rachael’s ambition and drive is what had first attracted me to her; those same attributes often made me feel steamrolled, demeaned and resentful. Relationships can be ironic — especially the doomed ones.

Starting a business on a shoestring budget is something everyone should do — once. We worked 12-, 14-hour days getting the place ready to open.

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Over the weekend, a group of golden retrievers arrived in Newtown, Conn., to do exactly what they do best – to offer a little warmth and sweetness to a town shaken to its core with sorrow. The team of specially trained comfort dogs from Lutheran Church Charities traveled 800 miles to arrive at Christ the King Lutheran Church, where the funerals of two of the children killed in the massacre are being held. As Tim Hetzner, head of the organization, explained to the Chicago Tribune, "Dogs are non-judgmental. They are loving. They are accepting of anyone. It creates the atmosphere for people to share." In just a short time, the animals have already put in their share of work. Hetzner told the Tribune, "You could tell which [townspeople] … were really struggling with their grief because they were quiet. They would pet the dog, and they would just be quiet … I asked [one man] how he is doing. He just kind of teared up and said: 'This year, I've lost five loved ones and now this happened.' The whole town is suffering."

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The new Ohio law, among other provisions, “requires state licensing and inspection of breeders who annually sell 60 dogs or at least nine litters; authorizes Ohio’s agriculture director to specify standards of care; and denies licensing to anyone convicted of animal cruelty in the last 20 years.” These reforms are badly needed: a recent puppy mill case involving 241 dogs has resulted in 723 counts of animal cruelty because “dogs and pups [were] living in horrid conditions and many were sick, emaciated and had visible infections and sores.”

Ohio animal activists remain concerned that veterinarians who conduct the newly legislated inspections could be in the pockets of the the "puppy mill" industry, but, as Think Progress noted, the new bill is seen as a step in the right direction in a state with an abysmal animal rights track record.

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